Pandemic Playlist: From War on Drugs to Alan Stivell, the top 5 songs that will inspire creativity – MEAWW

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For all those who love to paint, sketch, sculpt, or put their senses to any form of figurative canvas and create magical pieces of art, how often do you feel the need to turn to music for inspiration? Or do you prefer listening to music while doing your artsy thing? On today's Pandemic Playlist, we have chosen five songs that will inspire your creativity or just simply help you relax while you make your art.

'Thinking Of A Place' comes as one of the harder tracks on today's playlist, albeit the song is still a slow jam by nature. Like most of The War On Drugs songs, think Bob Dylan, heartland rock, blues, and synth all splashed together and you will come close to imagining what 'Thinking Of A Place' sounds like. The dreamy track will send you floating, drifting, and fading in a richly recorded slow rock number that goes down as the only song with vocals on our list. Without being too influential on your own unique artistic creation, 'Thinking Of A Place' could easily enter onto a road trip playlist, could inspire your beach vacation fantasies, or appeal as a track suitable for a long late drive through some quiet urban nightlife. But like the title, 'Thinking Of A Place' suggests whatever location you find beautiful.

The most gentle, most unfluctuating, or in a closer description, the most ambient track on our list, 'Weightless', with its fitting title, makes you feel exactly that. A wavey synth continuously contracts and dilates over a barely audible thump at a heart-beat tempo as the beat until, close to two minutes in on the 8-minute track, a sort of wind-chime tune plays on a mallet instrument. Gradual layers of instruments are woven in with changes that are so subtle, you may not even notice unless you pay attention. 'Weightless' comes as a perfect song to play in the background while you work on your art.

How can we make a playlist about relaxation and all things pleasing for your artwork inspiration without including some silky smooth jazz, right? Well, Pat Martino's 'Dreamsville' may just be the silkiest, smoothest of jazz numbers you've heard. With warm, intimate guitar rhythms that yield to no rules other than to comfort and relax you while you craft, 'Dreamsville' is full of beautiful guitar work that is an art to pull off itself. An ever-so-soft organ plays as the backup to the guitar and we understand that this minimalistic jazz piece uses few instruments as its heroes, but they do shine as heroes nonetheless. The song is sure to relax even those who don't like jazz, but lovers of the genre will probably want to snatch this up.

Listen to 'Dreamsville' here.

In case you haven't noticed, we have gone for a bit of variety on today's playlist. Alan Stivell's sprightly Celtic number 'Suite Des Montagnes' creates abstract mental imagery in its own right. For hardcore heavy metal fans, you may dip your fingers into ethnic-charged rock tunes every so often, but this track lets you enjoy a style of music that metal frequently gets inspiration from. 'Suite Des Montagnes' draws from some of the most primitive Celtic roots with a Celtic harp and low whistle as its musical weapons playing out in peppy, free-spirited melodies, and will certainly beckon the imaginations of an aspiring artist.

Listen to 'Suite Des Montagnes' here.

Another ambient tune, albeit more melodic than the previously listed Marconi Union song, 'Younger', comes as one of many truly rich and utterly beautiful Tony Anderson tracks (probably all suitable for this playlist). 'Younger' presents a bittersweet tune that tenderly slides between melancholy and hope. It may be hard to pin whether it is more one than the other of those two feelings, but that may be what Anderson had in mind when crafting this musical piece of art. The piano accentuates at just the right moments as the lead instrument with background trills and triplets while rich sweeping atmospheric instruments expand in this near-celestially-touched song. A dreamy piece of music that would be highly enjoyable to listen to while working on your art.

Pandemic Playlist is a daily list of songs that will keep you entertained instead of feeling drained while you're isolated at home. Look out for a fresh selection of great tunes from MEAWW to refresh your mood every day!

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Pandemic Playlist: From War on Drugs to Alan Stivell, the top 5 songs that will inspire creativity - MEAWW

Netflix’s ‘How to Fix a Drug Scandal’ will anger you, and rightly so – People’s World

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Sonja Farak, one of the lab workers depicted in Netflix's "How to Fix a Drug Scandal." | Courtesy of Netflix

The content streaming juggernaut Netflix has once again premiered a series that may help viewers forget about the current coronavirus troubles of the world while simultaneously reminding us of the systemic problems that helped deliver us to this moment in time. The docu-series How to Fix a Drug Scandal was added to the platform this month, giving a glimpse into the ever-present problems of the so-called war on drugs through an expos of the largely ignored drug laboratory chemists who ultimately help determine the fate of those charged with narcotics possession.

Through the stories of lab chemists Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhanand the scandals their actions contributed to creatingthe program sheds a light on the inequality that characterizes the justice system when it comes to drug use and possession. It will ultimately leave viewers a bit more enlightened and perhaps a lot more frustrated by the truths the series tells.

The program was produced by Alex Gibney (The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley) and directed by Erin Lee Carr (Dirty Money). The four-part series focuses on the misconduct of lab chemists Farak and Dookhan that sets off a chain of events affecting government officials, lawyers, and thousands of inmates. The two workers become symbols of a larger systemic problem within the judicial system concerning how people are persecuted under the law regarding drug possession.

Farak was a drug lab expert in Amherst, Mass., who also happened to be a drug addict that used the substances she was supposed to test. She often conducted drug analysis while under the influence of these substances. A good chunk of the documentary takes a deeper look into her trial and the impact on those convicted of crimes based on her drug testing.

Dookhan was a chemist at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health lab who admitted to falsifying evidence affecting close to 34,000 cases. While the series takes a look at the lives of these women and what may have driven them to the actions they took, it is the response of the Attorney Generals office and government officials that gets to the real crux of the story on what happens when, instead of addressing systemic shortcomings, leadership buckles down in obstruction and cover-ups in order to fix the scandal rather than the system.

Government officials wanted to treat Farak and Dookhan as outliers who made bad decisions that were isolated instances. What the documentary unveils through interviews with lawyers and public officials, however, is that Farak and Dookhan are products of an environment that doesnt care much for its lab workers and doesnt concern itself with proper vettingbecause it cares more about conviction results than quality of work.

