We just try to keep our distance: As heat wave scorches SoCal, many head to the beach to cool down – KTLA Los Angeles

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The heat will continue to soar in Southern California Sunday, a day after temperatures hit the triple digits in the inland areas and sent many people flocking to the beach.

On Saturday, temperatures reached 108 F in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys, 106 F in the Antelope Valley, and 102 F in Ventura County. Anaheim broke its daily record at 99 F, and Riverside tied its own at 105 F.

Even coastal communities felt the heat, with Long Beach Airport recording a high of 94 F and Los Angeles International Airport reporting a high of 79 F.

Many people went to cool down in Santa Monica, where temperatures reached 80 F.

It was like 105 degrees, its much nicer here, said beachgoer Anastasia Pozdlnyakova, whos originally from Russia but now lives in the San Fernando Valley.

People appeared to be following health guidelines, Pozdlnyakova said.

We just try to keep our distance, mask on, and just breathe a little more fresh air, she said.

Others came to the beach from places as far as Chicago and Fargo, North Dakota.

Southern Californias beaches closed in the earlier weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, then again over the July 4th weekend to prevent large gatherings.

Beaches in L.A. County reopened on July 6, with facial covering and social distancing rules to curb the spread of COVID-19. (Click here for the countys beach guidelines.)

As of Saturday, the county has reported more than 130,000 positive cases. A total of 3,793 people, or about 2.9% of cases, have died.

Whether beaches will close again is ultimately up to the L.A. County Department of Public Health, according to the countys Department of Beaches and Harbors.

Beach openings can change as cases or . If you visit the beach, respect those around you and protect your household by using a face covering and keeping your distance . Visit https://t.co/scxVfsCXEo for up-to-date openings/closures. pic.twitter.com/qYwt8l8DlO

This includes the beach! Face coverings are required on all L.A. County beaches when you are out of the water and around others. https://t.co/QGOL1IhuGm

Temperatures will likely break records again in a few areas Sunday, according to the National Weather Service. Cities within reach of their records include Newport Beach at 82 F, Anaheim at 98 F, Riverside at 107 F and Palm Springs at 120 F.

Forecasters expect onshore winds to bring down temperatures by several degrees on Monday.

Lancaster Fox Field tied their record high today at 107. The old record was 107 set in 2002, 1964, 1961 and 1953. This record will likely be broken. Other locations may possibly set records this afternoon including Palmdale, Sandberg, and Paso Robles. #LAHeat #LAWeather #cawx

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We just try to keep our distance: As heat wave scorches SoCal, many head to the beach to cool down - KTLA Los Angeles

People Turn To SoCal Beaches To Escape Triple-Digit Temperatures – NBC Southern California

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Among the people marking their spots on the sands of Huntington Beach, the Sheppard family from Glendora was determined to make this an all day beach day.

Its 102 at home... this is the only place you can get relief, Sharon Sheppard said.

They set up early, with shade, chairs and games, seeking the ocean breeze. And theyre not alone.

With temperatures soaring to triple digits in areas of Southern California, Huntington Beach Fire's lifeguards are expecting more visitors on the surf and sand. They'll keep their eyes on the water with the smaller surf as people head into the ocean for a break from the sun.

Chaysie Iloreta and her 4 year old daughter were also looking for relief from the heat, willing to cross state lines to cool off.

It's too hot in Vegas, so it's nice to be around the beach, Iloreta said.

Finding relief from the heat is hard enough, but it's even harder for those who have to work in it. Jane Yamamoto reports for NBC LA at 6 p.m. Saturday July 11, 2020.

For Alhambra resident Matt Hsieh and his family, a front row seat to the water is just how his wife wanted to spend her birthday.

Definitely we enjoy the ocean breeze. We're enjoying just having some fresh air, and seeing the sights. There's some good surfing. We're going to do some bodyboarding as well, he said.

Even though it's cooler at the beaches, lifeguards warn people to watch out for symptoms of heat related illnesses.

Stay in the shade, stay healthy, stay hydrated. Make sure you use proper sunscreen. And if you're starting to feel woozy or dizzy or have any fever-like symptoms, please separate yourself from the group, Lt. Eric Dieterman, of Huntington Beach Fire Marine Safety, said."See a doctor, see a lifeguard and we'll help you out."

Huntington beach lifeguards say that whenever there's a heat wave, they tend to see the number of water rescues go up. They'll be staffed accordingly throughout the weekend.

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People Turn To SoCal Beaches To Escape Triple-Digit Temperatures - NBC Southern California

Moderate risk of rip currents reported for Dare and Hyde beaches – The Coastland Times – The Coastland Times

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There is a moderate for rip currents along all Dare County beaches as well as Ocracoke beaches Sunday, July 12. Only experienced ocean swimmers who know how to escape a rip current should enter the water.

The National Weather Service reports a low risk for rip currents along Currituck County beaches.

It is advised to never swim alone and always take a floatation device with you. If help is needed, call 911.

If caught in a rip current, remain calm. Dont fight the current. Swim in a direction following the shoreline. When out of the current, swim back to shore. If tired, float or tread water until out of the rip current. If unable to escape, face the shore and call or wave for help.

The National Weather Services beach forecast also advises the UV index for Dare and Hyde is in the very high category, which indicates a very high risk of harm from unprotected sun exposure. For Currituck beaches, the UV index is in the extreme category, which indicates extreme risk of harm from unprotected sun exposure.

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As wind switches today, Michigans most popular beaches will turn dangerous – MLive.com

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Watch out for a weather change today that will take gorgeous swim waters to dangerous.

While todays weather out of the sky wont be great beach weather, the late afternoon and evening will have sky conditions enticing you to the southern Michigan beaches of Lake Michigan.

Most of the danger will develop along these popular beaches from Indiana north through Muskegon to Leelanau County.

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The dangerous conditions are expected to develop by 2 p.m. this afternoon and continue through Saturday.

Heres a forecast animation showing the wind shift to the northwest coming across Michigan. The northwest wind will end the heatwave for a few days, but kick up waves on the Lake Michigan shores, Lake Superior shores and the west side of the Thumb.

Wind forecast from 10 a.m. Friday, July 10, 2020 to 6 p.m. Saturday, July 11, 2020.

High waves, strong currents and dangerous swimming conditions are going to develop this afternoon along the Lake Michigan shoreline, the eastern side of Saginaw Bay and the Lake Superior shoreline.

Current record high water levels are putting calm waters of Lake Michigan only a few feet below the top of pier walkways. With the winds kicking up to over 15 mph out of the northwest, waves will easily start crashing over the top of piers.

I was at the Frankfort pier last week and realized it would only take three foot waves for water to come over the pier.

So watch for a change in the wave activity on all of Michigans Great Lakes this afternoon. Stay out of the water as the waves increase. Strong currents can pull any level of swimmer into deeper water. Stay off the piers. The north side of piers will be especially dangerous, but stay off the piers altogether.

If you feel like you have to be in the water, WEAR A LIFE JACKET.

Sunday should go back to being a better swimming day. However, it will be cooler with highs near 80 degrees.

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As wind switches today, Michigans most popular beaches will turn dangerous - MLive.com

We’re told to wear a mask, not storm the beach on D-Day – Los Angeles Times

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To the editor: You can blame President Trump for our failure as he has abdicated responsibility for protecting American citizens, disseminated false information and flat-out lied. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. (A nurses plea: Please tell me my life is worth a LITTLE of your discomfort? July 8)

We know what we need to do: Wear a mask, social distance and wash our hands. But many refuse to take this simple set of actions because it is inconvenient or a violation of our freedom or unconstitutional (what?). Nobody is asking us to storm Omaha Beach (although given Europes reaction to our incompetence, it might be the only way Americans can visit France in the near future).

I am embarrassed that we have fallen so far short of how my fathers generation responded. We are a failed society, and we will fail when the inevitable next pandemic or other crisis arrives.

Peter Kinman, Laguna Beach

..

To the editor: A real-life example shows why I wear a mask.

I was exposed to COVID-19. The woman who exposed me didnt know that she herself had been exposed. When she found out a few days later that someone she had been with had tested positive, she notified those she had been in contact with and got tested.

Her test was positive, but she had no knowledge for several days that she had the potential to infect others.

Fortunately, during our contact we were both wearing masks and were socially distanced. My test results were negative.

So, thats why I wear a mask to protect myself and to protect others in case I unknowingly contract COVID-19. To me, its a social contract.

Nancy Gardner, Corona del Mar

..

To the editor: I live in Orange County. Many here are not just skeptical about masks, they are downright defiant. (Many in Orange County resist masks even as coronavirus cases soar, July 8)

Forceful and raucous protest led the Board of Supervisors to cave on Orange Countys mask order; now it only strongly suggests that residents wear a mask in public, despite the state order.

Your article soft-pedaled Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes position in the subject. He said (on video, for the record), We are not the mask police. Those of us who live here and are concerned about the spread of COVID-19 are told to stay home if were scared.

I remain bewildered that others can be so selfish that wearing a mask is a bridge too far.

Elise Power, Garden Grove

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We're told to wear a mask, not storm the beach on D-Day - Los Angeles Times

Masks at the beach? Local residents have mixed feelings – WWLP.com

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CHICOPEE, Mass. (WWLP) From Memorial Day weekend when the Chicopee Memorial State Park was allowed to open, wearing of masks seemed to be less of a priority than the enforcement insisted upon at the opening of state pools this weekend.

22News hoped to find out from swimmers and beach-goers Sunday why those not wearing a mask were clearly in the majority.

Im staying clear of everybody else, said Darien Alvarez of Springfield. I think its alright, the wind is blowing, we do wear a mask, one day off you know.

When this whole pandemic started, I was super scared about the whole situation, I wore masks, I would do everything to protect, overtime I kind of realized no matter what you do, you cant control you might get it, added Gabriel Mijal of Chicopee.

Many park goers enjoyed their day in the sun wearing a face covering Sunday. Visitors told 22News, they believe in the protective value of the mask.

Since the Memorial Day reopening of Chicopee State Park, visitors have insisted repeatedly, they were led to believe they could skip wearing a mask as long as they obeyed the rules of social distancing.

In recent weeks, with an upsurge in coronavirus cases elsewhere in the country, face coverings have taken on a greater urgency as Massachusetts doubles down on its efforts to slow down the spread.

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‘It’s disgusting’: Tourists forced to sleep on beaches after lockdown – Yahoo News Australia

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Tourists have resorted to sleeping on beaches because hotels they booked are still closed, according to a new report.

The unlucky British travellers were left disappointed when they turned up to their destinations and discovered some hotels were still closed following the coronavirus lockdown.

Consumer watchdog Which? said travel agency Loveholidays was one of the main culprits for booking hotels that were not open,the Times newspaper reported.

British tourists have been forced to sleep on beaches due to some hotels remaining shut due to coronavirus. Source: Getty Images

Other Brits who decided not to sleep on beaches or return home had to find alternative accommodation.

Paul Davis, 48, booked a $2720 trip to Spain on July 1 when international travel advice was relaxed in the UK.

But when he arrived three days later in Salou on the Costa Daurada, the 4R Regina Gran hotel he was meant to stay in was closed and he had to arrange an alternative.

He lost a $450 deposit when he later transferred to aLoveholidays hotel, according to the report.

Mr Davis, from Lincolnshire, told the Times he thought he mustve had the wrong hotel when he arrived.

