Microsoft to invest $1 billion in Poland cloud – The Jakarta Post – Jakarta Post

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Microsoft on Tuesday announced it would invest one billion dollars in Poland to expand its operations, including the creation of a new regional cloud-computing data hub.

The US tech giant said it had signed an agreement with Poland's state-backed National Cloud Operator to provide "cloud solutions for all industries and companies in Poland", according to a statement on its website.

"Another great global player chose Poland to locate its investment, worth as much as $ 1 billion, the largest in our region of Europe," Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Tuesday on his official Facebook page.

"This is another important step on the road to digitization and accelerating the development of the entire Polish economy."

The investment project is expected to last seven years, Microsoft said.

Microsoft is among the global leaders in providing cloud services -- an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

As well as charging for the service, cloud operators are able to harvest huge caches data and open up many other revenue streams.

The National Cloud Operator was set up two years ago by the state-controlled PKO Bank and the Polish National Development fund to speed development of the digital economy.

Once among the EU's most rapidly expanding economies, growth in Poland is set to shrink by 3.4 percent this year, according to a revised government projection, down from an expansion of 3.7 percent of GDP forecast prior to the pandemic.

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Microsoft to invest $1 billion in Poland cloud - The Jakarta Post - Jakarta Post

DHS’s biometric advanced recognition technology system begins road to the cloud – Biometric Update

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Despite acknowledged privacy risks, though, the required privacy assessment says they are mitigated'

The Department of Homeland Securitys (DHS) Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology System (HART), which is replacing DHSs legacy Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) as the departments primary system for storing and processing biometric and associated biographic information, is a step closer to being realized.

DHSs Office of Biometric Identity Management (OBIM) released the required Privacy Impact Assessment for the initial HART Increment 1 rollout expected in 2021 as the program is being developed to be moved entirely to Amazons GovCloud. However, the new PIA stated, Pending any development or program changes, OBIM anticipates that this will occur in Fiscal Year 2020.

Northrop Grumman was awarded the coveted $95 million contract to develop the first phase of the HART roll out last year, which OBIM director of Identity Operations Division Patrick Nemeth has described as being a much trimmer rendering of IDENT scaled to receive new biometric capabilities.

Indeed, the PIA noted that The data and system architecture have been designed for scalability to address projected growth in identity and image data volumes and to accommodate any needs associated with larger files. HART Increment 1 includes OBIMs design and acquisition of the physical infrastructure for HART, as well as existing internal reporting functionality needed to provide reports to our users, monitor redress requests, and support administrative tasks.

HART serves as the central federal biometric database for national security; law enforcement; immigration and border management; intelligence; background investigations for national security positions and specific positions of public trust; and associated testing, training, management reporting, planning and analysis; development of new technologies; and other administrative uses. OBIM will implement HART in 4 incremental phases. The PIA only focuses on HART Increment 1. OBIM will publish an update to the PIA prior to each Increment of the program

The legacy IDENT system was developed in 1994 by the then Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) as a law enforcement system for collecting and processing biometrics from individuals apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol or immigration officials. Ten years later, DHS deployed the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) Program as the first large-scale biometric identification program to support immigration and border management.

In 2013, US-VISIT transitioned to become OBIM, which in 2015 began planning for the replacement of IDENT with the HART, a more robust system that will provide OBIM with flexible and more efficient biometric data that supports DHS core missions, DHS said, explaining OBIMs mission is to provide identity services to DHS and its mission partners that enable informed decision making by producing accurate, timely, and high assurance biometric identity information.

OBIMs mission partners capture biometric data and submit it to HART to carry out [its] missions and functions, which include law enforcement; national security; immigration screening; border enforcement; intelligence; national defense background investigations relating to national security positions; and credentialing consistent with applicable DHS authorities.

DHS also maintains this information to support its information-sharing agreements and arrangements with authorized foreign partners, the sharing of which DHS says augments the law enforcement and border control efforts of both the United States and its partners. Additionally, DHS is using this information in concert with external partners to facilitate the screening of refugees to combat terrorist travel consistent with DHSs and Components authorities.

DHS said in its new PIA that, Once OBIM completes HART development and technical configurations, HART will replace IDENT as the biometric system of record. HART will store and process biometric data (digital fingerprints, iris scans, facial images (including a photo) and link these biometrics with biographic information pursuant to the data owners authorities and policies for use, retention, and sharing of information.

DNA retention is not included in Increment 1, the PIA pointed out, and is not addressed elsewhere in the document.

HART Increment 1 development is focused on delivering the core foundational infrastructure and baseline existing functionality in IDENT that ensures continuity of services without disruption to existing IDENT users, DHS said, pointing out that HART Increment 1 implements a new data architecture, which includes conceptual, logical, and physical data models, a data management plan, and physical storage of records where each associated record may have multiple associated biometric modality images.

HART Increment 1s migration to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) GovCloud will provide mission partners a biometric matching capability based on multiple biometric modalities (fingerprint (including latent prints), face (including a photo), and iris), and additional means by which to identify an individual such as a unique identifier (e.g., Social Security number (SSN), Alien Number (A-Number)).

Increment 2 will provide additional biometric capabilities for its customers needs, and provide increased interoperability with agency partners and improved reporting features. Increments 3 and 4 will include a web portal and user interface capability, support for additional modalities, and improved reporting tools.

Amazons GovCloud service is required to adhere to the security and privacy controls required by the National Institute of Technologys Special Publication 800-144, Guidelines on Security and Privacy in Public Cloud Computing, as well as DHSs Chief Information Officer.

The new PIA did note, however, a system security plan has not been completed for the information system(s) supporting the project, saying OBIM is in the process of obtaining the Authority to Operate for HART, which is supposed to occur by the end of the year. OBIM is expected to publish updates to the PIA before operationalizing additional increments and functionalities.

While the PIA states, there is a risk that HART facial image matching results may be inaccurate or result in a disproportionate impact to certain populations, it said, OBIM mitigates this risk by conducting face matcher tuning to optimize accuracy and system performance. The face matcher tuning evaluates face algorithms for biographic, biometric, and contextual factors.

There is also a recognized privacy risk that non-matching facial images are disclosed to HART authorized users, but that this should be mitigated. The PIA explaining that In the case of the 1 to 1 facial recognition service, if the match does not return a match/no-match result, the facial images are reviewed by OBIMs facial examiners in [OBIMs] Biometric Support Center [BSC], and non-matching faces are not disclosed to HART users. HART may generate a candidate list as an investigative lead as part of a 1 to Many service, and that OBIMs BSC may review candidate lists and provide them to authorized HART users for use as an investigative lead only, and not the sole basis for any law enforcement action.

Another potential risk noted in the PIA is that the quality and integrity of information collected and maintained in HART may not have sufficient quality required to serve its purpose of biometric and biographic verification and matching, thus potentially causing misidentification.But, presumably, according to OBIM, HART mitigates this risk by requiring fingerprints, which are unique identifiers, and basic biographic information, to establish an identity in HART.

Finally, concerns have been expressed within DHS, contractors, developers, employees, engineers, users, etc., over whether the COVID-19 pandemic will substantively delay even the deployment of HART Increment 1, given the discovery of a more virulent mutated strain and projections of 3,000 deaths a day in the U.S. through August. OBIM acknowledges there have been pandemic-related setbacks and that the deadline may well be pushed back until the end of the year if not well into 2021.

DHS has been silent regarding the pandemics impact on not only this program but many others in which large numbers of essential employees and contractors have been required to abide by federal social distancing requirements.

Amazon | biometric database | biometrics | cloud computing | Department of Homeland Security | DHS | facial recognition | fingerprint recognition | iris recognition | law enforcement | Northrop Grumman | United States

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WFS highlights subsea digitalization innovations – Offshore Oil and Gas Magazine

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Subsea Cloud Computing Network.

(Courtesy WFS Technologies)

Offshore staff

LIVINGSTON, UK WFS Technologies has received two Spotlight on New Technology Awards from the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC).

Its first award was for the Seatooth SmartClamp, a smart, wireless structural monitoring system (SMS) for use on subsea structures. It incorporates the Seatooth wireless data processing and transmission platform offering short, medium and long-range hybrid communication options. As a result, the tool includes strain, vibration, pressure, and temperature monitoring.

The second award was for the Subsea Cloud Computing Network (SCCN). This is enabled by integrating with a SCM to create a subsea Wi-Fi hotspot. Seatooth smart devices, with edge computing and low power management systems are able to wirelessly connect directly to the network or cross-pollinate data using AUVs or ROVs for data harvesting.

The company said the SCCN reduces both operating and asset integrity management costs as well as capex and risk while also extending a fields operating life and reducing its carbon footprint.

WFS also won the Small Business Award, which recognizes companys with less than 300 employees.

Seatooth technology enables the automation and digitalization of subsea assets through its ability to communicate through steel, ground, sea water and the water-air boundary, the company said.

05/06/2020

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BridgeHead launches public cloud offering which runs on Microsoft Azure – Digital Health

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BridgeHead Software has launched a public cloud solution, which runs on Microsoft Azure, for its Independent Clinical Archive (ICA) system, HealthStore.

HealthStore enables health organisations to consolidate, store, protect, and provide authorised access to information outside of the electronic healthcare record (EHR) for clinical and operational needs.

Previously, HealthStore was run from a private cloud solution. Now, healthcare providers are able to take advantage of a best-of-breed healthcare data management solution for accessing and managing patient and administrative information through its lifecycle while using Azures compliance and privacy protections, as well as its state-of-the-art compute, storage, security among other services.

Mike Ball, chief business development officer at BridgeHead Software, said: With a growing number of healthcare organisations looking to integrate health and care services, the challenges facing data security, protection, access and analysis are becoming increasingly more complex.