This is what makes up a majority of the series, as defense lawyers fight to get their clients, who are serving time based on the compromised testings of Farak and Dookhan, some sense of justice in the face of law enforcements refusal to take another look at their cases.

This is not a flashy series with the quick jump cuts and comedic irony interlaced within the story that you sometimes find when documentaries try to appeal to mainstream audiences. What you get instead is a program that relies heavily on direct-to-camera interviews, archival footage, re-created court testimonies, and the journey to some sort of semblance of justice. Its a riveting story that doesnt actually need a lot of bells and whistles, but for those wanting a more fast-paced exploration, you may find this series lacking.

The lack of tantalizing action may also relate to the fact that when people think about the war on drugs, (a drug prohibition campaign led by the United States federal government with the proclaimed aim of reducing illegal drug use and importation into the country), we often think about law enforcement, lawyers, and those persecuted. Rarely receiving any attention at all are the lab chemists who test the evidence and testify in court about their findings, something that plays a major role in convicting those being charged. It isnt a glamorous job with loads of television shows glorifying it in pop culture, but it is perhaps the most important aspect of the whole process that ultimately leads to the statistics concerning who ends up in prison thanks to this so-called war.

With that understanding, it would seem a given that lab chemists are workers who earn livable wages and that they are properly vetted and background-checked, since they have power to imprison so many. We learn in the documentary, however, that this is not the case at all.

We also learn in the documentary that, depending on your race and status, presumed innocence until proven guilty is a privilege not afforded to all.

In watching the program, viewers may become frustrated at the willful ignorance of government officials in not holding themselves accountable for the problems their negligence caused. Viewers may also become enraged at the fact that certain personalities in this tale end up with happier endings while others (read: working class people of color) have a harder time getting such second chances. It is a documentary filled with events that will have audiences discussing the intersectionality of race, class, and gender when it comes to the criminal justice system.

Drug laws and harsh sentencing has resulted in detrimental effects to communities of color. Studies have shown that people of color, particularly Black and Latino, experience more discrimination at every stage of the criminal justice system than their white counterparts, and are more likely to be stopped, arrested, convicted, sentenced, and chained with lifelong criminal records. Nearly 80% of people in federal prison and 60% of people in state prison for drug offenses are Black or Latino.

Research has also shown that prosecutors are two times as likely to pursue a mandatory minimum sentence for Black people compared to white people charged with the same offense.

This has lasting effects, as one in 13 Black people of voting age are disenfranchised by felony convictions that deny them their right to vote.

In the series, you only see a few glimpses of the nearly 50,000 people Dookhan and Farak helped to convict with their testimonies and compromised tests, but they serve as a dreadful reminder of the much bigger problem of inequality and bias in the criminal justice system.

At just close to four hours of television, the documentary only scratches the surface about the topic. How to Fix a Drug Scandal should make viewers angry about systemic injustice and government cover-ups, and hopefully that anger fuels more calls for progressive change.

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Netflix's 'How to Fix a Drug Scandal' will anger you, and rightly so - People's World

The chloroquine chronicles: A history of the drug that conquered the world – PRI

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An old drug is getting a lot of new attention around the world: chloroquine.

In the United States, President Donald Trump has talked about the drug's potential for treating the novel coronavirus, though there'slittle evidence. Primarily used to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, chloroquine'slink to COVID-19 has prompted a global rush on the drug and led to shortages.

But the clamor for the drug leaves leading scientists alarmed. The hopeful claims are unsubstantiated at this point, they say, even as scientists rush to set up trials to catch the research up to the hype.

Related:Trump's medical advice triggers run onmalariadrugs in Mexico

The race for chloroquine is far from new. This remedy and its natural derivative, the cinchona plant, have defined world powers and symbolized hope for cures to destructive diseases for centuries.

There are such clear parallels between what is happening now and what happened in the 17th century, said Fiammetta Rocco, author of "The Miraculous Fever-Tree," referring to a malaria pandemic that hit Italy especially hard in the 1600s.

Many thought the illness, with its spiked fevers and shaking chills, came from noxious fumes. Instead, it was the parasite-carrying mosquitoes populating Romes many marshes that spread the disease. Malaria Italian for bad air killed the Pope in 1623. The Vatican shut down, and 10 of 55 cardinals died, said Rocco, who is also a culture correspondent for The Economist.

Related:Climate change will make animal-borne diseases more challenging

Looking for a treatment for the disease, priests from the Jesuit Roman Catholic order set out on a scientific expedition and mission, traveling as far as the Andean region of South America. It was there that they found the cinchona plant.

You have to imagine ... these huge, sort of botanical creations through which very little light even passes into the ground, theyre so huge, said Rohan Deb Roy, a historian at the University of Reading in the UK and author of "Malarial Subjects."

The Jesuit missionaries and Spanish conquistadors first observed how locals used the bark of the plant or fever bark to treat malarial fevers,Deb Roy said. They then brought it back to Europe.

Whatever cured malaria should be understood not just as a medicine, but also as a military weapon, Deb Roy said.

Malaria could kill more soldiers than bullets during war, and being able to fend off the disease became key to maintaining European colonies overseas.

The cure for malaria would be then seen as a tool of empire, Deb Roy said, enabling soldiers to survive in these sort of unpredictable tropical colonial landscapes, which otherwise would be impossible for them.

That led to a race among rising industrial powers to grow their own cinchona to lessen their dependency on Spain's monopoly over the plant in the Americas. The Netherlands ultimately succeeded in the territory of Java, present-day Indonesia.

But how the bark actually worked remained a mystery until 1823, when two French researchers discovered the compound that made the bark effective against malaria: quinine.

Related:Lessons from Singapore and how it handled SARS

Quinine became the basis for many antimalarial drugs, though it took scientists another century to create a synthetic variation that would allow labs to manufacture the drug without any dependency on natural plants. Those research efforts picked up around World War I, when malaria posed a threat to all sides, including US soldiers training in the South.

We often forget now that malaria was all over the place. All up through the Mississippi Valley there was malaria, said Leo Slater, a chemist and author of "War and Disease: Biomedical Research on Malaria in the Twentieth Century."