When we pulled up I thought we must have the wrong hotel it was all shut and hadn't been opened for a good while, he said.

It's disgusting. We were fortunate enough to have the money to stay somewhere else but lots of other people probably aren't in that position.

Another Brit, Sammy Liperis, was also left disappointed when she arrived in the Canary Islands and found the Sol Fuerteventura Jandi hotel was closed.

A couple who arrived in Spain with their son, 10, also said their hotel was not open.

We wholeheartedly apologise to the affected customers for the inconvenience and distress this has caused, a Loveholidays spokesperson said.

While some were forced sleep on beaches abroad, others were forced to return home or find alternative accomodation. Source: Getty Images

Our customer services team is in contact with them to resolve matters to their satisfaction and ensure that they can enjoy the rest of their holidays.

We are not aware of customers sleeping on the beach and would be horrified if this was the case as we have a 24/7 in resort helpline number that customers can and should call if they face issues at their destination using the number set out in their booking documentation and on our website.

We are working closely with all our suppliers to understand which hotels are open for customers but unfortunately some closures were not communicated to us prior to customers travelling to those hotels.

Yahoo UK

Do you have a story tip? Email:newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

You can also follow us onFacebook,InstagramandTwitterand download the Yahoo News app from theApp StoreorGoogle Play.

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A Florida man visiting beaches dressed as the Grim Reaper says governor should require masks statewide – CNN

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Daniel Uhlfelder, who sued the state's Republican governor earlier this year saying he prematurely opened beaches, has spent the last several weeks warning beachgoers of the coronavirus's rising danger while dressed as the Grim Reaper -- complete with a dark cloak and a giant scythe.

"Unfortunately, when I started this work in March, I had a bad belief that this was going to get really bad. Unfortunately, my predictions have exceeded what I thought," Uhlfelder -- this time dressed in a light blue shirt and pink tie -- told CNN on Monday.

Criticizing DeSantis for leaving decisions like masks and beach access up to local officials, Uhlfelder said, "he needs to issue a mask order because masks work."

"Local officials have instituted mask mandates in their respective counties, including Miami Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Orange, Hillsborough and Duval. These are Florida's largest counties, therefore most of the state's population is under a mask mandate," Cody McCloud, press secretary to Gov. DeSantis told CNN. "Some counties have experienced significant cases of COVID-19 and others relatively few, which is why the input from municipal leaders is important to determine the best course of action for a particular community. A mask mandate may make sense in Miami-Dade County, but not in Florida's more than 20 rural counties, some with fewer than 50 COVID-positive cases."

DeSantis said earlier on Monday that the state's high positivity rates are in part due to an increase in the number of tests done throughout the state. He went on to say that the median age of everybody testing positive right now is 36 and that barring comorbidities the "fatality rate is pretty close to zero."

The costumed attorney says he is targeting beaches because they are drawing people into the state from around the world, which is in part resulting in increased case numbers.

Since the beginning of his tour on May 1, Uhlfelder has traveled to beaches from Miami to Jacksonville, receiving at least some push back from beachgoers.

"Coming out here and dressed as the grim reaper, you know, saying 'You're dead for being out here,' I think that's a little bit much," beachgoer James Rivera told CNN at Jacksonville Beach. "Let's not give everything up because we're sick. As crazy as that sounds, it's a bit too much."

Regardless of the opposition, however, Uhlfelder has continued his tour in hopes of being "a voice for the people of Florida."

He says his main concern is not necessarily Floridian beachgoers, but rather the tourists who come from out of state.

"It's not necessarily the act of being on the beach," says Uhlfelder. "They're getting fresh air, they're exercising, and I don't have a problem with that type of conduct. It's the fact that people come to Florida to come to use our beaches."

His worry is that small towns, like his own in Escambia County, may not have sufficient infrastructure to support the surge in cases of coronavirus. The solution, he says, is statewide guidance such as the desired mask order.

"We don't have a comprehensive state plan to deal with this," he says. "The governor has decided to defer to the local areas, like cities and counties, to make the decisions, which are tough decisions."

CNN's Rosa Flores, Artemis Moshtaghian and Sara Weisfeldt contributed to this report.

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A Florida man visiting beaches dressed as the Grim Reaper says governor should require masks statewide - CNN

Perfect Beach Day Closes Out Weekend Before Scattered Severe Weather Returns Monday – NBC10 Boston

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It's been a quiet Sunday but that won't be the case on Monday.

Sunday has been not as humid with highs in the 90s under a mostly sunny sky in Southern New England while temperatures in the 80s with scattered showers to the north. It's been a perfect beach day with a lower risk for rip currents, except on south facing beaches.

Showers will return Monday and early Tuesday. Scattered strong to severe thunderstorms are possible Monday afternoon, between noon and 6 p.m., with the main threat being for damaging wind and torrential rain and possibly flooding.

Less humid air takes over Tuesday night and Wednesday as high pressure settles over the region, with highs in the 70s and low 80s, but the comfortable air will be short-lived as the humidity returns Thursday with a mid-summer pattern in control through the end of the exclusive First Alert 10-day forecast, with some areas capable of a reaching 90 degrees for three consecutive days.

Warm air returns by the end of the week with increasing humidity, as well. Temperatures could reach 90 next weekend and we stay warm through the next week.

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Perfect Beach Day Closes Out Weekend Before Scattered Severe Weather Returns Monday - NBC10 Boston

Unheralded field looks to face Slotkin in November – City Pulse

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Kyle Melinn

Republicans swung and missed when it came to recruiting a top-tier candidate to run in Ingham Countys 8th Congressional District, leaving those leaning the GOPs way a choice among four lightly funded political neophytes.

The emerging political might of freshman U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin is the main reason. The former CIA analyst has shined in nearly every aspect of the job policy knowledge, public engagement, competency and fundraising.

The latter cant be understated. Slotkin is raising U.S. Senate-like money, far more than any other congressional incumbent or challenger in Michigan.

Up to now, Paul Junge is doing the best in terms or raising money and generating any outward support. He raised close a quarter of a million dollars in the first quarter of 2020, which is double that of his three opponents combined.

But to put it all in perspective, you could take Junges haul, multiply it by four and still not get what Slotkin raised in that same period.

Junge, 53, has been endorsed by the Orion Township (Oakland County) supervisor, former state Rep. Bill Rogers (older brother of former Congressman Mike Rogers), U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, the Livingston County sheriff and the American Conservative Union, among others.

The National Republican Campaign Committee also put the former FOX47 news anchor in its contender category, which means theyre keeping an eye on him.

The Brighton Republican has lived in Michigan off and on throughout his life. Prior to moving back to Michigan he was investigative counsel for U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley and served in the Trump administration within U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

He worked on Terri Lynn Lands 2014 U.S. Senate campaign and spent some time as a deputy district attorney in Ventura County, Calif.

It was the latter experience that his political adversaries are honing in on in their political criticism. Back in 1994, Junge barged into a defense attorneys office to subpoena a witness in a domestic violence case, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The judge declared a mistrial when he learned what happened and the District Attorneys Office ended up having to apologize to the Public Defenders Office about the incident.

Elissa Slotkin and the Democrats are licking their chops at the prospect of facing a carpetbagger like Paul Junge, especially as we learn more about the inappropriate behavior he engaged in as a Los Angeles deputy district attorney, said Junge opponent Kristina Lyke, also an attorney who has represented domestic violence victims in the past.

Lyke, 43, runs an East Lansing law firm that specializes in family and criminal law. Originally from Pinckney, the Eastern Michigan University graduate worked for the Livingston County prosecutor as she attended law school at Cooley.

She served on the Pinckney City Council from 1999-2001. At the time, she was the youngest person to be elected to the board. Shes worked as a legislative assistant to former Rep. Paul DeWeese and an assistant to then-Lt. Gov. Dick Posthumus.

She is framing herself as the most conservative option in the Republican field. Lyke supports term limits for members of Congress. At a forum earlier this year, she questioned whether women who seek illegal abortions should be prosecuted along with the doctors. Lyke also questioned how anyone could be Christian and not be pro-life.

Her political consultant is Scott Hagerstrom, who was the Michigan head of the Trump 2016 campaign and one of the states pre-eminent conservative authority figures, having also worked several years for Americans for Prosperity.

But it may be hard to go farther right than Mike Detmer, a darling of grassroots conservatives. Endorsed by former gubernatorial candidate Patrick Colbeck, Detmer has a rock-solid core of supporters, which bring with it a reliable network of folks to help him spread his message. It also brings some concerns.

During the April 30 liberty protest, the 42-year-old Howell man posted a Facebook photo of himself with a group of a dozen protesters. A Proud Boys sign can be seen on the roof of a car behind the crowd. The Southern Poverty Law Center has dubbed Proud Boys as an extremist organization, although the group bills itself as anti-political correctness and anti-white guilt.

At a recent American Patriot Rally he spoke about this whole race nonsense as fake.

If you are someone of faith, you understand that all lives matter and it was decided by the blood of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago, he said.

A licensed real estate agent by trade, Detmer is the general sales manager of a car dealership and former vice president of Nova Mortgage Corp. in Bloomfield Hills.

Originally from northern Michigan, where his parents ran a Christmas tree farm, Detmers family ended up moving to Rochester when he was in high school. He graduated from Rochester Adams High and Oakland University, where he studied political science. From 1996 to 1998, he served as president of the Young Republicans.

With State Board of Education member Nikki Snyder unable to get the signatures needed to make the ballot, the last candidate in the field is 20-year military veteran Alan Hoover.

The 39-year-old Ortonville resident started three companies at various points a construction company, a production label and a consulting company. Hoover has a compelling personal story, being raised by his mother who was constantly fleeing from abuse.

The Marine lived in 16 different cities in his youth. Hoover ran for the River Rouge City Council fresh out of high school and went into the military after he was unsuccessful in that bid.

Hes lived off and on in the 8th District for 12 years, nine years straight as an adult. He and his wife, Lara, have three children.

Hoover has earned the endorsement of the Michigan Republican Assembly. Interestingly, despite being the last of the field to hop into the race, he raised the second-most amount of money to Junge in the first quarter with $50,000.

To, again, put it in perspective, Slotkin raised 20 times more.

(Kyle Melinn of the Capitol news service MIRS is at melinnky@gmail.com.)

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Unheralded field looks to face Slotkin in November - City Pulse

Cubs Summer Camp Miscellany: Chatwood and Mills Square Off, First Relievers In, Schwarber Gallops, More – bleachernation.com

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It was Day Three of Cubs Summer Camp today, and day two of intrasquad scrimmaging, with presumptive fourth and fifth starters Tyler Chatwood and Alec Mills making their first starts.

Mills had the smoother day, going 2.1 innings and striking out three (no walks), while allowing a run on two hits a Jason Kipnis single and a Steven Souza double.

Chatwood notched five strikeouts over his 3.0 innings of work (one walk), but also gave up four runs on five hits. You should have basically no reaction to that, by the way, because you pretty much want Chatwood filling up the strike zone at this point in the process, and, in so doing at this point in the process the hitters are gonna tee off a bit. The fact that he still got five strikeouts is impressive.

The first four relievers to get intrasquad action for the Cubs in Summer Camp: Duane Underwood, Rex Brothers, Dan Winkler, and James Norwood. Interestingly, back when the roster was to be just 26 on Opening Day, Winkler was looking like a good bet to win a job, but the other three there were gonna be just outside looking in (particularly Underwood, who is out of options). Now, with a 30-man roster to open the season, and with the Cubs seemingly likely to bring along as many as three extra pitchers in those four additional spots, many more relievers are going to have a very legit shot at winning a job.