We are pleased to offer HealthStore in the Cloud with Microsoft Azure as this will allow healthcare providers to adopt cloud-first principles and start to use their information strategically. This will improve patient care, improve operational efficiencies, decrease cost and reduce risk.

Microsoft offers a comprehensive cloud computing service for healthcare, with a significant footprint in hospitals across the globe and a continued dedication to the industry. Using BridgeHeads position as a data management and clinical workflow experts, in tandem with Microsofts leading-edge innovation in cloud technology, we are bringing to market a very unique and valuable solution for hospitals worldwide.

By adopting HealthStore, whose customers include Southampton Football Club and the England and Wales Cricket Board, in the public cloud, healthcare IT organisations can now adopt a flexible and measured (data first) project management approach.

Gareth Hall, senior director for worldwide health solutions at Microsoft, added: As healthcare moves closer to a cloud-first policy, the inevitable question remains: how do providers get information locked into their applications into cloud?

For healthcare organisations to transition to the cloud, whilst meeting all of their governance and compliance obligations, they need robust, reliable, compliant cloud-ready solutions that can ingest information using open healthcare data standards. Solutions, like HealthStore in the Cloud from BridgeHead Software, can provide this clinical and administrative repository.

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COMMUNITY VOICES: Reflections on the plague – The Bakersfield Californian

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The plague is real. The death, suffering, pain and loss it brings are real. The loss of a parent or grandparent is real. The loss of a mother or father is real. The loss of a child is real. The loss of a friend is real. Many have lost jobs, income and a sense of future. Many, isolated at home, have lost the close, warm connection with family, friends and the world outside their front door.

Plagues bring death to humans, as they have to the millions who died in the Black Death of the middle ages and the Flu Pandemic of 1918. And as we face and reflect on the terrible reality of this current plague, we can in our time of waiting think about the plague in a different way, as well, think of the plague as a metaphor.

During this difficult, hermetic time, I have reread Albert Camus The Plague. A novel, written in 1947, it describes what happens when a deadly plague strikes the French Algerian town of Oran and how various people react to it, especially when the whole town is quarantined and shut off from the rest of the country. Many think Camus saw the plague in this novel as a metaphor for fascism, how it infects people with its deadly ideas.

As I, like many of you, have adjusted to this hermit way of living, I have also thought about the plague as a metaphor, a metaphor for human existence: how humans cause the death of things like tolerance, love, truth, wisdom, natures beauty and authentic pleasure. And, of course, how we cause death through the plague of war.

Wars and rumors of wars. I cant think of a time without wars. Especially now when we are so connected globally and daily hear about wars in other lands. Of course the last century saw millions die through World Wars I and II. And we almost obliterated ourselves in nuclear war, which might still be a possibility. And not only do we die, but we have killed off many other living species through our reckless exploitation of lands and oceans. Even the planet is in danger through climate change.

And while we are free, many live under totalitarian regimes that forbid the freedom of thought and religion. When will that plague end?

Intolerance and hatred drive wars and their devastation. Political divisions and religious differences are but a few of the plagues of hatred that still rage in our midst.

Oh, those others, they are so evil. Although we have eliminated the plague of slavery, we still spread the plagues of racism, sexism, homophobia and more.

This current plague has once again exposed the plague of inequality. I grew up in Detroit where now many of those who have died are black and/or poor. We have not eliminated economic insecurity for many of those who work hard at minimum wage jobs, and who have no health insurance. We have not provided the homeless with shelter, food and care.

We cherish our freedom, yet we live our ordinary, normal lives in the plague of consumerism, where we are infected with the need and desire to buy, buy, buy whatever is new, whatever promises us a fleeting, superficial glory and joy of the beads of success. We shine outwardly and diminish inwardly.

What, then, can this plague teach us as we reflect in our stay-at-home time? Certainly, we must be even more conscious of our love of family and friends, our love of their voices and hugs. We must care for those who suffer from want and indifference. We must see the plagues we bring upon ourselves and others. To do this we must be aware of the carriers of our human plagues. In Camus The Plague, the carriers are first rats, then people. For us the rats are too often those who use social media to spread hatred and untruth. We must, through reflection and spiritual growth, become immune to the hatred they spread.

Yes, we must grow our compassion for all of us, in our community, our nation, and our world. We must stop our plagues. As the poet W.H. Auden said in his poem September 1, 1939, We must love one another or die.

Jack Hernandez is a retired director of the Norman Levan Center of the Humanities at Bakersfield College.

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May Day Is Red And Green OpEd – Eurasia Review

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May Day, or International Workers Day, is celebrated with marches and rallies every May 1 to lift up the working people and their demands for freedom, equality, and justice. That is the Red tradition of May Day. But there is also an older Green tradition in which cultures the world over celebrate as Spring arrives in temperate and arctic climates or the wet season arrives in tropical climates. This Green tradition of May Day celebrates all that is free and life-giving on the green Earth that is our commonwealth and heritage. These Red and Green May Day traditions are complementary.

Historian Peter Linebaugh, in hisThe Incomplete, True, Authentic and Wonderful History of May Day, provides an evocative description of the Green tradition of May Day:

Once upon a time, long before Weinberger bombed north Africans before the Bank of Boston laundered money, or Reagan honored the Nazi war dead, the earth was blanketed by a broad mantle of forests. As late as Caesars time a person might travel through the woods for two months without gaining an unobstructed view of the sky. The immense forests of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America provided the atmosphere with oxygen and the earth with nutrients. Within the woodland ecology, our ancestors did not have to work the graveyard shift, or to deal with flextime, or work from Nine to Five. Indeed, the native Americans whom Captain John Smith encountered in 1606 only worked four hours a week. The origin of May Day is to be found in the Woodland Epoch of History.

Everywhere people went a-Maying by going into the woods and bringing back leaf, bough, and blossom to decorate their persons, homes, and loved ones with green garlands. Outside theater was performed with characters like Jack-in-the-Green and the Queen of the May. Trees were planted. Maypoles were erected. Dances were danced. Music was played. Drinks were drunk, and love was made. Winter was over, spring had sprung.

The Red tradition of May Day developed in response to the rise of capitalism, which undermined the Green tradition of May Day that people the world over had celebrated for millennia. Beginning in the 1500s in a process that continues to this day, landlords and capitalists have increasingly dispossessed working people from their land, their tools of production, and thus control over their means to life.

In the 1500s, rich landowners, with the support of the state, began to appropriate and take exclusive ownership of ancient public lands and forests, enclosing them for their own private profit-seeking purposes. Peasant communities lost their communal use of common fields and forests for grazing animals, hunting game, and gathering food and wood. This process continues today in many parts of the world.

The next stage of dispossession developed with the rise of the factories of industrial capitalism, which underpriced the handcrafted products of artisans, who then became dependent on capitalists for employment in the factories. In the U.S., the American ideal of republican liberty grounded in the economic independence of a free citizenry of small farmers and artisans gave way to a more inequitable class society of many workers and increasingly fewer capitalists, alongside a moderately-sized middle class of professionals and managers. The working people no longer had their freedom grounded in the economic independence provided by their own land and tools. They were now dependent on capitalists for their means of livelihood. When they crossed the threshold of the workplace, they entered a dictatorship where they had to work as directed and surrender their political rights to free speech, press, and assembly in the workplace. They received a fixed wage, while the owners took all the additional value that their labor created. They soon began to call their oppressive and exploited condition wage slavery in a conscious comparison to the conditions of African slaves on southern plantations.

The workers movement that arose in response began to organize labor unions and political parties around of program of cooperative production where workers would democratically manage their collective work and workers would receive the full fruits of their labor. They reasoned that economic democracy in cooperative production was the only way they could restore their freedom and achieve a decent standard of living under the conditions of large-scale production. The first political party in the world to raise this program which soon became known as socialism arose in Philadelphia and New York City in 1929 when labor unions organized the Workingmens Party. The Workies elected the president of the carpenters union to the state Assembly of New York.

The author of the Workies platform resolutions, Thomas Skidmore, soon penned a book calledThe Rights of Man to Property!He argued for common ownership of large-scale means of production, universal public education, a debt jubilee, and land redistribution. He called for the abolition of private inheritance with estates going into a public fund for distribution of a share to each person upon adulthood. He called not only for the abolition of slavery but for reparations, for land and a share of the nations wealth to the former slaves to help them get started on their farms. He called for citizenship for American Indians and suffrage and equal rights for women. With an eye to environmental protection, he decried the destruction of the planets resources that would eventually result from capitalisms promotion of the unrestricted use of unlimited private property.

This Red tradition of socialism can be seen as a way to recover the ecological sustainability that the Green tradition of May Day rejoiced and sanctified. It will take the full political and economic democracy of socialism to give the people the power to choose ecological balance instead of being powerless subjects of capitalisms competitive structural drive for the blind, relentless growth that devours the environment. Hence Green Party activists often describe their perspective as ecological socialism.

The Red tradition of May Day emerged in the 1880s in the United States. It arose out of the workers movement fighting for the same kinds of demands that the Workies had raised in 1829. The immediate impetus came from the Haymarket Massacre in 1886. On the night of May 4, 1886, 176 Chicago police attacked about 200 workers who remained after a day-long demonstration for the 8-hour day. The police fired live ammunition, killing four and wounding 70. Somebody threw a stick of dynamite. Eight of the labor organizers were charged and convicted. Four of them were hung to death. One of the Haymarket martyrs, Albert Parsons, a white former confederate soldier married to Lucy Parsons, a former slave of African, Indian, and Mexican descent, said at this trial, What is Socialism or Anarchism? Briefly stated it is the right of the toilers to the free and equal use of the tools of production and the right of the producers to their product.