In the early 20th century, the natural version of quinine from grinding the cinchona bark was still the essential weapon against the malaria parasite. But when Japan took control of the Dutch East Indies during World War II, that natural supply was halted.

When they do this, they cut off the rest of the world from the supply of quinine just as the war is coming, Slater said.

The US significantly ramped up its own anti-malarial efforts during the war.

They developed a large program, the largest of its kind and a model for post-war biomedicine to look for new drugs, Slater said. But the centerpiece of it was to test more than 14,000 compounds against malaria in one form or another.

In the rush to arm US soldiers with anti-malaria medication, the military narrowed in on Atabrine, a drug that was effective, but incredibly toxic, causing soldiers intense nausea.

They didnt want to take it, said Karen Masterson, a professor at Stony Brook University and author of "The Malaria Project: The US Governments Secret Mission to Find a Miracle Cure." They were so resistant to it that the chain of command demanded that their unit commander put the pill in their mouth, close their jaw, and watch their Adam's apple go up and down and swallow it.

Related:Coronavirus most challenging crisis sinceWorld War II, UN says

During the war, Germany under Adolf Hitler had also put significant efforts into malaria research, including testing drugs on people in state hospitals, prisons and concentration camps, Masterson said. (The US also used non-consenting patients as test subjects in malaria drug experiments.)

By the end of the war, the US turned to a drug more tolerable than Atabrine. It had been developed, but not pursued, by German company Bayer, which had been pivotal in modern pharmaceutical practices and malaria drug experiments. The Bayer drug had also been used in experiments by a French doctor on residents of a German-occupied compound, Masterson said.

That drug was chloroquine.

By the late 1940s and '50s, chloroquine became one of the miracle drugs, said chemist Slater.

As the world entered a new era of peace, this miracle drug was promoted by the newly formed World Health Organization to help people across the world prevent and treat malaria.

Though chloroquine rose to fame quickly, its success didnt last long, said Masterson. The so-called miracle drug was so widely promoted that malaria parasites developed a resistance, creating even more challenges in some communities where malaria was already endemic.

Its not a perfect drug, its not a magic bullet, Masterson said.

Now, more than 50 years later, chloroquine, and its close relative, hydroxychloroquine, are in the spotlight again, as the world searches for a weapon against the new coronavirus threat.

I'm not at all surprised that such a significant and major drug that is chloroquine is back in the news in the context of a global pandemic, Deb Roy said.

COVID-19: The latest from The World

Today, chloroquine still has important medical uses, but it can have serious side effects even death for some. In the fog of a fast moving pandemic, no one knows yet whether its actually useful against COVID-19.

Still, chloroquine the product of magic plants, dead popes, and desperate hopes has again come to represent a glimmer of light for some leaders today.

But Masterson cautioned that it represents something else, too.

To me its a symbol of false hope, she said.

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The chloroquine chronicles: A history of the drug that conquered the world - PRI

Who Is Luke Ryan, The Persistent Defense Attorney In ‘How To Fix A Drug Scandal’? – Oxygen

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How to Fix a Drug Scandal documents the riveting details about how a criminal justice travesty unfolded in Massachusetts, and how important a dogged defense attorney was in righting the wrongs that were done.

Two Massachusetts drug lab technicians Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan were caught tainting evidence inseparate drug labs in different but equally shocking ways.Farak was getting high off the confiscated drugs police sent her way before replacing the evidence with fake drugs. Meanwhile, Dookhan wasnt even testing her drugs at all; she just claimed everything sent her way tested positive so that she could apparently be thought of as a prolific worker.

The two ultimately both went to prison for their tampering.

However, as the docuseries shows, their crimes were not self-contained. The drug testing the techniciansmishandled was used to convict tens of thousands of defendants on drug charges. While state prosecutors attempted to minimize what the two drug technicians did, several lawyers put up a fight for their convicted clients.

Luke Ryan is the main lawyer featured in the docuseries.He representedRolando Penate and Rafael Rodriguez, both who were sent to prison because of drug lab certificates that Farak signed. Ryan didnt think their drug convictions were fair nor the thousands of other convictionsbased on drug certificates from the two technicians and fought against the state of Massachusetts.

I really wanted this piece to show how important attorneys are, Erin Lee Carr, the filmmaker behind the docuseries, told Oxygen.com. Lawyers are incredibly crucial in maintaining any sort of levity inside the criminal justice system.

Justice runs in Ryans blood. He grew up in Massachusetts as thegrandson of a judge and also the son of a judge.

I think the air I breathed growing up, particularly due to my father, was kind of filled with this kind of sense of certain rights and wrongs, he told Oxgyen.com, adding that his father impressed upon him that the state can yield a lot of power against an individual.

Whenever I see a complaint and it says United States or Massachusetts versus, it feels like a miscommunication, like youre no longer a part of us, he said. I feel like my job is to bring them back into the community somehow and anytime anyone is accused of a crime theres a dark cloud gathers above them and itjust is there until the case is over.

Ryan didnt start off as a lawyer. Instead, he spent much of his younger years living the same lifestyle as many of his clients.

I took very few sober breaths in college, he told Rolling Stone in 2018. My best friend killed himself when I was 16. From that point on, I didnt have a drugs-and-alcohol problem as much as a drugs-and-alcohol solution.

By age 26, he cleaned up his act and got involved with a church-ministry group that was woke to racial justice. Through the group, he realized that white privilege kept him from becoming a convict a sentiment he still feels, he toldRolling Stone,

I'd like to say there but for the grace of God, go I' but Ithink it's morethere but for the grace of privileges I received due to my race and socioeconomic status, go I, he said. I was permitted to have this kind of sowing of wild oats stage in life that so many of my clients are not given so I think, in addition to having empathy, theres a debt that I feel.

I have an opportunity to live a certain kind of life and if I dont use it to advocate on behalf of people who are doing things similar to what Idid, that would be a misuse of a life experience, he said.

He enrolled in Western New England Law at age 30, and after graduating magna cum laude began working for a small firm where he could work for the underprivileged. His work led to him being named Lawyer of the Year by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly in 2017.