Some of the knocks on Chatwood included a Kyle Schwarber triple:

And a Javy Bez double, which featured David Ross getting HYPED:

You can keep letting yourself dream on Albert Almora if you like:

Some more visuals:

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Cubs Summer Camp Miscellany: Chatwood and Mills Square Off, First Relievers In, Schwarber Gallops, More - bleachernation.com

Opinion: Trump and the GOP’s control of the U.S. Senate – Oklahoman.com

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If President Trumps polling struggles continue until Election Day, could that cost the Republican Party control of the U.S. Senate? This concern is emerging among some in the GOP, and it bears watching.

Democratic control of the House of Representatives, where Democrats hold a 233-197 advantage over Republicans (four seats are vacant, one is held by a Libertarian), appears safe. In the Senate, however, the GOP's edge is only 53-47. If Democrats win the White House, they would need to flip just three seats to control the Senate, because the vice president has the tie-breaking vote.

The Associated Press noted in an analysis last week that both parties expect tight races in closely divided states where moderate suburban voters could be crucial. These include Sens. Martha McSally of Arizona and Cory Gardner of Colorado. Other Republican senators facing competitive races are Susan Collins of Maine, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Steve Daines of Montana.

In all, Republicans must defend 23 Senate seats this year, compared with 12 for Democrats, who have fewer incumbents facing tough re-election bids.

What is an at-risk Republican to do to get back to Washington? Veteran GOP pollster and consultant Ed Goeas offered his insight during a recent virtual discussion with the Washington, D.C.-based Ripon Society, a public policy organization.

I will say one of the problems I think many of the senators have had is that with the Trump base, Goeas said. If you give them any sense that you are not 100% supportive of the president, they will turn on you very, very quickly.

Goeas says Trumps true base is about one-third of the electorate, and comprise people who have backed Trump from the start of his first campaign. He also says there is a non-Trump-specific Republican base, 11% or 12% of the electorate, who like Trumps policies but not his character.

Many of the states with potentially difficult races for Republican senators, Goeas said, are states that not only do you need the Trump base, you need the Republican base, and you need to start pulling in some independent voters.

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Opinion: Trump and the GOP's control of the U.S. Senate - Oklahoman.com

Documentary About Controversial LuLaRoe Clothing Empire In Works From Fyre Fraud Team And Based On Media – Deadline

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EXCLUSIVE: We hear that Cinemart, the documentary team of directors Jenner Furst, Julia Willoughby Nason and producer Mike Gasparro, is partnering on the documentaryLuLaRichwith Based on Medias Blye Faust and Cori Shepherd Stern.

The doc will investigateLuLaRoe, the billion dollar clothing empire which has recently been accused of misleading thousands of American women with their multi-level marketing platform. Once promoted by Katy Perry and Kelly Clarkson, the brand has gone from an aspirational movement to a trending pyramid scheme that is now the subject of multiple lawsuits.

LuLaRoes founders DeAnne and Mark Stidham have denied all allegations and have launched countersuits of their own, defending the companys legitimacy and model. LuLaRoe is still fully operational and many women continue to enthusiastically promote the brand. The company has also dramatically reduced entry costs to attract new saleswomen during the pandemic and economic downturn.

Related StoryProducers Blye Faust & Cori Shepherd Stern Launch Based On Media

The film will chart the meteoric rise of the company, its Mormon founder and a culture of dedicated legging-clad millennial saleswomen who rose through the ranks seeking a better life for their families.

In addition to offering LuLaRoe execs Mark and DeAnne Stidham a chance to tell their story, LuLaRich will explore the broader zeitgeist of the Mormon subculture, multi-level marketing, social media, womens rights, economic equality, fraud and white-collar crime in the digital age.

Nason and Furst will direct with EP Gasparro, the award-winning team behind Hulus Fyre Fraud and Netflix docuseries The Pharmacist which we reported yesterday was being snapped up by David Permut to be made into a feature narrative. The Cinemart team is currently in production on a new sports true-con for Quibi about Baseballs recent sign stealing scandal in a co-production with Spring Hill Entertainment and executive producer Lebron James.

Cinemart will be joined by EPs Blye Faust and Cori Shepherd Stern of Based On Media. Faust won an Oscar for Best Picture onSpotlight and Stern is an Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning producer known for diverse projects including Warm Bodies and HBOs Open Heart.

The Cinemart is repped by CAA and Jonathan Gardner and Carissa Knoll at Cohen & Gardner. Based On Media is repped by WME, along with Robert Strent and Ted Fisher at Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks.

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Documentary About Controversial LuLaRoe Clothing Empire In Works From Fyre Fraud Team And Based On Media - Deadline

Enough with the empty platitudes, Football must address its racist culture – Varsity Online

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Arsenal's justification for not supporting their player Mesut zil, pictured above, last year calls into question their motivations behind their current support of the BLM movement. Wikimedia Commons

Arsenal Football Club, along with other Premier League teams, have been noticeably eager to perform support for the current BLM movement - from armbands to taking a knee before games. However, the football industrys record on racism, including anti-Blackness, is a chequered one and encourages us to be sceptical of their motives. Less than a year ago, when Mesut zil powerfully spoke out against the ethno-religious persecution of Uighur Muslims in China, Arsenal responded by distancing itself from their playersposition, claiming that As a football club, Arsenal has always adhered to the principle of not involving itself in politics. Inconsistencies like this suggest an ulterior motive to their support of the BLM movement.

"Gestures, however shallow, of support from other industries and celebrities, have created a situation where it would be financially damaging to appear to not support the movement."

Arsenal are at their core a business, and it was a financial decision to not stand with zil against China. The club would have been mindful of the financial damages that the NBA faced when Daryl Morey, of the Houston Rockets, spoke in solidarity with the Hong Kong protests. Chinese firms responded by suspending their sponsorship and state-run broadcasters refused to show NBA games. This came (in the words of the leagues head, Adam Silver) at a fairly dramatic cost to the League. zil was already personally feeling the financial wrath of China, with his likeness removed from the Chinese edition of PES and his 30,000 strong Chinese fan club being closed down. Arsenal were thus unwilling to risk facing financial losses by taking a principled stance.

Money informed Arsenals refusal to support zil in 2019, and financial self-interest has in part guided their response to the current protests now. The current BLM movement, to the frustration of many activists, has been heavily co-opted and monetized by many corporations and brands, including Arsenals key markets. Many have stated their support, but this often does not scratch the surface of material demands made by Black people, for BLM. Gestures, however shallow, of support from other industries and celebrities, have created a situation where it would be financially damaging to appear to not support the movement. For example, Crossfit is currently in considerable financial trouble, with Adidas having severed their partnership with the company due to its founders crude tweets about George Floyds death. As such Arsenal, and the league as a whole, have been eager to remain ahead of the cultural Zeitgeist and be seen as supporting the movement.

"Racism is structurally and linguistically ingrained into the game. It is going to take much more than empty platitudes to redeem it."

However, as the football clubs and associations are only motivated by their financial needs, rather than any actual desire to enact change, they have traded in only shallow, symbolic gestures. Whilst having Black Lives Matter on the back of their shirts, or tweeting a black tile is better than doing nothing, it fails to acknowledge the structural or linguistic racism which remains rampant within English football.

The league has refused to implement the Rooney Rule (in which a Black applicant has to be interviewed for any job opening), resulting in the shameful under-representation of Black managers within the game although a quarter of players are Black, there is one BME manager in the Premier League, Nuno Espirito Santo (who got his start in Portugal). The divergent careers of two England captains illustrates this problem. While Steven Gerrard was able to secure the managers position at Rangers (the most successful club in Scottish history), Sol Campbell had to drop down four divisions to literally the worst club in England in Macclesfield Town (at the time of hiring they were 92nd out of 92 Professional English clubs). This is symptomatic of the general lack of black representation across the institutions of English football: there are no black owners, chief executives or chairs amongst any of the 92 professional clubs in England, and only 3% of all board members are black. Hopefully this situation is about to change, with players such as Raheem Sterling speaking out, claiming that there is a need to give black people the chance they deserve. However, it speaks volumes to the failings of the footballing community that it had to be Sterling, a player, rather than someone involved in the running of football to take a stand.

This is only part of the problem. A recent study has uncovered the pervasive racist discourse within football. The League and international board claim to take a hard line on racism yet the Bulgarian FA were fined less for their spectators frequent racist chanting than Nicklas Bendtner was for wearing a pair of Paddy Power branded underwear during Euro 2012 (an obviously disgusting crime considering that the Danish FAs official betting sponsor was Ladbrokes). Underlying this, is a secondform of racist discourse. Black players are consistently reported in ways that underplay their intelligence and draw attention to their physical characteristics instead. This has been going on since at least the 1950s. The Brazilian and Austrian teams were the two most technically gifted teams in the world at that time, but this did not stop Alf Ramsay from evoking the n-word to describe the Brazilians playing style, alongside the phrase in a circus ring. In contrast, the Austrians were likened to ballerinas dancing a Viennese waltz (Evening Standard, November 26th, 1951). This problematic discourse hasnt gone away, as evidenced by the ways in which the playing styles of Bonucci and Koulibaly are described on Wikipedia. The two players are consistently top in pass accuracy and pass completion stats in Serie A, however while Bonucci is described as someone primarily known for his technique, passing range, Koulibaly is described as a large, aggressive, quick, and physically strong. I wonder if you can guess which one is the white player and which is Black? Many football fans unthinkingly take part in this type of problematic discourse, and it is our own responsibility to investigate and challenge the way we perceive Black players. Whilst we may see this as an isolated issue, it is partially the pernicious assumption that Black players as less intelligent that holds them back from getting managerial employment and it is imperative that the FA and TV broadcasters push for change and accountability regarding this.

There are real problems pertaining to race in football. It is vital that we are not fooled by the Premier Leagues financially motivated pastiches into thinking that suddenly racism in football is suddenly going to be solved. Racism is structurally and linguistically ingrained into the game. It is going to take much more than empty platitudes to redeem it.

Varsity is the independent newspaper for the University of Cambridge, established in its current form in 1947. In order to maintain our editorial independence, our newspaper and news website receives no funding from the University of Cambridge or its constituent Colleges.

We are therefore almost entirely reliant on advertising for funding, and during this unprecedented global crisis, we have a tough few weeks and months ahead.

In spite of this situation, we are going to look at inventive ways to look at serving our readership with digital content for the time being.

Therefore we are asking our readers, if they wish, to make a donation from as little as 1, to help with our running cost at least until we hopefully return to print on 2nd October 2020.

Many thanks, all of us here at Varsity would like to wish you, your friends, families and all of your loved ones a safe and healthy few months ahead.

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Enough with the empty platitudes, Football must address its racist culture - Varsity Online

With Skate 4 and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater Remastered leading the way, the second coming of skateboarding games is here – GamesRadar+

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Session. Skater XL. Skate 4. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2. All four of these skateboarding games have either been released or announced within the last six months, and that's more than we can say for the last several years' worth of skate games.