Lucy Parsons campaigned across the United States and Europe to have the workers movement commemorate May 1 as International Workers Day. Many workers organizations supported her call, including the American Federation of Labor, which then urged its adoption by the Second International of socialist parties. The first international May Day celebration in 1890 was a big success. The demonstrations worried the establishments across the world. After Coxeys Army descended on May 1, 1894, in the first mass march on Washington, D.C. to demand public works spending to employ the unemployed in the midst of severe depression, President Grover Cleveland got Congress to declare a federal Labor Day holiday in September in a move designed to divide the labor movement.Green Party members will be joining with other working peoples organizations to commemorate International Workers Day this year online given the social distancing we must practice in this coronavirus pandemic.

What Greens can do to bring to these events is an understanding of the connections between the Red and Green traditions of May Day.Conservatives try to red-bait Greens as watermelons green on the outside but red on the inside. But we dont take that as an insult. We will be on the ballot line in November as the Green Party, but there is plenty of Red as well as Green in our platform.

*Howie Hawkins is the leading candidate for president for the Green Party of the United States, see HowieHawkins.US for more information.

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The Right Stuff: Is this America today? What happened? – Fairfield Daily Republic

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Earl Heal: The Right Stuff

Last week we reviewed the primary concepts that Americas Founders developed in writing the Constitution. This week well review changed concepts and resulting effects made since the Constitution was ratified.

13th Amendment-Slavery Abolition: The first change was good. Some yet condemn the Founders for not abolishing slavery. The Founders took pragmatically available action toward limiting slaverys future. Had they insisted on abolition in the original Constitution, there would never had been a United States.

Sovereignty of the States: The first major violation of Founders intent was ratification of 17th Amendment directing that senators are chosen by state popular vote as opposed to appointment by state legislators. Senators are thus not obligated to represent interests of their state and, like representatives, serve the emotion of the masses. It was argued that the prior appointment system was fertile for corruption, but this change removed an important Founders check and balance concept separation of powers. James Mason explained in Federalist No. 51. The remedy . . . is to divide the legislature into different branches, and to render them, by different modes of election and different principles of action as little connected with each other. . . . Honestly, do you see Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Sen. Kamala Harris primarily acting in accordance with the Founders expectations?

Freedoms: Free speech zones where authorities say you may speak is not freedom. A conservative student on the Berkeley campus promoting membership in his group was beaten and sustaining brain damage that may be permanent. The offenders, though identified, are not being prosecuted. Religious freedom is now only to worship as others dictate. Oregon bakers were fined $115,000 for exercising their faith with no harm to anyone. Military chaplains, officers and enlisted have been formally disciplined, including discharge, for expressing religious beliefs. Conservative speakers have been barred from numerous events, in fear that Antifa and others will start yet another costly riot.

Government size: State governments were intended to be laboratories of government with each competing for better policies. The Great Depression decimated our nation. No nation anywhere had developed income insurance, an unforeseen result after the Industrial Revolution. By 1935, 30 states had implemented a form of economic insurance. Roosevelts federal Social Security program was actuarially sound. As the Supreme Court in 1937 granted approval to that first federal social program, it perhaps unwittingly opened the door for unlimited future federal social programs. Congress has frequently increased Social Security benefits and converted it from income insurance into a welfare and retirement program. Because employee/employer contributions were not proportionally increased, the Social Security piggy bank will soon be broke.

The Founders fear of centralized powers and government has been justified after 1937. A federal law to establish minimum wages instead of marketplace determination has, with one exception, had the unintended consequence of increasing unemployment among the target group, minimum wage workers. The War on Poverty, started in 1965, is the ultimate proof of the Founders wisdom and has cost $28 trillion to date.

Two-thirds of recent federal budgets are funding entitlement programs. The Heritage Foundation last year found the total number of federal government employees has increased by approximately 500,000 since 1965 yet it is difficult to name a federal program that has justified its expense. Poverty level remained at near 11% until 2009 when it increased toward 15%. Operation Head Start, an early preschool program, has serious problems: Every evaluation, including one requested by Congress in 2012, documented that any early advantage when entering elementary school disappear by the third year. Mental health issues have climbed dramatically since states were dismissed from primary responsibility. Fraud, distant supervision and incompetence is not unequivocally documented but enough smoking guns and logic suggest it is endemic.

Education, form of government and economic principles will be reviewed next week to identify those changes and results.

Earl Heal is a retired Air Force officer, Vacaville resident and a member of The Right Stuff Committee of the Solano County Republican Party. Reach him at [emailprotected].

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"We need to rethink some things" to emerge from this pandemic stronger – Charleston City Paper

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Members of Charleston's poorest and ethnic minority communities say they can help build a more resilient state in the wake of the pandemic.

"We're living in a time, unfortunately, that is trying and putting to the test the fairness, the equity of all of our systems," says Bernie Mazyck of Summerville, who serves as CEO of the S.C. Association for Community Economic Development. "It should give everyone, up and down the social strata, give all of us a moment to pause and look at what we currently have, to reflect upon it and say, 'Something's wrong here, we need to rethink some things.'"

African Americans in the state are more likely than white people to die from COVID-19. Furthermore, those who have trouble accessing health care are less likely to be tested, and some of the lowest wage-earners in the state are the ones keeping essential services, such as grocery stores, running. Advocates say those at the margins have been impacted harder by the pandemic than the mostly white middle class.

"(Rebuilding) will require centering the voices of black people and indigenous and poor folk and immigrant communities," Charleston activist Tamika Gadsden says. "There needs to be a needs assessment that needs to be people led ... using grassroots organizing to listen to folks to let them tell folks what they need."

According to the 2018 census estimates, South Carolina's black population comprises 27.1 percent of the state. Hispanics account for 5.9 percent and Native Americans account for 0.5 percent of the population. White residents represent 68.5 percent of the population.

"Politics aside, take a step back and look at the people who have continually exposed themselves and [their] families to this virus so we can have food on our table," journalist and immigrant advocate Fernando Soto of Charleston says. "Take a step back and take it all in and realize, while we go through this pandemic together, we're not all in it together in the same way."

It was a sentiment repeated by many.

"Black folks and Latinos and other marginalized, low-income communities, they're the ones on the front lines," North Charleston Democratic Rep. J.A. Moore says. "Until we protect folks in the community I represent, not just identity-wise, then the whole state is vulnerable, the whole idea of taking care of the least of these because the least of these is who takes care of us."

Mexican immigrant Sonia Villegas of North Charleston says while many people in the state have tried to stay home during the pandemic, many in the immigrant community have had to work.

"Unfortunately, we are people who live day-by-day and we need to work," she says. "There's a lot of friends who have been able to stay home but a lot of single moms I know, they have to go out and look for the food and work every single day. If they don't work, they can't feed their children."

For some, the pandemic has exposed underlying inequities and could be the start of a conversation about the disparities' root causes. And, they say, now is the time to listen to the communities most deeply impacted by the virus and the economic fallout.

"If you're looking at trying to improve the conditions of people in a society, you have to look at the least of these, you have to look at those that have been historically neglected. The solutions on how we move forward have to be a bottom-up approach," North Charleston Democratic Rep. Marvin Pendarvis says. "If you do those things, in the long run you will be able to ensure prosperity."

Gadsden says the black and minority communities of South Carolina are not better prepared to weather catastrophe due to anything "supernatural."

"This isn't genetic, our ability to adapt and respond after being slighted, under-resourced, under-served," she says. "It's a byproduct of white supremacist culture ... It's the vestiges of slavery in this state and its inability to make amends."

Sabrina Grey Wolf Creel of Walterboro, a board member of the Edisto Natchez Kusso Tribe of South Carolina, says ethnic minorities and those earning a low income offer a unique viewpoint.

"We fight a lot of different things that most people don't fight every day," she says. "We might be a minority but we are still here where it would have taken other people out ... Low-income, minority groups, the difficulties that we face, that the average American doesn't, is one of the strongest things that keeps us survivors."

Republican Statehouse candidate Samuel Rivers, who is vying for his former seat held by Moore, said it isn't just a black-and-white issue. It's about what everyone wants.

"Everyone wants the same things: a good education, safe streets, the ability to send their children to college, financial security, good health, peace and tranquility," Rivers says. "It's just finding the different road maps to get there. When we do that we will come up with a balanced approach on how we can rebuild our state."

The very people who were left out of the Great Depression's New Deal and who have recovered the least since the Great Recession remain skeptical that the government can help or that any lasting change will result.

"We have had those experiences where we looked at institutions for help and we expect them to rebuild and, time and time again, black and brown people have been left behind," Soto says.

Still, there is hope. Soto says he has seen a shift on social media with more people caring about the fates of low-income workers, regardless of immigration status.

Gaining equal access to health care was a key concern for many, with some saying the state should reevaluate expanding Medicaid, an option the state has declined since 2009. Some of the states that initially declined Medicaid expansion have since expanded the federally supported service to include more people.

"The need right now, more than ever, is to expand Medicaid," Moore says. "Now is a time to not play politics and expand Medicaid so we can really ensure people can have the health care coverage we need."

In addition to expanding Medicaid, Moore says state lawmakers need to do better in funding the state departments that focus on health, the environment, and mental health.

Soto says people who are not insured also have difficulty in obtaining coronavirus tests. For that reason, he said, there should be skepticism when looking at S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control's demographic data for COVID-19, which lists 6 percent of cases as Hispanic.

"That's very concerning because that number seems very minute," he says. "To this day, I don't know where anybody would go for a free test. Hispanics, by and large, have to pay for things out of pocket because they don't have health care coverage."

Education for adults and children was another recurring theme.

"It takes upfront investment in our citizens. I don't think we can commit to long-term resiliency in South Carolina without investing in how we educate our kids," Moore says.

Mazyck of Summerville says South Carolina needs to rally around teachers post-pandemic.