As the docuseries showed, Ryanwas not satisfied with the attorney general offices claimthat Farak only began using drugs six months before her 2013 arrest. He began digging around and made requests to the Massachusetts Attorney Generals office for more documents, which were initially blocked. He learned later that some in the officethought of him as a pest. When he finally got his hands on the documents, they described him as a nuisance who they should avoid giving evidence to.

Eventually, his relentless digging paid off. He discovered that Faraks drug use went as far back as 2005 and that the attorney generals office allegedly tried to bury that by withholding evidence.

He claimed that the offices former attorneys Kris Foster and Anne Kaczmarek engaged in prosecutorial misconduct and he took them to court. A Supreme Judicial Court decided in 2017 that both Foster and Kaczmarek committed "fraud upon the court, the Boston Herald reported at the time.

As a result of that finding, in 2017 more than20,000 of the convictions that were worked on by Dookhan were dismissed. In 2018, all of Fayaks cases were also dismissed including the convictions of Ryan's clients. In all, about 35,000 criminal convictions were thrown out. It became the largest dismissal in American history.

While Ryan was not the only person that helped the dismissal happen, Carr told Oxygen.com that she doesnt think it would have happened as fast as it did without his fighting.

I think it would have maybe eventually gotten there with the ACLU, she said. I just dont know if the Farak dismissals would have happened as well.

Ryan said he understands that a docuseries cannot include everything but told Oxygen.com he found it important to note that defense attorney Rebecca Jacobstein, who was included briefly in the docuseries, played a pivotal role in the dismissals.

Ryan called her an unsung hero who really framed what happened as a fraud on the court.

As the docuseries noted at its conclusion, he has filed a civil suit seeking damages for the wrongful conviction of Penate. He told Oxygen.com that while he filed the suit in 2017, it is still in the discovery phase.

Its been a slog, he said.

He said he continues to defend other clients as well.

As for the docuseries he said, I think it started a lot of important conversations about things that I care very deeply about so thats extremely gratifying and Ithink it was an extremely well made film. I hope it leads to some systemic change.

Ryan has no pending criminal cases with the attorney generals office and hasn't had to work with them since, he said.Rather than other prosecutors regarding him as a pest going forward, he said he hopes his work has served as a cautionary tale for prosecutors.

My hope is that people begin to see that there is real danger for withholding evidence, he told Oxygen.com.

Furthermore, Ryan said he hopes that the docuseries and other conversations will lead to the end of Americas war on drugs.

When we come out on the other side of this [coronavirus]pandemic, we are going to have to make some choices about how we dig ourselves out of this hole," he said. "This war on drugs is a luxury we are no longer going to be able to afford due to the incredible economic resources devoted to it and the human cost as well."

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Who Is Luke Ryan, The Persistent Defense Attorney In 'How To Fix A Drug Scandal'? - Oxygen

The poor always on the losing side – UCAN

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The Philippine governments response was remarkable when reports circulated online that the Health Department had instructed a Manila hospital to stop counting Covid-19 deaths. As quick as lightning, it immediately announced that all hospitals and health centers are mandated to report on consultations and/or admissions of all Covid-related cases. Health reports are made on national television every day and include the number of Covid patients, recoveries and deaths caused by the virus. These reports have become important to the public. Everyone has become interested in the story behind the numbers. Who died? Where did the patient contract the virus? Who recovered? With 335 deaths so far, Filipinos have treated the coronavirus as the angel or bringer of death. In one day, I heard the expression death is just around the corner more than10 times. While it is understandable to arm oneself with facts during this pandemic, one must not forget the number of deaths in President Rodrigo Dutertes war on drugs. According to a Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency report, 4,948 suspected drug users and dealers died in police operations from July 1, 2016, to Sept. 30, 2018. The number does not include killings caused by unidentified gunmen. Before Covid-19 menaced the Philippines, figures were up by 10 percent in January 2020, according to the same report. Moreover, the Philippine National Police reported in 2019 that there had been 22,983 drug-related deaths since the war on drugs began. More than 90 percent of these deaths remain unresolved. There are complainants but no suspects have been arrested. The figures are jaw-dropping. Offhand, the 335 deaths caused by Covid-19 are no matchfor the drug wars casualty figures. Facts show that nature is not the primary killer of mankind. Man still poses a greater threat to his own kind than a virus. But what is interesting is that society seems to care more about Covid-19 deaths than extrajudicial killings. Is this because only the poor are being shot in cold blood while the rich are spared? Both the government and the public are now very keen on data gathering and reporting. But the same level of diligence with regard to reporting the exact number of deaths in the administrations drug war is lacking. There are certainly no televised reports and daily counting of whohas been killed in the drug war. There are also no public announcements nor a national clamor to investigate the killings. Perhaps nobody cares anymore. Or perhaps society has chosen not to care. Philippine society has become callous to reports about extrajudicial killings. The killings have become ordinary news, so ordinary newspapers do not print them on the front page anymore. What is worse is the bias the majority have developed. Many had jumped to conclude that the victims were killed because they were addicts and drug pushers. Death has become the very proof and indication of guiltin an alleged crime rather than evidence. The present pandemic brings out the best and the worst in humanity. While it may teach society to fight for survival, it can also cause societal amnesia. Yes, Philippine society is suffering from a societal amnesia the inability or intentional refusal to confront a dark past that needs resolution in the present. We, as a nation, have simply brushed the killings aside by pretending they have never existed. We have created what Philippine sociologist Randy David described as necessary fiction. David believed that it is possible for a people or individuals to remember something even if they have not experienced it. Or, alternatively, individuals can develop amnesia or experience psychological disorientation due to severe injury, David wrote in one of his columns. Has the war on drugs become a massacre too much for Philippine society to endure that it chooses to forget rather than to confront it? The coronavirus is indeed the great equalizer. But sadly, the governments war on drugs is not an equalizer at all. It chooses. It discriminates the rich from the poor. It knows borders. Thousands living below the poverty line have been killed. And the killings happen in dilapidated shanties, not in exclusive and rich villages or subdivisions. Thus, either in a pandemic like Covid-19 or in Dutertes drug war, the poor are always on the losing side. Joseph Peter Calleja is a lawyer and editor of Bayard Philippines. He is also a member of the Lay-Religious Alliance of the Assumptionists. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCANews.