With two cracking indie games out, the reaction to the Skate 4 announcement at EA Play (the tweet from EA has over 142,000 likes at the time of writing), and the excitement around the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2 remaster, it's clear that skate games have stepped to the fore once more. It helps that skateboarding has simultaneously dropped back into the half pipe that is mainstream culture, as well. It was set to make its debut at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics before COVID-19 delayed the competition yes, skateboarding is now an Olympic sport, and the butterfly effect that has on pop culture cannot be understated.

Are we on the precipice of the second coming of skateboarding games, one that can rival the first movement kickstarted (or kickflipped) by Tony Hawk's Pro Skater in 1999? It certainly seems so. Let's break down why that is.

It's safe to say that indie developers lit the match that led to AAA studios recognizing the embers of a skate game renaissance. Both Session and Skater XL have been in development for years, both are from teams composed of current and former skateboarders, and both build off of the left foot/right foot joystick mechanic first popularized by EA's Skate. They know what skate game fans want, and they've provided.

In November 2017, crea-ture studios released Session as a free demo before launching a Kickstarter campaign to help build a fleshed-out game as PC Gamer reported, the campaign reached its initial goal in just three days. Last year, I went hands-on with Session ahead of its Steam Early Access release, and discovered how the team at crea-ture was making a hyper-realistic skate game with a learning curve as steep as skating IRL.

Then there's Easy Day Studios' Skater XL, which debuted on team Early Access in December 2018 (it'll release in full on PC, Xbox One, PS4 and Switch later this month). As we previously reported in our Skater XL hands-on, Easy Day Studios head Dain Hedgpeth was so dedicated to capturing the particular vibe of West Coast skating that he moved the entire team to SoCal. Skater XL also uses the joystick-as-feet game mechanic, but the devs consider it more of an instrument to be learned rather than an insurmountable feat to be bested.

Both studios were hell-bent on delivering a game that authentically depicts the modern skate era while nodding to its past: Skater XL has iconic skate spots built into its maps while Session has a very '90s camera option that will instantly bring you back to classic skate montages. Session, Skater XL, and the near-constant demand online for more skate game content was indicative of a shift in the video game industry tide, and publishers like Activision and EA could ignore it no longer. That's why the Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 and 2 remaster was revealed in May and Skate 4 was announced right before the end of June's EA Play. We're undeniably in the midst of a revival but just how did that first skate game movement begin?

1999's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was a revolution. Developed by Neversoft and released not long after Hawk himself landed the first ever 900 at the '99 Summer X-Games, THPS 1 is a pillar of the late '90s/early-aughts skateboarding zeitgeist. The PlayStation versions of the game and its sequel were the first and second highest selling console titles of 2000, according to The Magic Box. And skateboarding exploded onto the mainstream scene shortly after in 2002, MTV debuted Jackass' skateboarding hooligans and The X Games was broadcast live on television for the first time.

But the arcade quality of the THPS games left something to be desired for gamers and real-world skateboarders alike. Enter 2007's Skate, EA's realistic response to the standard-bearer that was the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater franchise. Skate's "flick-it" control system was its thesis statement that was in development long before other elements were even considered and it was a winning thesis. As IGN reported in 2008, Skate performed better than Tony Hawk's Proving Ground on PS3 and Xbox 360 it should come as no surprise to learn that EA quickly put sequels into production, with Skate 2 and Skate 3 releasing back-to-back in 2009 and 2010.

But other than the OlliOlli series, the last game of which was 2015's OlliOlli2: Welcome to Olliwood, the past decade has been a skate game wasteland. The last several Tony Hawk titles were almost uniformly bad and EA deactivating Skate's servers in 2016 was a nail in the proverbial coffin. As Hawk said in a 2018 interview with skateboarding podcast The Nine Club, "It was tricky to reinvent the wheel every time. And then once EA Skate came out with a different control scheme, it split the market. And then we both had a good run, but I think by then both companies were like we're fighting for a smaller piece of the pie and that's why they're not happening. The market became so diluted and it just became shooters, and then that was it, that was the monster, and no sports games are really going to infiltrate that."

But 2020's energy is ripe for the resurgence of skate games. It's not unlike the vibes of the early aughts - nihilistic, disenfranchised youths look to escape a world on fire and have some good, clean fun. Right now, the news is scary, we're all stuck inside, and sports are cancelled. With heavy games like The Last of Us 2 preaching about the horrors of the violence it makes you commit and battle royales taking the shooter to its logical conclusion, there's room at the metaphorical video game park for a half-pipe.

The skate game resurgence has never felt more real, or more diverse in form and style. With Session you can attack NYC's concrete jungle for hours, trying and failing to trigger the game's "catch" function that requires you to push on the joysticks to catch the board while executing a trick. With Skater XL you can coast across plazas under the SoCal sunshine, visiting famous skateboarding landmarks while learning how to play the game's controls like you'd learn an instrument.

With Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2 you can retread memory lane, nailing a Boneless while blasting Primus' "Jerry Was a Race Car Driver" except now you can do it with a much more diverse roster composed of both the OG THPS 1 and 2 team and today's top skaters. And nobody knows what the hell you'll be able to do in Skate 4, but at least it's happening. And as GamesRadar recently reported, we the people "commented it into existence".

If the skate game renaissance is here, consider me its Da Vinci, the Italian archetype of the movement clad in checkerboard Vans.

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With Skate 4 and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater Remastered leading the way, the second coming of skateboarding games is here - GamesRadar+

Celebrate Past Olympics and More on The Criterion Channel in July – Cord Cutters News, LLC

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Summer is heating up and so is the Criterion Channels lineup of content. The Tokyo Olympics may be postponed this summer, but you can still celebrate with 100 Years of Olympic Films: 19122012, or get your dose of drama with the Marriage Stories feature on Sunday, July 12.

Heres whats on the Criterion Channel in July:

Friday, July 10

Double Feature: Loving on the Edge

Mala NocheandMy Own Private Idaho

Touchstone works in the evolution of the New Queer Cinema movement, these twin tales of aimless youth by Gus Van Sant are swooning expressions of his signature concern: the emotional journeys of young men adrift on the margins of society. While editing his boldly original debut featureMala Noche,about a romantic deadbeats wayward crush on a handsome Mexican immigrant,Van Sant met Mike Parker, a Portland street kid who became the inspiration for the young hustler played by River Phoenix inMy Own Private Idaho.Further developing the themes of queer identity, transience, and unrequited longing,Van Sant created an intoxicating anthem of outsiderhood that stands as one of the defining independent films of the 1990s.

Saturday, July 11

Saturday Matinee:The White Balloon

Jafar Panahis revelatory debut feature is a childs-eye adventure in which a young girls quest to buy a goldfish leads her on a detour-filled journey through the streets of Tehran on the eve of the Iranian New Year celebration. Cowritten by Panahi with his mentor Abbas Kiarostami, this beguiling, prizewinning fable unfolds in documentary-like real time as it wrings unexpected comedy, suspense, and wonder from its seemingly simple premise.

Sunday, July 12

Marriage Stories

Bad marriages make great movies, as evidenced by these gloriously messy, cuttingly perceptive portraits of some of the most dysfunctional relationships ever captured on-screen. With raw emotion, dramatic blowups, and soul-baring self-reflection baked into the premise, these tales of marital breakups and shakeups explore everything from jealousy, infidelity, and betrayal to the procedural complexities of divorce and separation to the myriad, sometimes barely perceptible ways in which couples drift apart. They also happen to be vehicles for some of the most personal and revealing statements from major directors like Ingmar Bergman, John Cassavetes, Ida Lupino, Mike Nichols, Noah Baumbach, Lars von Trier, Asghar Farhadi, and others, each of whom brings fresh insight to that most universal of subjects: the mysterious intricacies of human intimacy.

Come Back, Little Sheba,Daniel Mann, 1952

The Bigamist,Ida Lupino, 1953

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,Richard Brooks, 1958

La notte,Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961

Juliet of the Spirits,Federico Fellini, 1965

Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,Mike Nichols, 1966

Faces,John Cassavetes, 1968

A Married Couple,Allan King, 1969

Scenes from a Marriage,Ingmar Bergman, 1973

California Suite,Herbert Ross, 1978

Kramer vs. Kramer,Robert Benton, 1979

52,Franois Ozon, 2004

The Squid and the Whale,Noah Baumbach, 2005

Antichrist,Lars von Trier, 2009

Certified Copy,Abbas Kiarostami, 2010

Tuesday, After Christmas,Radu Muntean, 2010

A Separation,Asghar Farhadi, 2011

45 Years,Andrew Haigh, 2015

Monday, July 13

Nostalgia for the Light

Master documentarian Patricio Guzmn travels ten thousand feet above sea level to the driest place on earth: Chiles Atacama Desert, where astronomers from all over the world gather to observe the stars in a sky so translucent that it allows them to see to the boundaries of the universe. The Atacama is also a place where the harsh heat of the sun keeps human remains intact, including those of political prisoners disappeared by the Chilean army after the 1973 military coup. Just as astronomers search for distant galaxies, surviving relatives of the disappeared search for the remains of their loved ones in a quest to reclaim their families histories. Melding the celestial and the earthly,Nostalgia for the Lightis a gorgeous, moving, and deeply personal odyssey into both Chilean history and the furthest reaches of space.

Tuesday, July 14

Short + Feature: Lost Pets

PickleandGates of Heaven

Featuring an introduction by Criterion Channel programmer Penelope Bartlett

Do all dogs go to heaven? Two documentary filmmakers explore mortality and mourning through the experiences of pet owners. InPickle,Amy Nicholson profiles a couple of extreme animal lovers, interviewing them about the menagerie theyve cared for and buried over the years, including paraplegic possums, emaciated cats, and morbidly obese chickens. Errol Morriss debut feature,Gates of Heaven,immerses viewers in the community surrounding two pet cemeteries in Napa Valley, California, blending sincerity and satire to spin its quirky subject into a surprisingly expansive study of human nature.

Wednesday, July 15

Directed by Miranda July

Featuring the 2019 documentaryMiranda July: Where It Began

The fearless, brilliantly idiosyncratic films of writer-director-actor and all-around polymath Miranda July combine arrestingly oddball whimsy with astute, emotionally penetrating observations on intimacy, sexuality, loneliness, and human connection. Beginning her career as a performance artist immersed in the riot grrrl scene of 1990s Portland, Oregon, July found her way to film with her pioneeringJoanie 4 Jackieproject, in which she curated and distributed feminist video chain letters of underground movies made by women across the country. With her acclaimed featuresMe and You and Everyone We KnowandThe Future,July established herself as one of American independent cinemas most distinctive voices, a bold, relentlessly imaginative artist who finds cosmic insight in the everyday.

Features

Me and You and Everyone We Know,Miranda July, 2005

The Future,Miranda July, 2011

Shorts

The Amateurist,Miranda July, 1998

Nest of Tens,Miranda July, 2000

Shorts fromJoanie 4 Jackie

Transeltown,Myra Paci, 1992

Dear Mom,Tammy Rae Carland, 1995

The Slow Escape,Sativa Peterson, 1998

Hawai,Ximena Cuevas, 1999

No Place Like Home #1 and #2,Karen Yasinsky, 1999

Gigi (from 9 to 5),Joanne Nucho, 2001

Ophelias Opera,Abiola Abrams, 2001

La Llorona,Stephanie Saint Sanchez, 2003

untitled video,Sujin Lee, 2002

Joanie 4 Jackie: A Quick Overview,Shauna McGarry, 2008

Thursday, July 16

Three Starring Jane Fonda

Few actors have dominated an erafor their work both on- and offscreenthe way Jane Fonda did in the 1960s and 70s, when she emerged as one of the most acclaimed performers of her generation as well as a zeitgeist-defining cultural icon for her fierce political activism. All made at the peak of her career, these three films showcase Fondas nuance, impeccable comic timing, and versatility: shes larger than life as an intergalactic bombshell in the cult sci-fi extravaganzaBarbarella;riotously funny as a bourgeois housewife who takes up armed robbery in the barbed slapstick satireFun with Dick and Jane;and at once prickly and disarming as a divorced woman fighting for custody of her daughter in the Neil Simonpenned ensemble farceCalifornia Suite.