"One of the things that's clear from this pandemic and this shelter-in-place order that we are currently living under everyone will say teachers are gold, and as such we should pay them as the gold that they are. The General Assembly has to be forced to increase the budget for teacher pay," he says.

Gadsden says marginalized communities cannot have equal footing without equal education, and she says South Carolina needs greater investment in education for communities of color. She says the majority-black counties are too often at the bottom in education, and minorities are too often left out of the best schools in a district.

For Emory Campbell of Hilton Head Island, education needs to extend beyond traditional education, especially for minority communities.

"We strengthen them by sharing the history with them or reteaching. Allowing families to begin to learn their history and their culture and that's how you strengthen the community, empower the community to do what they do best," Campbell says. "The rural communities in South Carolina and the communities along the coast, what they need most is education and how-to programs."

Campbell, retired as leader of the Penn Center on St. Helena Island, says those how-to programs should teach everything from gardening to finances. Born into the Gullah community of Hilton Head, Campbell says the community is made more vulnerable now by loss of identity and loss of skills.

"We dragged them off to work, we educated them poorly and yet they're the ones that had the resources to develop themselves," he says.

Soto says the immigrant community is facing a different challenge: parents are out working and cannot help children with school work, and sometimes the parents don't speak the language or have enough education to help.

Raising the minimum wage, affordable housing

Pendarvis says he's hopeful that there will be consideration for raising the minimum wage and addressing affordable housing.

"So many people in vulnerable communities, they work 9 to 5, they work minimum wage, and that's not enough for them to take care of their children and pay rent and utilities," he says, adding it also speaks to an affordable housing issue in the state. Both lead to financial instability for the most vulnerable, he says.

Mazyck says the pandemic has shown who the most essential and yet most underpaid workers are in the state.

"When you look at the bus driver, the Uber driver, the restaurant server, the fast-food server, when you look at all of those professions, the health professionals up and down the professional ranks, we now see how important those people are to our quality of life and to our economy but they're the ones paid the least, paid on an hourly basis," he says. "Then in order for them to live, housing is unaffordable so they oftentimes are living in substandard housing."

Mazyck said crises sometimes lead to low-income workers borrowing from high-interest payday or title loan lenders, a stopgap that could further undermine their financial situation.

"Those types of lenders, in a lot of cases, are predatory. They don't build or help that customer to help them get out of that loan or build that credit rating," he said. "As a result they fall further and further into economic dismay so we need financial systems that work so folks can access them. Some of that might require more financial education, credit counseling."

Rivers says financial preparedness of the individual will help people weather storms like this better.

"People need to be a little more financially prepared for times like these," he says. Financial preparedness and helping some South Carolinians get out of "the renting stage" will help people become more self-reliant, he adds.

Creel says she's noticed a bright spot from the pandemic: People are spending more time with family and with God.

"The pandemic took away shopping, sports events and all these things," she says. "It made you put back into focus the things that really matter like your family, your household, and making sure your neighbor is well taken care of as well. It's almost like a pause in time to see where you really are."

She said she hoped people will continue with a new perspective moving forward.

"For us to go stronger, it's putting God back in the center of it and [moving] forward," Creel says. "Love your neighbor as you love yourself."

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"We need to rethink some things" to emerge from this pandemic stronger - Charleston City Paper

Coronavirus Is Making the Case for Black Reparations Clearer Than Ever | Opinion – Newsweek

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The COVID-19 crisis only heightens the urgency of black reparations. Long overdue, they are now more essential than ever.

Mounting statistics confirm disturbing evidence of racial disparities in reported coronavirus deaths. In Wisconsin, perhaps the state with the most extreme ratio of black morbidity, black people represent 6 percent of the population and 40 percent of the deaths. Those African American deaths have occurred at a rate 700 percent higher than black people's share of the state's population. In our home state of North Carolina, black people account for 22 percent of the population but close to 40 percent of the deaths.

So what explains these disproportionately large numbers of black people dying of the coronavirus?

Black people are overrepresented in jobs designated as socially essential but paying low wages in transportation, food and health services, as well as child and elder care. These are jobs where the physical distancing now needed for health safety is not possible. Consequently, African Americans are reduced to a Hobson's choice: either having a greater risk of outright job loss or continuing employment in unsafe occupations. Horrifying as these deprivations are, they are not new. They are just the latest example of how racism and discrimination play out in America.

There have been numerous historic moments when America could have eliminated racial inequality and granted blacks access to the same opportunities as whites. When the nascent republic was formed in 1776, it could have embraced black people as full citizens. At the end of the Civil War, when newly emancipated African Americans were promised 40-acre land grants, the country could have reversed many of the economic effects of enslavement. Black enfranchisement could have been protected during the Reconstruction era, and anti-lynching laws could have been passed, reversing the trajectory of racial injustice. The New Deal and the GI Bill, had they been administered equitably, could have given African Americans the kind of financial cushion so desperately needed now. And when, nearly 60 years ago, civil rights legislation was passed, the legislation was weakly enforced, and with it the nation lost another chance to become a true democracy.

The denial of the promised 40-acre land grants for newly emancipated blacks at the end of the Civil War was accompanied by the award of large tracts of land to whites. These awards are what Neel Kashkari calls "free equity." In this case, one group is provided a gift of a lucrative asset. Kashkari, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis president, defines free equity as unearned or unmerited gifts that provide a substantial boost toward economic security and well-being.

Kashkari is referring to the 1862 Homestead Act and the Southern Homestead Act of 1866. These initiatives made grants of 160 acres to heads of household, for a minimal filing fee, with the goal of occupying the western territories. These outright gifts of real estate and its use privileges, to encourage settlements and farms, could be handed down to subsequent generations. With extremely rare exceptions, black people were systematically excluded from these programs, leaving them without any subsequent margin of protection, including the current economic collapse.

Ultimately, white supremacy has produced three stages of grievous racial injustice: slavery, legal segregation in the United States (America's apartheid regime), and ongoing discrimination in housing, employment, policing, access to credit and health care, compounded by mass incarceration. These three stages of atrocities establish the case for black reparations.

So, what, exactly, do we mean by black reparations?

Black reparations refer to America's denial of the promised 40-acre land grants to newly emancipated black people at the end of the Civil War. The long-term effect is black American descendants of persons enslaved in the United States constitute 13 percent of the nation's population but possess less than 3 percent of the nation's wealth. At the household level, the gap constitutes a black deficit of $800,000 in average net worth. To bring the native black share of the nation's wealth at least into equivalence with its share of the population would require $10 trillion to $12 trillion.

A suitably crafted reparations initiative can erase the racial wealth gap by raising the black level to equal the existing white level. Indeed, as we write in our new book, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century, "We view the racial wealth gap as the most robust indicator of the cumulative economic effects of white supremacy in the United States."

Without the cushion of wealth, black families are exposed to greater vulnerabilities. The hard realities of the pandemic make this painfully clear. Wealthier families can better negotiate unpredicted losses of income due to unemployment, vehicle breakdown or catastrophic illnesses. Typically, black workers toil in low-wage jobs, living from paycheck to paycheck. The black unemployment rate generally is double the white unemployment rate; the implications are ominous when the overall unemployment rate is projected to reach 30 percent.

Why does the pandemic intensify the urgency of a reparations program?

The black-white mortality disparity can be attributed, in part, to the disproportionate presence of pre-existing conditions, including asthma, diabetes, heart disease and hypertension. This is aggravated by inequitable medical treatment.

The deeper root of black susceptibility to COVID-19 is greater black financial peril, indexed by the gulf in black and white wealth. Four white American billionairesJeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberghave about as much wealth as 90 percent of black Americans.

The federal government can pay for reparations. The rapid enactment of the legislation of a $2.2 trillion economic rescue package proves Congress can find the needed money when motivated to do so. We know, now, the debt can be paid. We only need the will to do it.

William A. Darity Jr. is the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies and Economics at Duke University. A. Kirsten Mullen, the founder of Artefactual, is a folklorist, museum consultant and lecturer whose work focuses on race, art, history and politics. Their book, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century, is newly available from the University of North Carolina Press.

The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.

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Coronavirus Is Making the Case for Black Reparations Clearer Than Ever | Opinion - Newsweek

5 Scenes In Game Of Thrones That Are Real (& 5 That Are CGI) – Screen Rant

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In the annals of television history, Game of Thrones will surely go down as one of the most visually ambitious. This show, more than any other, showed that the medium of television is, in fact, capable of capturing the grandeur andepic scale more typical to full-length features.

RELATED: 10 Character Inconsistencies in Game of Thrones

A great deal of that success has to do with the ease with which the series shifts between scenes that are real and those that are CGI, often suturing us into the alternate reality of Westeros. Today, we'll look at several excellent examples from both sides of the coin.

One of the most traumatizing moments in the entire series (and thats saying something) comes from seeing the road to Meereen lined with crucifixions. In this instance, Dany has decided that the most fitting way to inaugurate her conquest of the city (and to show her devotion to ending slavery) is by crucifying the former Masters, leaving their corpses as a warning. Its all the more troubling for the visceral reality of it, and it is a harbinger of the dark things to come.

The city of Braavos, famous for its assassins and for its fencing masters, is loosely based on the city of Venice. Unlike some of the other cities in the series, it is actually portrayed with quite a lot of detail, and we are even treated to a magnificent overhead shot of its expanse. Its quite a breath-taking view, and the fact that it is CGI is a potent reminder of just how much technology can accomplish.

Game of Thrones made audiences everywhere gasp when they killed off one of their main characters at the end of the first season. What makes it even more compelling to watch is that you know that these are real actors reenacting this traumatic scene from the novel upon which the series is based.