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The poor always on the losing side - UCAN

Duterte Issues ‘Shoot Them Dead’ Order for Violators of the Coronavirus Restrictions – Foreign Policy

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MANILA, PhilippinesPhilippines President Rodrigo Duterte is bringing his uniquely brutal brand of leadership to combating the coronavirus.

On March 24, police in San Isidro forced alleged curfew violators to sit under the sun, and the local governments Facebook page posted a photo of them, saying, Everyone violating the curfew will be placed here. (Such treatment is legally classified as torture under the Anti-Torture Act of 2009.) A few days earlier, officials in Santa Cruz, Laguna province, locked five youths inside a dog cage for the same violation. Further reports emerged of police beatings and shootings around the country. Anyone out at the wrong time will be shot, you sons of bitches, said a police officer on a radio report on March 26.

And on April 1, Duterte delivered an impromptu national address with a short and clear message: My orders to the police and military if there is trouble or the situation arises where your life is on the line, shoot them dead, he announced. Understand? Dead. Ill send you to the grave. Dont test the government. In his warning, Duterte called out the human rights group Kadamay, which he accused of instigating a protest against the governments lockdown.

The speech followed weeks of criticism of the governments handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Two days later, a 63-year-old farmer was shot dead in Mindanao after reportedly refusing to wear a face mask. The police reported that the man had been drunk and attacked the health workers and the police with a scythe.

The incident was met with public outcry, with some Filipino citizens calling for Duterte to be ousted. Even his traditional base of supporters criticized the move. When you have a government that prioritizes the mobilization of military and police force to respond to a health crisis, you cant help but see the lack of sight in their priorities, said Matthew Jzac Kintanar, a student active in online protests against the Duterte government from his home in Mindanao in the southern Philippines. The government should prioritize mass testing, aggressive contact tracing, protection of front-liners, and economic support for all individuals, but instead we get threats.

Dutertes shoot-to-kill order is just one escalation in his increasing assertion of authority that is all too reminiscent of the presidents crackdown on illegal narcotics, which has seen more than 20,000 suspected drug offenders killed in three years, according to human rights organizations. The government has put the number of dead at about 6,000. The United Nations has called for an investigation into that crackdown.

Carlos Conde, a researcher at Human Rights Watch Philippines, said that beyond mistreatment at the hands of the authorities, the arrests have been counterproductive in reducing the spread of the coronavirus. The most worrisome aspect of tens of thousands of arrests is that they are thrown into crowded jails and holding areas, which completely eliminates the possibility of social distancing, he said.

What is happening in the Philippines has evoked new concerns about rising authoritarianism during the coronavirus pandemic. On April 1, in a statement, a group of 13 European Union member states said they are deeply concerned about the use of emergency measures to tackle the coronavirus outbreak, fearing that some powers could threaten democracy and fundamental rights. This came after Hungarys parliament granted Prime Minister Viktor Orban sweeping new powers, and other states are considering similar measures.

But Duterte has been particularly blunt and brutal in his response. First came the Enhanced Community Quarantine, which placed Manila and the entire island of Luzon on lockdown on March 16, suspending domestic and international travel. Businesses were shuttered, with the exception of supermarkets and pharmacies, and police, military, and local government officials enforced a strict 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew.

On March 21, the presidents office asked Congress to grant special powers to Duterte allowing him to take over privately owned utilities and businesses to address the effects of COVID-19.

After having his request refused, Duterte signed the three-month-long Bayanihan to Heal as One Act on March 25, granting him 30 powers including the ability to take over private medical facilities and public transportation, and giving him greater control of the executive branch, including government-owned and controlled corporations.

Lawyers have criticized the measure, insisting existing laws already offer the president such powers and emphasizing that it did not address the root cause of the health crisis due to Dutertes lack of a comprehensive plan against the outbreak.

Meanwhile, the law punishes those violating restrictions with up to two months imprisonment or fines up to 1 million Philippine pesos, about $20,000. These punishments extend to individuals or groups found to be creating or spreading false information regarding the coronavirus crisis. The National Union of Journalists, a local press group, said that the provision makes the government the arbiter of what is true or false and will end up criminalizing free speech.

Politicians in the Philippines are equally defiant. Filipino Sen. Leila de Lima, who has been in prison since 2017 for allegedly violating the drug trafficking law, is no stranger to arbitrary authoritarianism.

I personally experienced being the victim of the weaponization of the law to silence democratic dissent, a useful tool in the Tyrants Toolbox, she said in a prison interview with Foreign Policy. De Lima said that there have been more arrests of curfew and quarantine violators (at least 17,000) than mass testings (3,000). People are dying because governments are more concerned about retaining control and power, rather than protecting and serving and we are now one hungry mob away from a dictatorship, she said.

Nor does Dutertes approach appear to be working well.The Department of Health has recorded 5,660 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the Philippines as of April 16, a leap from just three reported cases on March 2. The Philippines has the highest number of cumulative coronavirus cases in Southeast Asia as of April 15, according to the World Health Organization, followed by Indonesia and Malaysia. In the region, the Philippines has the second-highest number of deaths, 362, and the second-lowest recovery rate, just 435.The Philippines also has among the highest percentage of total COVID-19 fatalities among health care professionals in the world. The country has conducted the fewer tests than most other nations, 38,103 for a population of 109 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University,

Other types of punishments are also highly demeaning. On April 5, three members of the LGBTQI+ community in Pandacaqui, Pampanga, were ordered to kiss each other and do a sexy dance in front of a minor,Rappler reported, as punishment for violating the curfew, and the incident was streamed live on Facebook by the barangay captain, the highest elected official in the village. An anti-discrimination bill that would have penalized this type of behavior has languished in Congress for nearly four years.

Another Facebook live post shows detainees in Pandacaqui forced to sign bail papers with sweat, while being threatened with paddling.

Perhaps the most notorious incident to date concerns a protest by residents in Sitio San Roque, Quezon City, who were asking for food aid on April 1. Twenty-one people were arrested with bail set at 15,000 pesos (almost $300) each. With 80 percent of San Roque earning minimum wage around 500 pesos a day and most residents unable to work during the lockdown, such a fee is impossible for many.