Barbarella,Roger Vadim, 1968

Fun with Dick and Jane,Ted Kotcheff, 1977

California Suite,Herbert Ross, 1978

Friday, July 17

Double Feature: Girls and the Gang

Mona LisaandGloria

Featuring an audio commentary forMona Lisaby director Neil Jordan and actor Bob Hoskins

Two gritty 1980s crime classics distinguish themselves with ingredients all too rare for the genre: heart, humor, and strong female protagonists. Set in Londons sordid criminal underworld, Neil JordansMona Lisastars Cathy Tyson, Bob Hoskins, and Michael Caine in a surprisingly affecting, romantic neonoir about the complex relationship that develops between a glamorous call girl and a small-time mobster. Then, the great Gena Rowlands goes from gangsters girlfriend to gun-toting action hero in John Cassavetess offbeat, New York-set thrillerGloria,in which she acts as avenging angel for a young boy on the run from the mob.

Saturday, July 18

Saturday Matinee:Miss Annie Rooney

As Shirley Temple grew up before the eyes of America, this delightful comeback vehicle offered her a chance to shine in a new kind of film: a charming teenage romance, complete with jive-talking, jitterbug-mad bobby soxers. She displays her patented pluck (and receives her first on-screen kiss) as starry-eyed fourteen-year-old Annie Rooney, who pines for nerdy classmate Marty (Dickie Moore) even though his wealthy family looks down on her working-class background. When Annies father (William Gargan) invents a new form of synthetic rubber, however, it may just be her ticket to love.

Sunday, July 19

100 Years of Olympic Films: 19122012

Originally scheduled to begin this month, the Tokyo Olympic Games have been postponed, but you can still celebrate a century of Olympic glory with this monumental collection. Spanning fifty-three movies and forty-one editions of the Olympic Games,100 Years of Olympic Films: 19122012is the culmination of a massive, award-winning archival project encompassing dozens of restorations by the International Olympic Committee. The documentaries collected here cast a cinematic eye on some of the most iconic moments in the history of modern sports, spotlighting athletes who embody the Olympic motto of Faster, Higher, Stronger: Jesse Owens shattering world records on the track in 1936 Berlin, Jean-Claude Killy dominating the Grenoble slopes in 1968, Joan Benoit breaking away to win the Games first womens marathon in Los Angeles in 1984. In addition to the impressive ten-feature contribution of Bud Greenspan, this stirring collective chronicle of triumph and defeat includes such documentary landmarks as Leni RiefenstahlsOlympiaand Kon IchikawasTokyo Olympiad,along with captivating lesser-known works by major directors like Claude Lelouch, Carlos Saura, and Milo Forman. It also offers a fascinating glimpse of the development of film itself, and of the technological progress that has brought viewers ever closer to the action. Traversing continents and decades, reflecting the social, cultural, and political changes that have shaped our recent history, this remarkable movie marathon showcases a hundred years of human endeavor.

The Games of the V Olympiad Stockholm, 1912,Adrian Wood, 2016

The Olympic Games Held at Chamonix in 1924,Jean de Rovera, 1924

The Olympic Games as They Were Practiced in Ancient Greece,Jean de Rovera, 1924

The Olympic Games in Paris 1924,Jean de Rovera, 1924

The White Stadium,Arnold Fanck and Othmar Gurtner, 1928

The IX Olympiad in Amsterdam,dir. unknown, 1928

The Olympic Games, Amsterdam 1928,Wilhelm Prager, 1928

Youth of the World,Carl Junghans, 1936

Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations,Leni Riefenstahl, 1938

Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty,Leni Riefenstahl, 1938

Fight Without Hate,Andr Michel, 1948

XIVth Olympiad: The Glory of Sport,Castleton Knight, 1948

The VI Olympic Winter Games, Oslo 1952,Tancred Ibsen, 1952

Where the World Meets,Hannu Leminen, 1952

Gold and Glory,Hannu Leminen, 1953

Memories of the Olympic Summer of 1952,dir. unknown, 1954

White Vertigo,Giorgio Ferroni, 1956

Olympic Games, 1956,Peter Whitchurch, 1956

The Melbourne Rendez-vous,Ren Lucot, 1957

Alain Mimoun,Louis Gueguen, 1959

The Horse in Focus,dir. unknown, 1956

People, Hopes, Medals,Heribert Meisel, 1960

The Grand Olympics,Romolo Marcellini, 1961

IX Olympic Winter Games, Innsbruck 1964,Theo Hrmann, 1964

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Celebrate Past Olympics and More on The Criterion Channel in July - Cord Cutters News, LLC

Her Case To Be In Congress Is Unique. Shes Running Because She Doesn’t Think It Should Be. – BuzzFeed News

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DAYTON, Ohio Desiree Tims moved back home on a Tuesday. That Saturday, the Ku Klux Klan marched on Courthouse Square. Two days later, devastating tornadoes whipped through the area. A few months after that, a mass shooting in a popular nightlife district left nine dead.

During her decade away in Washington, DC, Tims completed a White House internship, worked for two prominent senators, and earned a Georgetown Law degree by taking night classes. If she left with one takeaway, it was that so few of those she observed in power and so few of her peers close to power had life experiences remotely comparable to hers.

Black. Born to a teenage mother. Raised by her grandparents in a neighborhood many political professionals obsessed with labels would simply identify as working-class if white people lived there. First in her family to attend a four-year college, but after easy As at public schools, a mental grind at a private university. The question she was always sure everyone was asking: Can this little Black girl from West Dayton do it?

Its a question that now underpins her campaign for Congress in Ohios 10th District. When Tims returned last year, her name on the deed of the brick ranch she grew up in, she hadnt planned to seek office so soon. But the tragedies that had visited Dayton accelerated the timeline. And this moment, 2020, groaning under the weight of crises that have magnified the injustices put upon people of color, has the makings of upheaval that could carry someone like Tims.

She won her primary in April with 70% of the vote, but without the national progressive energy or attention that recently lifted young Black congressional candidates such as Jamaal Bowman and Mondaire Jones against white, establishment-aligned choices in New York. The victories encouraged Tims, who would be the districts first Black representative. As the country confronts the truth that for so long, so much has been decided by so few people who are too alike, she frames her run quite literally as a fight for representation.

I get very passionate about it, because it's very frustrating when you see that up close, the neglect that is consistent in the halls of Congress, Tims, 32, said in an interview at her childhood home. So instead of begging and advocating people to do the right thing, let's just replace them.

Unlike Bowman and Jones, who are running in safe Democratic districts, Tims is attempting to unseat Rep. Mike Turner, a nine-term Republican. Democrats have targeted him for years without success, but Turners margin of victory was cut by more than half between 2016 and 2018, from 31 points to 14. Black turnout in the district dropped from 73% to 59% between the two previous presidential elections and was 43% in 2018, according to data provided by Tims polling team. Her advisers see a path where the combination of a young Black candidate and a base motivated to defeat President Donald Trump who carried the district by 7 points last time turns out enough votes to win.

Tims announced her candidacy days after the shooting last August. Dayton hasnt had much of a rest since. The coronavirus pandemic has hit hard, with a recent spike in COVID-19 cases prompting the mayor, and days later the governor, to require masks in public places. The national outrage over systemic racism after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor also has been profound in a city where the 2019 KKK rally, which attracted only nine members, was an emotional and financial burden. Tims participated in the anti-racism protests here in May. And she views several disturbing incidents like the six bullets fired through the storefront of a local Democratic Party headquarters where a Tims sign and Black Lives Matter sign hung in the windows as a threat to her.

Sometimes when you're living in the whirlwind of history, you cant appreciate the fact that you're in it, said Bob Mendenhall, a Tims supporter and co-owner of Blind Bobs, a tavern in the neighborhood where last years shooting occurred. Like, the old world is dead, and the new world hasn't arrived yet. And we are in this transformational period. I try to find a silver lining. Maybe COVID-19 can make us all slow down for just a second, and reflect on what we want this country to be.

Tims has scored nice endorsements from the senators she worked for, Ohios Sherrod Brown and New Yorks Kirsten Gillibrand. And Gillibrand has joined forces with two other senators with national profiles, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California, to raise money for her campaign. Tims, though, is largely unknown to voters here a point the National Republican Congressional Committee, in defense of Turner, stressed in an April memo. Before the primary, her name had never appeared on a ballot. She hadnt been preparing for this her entire life. Her middle school language arts teacher, now the head of a local teachers union and excited about her candidacy, recalled Tims as a bright and enthusiastic student, but never pictured her as a politician. Nan Whaley, Daytons mayor and one of the savviest Democratic activists in the state, has known Tims for barely a year. To her supporters, this only reinforces that Tims has the fresh eyes the district needs.

Symbols and substance rarely have an opportunity to be handmaids for each other, said Rev. Peter Matthews, Tims pastor at the McKinley United Methodist Church. The fact that she would bring a Georgetown Law degree back to West Dayton and offer herself for service, thats a pretty big deal. For other young kids, not just African American, but kids of all stripes in a city desperate for hope, shes putting herself out there front and center.

Tims walks through a neighborhood in Dayton, Ohio.

Tims grandfather Papaw, she called him loved watching Wheel of Fortune. He would try to play along, but guessing the words was especially tough for him. He hadnt made it past the first grade in Opelika, Alabama. There were fields to work, a family depending on any ounce of income he could contribute. Eventually hed be part of the Great Migration from the Deep South to the Midwest, from sharecropper to steelworker, settling first in Middletown, Ohio.

I always remember him sitting at the table, spelling the words out, Tims said. He was always still learning the language of English. All of the time he was like, What is this word? How do you spell this word? And, you know, Im doing something else, and Im like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, add an E. I didnt appreciate it at the time, but not everyone was sitting with their grandparents or their parents, teaching them English, and how to spell, and how to say things.

Tims mother and father were 18 and 20 when she was born and divorced not long after that. She grew up in the tiny ranch, with her mom and her maternal grandparents Papaw and Grandma and for a while her great-grandparents. My grandmother was the matriarch, and her word meant a little more, Tims recalled. There were few kids her age on the block. She would cut through the backyards of the cul-de-sac to go play with friends at the Y or walk to visit her dad, who lived nearby with his parents.

They were a family of workers. Tims mom went back to school to be a nurse. Papaw worked at a steel mill in Middletown for years, commuting a half-hour each way after moving to West Dayton. When they talk about the Midwest and Middle America, they show this white guy with Popeye arms, like toot toot, like coal mines and steel mills, Tims said. And Im like, yeah, there are Black people in the steel mills. There are Black people who are coal miners.

Middletown, coincidentally, is the hometown of J.D. Vance, whose 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy tapped into a white working-class zeitgeist that surrounded Trumps election. The book became highly politicized Vance used it to promote a conservative point of view. But Tims sees him as somewhat of a kindred spirit. Until the end of it, she said, that book is amazing. I thought he nailed it. She recalled the part where, while studying at Yale, Vance panicked over which fork to use at a fancy dinner. I was like, I feel seen.