RELATED: Game Of Thrones: 10 Things That Might Have Happened If Ned Stark Survived

Sean Bean deserves a lot of credit for bringing Ned Stark to life, in particular imbuing his last moments with the tragic nobility that is such a part of his character.

Though it is based on the real Hadrians Wall in the north of England, the Wall of Westeros is far more vast in scope, towering many, many times the height of a giant (let alone a man), and imbued with powerful magic. It comes as no surprise, then, that the series uses CGI to bring it to life. This allows them to show us how truly vast this construction is, particularly when juxtaposed to the tiny humans crawling upon it, desperate to reach the lands of the south.

At the beginning of the series, we are treated to several scenes of the siblings Dany and Viserys walking through the sun-drenched city of Pentos, where they are the guests of one of the citys powerful merchants. The fact that these scenes are real rather than CGI gives them an immediacy, a sense that we, too, are there in that space of security, a place where Dany can have at least a little bit of peace before she begins her path toward power and madness.

One of the most exciting scenes is when Dany first begins to ride Drogon. Its a potent reminder of just how powerful these beasts are, and how they fundamentally change the nature of the war that Dany is about to wage against her enemies in Westeros. The fact that, somehow, the wizards in charge of the series CGI made Drogon, as well as the other dragons, so convincingly realistic is a testament to their tremendous skills.

Beneath her pleasant and disarming exterior, the character of Margaery Tyrell (played by the inimitable Natalie Dormer) shows again and again that she has the cunning and the subtlety to survive the Game of Thrones (for a time, anyway). Her marriage with Tommen marks the second time that she is bound to the fates of House Baratheon and, as one of the scenes that is actually shot rather than CGI, its a reminder of the splendor that the royal court can summon.

Cerseis magnificent plan to destroy the Great Sept of Baelor (as well as everyone inside of it) is one of her crowning achievements as a character, however terrible it may be.

RELATED: Game Of Thrones: 10 People Cersei Should Have Been With Other Than Robert

Even though we know that it is produced through the magic of CGI, it is still breathtaking and horrifying to watch this magnificent structure that has stood for so long as the heart of the Faith of the Seven reduced to nothing but smoldering ruins, a sacrifice on the altar of Cersei's vengeful ambition.

It is one of the meetings that would reshape the entire history of Westeros, the fateful encounter between Jon Snow and Dany, one of them the bastard nephew of the other. Once again, the fact that it is real makes it so that one can sense the energy crackling between these two people, both of whom have their own ambitions, their own purposes for Westeros, that will eventually set them on a collision course. The beautiful, if imposingly austere set design is also to be appreciated.

Sometimes, there is nothing as exhilarating to watch as a magnificent fleet setting sail on a voyage of conquest. That is certainly the case when Danys fleet at last sets sail from the continent of Essos, bringing an army with which she hopes to finally conquer Westeros and bring about the fruition of all of her dreams. At this point, we do not yet know how her journey will end, and so we can simply immerse ourselves in the beauty of watching theships brought to life.

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Economic Decline and the Threat of Fascism – CounterPunch

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With the recent addition of twenty-six million people to U.S. unemployment rolls, and millions more in the informal economy cast adrift by actions taken to address the coronavirus pandemic, a political response of sorts is sure to be underway. While superficial economic comparisons to the Great Depression are already being put forward, the U.S. has now had three-plus years of political comparisons to the rise of European fascism without the economic conditions of the Great Depression. Both are off-base for reasons specified below.

The economic comparisons ignore the government response in the form of increased and extended unemployment benefits for those lucky enough to be counted as officially unemployed. At a high level, as millions are experiencing extraordinary economic hardship, some time has been bought before absolute catastrophe proportionate to the Great Depression is cemented as our fate. While it is little solace to those suffering, the systemic problem should the pandemic ease is that already tenuous economic relationships will take some time to be rebuilt.

Enough of these tenuous relationships have already been broken so that widespread and deep economic misery will persist. A Federal Job Guarantee could in theory provide useful employment at a living wage for those who dont get hired / rehired due to frictions like businesses permanently closed by the pandemic. As the corporate bailouts demonstrate, the Federal government has spending capacity limited only by real resources. However, four decades of neoliberal reforms have rendered ad hoc mobilizations in the public interest improbable.

State capitalism (corporatism) has produced a division of labor amongst the political class, with Republicans serving dirty industries while Democrats serve Wall Street. Social expenditures can be either publicly or privately funded. Wall Street profits from private funding. The Democrats austerity policies are imposed to boost this private funding. This currently finds Republicans leading calls for bailouts for their patrons as Democrats feign ignorance of how public finance works to ask how public expenditures in the public interest will be paid for?

Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, in the very pit of the Great Depression, on a platform of economic renewal attached to racial scapegoating. The American explanation of this rise proceeds from racial scapegoating without mention of the American contribution to it, the material circumstances of the Great Depression or the Nazi platform of economic renewal. Source: voxeu.org.

This is roughly analogous to the roles of liberals and conservatives in Weimar Germany before the political ascent of the Nazis. The difference now is that the West isnt yet in a new Great Depression. The broader question of whether this is a relevant analogy has had little impact on the banal and simplistic analogies being made. However, it would be foolish, given the circumstances, not to think the question through and act if needed. The American view that ideology drives history was developed after WWII to explain the rise of European fascism without addressing the role of capitalism in creating the Great Depression.

To understand the improbability, instances of well fed, well housed and well employed people who were motivated by ideology to join fascist movements in material numbers have little historical precedence. The best known case in the U.S. was the Business Plot of 1933 led by Wall Street financiers. Again, the backdrop was the Great Depression and the financiers sought to reverse New Deal reforms they claimed impinged on their liberty. The plot was revealed by self-proclaimed gangster for capitalism, U.S. General Smedley Butler, who the coup plotters had tried to enlist.

The notion of ideology as driver of history in present circumstances European fascism, was developed by members of the Mont Pelerin Society where neoliberalism was founded as pragmatic capitalism. Founding member and erstwhile philosopher Karl Popper lent a left-wing patina to the economics of the radical right to what came to be known as the Chicago School, through studiously ignoring or misrepresenting the work of Marx and Heidegger to create an American view. The philosophical problem with pragmatism is that it depends on unstated premises. What is pragmatic for the richsay reducing wages, may be its opposite to workers.

According to SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center) data, the number of white racist groups in the U.S. peaked in recent history in 2008, at the onset of the Great Recession. Despite U.S. President Donald Trumps toxic racist chatter, this number has been falling throughout his tenure in the White House. Last year, 2019, saw the lowest number of white racist groups since 2008. While any number greater than zero is too many, charges that Mr. Trump is leading a fascist resurgence arent borne out by this data. Source: SPLC.

Through this American view, a morally and politically corrupt leader uses psychological coercion to lead weak willed followers into the fascist abyss of racialized, militarized slaughter. The myth that Nazis were a working class revolt led from below is belied by the close ties of the Nazi leadership to leading industrialists in Germany and the U.S., and even the British royals. That ideological accounts leave as a footnote, or exclude entirely, the role of the Great Depression in creating the material conditions in which the logic of fascism took hold suggests that they are motivated by willful ignorance and / or economic interests.

Karl Poppers pragmatic philosophy of science saved the American technocratic view of it as method divorced from ideology. While few who have spent more than a few minutes thinking about it support this view the structural ontological premise of subject-object dualism is wholly ideological, it was realized after WWII when the U.S. brought dozens of Nazi scientists to the U.S. to work in American industry in what was dubbed Operation Paperclip. That these Nazis were able lift themselves up to contribute to American genocides in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and so forth and so on is heartwarming in an evil-incarnate kind of way.

Coming after WWII, this newfound pragmatism was used to separate the modern American era from three centuries of slavery, genocide against the indigenous population that was still ongoing when the Nazis came to power, the American eugenics program that is still found in state law in the U.S. in 2020, and the genocidal tendencies of the imperial era. If ideology motivates history, what ideology motivated this history? Before answering, you may wish to ask yourself if you agree with the Nazis that race is an ontological, rather than a historical, category.

The difference is crucial. What it means in plain language is that if race is an intrinsic quality, then racist tropes like black criminality can be attributed to natural differences between the races rather than to the history of racialized class relations, strategies of economic expropriation like slavery and convict leasing, and the use of the law to support and maintain exploitative class relations. As Karl Poppers science has it, there is remarkably little support for the claim of intrinsic distinctions outside of historical class relations. This doesnt reduce race to a class issue, so-called class reductionism, but by placing it in history, it takes it away from the Nazis.

A question that Americans should probably ask themselves, but almost certainly wont, is: would they recognize a fascist government if they were its beneficiaries? Of course, the question assumes that there are any beneficiaries of fascist governance. But what if these Americans lived in nice houses and had their fill of consumer goods while the state created the largest prison system in human history in both absolute and relative terms, turned the civil police force into a military force with impunity to kill some classes of citizens, and wealthy oligarchs and corporate executives assumed de facto control of the state?

The point isnt the pulp right-wing theme of lost liberty, but rather the idea that unless youre on the losing side of history, abhorrent conditions for other people tend to be invisible. The perennial question for Germans a generation ago was how many knew of Nazi atrocities? Separately, a significant literature arose around the Nazi economic miracle. Adolf Hitler ascended to power in 1933, the pit of the Great Depression. The circumstances in which he rose to power, and his ability to put large numbers of unemployed Germans to work, produced different realities for ordinary Germans and the millions of victims of the Nazis.

None of this is to argue moral, political or historical equivalence between the U.S. and the Nazis. There are points of intersection and divergence. The question is: can there be radically different lived experiences of so-called liberal Democracy? How can a free nation have the largest absolute and relative carceral population in world history? Military production might explain why surplus military equipment would be made available to civil police forces, but the availability of equipment doesnt explain the militarization of the police. And the presence of militarized police has different meaning in poor neighborhoods than in rich.