Human rights organizations and labor groups have expressed outrage and indignation at the violent arrests. The Asia Pacific Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines called for the release of the 21 protesters, who, as of April 6 were still in police custody. The Philippine authorities should urgently investigate reports of barangay (village) officials committing abuses, said Amnesty International Philippines on April 8. And the labor group Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino said, to arrest hungry and desperate people is a new low for this administration.

As a result of such brutality, the tide of public sentiment is beginning to turn. Over the past two weeks, the hashtags #StopTheAttacks, #BasicSocialServicesforthePoor and #MassTestingNowPH circulated on social media. A growing sentiment among the Philippine public is that the more the Duterte administration focuses on heavy-handed, militaristic responses, the less attention is directed toward health solutions. People are waiting for the government to deliver on its promises of assistance for health workers and emergency cash aid for 18 million low-income families of which more than 1.5 million have lost all sources of income.

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines said the crisis will increasingly take a heavy toll on the poor. We support the efforts of empowered peoples movement in the Philippines to make the Duterte government accountable for: every poor persons life lost due to denial of health care services and protection from Covid-19; every front-liners who died and are at risk due to the massive shortage of adequate facilities and equipment, the coalition wrote in a statement.

Eliza Romero is the coordinator at the Malaya Movement, a U.S.-based alliance to advance democracy and human rights in the Philippines. She said that her organization supports the increasing protests demanding the release of the San Roque residents and condemning the governments response to the coronavirus.

The shoot-to-kill order will just encourage more extrajudicial killings and vigilantism, Romero said. It will give private citizens and barangay captains impunity to commit more human rights violations with the protection of the law while normalizing carnage.

The forum Kalusugan, Hindi Diktadura! (Health, Not Dictatorship!) organized an online rally with speakers from advocacy organizations on April 1. They pushed a social media rally spreading the hashtags #DUTERTERESIGN and #OUSTDUTERTENOW, and the message Solusyong medical, hindi militar (Medical solutions, not military), which began trending on Twitter.

Amid the governments militarist approach, Filipinos have taken the situation into their own hands; citizen-led relief operations, information campaigns, and donation drives are providing hundreds of community-driven solutions to a faltering government response. They call it the Citizens Urgent Response to End Covid-19 (CURE COVID), an initiative made up of various organizations and sectors such as the National Union of Students of the Philippines that were active in calling for the release of the 21 San Roque residents.

Dutertes order is made more dangerous by the culture of impunity created by his administration. State forces will not hesitate to pull the trigger because they know that they have the support of the president, said Jandeil Roperos, the deputy secretary-general of the student group.

Filipinos are wary of dictator-like actions, which hark back to the notorious Marcos years before the 1986 People Power Revolution. The fact that the Philippines was already under a state of de facto martial law long before the enhanced community quarantine is testament to Dutertes Marcosian tactics, Roperos said. His war on drugs, the extrajudicial killings, the political persecutions, and red-tagging of activists and critics are a few examples of these tactics and proof that democracy is endangered. The whole country held its breath when he asked for more powers precisely because of him being hell-bent on recreating Marcoss dictatorship.

Filipinos have been pushing back against the system that oppresses them for a long time. The recent dissent against Dutertes incompetence has contributed to the growing social unrest. Dutertes fall from power, if he fails to change trajectories, is inevitable.

This pandemic gives him more leeway to abuse rights and endanger democracy, Conde, the Human Rights Watch researcher, added. The martial-law like atmosphere, the clampdown on criticism, coupled with past actions against the media and critics, all make a democratic slide possible.

More than three decades ago, it was the much-acclaimed People Power that ultimately toppled the Marcos dictatorship in February 1986 as hundreds of thousands of Filipinos rose up to challenge the president.

And if Duterte is not careful, history may repeat itself, said the student protester Kintanar: This pandemic has brought out the absolute worst of this government. People are tired, angry, and fed up at how we are being treated. Filipinos have shown the world peoples power. We have ousted two presidents before. Im sure that if the need arises, we will not hesitate to do it again.

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Duterte Issues 'Shoot Them Dead' Order for Violators of the Coronavirus Restrictions - Foreign Policy

EDITORIAL: After the lockdown, the breakdown – The Spectator USA

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This article is inThe Spectators May 2020 US edition.Subscribe here to get yours.

We are told that were in this together by people who can afford to wait out the epidemic in the way the aristocrats of old retreated to their estates when the plague arrived in the city. It is more accurate to say that we are, as this editions cover puts it, together, alone. The coronavirus has revealed that people today can live in connected solitude, as Sam Leith describes. It has never been easier to retreat from society if you have the money. But it has never been more vital to sustain real-world connections. We may feel atomized but the truth is we can no more insulate ourselves entirely from other people than we can from the economic effects of an unprecedented shutdown.

It is customary for politicians to declare war on poverty, on drugs, on terrorism but for once, this talk has been justified. The military responded with its customary professionalism and diligence. Almost overnight, the US Navys hospital ship Comfort appeared in New York Harbor and the US Army Corps of Engineers turned the Javits Center into a 3,000-bed field hospital. The federal system, however, has adapted less quickly and ably. Political grandstanding and bickering between governors have hampered a coordinated response and heightened public alarm.

Business has responded with an efficiency that would be more heartening were the boom in home delivery not accompanied by price hikes and the exploitation of those doing the delivering. The COVID-19 epidemic has exposed the ugly underbelly of globalization, as Christopher Caldwell describes. The creation of jobs at a time when unemployment has reached Depression levels almost overnight is imperative. But it will not excuse the existence of a permanent gig economy underclass.

The food supply chain has not broken, but the lines at food banks are growing. After the mass hoarding of toilet paper, our common symbol of the paper-thin layer between civilization and barbarism, the shelves are stocked. But more and more Americans are struggling to afford the basics. Even before COVID-19, nearly half of Americans held no savings at all. The Trump administrations $1,200 subvention to citizens is a drop in the swelling ocean of debt. Total lockdown is a luxury that we can no longer afford.