Politics was always in the background. Grandma paid close attention. And Tims recalled accompanying family to civil rights marches, but not quite processing the experience. I was like, Oh, were going to a festival or a parade. I didnt get it.

Tims excelled at Paul Laurence Dunbar High, named for the Black poet and playwright from Dayton. For college she chose Xavier, a Jesuit school in Cincinnati close enough to family, but far enough to have her own life. She was soon in another world. I got a D, she said with a gasp. When she asked classmates who were coasting how they got by, she learned how their time at private or wealthier public schools prepared them, or how a paper they wrote in 10th grade could be recycled for college.

I was pissed because I felt like I got cheated, she said. I missed a lot of parties in college because I was in the library. And a lot of times it was the dictionary to the left of me, an actual reading assignment to the right.

The lesson was not lost on her. She would think of Papaw playing Wheel of Fortune with his pencil, writing down the words he didnt know.

How, she would wonder, can I drive back up I-75 to Dayton and say its too hard?

Tims at the Truman Bowling Alley in the White House.

Tims graduated from Xavier in 2010 and into the aftermath of the Great Recession, a period of slow recovery that was particularly hard on millennials like her.

Im seeing people who graduated in 2009 working at the mall, Tims said. That wasnt the deal. I could have worked at the mall in high school, which I did. The deal was that I get a good-paying job after traumatizing myself through nights and nights of library studying.

She thought she had that job, or that she was at least on the path to it, as a credit manager for Wells Fargo near Cincinnati. But the company was restructuring after its 2008 acquisition of Wachovia and laid off Tims after only a few months. She had just bought a new car, just signed a new lease. Talk about a quarter-life crisis, she said.

Tims with her grandfather at her graduation from Xavier.

Tims spent her nights browsing CareerBuilder. Her grandmother spent hers watching MSNBC, tuned into the young presidency of Barack Obama, and picturing her granddaughter as part of it. Tims had knocked on doors for Obama in 2008, but the family had no Washington connections to work, no favors to call in. Grandma, though, insisted she try for a White House job. I was like, You need to clasp your pretty little hands together and get on your knees and pray for Procter & Gamble or General Electric, Tims recalled. She just kept nagging me about it.

It wasnt until months later, after Wells Fargo had rehired and relocated her to Virginia, that the White House called Tims to follow up on the internship application she had completed in five minutes and long forgotten. She was so sure a friend was playing a joke that she hung up the first time. But the timing was convenient. She was miserable in her new job as a personal banker. She had accepted the posting because she figured shed at least be closer to Virginia Beach, a favorite vacation spot. In reality she was more than 200 miles away in McLean, an affluent DC suburb.

Things in Washington were like that for Tims. Her surroundings could be disorienting, if not intimidating. On the first day of her White House internship, she had no idea she was sitting next to Valerie Jarrett, the Obama confidant, until starstruck colleagues made a fuss. Her work included a rotation through the Office of Presidential Correspondence, where she read all of Obamas hate mail, and through the Office of Public Engagement, which Jarrett ran.

I was never much enamored by people like Valerie Jarrett, Tims said. I was inspired by them but it wasnt like ooh and aah, because I was on a mission to get the information, to bring it back home.

Tims had opportunities to stay at the White House after the internship ended but wanted to learn more about policy and legislation. She said she submitted her rsum to Browns Senate office at least five times before being hired to work on civil rights, judicial, and education issues. She later moved on to Gillibrands staff, where she specialized in agriculture and womens issues. Eventually she was elected president of the Senate Black Legislative Staff Caucus, but she could not shake the same feelings she had at Xavier: that her life experiences, not just her skin color, placed her squarely in the minority.

What I found was most of those people are from privileged backgrounds, regardless of race or sexual orientation, Tims said. How are you relating to someone who said they cant afford groceries on Friday? They dont understand what its like to ration out gas, because you cant take all of your trips, because you need to make sure this full tank lasts two weeks.

Tims point of view was beginning to align with her own political ambitions, but first she wanted to get away from Capitol Hill. She took a job at a childcare advocacy group while studying law at Georgetown and thinking of all the ways she would use what she learned in Washington to help Dayton.

Its a challenge, because she didnt come to it the way some do, Brown said in a telephone interview. But itll make her a better public official, because shes seen it from the outside [and the] inside that way.

Tims in the Oregon District in Dayton, Ohio, one block from the mass shooting site.

The Oregon District, one of Daytons oldest neighborhoods, is a particular point of pride in the city. The brick-covered East Fifth Street features buildings dating to the 1800s and a lineup of establishments known for solid pub food, craft beer, and live music.

Early the morning of Aug. 4, 2019, a 24-year-old man opened fire outside Ned Peppers, a western-themed bar, killing nine and wounding more than a dozen. The people of Dayton barely had time to process this another tragedy after the Memorial Day tornadoes that damaged or destroyed hundreds of buildings in the region and plunged Daytons drinking water system into chaos when Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican who as the states attorney general had courted the gun lobby, visited that evening.

Do something! Mendenhall, the proprietor of Blind Bobs, cried out as DeWine spoke, starting a chant that became a demand for tougher gun safety measures.

It also fit into the broader theme of Tims soon-to-launch congressional campaign.

Turner, the Republican incumbent, has won high National Rifle Association ratings, thanks to his staunch opposition to gun control. His views, though, began to shift after his daughter and a family friend found themselves across the street from Peppers when the shooting began. A few days later, Turner announced his support for several measures, including magazine limits and a red flag law. But suddenly Tims case against him had a fresh angle: He had come late to something that was good for Dayton. Its not an easy district, Brown said, but theyve had so much pain in the last two years.

The Ohio 10th includes all of Dayton and surrounding suburban and rural areas. (Comedian Dave Chappelle lives in the bucolic village of Yellow Springs.) Whaley, the mayor, sees the race as tough but winnable. I think she'll need tremendous turnout out of Dayton, particularly West Dayton and Trotwood and Jefferson Township, she said. This could be an interesting year for this district.

Turner, 60, has waffled a bit in the Trump era. Unlike other Republicans, he labeled the presidents Twitter attack last summer against four Democratic women of color in Congress as racist, but then toed the party line by voting against a House resolution to condemn it as such. He called Trumps telephone call asking Ukraine to investigate former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, alarming. Then, at a hearing during the impeachment inquiry, Turner defended Trump, earning the highest political currency the president can offer: an approving tweet. Turner did not respond to requests through a spokesperson to comment for this story.

The Ohio Democratic Party and other allies, such as the abortion rights group Emilys List, are helping Tims litigate Turners voting record and paint him as too close to Trump. Unlike other young progressives whove risen in politics in recent years, Tims candidacy is not defined so much by one or two policy demands. Her primary opponent, a young scientist from the suburbs, aligned himself with Bernie Sanders by promoting ideas like Medicare for All. Tims advocates for a public option and expansion of Obamacare. She briefly worked for the League of Conservation Voters, which has endorsed her, but the words Green New Deal dont appear in the two sentences she dedicates to the environment on her website. She speaks more passionately about local concerns, such as the food deserts in Dayton neighborhoods. If youre searching for comparisons among her would-be generational peers in Congress, shes neither Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New Yorker who has embraced Sanders democratic socialist agenda, nor is she Abby Finkenauer, the Iowan who practices a Midwest pragmatism.

Tims campaign is more centered around education and other institutional failures and grounded in her perspective that the system presents a cycle of barriers to all but a privileged few. I often feel like I got lucky, and I dont think you should be lucky to get into a White House internship, to work on Capitol Hill, she said. I certainly worked hard, but I see so many people I went to school with at Dunbar who are also hard workers, and they didnt get those same breaks.

The message transcends race, but she understands her race is relevant sometimes unpleasantly so to the conversations happening right now.

After attending a Democratic presidential debate near Columbus last fall, Tims and a Black aide were stopped by suburban police while trying to find late-night food. The officers said the car, driven by the aide, was suspicious because it had pulled away from a business that had been closed for hours. They ran the plates and found that the owner had an expired drivers license. Tims, the passenger, interrupted several times as one officer questioned the aide and another approached her side with a flashlight, according to dashcam video and audio obtained by the Dayton Daily News. The encounter never escalated beyond Tims asking for the first officers badge number. In a tweet she sent while they were pulled over and later deleted, Tims asserted she was being harassed for being a brown woman who knows her rights.

At home last month, Tims said she still believes she and her aide were racially profiled, but that after seeing the video she drove the hour to Genoa Township to meet with the police chief and express regret for how she handled the situation. I was like, look, obviously theres bias on both sides, she said. We were looking for directions, Im super hungry, it was a very long day, and I apologize for my perception of what I thought was bias.

Chief Stephen Gammill stood by the officers in a telephone interview this month, saying he didnt believe they could have known the drivers race before approaching the car. He added that he appreciated Tims visit.

Im chalking it up, Gammill said, to a long night at the debate and maybe other experiences shes had in her life.

Tims speaking with Bob Mendenhall of Blind Bob's in the Oregon District in Dayton, Ohio.

And that, really, is the point of the campaign. The experiences of Desiree Tims this little Black girl from West Dayton, as she internalized it for all those years form the core of every argument she makes to be the next representative for West Dayton.

Putting herself out there carries a cost. Her campaign manager says they have taken appropriate steps to document threats with law enforcement. Tims sees and hears more nasty and racist vitriol than ever on social media and in her community. The burden of speaking out fell on her when a local state senator asked if COVID-19 rates are higher among Black people because the colored population does not wash their hands as well as other groups. As a child, marches were fun, a chance to follow. As a Black candidate, protests over systemic racism and police brutality bring an expectation to lead.

Tims worries that a Facebook post advertising her plans to participate in a May 30 protest in downtown Dayton made her a target. As she drove to the protest that morning, she noticed her car, which had been parked in her driveway, had a tire losing air. The problem? Several screws had spiraled their way in. Thats what stuck with me its not a nail, she said. When she left the protest that afternoon, she received the call that the Greene County Democratic Party headquarters in nearby Xenia, where signs for Tims campaign and Black Lives Matter are prominently displayed, had been shot up overnight.

A month earlier someone had chucked a piece of concrete through the storefront window. There have been no arrests, and the cases are closed. An official with the Xenia Police said there was no overt indication of a racial motive or hate crime. Doris Adams, the party chair, believes otherwise, recalling arguments shes had at parades with those who criticized the partys support for the Black Lives Matter movement. They didnt leave a calling card saying it was that, she said. But that was the window they hit. Both times.

Rev. Matthews, Tims pastor, drove her to survey the damage from the bullets after she realized the screws had ruined her tire. Obviously I was full of dismay, but I had to remind her that heroes live with courage out loud, he said. I think these instances have reminded her that shes doing the right thing.

They have. So, too, have the instances that reward Tims hope that voters, not just in the Ohio 10th but around the country, are ready for new representation, whether thats Jamaal Bowman or Mondaire Jones in New York, or Cameron Webb in Virginias 5th District. Webb, who won a four-person primary last month, would be the first Black doctor to be a voting member of Congress. Like Tims, he is trying to pull off an upset in a Republican-leaning district that Democrats see as competitive.

Its certainly inspiring to see people in my generation, millennials to see Black people, to see gay people, to see people whose great-great-grandfather wasnt a state senator go run for Congress and win, Tims said.