It would be encouraging if the liberal class, which includes most of the American left, were looking at economic conditions when worrying publicly about the threat of ascendant fascism. If people are well employed (Job Guarantee), have shelter and food security (Green New Deal) and a functioning healthcare system (Medicare for All), the threat of ascendant fascism is minimal, no matter what foul blather emanates from on high. Again, the number of racist groups has been falling throughout the last four years, not rising as MSNBC, CNN and the New York Times have spent recent years asserting.

But the issue cuts deeper still. The liberal class is willing to live with deplorable conditions for an already large and sure to be growing proportion of the population. And its role as agent of the rich makes it morally and politically culpable for these conditions without the benefit of being rich. This gives a material basis to its preference for ephemeral ideological, explanations of the rise of European fascism. If blame can be placed with an errant leader rather than serial crises of capitalism, then changing leaders means they can keep capitalism.

The neoliberal solution to the fascist threat was / is pragmatic capitalism. Anyone with a leftish understanding of capitalism knows that there is no such animal. What is pragmatic for one class isnt for another. For instance, the 2009 bailouts came on the backs of working people (austerity) and bank borrowers (foreclosures). This makes austerity particularly not constructive for those worried about ascendant fascism. It was the austerity that followed earlier bailouts that set the stage for Donald Trump. As profoundly not constructive as Donald Trump is, he didnt create the conditions that led to his political ascendance. Liberals did.

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Astronomers find closest known black hole to Earth, hints of more – KING5.com

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The black hole is about 1,000 light-years away, but it's close enough that the stars around it can be seen by the naked eye.

Meet your new but shy galactic neighbor: A black hole left over from the death of a fleeting young star.

European astronomershave found the closestblack hole to Earth yet, so near that the two stars dancing with it can be seen by the naked eye.

Of course, close is relative on the galactic scale. This black hole is about 1,000 light-years away and each light-year is 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion kilometers). But in terms of the cosmos and even the galaxy, it is in our neighborhood, said European Southern Observatory astronomer Thomas Rivinius, who led the study published Wednesday in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The previous closest black hole is probably about three times further, about 3,200 light-years, he said.

The discovery of a closer black hole, which is in the constellationTelescopium in the Southern Hemisphere, hints that there are more of these out there. Astronomers theorize there are between 100 million to 1 billion of these small but dense objects in the Milky Way.

The trouble is we cant see them. Nothing, not even light, escapes a black holes gravity. Usually, scientists can only spot them when they're gobbling up sections of a partner star or something else falling into them. Astronomers think most black holes, including this newly discovered one, don't have anything close enough to swallow. So they go undetected.

Astronomers found this one because of the unusual orbit of a star. The new black hole is part of what used to be a three-star dance in a system called HR6819. The two remaining super-hot stars aren't close enough to be sucked in, but the inner star's orbit is warped.

Using atelescope in Chile, they confirmed that there was something about four or five times the mass of our sun pulling on the inner star. It could only be a black hole, they concluded.

Outside astronomers said that makes sense.

It will motivate additional searches among bright, relatively nearby stars, said Ohio State University astronomer Todd Thompson, who wasnt part of the research.

Like most of these type of black holes this one is tiny, maybe 25 miles (40 kilometers) in diameter.

Washington, D.C. would quite easily fit into the black hole, and once it went in it, would never come back, said astronomer Dietrich Baade, a study co-author.

These are young hot stars compared to our 4.6 billion-year-old sun. Theyre maybe 140 million years old, but at 26,000 degrees F (15,000 degrees C) they are three times hotter than the sun, Rivinius said. About 15 million years ago, one of those stars got too big and too hot and went supernova, turning into the black hole in a violent process, he said.

It is most likely that there are black holes much closer than this one, said Avi Loeb, director of Harvards Black Hole Initiative, who wasnt part of the study. If you find an ant while scanning a tiny fraction of your kitchen, you know there must be many more out there.

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Super Flower Moon 2020: All you need to know about the last super moon of this year – Jagran English

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Publish Date: Wed, 06 May 2020 03:47 PM IST

New Delhi | Jagran Lifestyle Desk:The final super moon of the year will be seen on Thursday 7th May, worldwide. That will exactly be the time when a full moon is expected to occur at the closest point to Earth during its orbit, making it appear way too larger and brighter than usual.

The phenomenon, though will start appearing from sunset itself, but will be visible to its fullest glory during 10:30-11:30 PM, Indian Standard Time according to NASA.

Also Read: Super Flower Moon 2020: When, where and how to watch last 'Super Moon' of this year

The May moon has earned its "flower" nickname as a dedication to the spring in the Northern Hemisphere part of the globe. NASA said in a statement that the nomenclature traces back to the Maine Farmers of USAs Almanac in the 1930s.

The full moon measures about 0.52 degrees wide in the night sky at an average, and on May 7 it will be about 33 arc minutes (0.55 degrees) across. A clenched fist can get you the reference for it measures about 10 degrees wide at your arm's length, a report from space.com stated.

Though binoculars and telescopes are not specifically required, but these devices can certainly provide a more unadulterated view of the magnificent event.

Such super moon events are usually the affairs full of glitz among the astrophysics enthusiasts, but the Space Centers in India and beyond are closed for the normal public in the wake of novel Coronavirus pandemic.

So your homes balcony or buildings terrace is all youve got for a super moon view this time amid the lockdown in-place to contain the spread of coronavirus pandemic.

Also Read: Super Flower Moon 2020: From Aries to Virgo to Pisces, how supermoon will affect your zodiac sign

According to CGTN, while a super moon is considered less serious and scientific than an eclipse, it represents a chance to encourage people to start looking at the moon. The next full super moon won't come around until late April in 2021.

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Lessons from above: U of T astronomers help bring the heavens into homes during COVID-19 – News@UofT

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If you are searching for homeschooling activities for your children or looking to try a new hobby during the pandemic, now might be the perfect time to turn your gaze toward the heavens as the weather gets warmer. From stars and galaxies to the cultural importance of the night sky, theres a fascinating universe out therewaiting to be explored andastronomers from the University of Toronto can help guide you on your journey.

The moon, for example, is obviously easy to spot and can be followed through its phases. Percy, who is also affiliated with the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education andhelped develop curriculum for elementary and high school students, suggests budding astronomers keep a moon diary, noting their observations. Arethere lighter and darker regions visible or are they able to glimpse a face on the surface of the moon? Its good practice, he says, because science is based on recording observations.

Those searching out planets will find Venus shining brightly throughout May, very low in the west after sunset. Mercury, which is usually too close to the sun to be seen, will appear close to Venus on May 21, Percy says. To know what to look for when and where, its best to use a star chart. Percy recommendsSkymapsor an interactive star chart fromSky and Telescope.

For those who cant get out to view the night sky or who simply want to learn more, Dunlap is a co-sponsor ofDiscover the Universe, a program that offers daily astronomy-at-home talks at 2 p.m. daily for young people. The universitys partner,The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada(RASC), offers regular presentations, with aneducation sectionthat contains activities and links that are especially useful for children learning online. U of T astronomers, meanwhile, have createdCosmos on Your Couch, a series of weekly talks on YouTube.

Today at 7 p.m., Percy will be talking about archeoastronomy during a Cosmos on Your Couch livestream(above). He says he will explore astronomy of pre-technology civilizations, which used the daytime and nighttime sky as a calendar and compass.

It was high-tech for them, he says, noting earlier civilizations found direction and marked time by looking at the sky. Clocks would be set based on the position of the sun and sea captains had to learn basic astronomy because they navigated by the stars, Percy says.

People also looked to the heavens for religious reasons.

It is preserved today in the names of the planets because they were assumed to have a connection with the gods, Percy says, noting that Mars is the Roman god of war, Venus the goddess of beauty, and so on. Much of what can be seen in the sky is similarlyimbued with cultural meaning. Different cultures see different things, Percy says.

When physical distancing measures are lifted, Percy suggests attending one of RASCs star parties atThe Riverwood Conservancy. Its anopportunity for those who have become familiar with the sky to see different telescopes in action and talk to fellow stargazers.

Be curious, Percy advises. Theres a whole universe up there.

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Doctor Whos Timeless Child Retcon Rewrites the 20th Anniversary Special – Screen Rant

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Doctor Who's Timeless Child retcon actually rewrites the 20th anniversary special. CurrentDoctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall promised season 12 would change everything, and he wasn't understating the case. The season 12 finale revealed the Doctor is not a Time Lord at all, but rather is the "Timeless Child," a being who may well predate the universe itself.

The retcon works surprisingly well with elements of classicDoctor Who, particularly some Tom Baker stories and the plans of script editor Andrew Cartmel in the 1980s. Yet, it causes a number of major continuity problems when it comes the modern relaunch, clashing with stories from the Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi era. As a result, the fanbase is rather divided about whether the Timeless Child is a good idea or not; it's probably best toreserve judgment and see what Chibnall builds on this foundation.

Related:Frozen 2's Elsa Twist Has The Same Problem As Doctor Who's Timeless Child

The Timeless Child retcon also subtly rewritesDoctor Who's 20th anniversary story, "The Five Doctors." This was a multi-Doctor adventure unitingRichard Hurndall's version of the First Doctor, Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor, Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor, and Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor; production sleight of hand also allowed the show to incorporate Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor. The concept was a simple one: the Doctors, some of their key allies, and their oldest enemies had all been scooped out of time in order to participate in the so-called "Game of Rassilon." The man behind at all was Borusa, the Doctor's old teacher and Lord President of Gallifrey, who sought the prize of "perpetual bodily regeneration", i.e. immortality. In the end, it turned out this was all a trap set by Rassilon to identify any Time Lord psychopathic enough to believe they deserved eternal life.