Some businesses have been sharp to adapt: Titos Vodka, for instance, is now producing hand sanitizer. But General Motors had to be shamed by the Defense Production Act before it would switch to producing ventilators. The president claimed that GM, a company bailed out by the Obama administration, had been stalling over cost. If so, GM was hardly alone. Only when the hospitals in New York City were at risk of overflowing did health insurers waive out-of-pocket costs for all COVID-19 treatment. Harvard University, insulated by its endowment, did not guarantee the wages of its sub-contracted cleaning, security and catering workers until pressured to do so. United Airlines waited for the stimulus bill to pass (with $50 billion for airlines) before telling workers to expect job cuts. Car manufacturers, health insurers, airlines and the Ivy League are habitual beneficiaries of direct and indirect government support. Their contempt for the common taxpayer has never been clearer.

No failure of commission was more shameful than that of the state and local administrators who failed to stock up on masks, gowns, gloves and other personal protective equipment (PPE). This, like the outsourcing of medical supply chains, reflects a disorder of domestic priorities. So does the failure of the Obama and Trump administrations to restock federal stores of masks after the H1N1 (swine flu) epidemic of 2009, and the Trump administrations disbanding of the NSCs global health unit.

Donald Trump campaigned in 2016 against globalization and its discontents: outsourcing, strategic dependency on China, the political classs abandonment of American workers and American security. Like George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Trump finds his presidency redefined by unforeseen disaster. COVID-19 is a reckoning for the United States, and for the Trump presidency in particular.

COVID-19 is a vindication of those who, like Trump, advocate for strong borders and economic independence. Perhaps less comfortably for the president and his supporters, the response to COVID-19 is also a repudiation of those who have demonized Hispanic immigrants as criminals and cultural fifth columnists. The public servants who have sustained hospitals and civic order, and the workers who have delivered luxuries to our doorsteps, are disproportionately migrants.

Trump was also elected to break up the cozy corporatism of Washington DC and private capital. The present danger has, however, forced the president to become the inadvertent sponsor of forces he once opposed and technologies he once distrusted. The Congressional stimulus was rushed through quickly and is in significant part an Obama-style bailout. The administration has turned to Google as a public information channel. The militarization of civilian life, a malign side effect of the war on terror, is being furthered by necessity, and so is the digital snooping and surveillance that accompanies it.

As Paul Wood says, the crisis will not be the last challenge of its kind. Though the symptoms of COVID-19 are beginning to lift, the body politic still requires urgent treatment. The lockdown must be lifted as far as possible, and the lessons learned as quickly as possible. It is imperative that Americans be allowed to work. But restoring the fabric of society also means restoring trust between institutions and the people they are supposed to serve.

This article is inThe Spectators May 2020 US edition.Subscribe here to get yours.

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EDITORIAL: After the lockdown, the breakdown - The Spectator USA

Why ‘Black Monday’ is the show you need to be bingeing right now – Fast Company

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We all have that one show we become evangelists for.

That show is must see TV for you, but youre incredulous that it somehow winds up in the Ill get to it when I get to it wing of so many other peoples queues.

Right now, that show for me is Black Monday.

When the show premiered last year on Showtime, critics were a bit torn. Season one currently has a 56% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with reviews basically calling it unfocused and not the cathartic takedown of Wall Street that they may have been expecting.

But thats exactly why I loved it.

With the very real stock market crash of 1987 (aka Black Monday) as its backdrop, the show paints a fictional story of the people and motives who caused it, namely Mo Monroe (Don Cheadle) and his trading firm the Jammer Group. What starts as a get-rich-quick scheme devolves into a shell game of figuring out whos screwing over whom.

Although the web of secret motives (and secret lives) can make season one seem a bit formless, half the fun of the show is watching how all the loose threads are eventually woven togetherand they do, indeed, come together. And no, this isnt a takedown of the people in power playing fast and loose with innocent lives, because these arent your typical people in power on Wall Street. The Jammer Group is run by Mo, a black man; Dawn (Regina Hall), a black woman; and Blair and Keith (Andrew Rannells and Paul Scheer), both closeted gay men.

To be sure, they all make terrible and morally bankrupt decisions. However, there are deeper motives to their actions that are intrinsically linked to their marginalization. Its not right, but its far more emotionally compelling than just greed is good.

Season one ended on a bit of a cliffhanger with Mo going on the run, and questions abound as to how the Jammer Group would benefit from the crash they purposefully caused that wouldve made me tune in regardless. However, now that were halfway through season two, I can confidently say this is my favorite show on television right now.

Heres why I think it should become yours, too.

Whether a pure artistic decision or a budgetary one, bottle episodes make great televisionif done correctly. With the action focused on a limited set of characters in a confined setting, the normal arc of the series has time to stretch, and what writers choose to fill that extra time can yield impactful results.

Case in point, season twos third episode: Idiot Inside.

The majority of the episode takes place in a bank where Mo and Keith are looking to make a deal with the top drug cartel in Miami. As the tension elevates in the back room where negotiations are taking place, theres also an increasing sense of dread in the lobby out front. Were introduced to several nonregular characters who, as the episode progresses, arent who or what they seem, in both good and terrible ways. The episode ends with a crucial turning point in Mo and Keiths relationshipnot to mention an epic shootout. Idiot Inside makes perfect use of the isolated setting to advance the principal story while simultaneously taking a break from it too. The whole episode was like a mashup of Black Monday, Scarface, and Dog Day Afternoon in the best possible way.

The best way to describe Black Monday is a dark farce. No matter how outlandish the scenario or dialogue might be, theres always moments of grounded clarity that balance out the overall tone of the show: the flashbacks to Mos days as a Black Panther (and the betrayal that set him on the path we see him on now), Mo and Dawns tumultuous relationship rooted in her being undervalued as a woman, Keith coming to terms with his sexuality, and so forth. Having laid that solid groundwork with its characters, season two earned the right to dial up the farce just a bit without going completely off the rails, as in that musical number in episode five, Violent Crooks and Cooks of Books.

After the bank deal goes south, Keith is hauled off to prison. The show couldve played it straight, a few fish-out-of-water jokes here, maybe a dropped-the-bar-of-soap joke there. But the writers took the opportunity to make a statement on white-collar crimes and the racial disparity in punishment with a barbershop-quartet-style number welcoming Keith to the white (collar) side of prison.