Tims points to her large margin of victory in the primary, a contest where she was able to win white, Black, and Latino votes across the districts urban, suburban, and rural areas.

The common denominator is we all want opportunity, she said. We all want access to the American dream. And that is the best language that I can speak: opportunity. So people definitely are taking a look Can this little Black girl from West Dayton do it? And the answer is, I've already done it.

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Her Case To Be In Congress Is Unique. Shes Running Because She Doesn't Think It Should Be. - BuzzFeed News

Reframing cancel culture through the lens of celebrity gossip – LaineyGossip

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(This is the latest installment in our Long Read series. For previous entries, please visit the Long Reads archive.)

Yesterday morning, Harpers Magazine published a letter written and signed by 50 public figures including J.K. Rowling, Malcolm Gladwell, Gloria Steinem, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, and so many more. The letter condemns the concept of public shaming for weaken[ing] our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity. Although never explicitly mentioned, it can basically be read as a condemnation of cancel culture in the wake of protests and calls for reform.

Rowling, youll remember, faced backlash for both posting and defending her transphobic tweets and views. In 2016, Margaret Atwood was criticized for her support of a letter that demanded that the University of British Columbia provide reasons for firing one of its instructors after an accusation of sexual assault. Ironically, Atwood was trending this week for seemingly calling out transphobes by sharing an article about the spectrum of biological sex.

Obviously, the letter was supported by many people. But there were many others who called out its misguided direction and oversimplification. The one line that sticks out to me is, the way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away. Thats definitely why the world erupted in protests, right? Because the exposure, argument, and persuasion that Black lives do indeed matter was going over so well with everyone?

Like many people who decry the disintegration of free speech, it completely ignores the socio-political contexts in which these conversations take place.

The argument also grossly overstates the impact something like cancel culture has on someones right to free speech. Everyone is free to share their opinion. It doesnt mean that people have to like it, support it, or even engage with it. No one has taken away J.K. Rowlings platform. Some of us have just agreed that what she says is sh-t.

This letter is part of a much larger idea that has been floating around in my head for a while, but especially in the past few weeks. In the wake of the protests, many people have been cancelled and have had to own up to their anti-Black racist actions, especially those in the past. Last week I wrote about Shane Dawson, and two days ago Cody wrote about Terry Crews unnecessary defense against the myth of Black supremacy. Even in the past few months, people like Ellen, Doja Cat, Camila Cabello, and Lea Michele have all been cancelled.

But what does it mean to be cancelled? I dont think most people have a clear definition. For some, its a boycott - of their music, their movies, and their work. For others, its a hashtag. I see a #SoAndSoisOverParty trending every week. In its simplest form, cancel culture is public humiliation. For people who rely almost entirely on the support of the public, the idea is that being cancelled can result in an experience that hopefully leads to atonement and correction for the injustice for which the person was cancelled. Its a reckoning for people who arent normally held accountable for a lot of the things they do.

What Im interested in exploring is what happens after someone is cancelled. Can they come back? Should they even be allowed to? When I originally conceived of this piece, I wanted to do a deep dive of cancel culture. It was going to be about whether or not we should cancel people and what the main arguments of both of those sides were. But weve already had those conversations.

Vox wrote an incredible dissection of the issue, including tracing it back to its roots in the Black Civil Rights movement. According to Vox, cancel culture was the modern version of the boycott and bubbled up into the mainstream through Black Twitter. Time Magazines Sarah Hagi wrote about the power that cancelling has to give voice and power to people who historically havent had it. Even The New York Times has weighed in, writing a sort of Cancellation 101.

I highly recommend reading all of the above. Each piece encourages a nuanced conversation about a subject that can be so incredibly polarizing and emotional. Those who are against it point to its ability to shut down discussion and its oversimplification of often complicated circumstances. Those for it see it as a tool for the masses to hold those in power accountable in the only way they can. And after going back and forth for half a decade, you would think that we would have come to some sort of conclusion.

Yet here we are in July 2020 talking about cancel culture. And it has somehow become even more polarizing. So rather than examining cancel culture, I want to reframe it through the lens of celebrity gossip, because thats what we do here at LaineyGossip.

In todays world, cancel culture has now become part of the celebrity ecosystem. As long as social media exists, and as long as we continue to pay attention to what celebrities do, there will be cancel culture. That last point is important too. Cancelling someone by very definition means that at some point they were scheduled. The power and privilege that celebrities have comes directly from the people who support and love them.

At its core, this celebrity-fan relationship is built on trust. We trust that they will entertain us, maybe even that they will represent us, and that their lives are something that we can learn from. This is particularly evident whenever someone gets cancelled because youll see immediate tweets all like, [this celebrity] is cancelled, but thank god [other celebrity] is unproblematic. The idea of the unproblematic fave or the only white man I trust belies that we have a deep belief that the people (or at least the image we have of them) we prop up onto these public platforms will use them responsibly.

When someone breaks that trust, people feel betrayed and disappointed. And once that trust is gone, the whole relationship disintegrates, which is why theyre cancelled. Which means that even if someone maintains commercial success or retains their platform, their social capital and impact are lessened. Its why even years after someone is cancelled, it continues to come up.

Weve already established that cancelling has little impact on someones career, especially the more powerful they are. I mean, Prince Andrew is literally in a picture with a woman who has accused him of sexually assaulting her when she was a minor, and he still gets to decide whether or not to golf in Spain this year. Very often, audiences dont have the same power to administer real consequences. But as the NYT article explains, cancelling is ultimately an expression of agency.

This idea of trust might also explain why cancelling has grown in the zeitgeist. Have you ever been in a relationship where a lack of trust f-cks up other relationships? Over time, weve become more suspicious of celebrities, expecting a downfall to be right around the corner or carefully examining their apology to see whether theyre actually sorry or they want to save face.

So back to my original question. Looking at it from this angle, how does one return from being cancelled? Well, just like when someone breaks our trust in real life, it depends. Theres the severity of the breach, the frequency with which it happened, how long ago it happened, and whether or not someone has grown since. Ultimately, people have to work hard to gain back a persons trust and they have to prove time and again that they changed.

Even still, the unique part about looking at this issue from a trust standpoint is that it acknowledges that there will always a small amount of mistrust. I want to use a Lady Gaga and Beyonc quote from "Telephone" as an example because it perfectly encapsulates what Im trying to say. Also Im gay.

You know Gaga, trust is like a mirror. You can fix it if its broke

...but you can still see the crack in that motherf-cking reflection.

Its that crack in the mirror that outraged people when Kevin Hart explained that he was tired of having to apologize. There was more to the story, but at its core, people were mad that he confirmed what we were thinking: he wasnt ever sorry in the first place.

Therein lies the key to who should and shouldnt come back from being cancelled. Its the desire to grow, change, and to do better. Its the vulnerability of admitting when youre wrong and trying to learn from it. Its being open to criticism and taking responsibility for the hurt that youve caused.

Because cancel culture isnt about preventing people from making mistakes. Thats frequently an argument used against it, but its ill-informed. Cancelling really is about getting celebrities to see the consequences of their mistakes, an important part of the learning process. If you never see any backlash for your actions, how are you going to know if theyre bad?

When it comes to celebrities and famous people, its hard to know whats going on in the background. Which means that while I want to believe that everyone who apologizes truly means it, we know from experience that that isnt true. How can we tell if someone has actually grown and put in the work? Its hard. Years and years of a lack of accountability have made famous people feel entitled to their fame and fortune. Its made men like R Kelly and Harvey Weinstein feel as though theyre above the law.

I think thats maybe why the bar is set so high for people. If the public is going to be convinced that youve changed, theyre going to need a lot of proof. And by now, celebrities know that. Remember when they taught us in school that everything you put on the internet is forever? I feel like people never truly understand how important that piece of advice is. Todays celebrities should know that cancel culture is an occupational hazard. That having to answer for your present and past behaviour is on the job description of being really famous.

Are there cases where it goes too far? Of course. But completely writing off cancel culture as a threat to free speech does a great disservice to the conversations it forces us to have. Ironically, the letter that J.K Rowling and so many others signed ignores all that nuance. By lamenting the oversimplification and emotional reaction intrinsic in cancel culture, theyve oversimplified and emotionally reacted to it themselves!

Perhaps we need to shift the way we view what cancelling looks like. At the centre of this issue is a discussion about the kinds of people we choose to put our trust in, and whether they continue to deserve that trust. The past few weeks have been the Facebook Friend Purge where we really consider whether those with fame are responsible enough to have it. And in doing so, theres an important conversation about how those people have looked and acted a certain way for most of history.

I think the fact that we even have the ability to do this and to hold people accountable is incredible. Its like a class action lawsuit. Theres power in numbers. Cancel culture took away Roseannes show. It brought to light the atrocities of Harvey Weinstein. Even yesterday, it made Halle Berry reverse her decision to play a trans character in a movie (and if you dont understand why thats important, watch Disclosure ).

It is not true that cancelling is always final. While its possible to recover, the work involved emphasizes how fragile but important that trust is. Even with its flaws, if cancel culture makes someone think twice before hitting that tweet button, maybe thats not such a bad thing?

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Reframing cancel culture through the lens of celebrity gossip - LaineyGossip

This Hindi book on Indian secularism could have exposed liberals, but it was ignored – ThePrint

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When a card-carrying secular intellectual challenges the secular orthodoxy of our time and it draws a blank by way of a response, you know that secularism is indeed in a deeper crisis in India than you imagined. Either smug in its ever-shrinking cocoon. Or resigned to its defeat. Or both.

The intellectual is Abhay Dubey, a well-known scholar based at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), with an impressive body of published work. He is a trailblazer for doing social science in Indian languages and a familiar commentator on television. Once a card-carrying Communist, he is known to be a fierce critic of the Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP) politics, unlikely to defect to their camp. The challenge to secularism comes from his latest book, Hindu-Ekta banam Gyan ki Rajniti [Hindu Unity vis--vis Politics of Knowledge, published by Vaani Prakashan] that was released in February this year, at the height of anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act movement. This is the first detailed, well-researched yet provocative book-length critique from a secular perspective of some of the most cherished beliefs of Indian secularism.

In any other country, such a publication would have triggered passionate political debates, responses, and rejoinders. Nothing of that kind happened in the last six months. I have not been able to locate a single serious review so far.

The initial non-response could be a function of language. Abhay Dubey writes in Hindi, and rather demanding Hindi at that (I had to consult dictionary a couple of times). You cant hold it against him, unless you believe that he must dumb-down to the level of babalog Hindi understood by the English-speaking elite. But it is not hard to see why his argument has not travelled to the secular intellectuals that he critiques. This underlines his point about the disconnect between the English speaking middle-class world of liberal-secular ideology and the rest of India.

The deeper reason for silence around Dubeys book could be that it confronts us with an inconvenient truth. It leads us to conclude that if the secular project stares at a historic defeat, it has no one else to blame. It is silly to think that secular politics has been defeated just by some clever and devious political machinations of Narendra Modi or Amit Shah. In the last instance, Dubey holds that the defeat of secular politics is a defeat of secular ideology. This ideology drew and started believing in a caricature of its adversary, floated self-serving myths about the past, subscribed to formulaic understanding of the present and trusted reluctant warriors and non-existent allies to fight the battle for secular India. Dubey holds a mirror to us: the harsh truth is that this defeat is very well earned. We cant refute his argument, for we know it to be true. Yet we cant accept it, for it unsettles our ready-made map of the world we inhabit.