"The Five Doctors" is widely regarded as one of the bestDoctor Who stories of all time; although the script is stepped in fan-service, it all serves a purpose, and the overarching narrative works perfectly. Curiously, though, the Timeless Child retcon adds another dimension to it. According toDoctor Who season 12, the Timeless Child has an unlimited number of regenerations, and it became the base genetic code for the entire Time Lord race. These proto-Time Lords - presumably including Rassilon - believed immortality was too dangerous, and they artificially imposed a cap on the number of regenerations a Time Lord could go through.

Viewed through the lens of the Timeless Child retcon, the entire Game of Rassilon is a deliberate trick on Rassilon's part. He believed future Time Lords could still seek immortality; they could potentially unlock this either by studying the Timeless Child or editing their own genes. The legend of the Game of Rassilon would distract any Time Lord who sought eternal life, leading them away from the Timeless Child, and thus into Rassilon's trap.

Here, of course, is the irony: when Borusa decided to claim the prize of immortality, he chose the Doctor as his pawn. He had unwittingly singled out the Timeless Child himself, the one being who possessed the secret of unlimited regenerations. Had he but looked at the Doctor, rather than at the Game of Rassilon, then Borusa may well have achieved his goal.

More:Classic Doctor Who May Have Revealed The Timeless Child's Fate

GTA Theory: Why There Are No Kids In Grand Theft Auto 5

Tom Bacon is one of Screen Rant's staff writers, and he's frankly amused that his childhood is back - and this time it's cool. Tom's focus tends to be on the various superhero franchises, as well as Star Wars, Doctor Who, and Star Trek; he's also an avid comic book reader. Over the years, Tom has built a strong relationship with aspects of the various fan communities, and is a Moderator on some of Facebook's largest MCU and X-Men groups. Previously, he's written entertainment news and articles for Movie Pilot.A graduate of Edge Hill University in the United Kingdom, Tom is still strongly connected with his alma mater; in fact, in his spare time he's a voluntary chaplain there. He's heavily involved with his local church, and anyone who checks him out on Twitter will quickly learn that he's interested in British politics as well.

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Doctor Whos Timeless Child Retcon Rewrites the 20th Anniversary Special - Screen Rant

Fantasy Football Podcast: The immortal Frank Gore, Best Ball draft recap, and is AG the new CMC? – Yahoo Finance UK

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The year is 3042. In a future incredibly different from our present, Frank Gore rushes for another touchdown.

Okay so hes not that old, but his longevity does make one wonder about Gores potential immortality, as it was announced that he would be signing with the New York Jets.

Matt Harmon is joined by Dalton Del Don to discuss that signing and much more in the latest fantasy football podcast.

[Create or join a 2020 Yahoo Fantasy Football League for free today]

Now that Gore is a member of Gang Green, should we as fantasy players be worried about LeVeon Bell? (02:30)

Speaking of running backs, Washington head coach Ron Rivera made quite the statement recently, saying rookie Antonio Gibson has a skill set like Christian McCaffrey. Soon, well find out that Antonio Gibson is already in the best shape of his life, has lost 20 pounds, and has put on 30 pounds of muscle. (06:41)

Elsewhere in the NFL, the fifth-year option wheel began to turn, as both the Bears and Titans declined to pick up the options of Mitchell Trubisky and Corey Davis, respectively. (10:37)

Oh, and Andy Dalton signed with the Dallas Cowboys like we all suspected he would. (23:15)

To wrap things up this episode, our experts recap what they learned recently from a 10-team Best Ball draft. (27:33)

Fun fact: Frank Gore was considered injury prone early in his NFL career.

Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe on your podcast provider of choice and send us your questions for future episodes on Twitter@YahooFantasy.

Follow Dalton @DaltonDelDon

Follow Matt@MattHarmon_BYB

Check out the rest of the Yahoo Sports Podcast family athttps://apple.co/2Abi8jkor atyahoosports.com/podcasts

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Fantasy Football Podcast: The immortal Frank Gore, Best Ball draft recap, and is AG the new CMC? - Yahoo Finance UK

In Amazons clever Upload, theres an app for the afterlife – The Boston Globe

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There has been no shortage of TV shows about the boons, the flaws, and the threats of digitizing the human mind, not just Black Mirror, the top manufacturer of tech nightmares, but Westworld, Altered Carbon, Devs, Years and Years, and many more. But Greg Danielss new TV series, Upload, is a digital-mind story with a singular identity, one that blends sci-fi with romantic comedy, social satire, and, wedged in there neatly, crime drama. The closest thing Ive seen to it is Her, the bittersweet Spike Jonze movie where Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with an operating system; but Upload is very much its own thing, and a good thing at that.

Watching the Amazon series, whose entire first 10-episode season is available Friday, I marveled at the way Daniels has set up the world of 2033. Its hard enough to create an earthbound sitcom premise thats sturdy and distinct, but Daniels has done that while toggling among a number of different realities not terribly unlike The Good Place, from his Parks and Recreation cohort Michael Schur. On the show, which is an elaborate vision of self-driving cars and 3-D printers that make food, humans nearing death can have their consciousness uploaded to an online afterlife of their choice. Once bodiless, theyre catered to by the human programmers who monitor them in their heaven. When an upload has a question, they shout Angel, and the programmer shows up to help sitting at a computer with a mic in the human world, by avatar in the virtual world.

If it sounds complicated, it isnt, and the rules of the Upload-verse unfold easily and, when it comes to bits about avatar vanity and advertising in heaven, comically. By the way, the nature of an uploads stay in heaven where he or she can change the weather as a human might change a TV channel depends entirely on their survivors; theyre the ones who pay monthly for the uploads residence, and each luxury the upload desires in heaven has a price tag for their survivor on Earth. Thats how Daniels cleverly brings capitalism into his concept; even when it comes to immortality, money is the bottom line, and there is a clear class structure. If David Foster Wallace had written a TV comedy, it might have looked a little like Upload in terms of the commercialization and branding of eternity.

The Upload story line revolves around a guy named Nathan (Robbie Amell), who dies young and winds up in a relatively hoity-toity heaven thanks to the generosity of his girlfriend, Ingrid (Allegra Edwards). Hes a somewhat thick-headed and self-centered guy, and shes a superficial dimwit (with her long blond hair, she struck me as Bad Alexis, a cold version of the daughter from Schitts Creek); so they make a fitting pair. But in his afterlife, Nathan is beginning to deepen, and Ingrid is beginning to drift. And Nathan and his programmer angel, Nora (Andy Allo), are developing feelings for each other, even though the rules forbid relationships between uploads and angels. Nora, a lovely person whose romantic life in the real world is wanting, also begins to realize that Nathans death in a self-driving car may not have been as accidental as it seemed.

Theres something eerily timely about Upload, as its central romantic pair are not able to touch skin to skin. It made me think of this moment of social distancing (along with the 2007 series Pushing Daisies), as longing comes to the fore and becomes an end in itself. But theres also something universal about the show, as it takes on immortality our hunger for it, its grand promises, its inevitable shortcomings. The show isnt a brainy enterprise like The Good Place, but it certainly gestures toward big questions about the soul and whether its the sum of our history and our personality or something more, something ineffable. Also, what if anything happens to notions of religious afterlife, and the spectrum of heaven versus hell, when a form of heaven is available for a price?

The acting is good enough all around, although a few of the characters notably Ingrid and her family, but also Nathans family are underdeveloped. If there is a second season, I hope Daniels and his writers will attend to some of the shallower characterizations. Allo is the only standout as a woman whose intelligence and sincerity drive much of the story line. In a world of ones and zeroes, zeroes and ones, her humanity is a welcome sight.

UPLOAD

Starring: Robbie Amell, Andy Allo, Allegra Edwards, Chris Williams, Kevin Bigley, Owen Daniels, Zainab Johnson

On: Amazon. First season available Friday.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at matthew.gilbert@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewGilbert.

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In Amazons clever Upload, theres an app for the afterlife - The Boston Globe

Decade’s best No. 2: Lancers set out on mission in 2013 to win baseball state title and did just that | News, Sports, Jobs – Williamsport Sun-Gazette

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SUN-GAZETTEFILEPHOTOLoyalsock players celebrate after winning the 2013 PIAAClass AA state championship against Beaver, 5-4, at PennState. It was the programs second state title and first since 2008.

EDITORS NOTE: This is a series looking back at the Top 10 high school baseball teams, coaches, games and players from the last decade.

Those watching Loyalsock warm up throughout the 2013 season could have used a translator when trying to decipher what the letters and numbers on their shirts represented.

QC68.8.

What read more like an obscure radio stations calling card was actually a message. The QC represented quiet confidence and the 68.8 stood for the distance between home plate at Loyalsock and Penn States Medlar Field at Lubrano Park. The message was clear: Loyalsock was on a mission to reach the state final.

And they did. Loyalsock won the Class AA state championship as well, capturing the programs second state crown since 2008 and joining Montoursville as the only area teams to ever win baseball state titles.

The road to high school baseball immortality, though, felt at times like it stretched out 68.8 light years instead of miles. Loyalsock overcame one of its best players leaving it at midseason, a series of injuries and a painful district final loss to reach its ultimate destination and goal. Nothing came easy and maybe that is why it meant to much then and likely means even more now.

It really is a dream come true, Loyalsock coach Jeremy Eck said while holding his son Elijah following the dramatic 5-4 state championship win against Beaver. Every one of these guys has so much heart and theyre all gamers.

This journey really began in 2012 when seven decorated freshmen who would go on to help Loyalsock win 90 games and two state titles in four year arrived. That team went 22-3 and captured a district championship before losing to Philipsburg-Osceola in the first round of states. With all those players back as well as talented senior captain Ethan Moore, Phil Krizan, Caleb Robbins, Bailey Young and Rocco Lupo, to name a few, Loyalsock appeared poised to take the next step.