Also read: Hate is hot in India. Colder ideas like constitutional patriotism must work harder to win

Abhay Dubey must be commended for picking up the courage to say that secularism tripped itself by systematically misunderstanding the Sangh Parivar. The arrogance of the Westernised Left-liberal-secular elite made them dismiss the intellectual lineage of Hindutva ideology because it drew inspiration from a religion. This hubris made secular ideologues overlook basic facts about the Sangh Parivar: that it draws upon the social reformist tradition within Hinduism, that its exclusion of Muslims has been successfully complimented by a campaign to include lower-caste Hindus, that it has successfully negotiated its way with modern constitutional democracy, that by demonising it as merely Brahminical and Fascist, we mislead ourselves and fail to understand the reasons for the rise of this ideology. The book prepares us to take on the real adversary, not just a straw-man.

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This is related to the complacent reading of Indias past and present that secularists have perpetuated. Dubeys book shows us how secular historians had convinced themselves and everyone else that Hindu was merely a statistical majority, that the deeper diversities this label covers were more salient, that, therefore, a project of Hindu consolidation was ruled out. This led to the lovely yet lazy belief that the existence of pluralism, composite culture and the moderating logic of democratic politics would negate the possibility of Hindu majoritarianism. Dubey alerts that such a reading distracted us from recognising the historical truth that the self-description of Hindu evolved much before colonialism, mainly in reaction to then ruling political identity of the Muslims, that Hindu unification is a long term structural process aided by modern society, modern law and the logic of modern competitive politics. By moving from politically correct language to a historically correct account, this book helps us understand why Hindutva ideology hasbecome commonsense and why secularism appears anti-Hindu.

Also read: Hindutva rise must be pinned on historians who told us Hindus, Muslims lived peacefully once

No wonder, this distorted understanding led to a myopic politics. Abhay Dubey points out the well-known weaknesses of secular politics: exclusive focus on defence of minority rights, inability to speak against minority communalism with the same force as Hindu communalism, and the tendency to gloss over Congress inconsistencies and failures in upholding secular principles. He also makes bold to question many other secular political strategies: the idea of an imminent revolt against Brahminism, bahujan unity as an antidote to majoritarianism, dependence on dominant OBC castes and better-off communities within Dalits to carry out the project of social justice and fight for secularism, or the assumption of Dalit-Muslim unity. The failure of these strategies is for everyone to see.You may not agree with all of Dubeys critique, or with his historical interpretation in each case. Yet the books project ofidentifying and confronting the weaknesses of secular ideology and practice at this moment of its worst crisis must become a project of our times. This would be painful, but willingness to face it is a sign of confidence, evading this is a sure sign of death.

Abhay Dubey provides us with a resource to undertake this project. He identifiesalternative but overlooked voices within the secular camp that cautioned against such simplistic understanding and short-sighted politics. He draws upon historian Dharma Kumar, sociologists Satish Sabarwal, Imtiaz Ahmed and D.L. Sheth, political scientists Suhas Palshikar and partially Rajni Kothari and Rajeev Bhargav as sources of an alternative understanding that is prepared to look at the inconvenient facts and proposes a more nuanced course of action. We need to takethis quest further to MahatmaGandhis own candid engagement with the Hindu-Muslim question, to Rammanohar Lohia and his followers, and even to Right-leaning thinkers like Dharmpal and Nirmal Verma.

Any such attempt would obviously invite the charge of kowtowingto the powers-that-be, if not of being a closet Hindutva supporter. The author anticipates this reaction and offers a mature response: If so, I would overlook [such a reaction] as a product of despair born out of the continuous defeat of liberalism and secularism in our public life. The only way to respond to this historic setback is to face up to the mistakes of secularism and do a course correction. Abhay Dubey has started this conversation. Let us hope that this early silence would be followed by vigorous debates. An English translation of this book could be the first step in that direction.

The author is the national president of Swaraj India. Views are personal.

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This Hindi book on Indian secularism could have exposed liberals, but it was ignored - ThePrint

Freeing the World of Nuclear Weapons: Arms Control Today interviews Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui – Arms Control Today

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July/August 2020

As the site of the first atomic bomb attack, Hiroshima has served as a vital center for education about nuclear weapons and their effects. The people of the city, along with those of Nagasaki, have been steadfast in their advocacy for abolishing nuclear weapons. The survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings on Japan, the hibakusha, have worked to communicate their experience to global citizens and leaders. Kazumi Matsui, Hiroshimas mayor since 2011, has played a major role in that effort. He serves as president of Mayors forPeace, an assembly of thousands of cities worldwide devoted to protecting cities from the scourge of war and mass destruction.

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, Hiroshima is planning to scale back large gatherings and instead hold virtual events marking 75 years since the August 6, 1945, bombing. Matsui spoke with Arms Control Today on June 23.

Arms Control Today: Seventy-five years after the first nuclear test explosion and the atomic bombings that destroyed your city and Nagasaki, what message do you, as the president of Mayors for Peace, and the people of Hiroshima, including the hibakusha, have for others around the world about living under the dark shadow of nuclear weapons?

Mayor Kazumi Matsui: In August 1945, two single atomic bombs dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki instantly reduced them to rubble, taking more than 210,000 precious lives. With almost 75 years since the bombings, the hibakusha, those who barely survived, still suffer from the harmful aftereffects of radiation. While their minds and bodies are in pain, they, together with other members of the public, continue to make their appeal that no one else should suffer as we have.

However, today, the nuclear-armed states possess about 13,000 nuclear warheads. The destructive power of every one of them is far above the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These weapons could be used by accident or for terrorism. The current situation is far from what the citizens of Hiroshima, including the hibakusha, have been seeking for so long.

This is because the nuclear-armed states and their allies consider nuclear deterrence as essential for their security assurance, prioritizing the pursuit of only their own misguided national interest. However, this poses a grave threat to the survival of us all, the whole of humanity.

The current global coronavirus pandemic is a transboundary crisis that touches us all. We are experiencing firsthand that we can confront and defeat common threats through solidarity and cooperation. Based on what we have learned from this experience, we must build a robust global coalition of citizens everywhere to address and solve global security challenges, especially nuclear weapons. We must not take action based on self-centered nationalism.

I sincerely hope that everyone in the world will share in the hibakushas message and join us in realizing a peaceful world free of nuclear weapons.

ACT: There are now fewer and fewer hibakusha and fewer people who have witnessed the devastation of the atomic bombings. What can be done over the next 75 years to remind current and future generations of the experiences and the messages of the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and the health impacts of the use of nuclear weapons? Are we at risk of forgetting?

Matsui: The average age of the hibakusha has exceeded 82. With their unshakable conviction that no one else should suffer as we have, they have conveyed their experiences and their desire for peace to younger generations. However, if we leave this important task of passing down to the future generations to the hibakusha alone, then unfortunately, sooner or later, there will no longer be anyone able to do so.

In order to ensure that the hibakushas messages will be faithfully inherited and shared with future generations, the City of Hiroshima conducts various initiatives.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum exhibits belongings and photos of victims along with the words of their bereaved family members. Each item conveys to visitors the memories, sentiments, and the pain and sorrow of the victims and the bereaved. In addition, displays on the harm caused by the radiation tell the world of the inhumane nature of nuclear weapons. We encourage all world leaders and their fellow citizens to visit this museum to see the long-term catastrophic effects of the atomic bombings for themselves.

We also have a project to train A-bomb Legacy Successors, volunteers who pass down hibakusha experiences and their desire for peace on their behalf. Today, 131 successors are engaged in such activities.

We also make videos of hibakusha testimonies and collect memoirs in collaboration with the government. We are translating these into many languages so that all can understand their tragic experiences.

We intend to continue our efforts to enrich and expand these and make them available physically and online to share the messages of the hibakusha with the younger generation, who are the future of our society.

ACT: You and others have noted that "vital nuclear arms control agreements are being abandoned, budgets for development and production of new nuclear weapons are growing, and the potential for nuclear weapons use is too dangerous to tolerate. We are badly off course in efforts to honor the plea of the hibakusha and end the nuclear threat. On an international level, how can and should the world get back on track toward nuclear disarmament?

Matsui: We see unilateralism is rising in the international community, and exclusivity and confrontational approaches have increased tensions between nations. Now, the international situation surrounding nuclear weapons is very unstable and uncertain. But why is that? Fundamentally, policymakers should tackle issues, even if they are rooted in local contexts, from a global perspective. However, they are more likely to jump to a short-term compromise, which results in the current international situation.

In order to break the status quo of dependence on nuclear deterrence and get back on track toward nuclear disarmament, it is essential to mobilize civil societys shared values and create a supportive environment to give world leaders the courage to shift their policies.

Those shared values and desires of civil society aim at securing every citizens safety and welfare. As a nonpartisan organization made up of the very heads of local governments responsible for realizing that goal, Mayors for Peace implements a number of relevant initiatives.

Specifically, by utilizing its network of more than 7,900 member cities in 164 countries and regions, Mayors for Peace conveys the realities of the atomic bombings and works to increase the number of people who share in the hibakushas message. In this way, we can build a consensus among global civil society that the elimination of nuclear weapons is key to the peaceful future we need. This consensus will serve as the foundation for a collaborative international environment in which policymakers around the world can take decisive steps forward toward the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

I sincerely hope that all states, including the nuclear-armed ones, will engage in good-faith dialogue led by world leaders who wholeheartedly accept the earnest wish of the hibakusha, that is, the realization of nuclear weapons abolition as soon as possible. Through this, they will surely share wisdom and come up with an approach to make substantial progress in nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.

ACT: What more can be done at the local level, especially by the younger generations, wherever they may live, to support global efforts for nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament?

Matsui: As I understand it, what civil society is sincerely seeking is to secure the publics safety and welfare. But when it comes to big global challenges to the peaceful existence of humanity as a whole, such as the abolition of nuclear weapons, we should not limit our solutions to the framework of nation-states. Solutions should also be based on that sincere desire of civil society at the grass-roots level across the world. I believe that we should spread awareness of this throughout civil society.

My hope for younger generations, the future of our society, is that they will start thinking about the preciousness of their daily lives, which are supported by rules based on mutual trust. Hopefully, they will then understand that this is exactly what peace is and think what they can do to preserve it and take action.

In civil society, which is based on democracy, if every person develops such concepts of peace and takes action accordingly, it follows that policymakers will be elected who can realize our common wish. It is also not a dream for them to become policymakers themselves.

If more people come to envisage a future different from the past and work to realize it, they will become the drive to change the world.

Mayors for Peace puts emphasis on peace education aimed at raising awareness among younger generations as part of its intensified efforts. Through our various programs, we nurture young leaders who engage in peace activities proactively.

ACT: What more can Japans national leadership do to move us closer to the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons?

Matsui: As the only country to have experienced the devastation caused by nuclear attacks, Japan has a responsibility to share the hibakushas sincere desire to abolish nuclear weapons with the world and take the lead on various initiatives to make that a reality.

Japan has a role in international society as a bridge between the nuclear-armed states and the states-parties of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons to foster and promote dialogue and cooperation. To realize abolition as soon as possible, Japan can and should do even more to fulfil this role. I hope this will happen from the bottom of my heart.

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Freeing the World of Nuclear Weapons: Arms Control Today interviews Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui - Arms Control Today