And following a 9-5 early-season loss against South Williamsport, Loyalsock certainly looked the part of state title contender, winning 13 straight games. Kyle Datres and Luke Glavin already had committed to pitch at North Carolina and Duke, respectively and formed a dynamic duo. Datres, though, was limited early in the season because his basketball season went deep into March. Moore stepped in brilliantly filled a huge void, allowing just one run that season and going 4-0 with a 0.34 ERA. Moore opened the season with 26 2/3 straight scoreless innings and Loyalsock backed its pitching with a potent offense which helped it outscore opponents by five runs per game. Datres, Robbie Klein and Jimmy Webb all hit over .400 and Tommy Baggett drove in 26 runs. Moore delivered a series of big hits in key situations, showcasing his leadership all year as the teams only senior starter.

There were thorns in the roses, however. In addition to a player leaving the team, Loyalsock also suffered a big blow when it lost center fielder Nick DiFrancesco to a season-ending injury. Moore was nearly lost for the year as well, but fought through a painful back injury. Other players were banged up as well and Milton hit a walkoff grand slam to stun Loyalsock, 10-7, in its regular-season finale.

It seemed that game was a sign of things to come because districts was a grind. The state title journey was nearly over before it started when Towanda built a 3-0 first-inning lead. Despite managing just four hits, Loyalsock escaped with a 2-1 victory before facing rival Montoursville in the semifinals. In a battle of heavyweights, Loyalsock again found a way to beat an excellent team. Webb cut down the lead runner at home from right field in the top of the seventh, Datres threw a three-hitter and Robbie Klein drew a walk-off walk as Loyalsock won, 2-1, and clinched a state tournament berth.

Loyalsock was just getting by and, ironically, it might have been a loss in its next game which ignited the state championship push. The Lancers had swept the regular-season series from Hughesville but the Spartans denied them a second straight title, winning an epic district final, 7-5, in nine innings. Loyalsock overcame a 5-1 seventh-inning deficit to force extra innings but Hughesville was the one celebrating at Bowman Field and the loss took an already motivated team to another level.

Instead of the loss breaking Loyalsock apart, it pulled it closer together. A band of brothers then started their march toward Penn State, outscoring three straight district champions who were a combined 61-8 by a 23-6 margin, starting with a 6-0 win of one-loss District 2 champion Lakeland.

It just shows that anything is possible if you work together, Moore said following the Eastern final. Thats what were doing and its a great feeling. Im so proud to be on this team.

It shows what kind of team we have. Were fighters, said Webb, who finished his scholastic career with an area decade-high 151 hits. No matter what happened during the year someone always stepped up and weve never given up.

That showed in the quarterfinals against District 3 champion Delone Catholic. Loyalsock trailed, 5-1, in the third inning before scoring three times in the fourth and pulling within one. The game was then suspended two days due to rain and Moores two-run double ignited a big fifth-inning rally as Loyalsock won, 9-5.

It was a actually a blessing in disguise because (two days earlier) we didnt come ready to play and we got off to a terrible start and we knew if things continued that way it wasnt going to be pretty for us so we came back and turned things right around, Datres said after throwing four scoreless innings of relief. We talk to each other every day about how much we want it. We wanted it more than them and it showed.

An extra day of rain made Datres eligible to pitch in the Eastern Final against a Salisbury team which had romped its way to 25 wins. Salisbury featured three pitchers who had ERAs under 2.00, a stacked lineup and were coming off a 9-5 quarterfinal win against Hughesville. It appeared it would be all hands on deck for pitching duties, but Glavin delivered the performance of his young career, throwing a complete-game three-hitter as Loyalsock routed Salisbury, 8-1, and captured the Eastern Region championship. Every Lancer produced at least one hit, symbolizing how complete this team had become.

A lot of people were lost this season and were still a little banged up, but it was a great team win, Moore said afterward. What it took today was heart and desire and we definitely had that.

They had a seasons worth of it against Beaver (20-1) in the state final. This was a back and forth game against a team which had not allowed a run in three straight state tournament games and it was a microcosm of the entire year. Datres pitched another gem but Salisbury tied the game with two outs in the seventh. Unfazed, Loyalsock attacked in the bottom of the inning when Robbie Klein was hit by a pitch and Robbins ran, going to second on a perfectly-placed Moore bunt. Baggett was intentionally walked and the stage was set for Bailey Young to deliver arguably the most memorable hit in program history. Young lived every high school players dream and smashed a walk-off single. Loyalsock had traveled those 68.8 miles and Robbins sprinted the final 180 feet like he was wearing a jet pack.

After all the ups and downs, Loyalsock had become Pennsylvanias Class AA king.

Were a family and when you get to this point you have to be a family. You cant just have a bunch of guys trying to get it done, Eck said. You have to come together as one unit and were doing that right now. I love these guys. They give me everything they have. Me and the coaches would do anything for these kids and its great to get this opportunity.

And they would earn another one just a year later. But again, Loyalsock would travel a long and winding road there.

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Decade's best No. 2: Lancers set out on mission in 2013 to win baseball state title and did just that | News, Sports, Jobs - Williamsport Sun-Gazette

Apex teaser hints that resurrecting may have corrupted Revenant – Dot Esports

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Screengrab via PlayApex

Revenants rampage in Apex Legends could be a side effect of his immortality. The latest teaser hints that the simulacrums excessive resurrections may have corrupted his systems over time.

The teaser shows a research note on Project 617, Hammond Robotics callsign for Revenant. The note states that although the simulacrum is operational, each data transfer can slowly degrade his programming and possibly lead to a system-wide corruption.

We hypothesize this corruption will compound at an exponential rate; It is likely that the subject will experience significant program collapse if transference is repeated indefinitely, the note reads.

The research note lines up with established facts about Revenant. Previous teasers show a Hammond Robotics employee stating that the simulacrum crossed the line a hundred rezzes ago, evidencing the repeating nature of his comebacks.

The date of the research notes also provides an approximate timeframe for the experiment. Apex Legends likely takes place two or three decades after the tests, which would line up with Revenants character trailer.

Revenants corruption disabled a part of his programming called the ego retention system. It tricks simulacra into seeing human versions of themselves instead of their synthetic appearance, and Revenants rampage is tied to a failure in that part of his programming.

Popular season four motifs such as Revenant and Hammond Robotics will make a comeback in Apexs fifth season, titled Fortunes Favor. Loba, the next legend, lost her parents by the hands of Revenant and will seize the opportunity for her revenge.

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Apex teaser hints that resurrecting may have corrupted Revenant - Dot Esports

Digital Afterlife Is Less Than Heavenly In Amazon’s ‘Upload’ 05/05/2020 – MediaPost Communications

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Heaven is merely a mouse click away in the new Amazon Prime series called Upload.

The problem is, this particularversion of heaven is not altogether heavenly. And that might be because it is not positioned specifically in the marketing materials as heaven per se, even if it does offer prospective customers anattractive vision of a deluxe digital afterlife.

But heaven? Not exactly, learns this shows protagonist, a young man named Nathan (played by RobbieAmell).

Nathan becomes a somewhat reluctant new resident of digital heaven after he suddenly dies in theultimate tech-era mishap -- a fatal smash-up following a software glitch in the operating system of the driverless car in which he is riding.

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While beingrolled down a hospital hallway on a gurney, and being told he will die at any moment, Nathan is more or less forced to sign a bunch of papers full of words that he will have no opportunity to read. Inthis way, he rather carelessly signs his afterlife away. The large print giveth and the small print taketh away, right?

The place where he ends up might bepurgatory. Or you might call it heaven lite. The ad copy positions it this way: The best years of your life could be when its over.

This is part of the advertising and promotional materials for a virtual posthumous destination called Lakeview,one of a variety of such places managed by a tech company called Horizen.

Thats Nathan in the photoabove taking in the view from the balcony of his new home in this sprawling mountain facility. In a nice touch, the producers have used the very real Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, N.Y. as theirexterior stand-in for the fictional Lakeview.

The marketing is not unlike the kind of effort you would see in the real world for a retirement community --only this is a place for post-retirement where one is supposed to live forever.

Although the time frame of Upload is notspecified, it appears to be in the reasonably near future -- perhaps the mid- to late-2020s. This near-future world is rendered with great care. It seems as if it has evolved seamlessly from our own.We recognize it instantly, and then again, we do not.

The prime mover behind Upload is Greg Daniels, a show creator and executive producerassociated with top-of-the-line comedy hits such as The Office (the U.S. version), Parks & Recreation and perhaps most notably, King of the Hill, one ofthe smartest TV comedies ever made.

Although Upload takes a decidedly lighthearted look at its subject matter, this show somehow manages tomake a number of serious observations about our high-tech world and where it is going.

Uploadraises intriguing questions about immortality and life (both real and virtual). In this show, a persons soul is really the sum total of the data that has been collected by othersabout him.

It is from this data pile that Horizen rebuilds each person into a virtual version of his- or herself. In this way, the virtual afterlife thecompany promises is not that much different from the life each person was living in real life in the first place.

Among other things, before he perishes inthat car crash, Nathan is seen in a supermarket where he is bombarded by advertising messages tailored especially for him, since everything he has ever done or bought in his life has been collected ina huge database that appears to be entirely available to anyone who wishes to use it to sell him things.

In fact, this is one of the aspects of Lakeview thatis less than heavenly: Marketers of well-known brands still want his money -- from the man peddling Orbit chewing gum in the Lakeview lobby to the sodas and salty snacks he has to pay for in hisrooms minibar.

Upload is streaming now on Amazon Prime Video.

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Digital Afterlife Is Less Than Heavenly In Amazon's 'Upload' 05/05/2020 - MediaPost Communications