To me, this is camp and farce done right: It fits within the heightened world the show created for itself while drilling issues such as Ronald Reagans war on drugs and all the racial biases associated with it.

In season one, Black Monday solidly revolves around Mo. A compelling character, to be sure. But once he flees at the end of the finale, season two picks up with a renewed focus on Dawn, who is truly the heart (and brains) of the show. Her storyline best exemplifies what I mentioned earlier: Atypical power players playing the same crooked game as everyone else.

But unlike Mo and Blair, who basically turn into two more boys in the boys club, Dawn, for better or worse, was never blindsided by the excesses that access can bring. That gender and racial inequality is what keeps her grounded and focused enough to become the true architect of the plan that caused Black Monday in season one (even through Blair gets credit for it). In season two, we get a closer look at how that lack of valuation motivates her furthereven to the point of an ethical crisis within her own community.

Much like how The Leftovers became less about Kevin (Justin Theroux) and more about Nora (Carrie Coon)yet another show I have evangelized and will always evangelizeBlack Monday season two gives the much-deserved spotlight to the shows most empathic character as she claws and manipulates her way past the boys to get whats hers.

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Why 'Black Monday' is the show you need to be bingeing right now - Fast Company

From Charlotte To Science: Why Now Is Prime Time For Biden To Embrace Bernie’s Marijuana Legalization Plan – Benzinga

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Politics. Marijuana. Science. COVID-19.

Lets start with the first. Bernie Sanders has dropped out of the presidential race. Though he plans to remain on the ballots of the remaining primary states, hes effectively suspended his campaign.

Joe Biden, in response, promptly extended an impassioned 800-word olive branch to Senator Sanders and his supporters, recognizing both for shaping important political dialogue. Issues which had been given little attention or little hope of ever passing are now at the center of the political debate, Biden wrote. Income inequality, universal health care, climate change, free college, relieving students from the crushing debt of student loans. These are just a few of the issues Bernie and his supporters have given life to.

Biden took it one step further and committing to include Bernie and his ideals as part of his administration stating, Ill be reaching out to you. You will be heard by me. As you say: Not me, Us.

At the same time, legions of devout Bernie supporters dubbed Bernie Bros remain doubtful any radical platform adoption will take form. All this has set the stage for what could be a powerfully unifying shift were Biden to reconsider his current stance on federal marijuana legalization, which remains an illicit drug at the federal level despite being medically legalized by 33 states, of which 11 also allowing for adult-use consumption.

Senator Bernie Sanders has pledged to use his power as president to legalize cannabis via executive order within his first 100 days on the job, should he be elected. His plan was unveiled at 4:20 PM EST last October, and includes plans to vacate and expunge all past marijuana-related convictions in his platform proposal by creating an independent clemency board removed from the Department of Justice and placed in the White House.

A big part of his marijuana plan includes reinvestment it into the marginalized, largely minority, communities hit hardest by the War on Drugs, provisioning that "federal funding will be provided to states and cities to partner with organizations that can help develop and operate the expungement determination process."

Sanders plan would allot $50 billion in tax revenue generated from the sale of legal marijuana and for these equalizing and reparation measures, $20 billion of which would be used to "provide grants to entrepreneurs of color who continue to face discrimination in access to capital." Three additional $10 billion sums would be apportioned to funds or grants that aid businesses or communities disproportionately impacted by the War on Drugs.

Keeping Big Pharma and Big Tobacco from dominating a newly opened marijuana market is another essential part of Bernies federal legal marijuana approach. Companies who have formerly created cancer-causing products or have been found guilty of deceptive marketing would be banned from the industry, as would tobacco and cigarette.

To prevent marijuana market oligopolies taking form as they have in some already legal states (most notably Florida and California), market share and franchise caps will be put in place to prevent profiteering and consolidation under the Senators plan. [A]s we move toward the legalization of marijuana, I dont want large corporations profiting, he said in an interview on Showtimes Desus & Mero.

Last November, the former vice president replied to a town hall question that although he supports allowing states to determine their own marijuana policies, he is unconvinced on the science recognizing the plants relationship to other drugs. "The truth of the matter is, there has not been nearly enough evidence acquired as to whether or not it's a gateway drug," he declared.

Though Biden opposes legalization on the federal level, he has declared that anyone incarcerated for marijuana should be released and have their criminal records expunged of any marijuana charges. Biden also supports removing marijuana from the list of Schedule I drugs where it sits out-of-place alongside a motley of drugs deemed to have zero medicinal value. He proposes moving it to the Schedule II category, making the plant more easily accessible to research.

See Also: Will COVID-19 Cause The US Government To Finally Treat Cannabis As A Medicine?

While thats not nearly full federal legalization, it would be significantly more progressive than the decades-old laws marijuana finds itself trapped by today. It also illustrates some semblance of reason; no one truly believes marijuana belongs in the same drug classification as heroin, and Biden would be the first president to acknowledge and enable the medicinal value of marijuana.

But he can go a step further, and more modern, well-studied marijuana advocates can lead him there. Research already exists that correlations between marijuana and other drug use have been weakened by studies that show quite the opposite. Cannabis access has been found to be associated with reduced rates of opioid use and abuse, opioid-related hospitalizations, opioid-related traffic fatalities, opioid-related drug treatment admissions, and opioid-related overdose deaths.

A 2020 study by the Journal of Palliative Medicine found that the addition of medical marijuana to cancer patients' palliative (pain reductive) care regimen withstood the development of tolerance and reduced the rate of opioid use, over a significantly longer follow-up period than patients solely utilizing opioids. Another 2020 study found a significant reduction in opioid consumption for pain following traumatic injury when supplemented with oral synthetic THC, while opioid consumption was unchanged for controls.

Gateway Drug, it can be reliably argued, is more dated political rallying cry than modern thoughtful analysis. The marijuana research is there, Joe Biden just needs credible exposure to it.

We have been terribly and systematically misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for my own role in that, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta said of marijuana in a globally-broadcast confession nearly seven years ago. It was a 180-degree about-face from the op-ed he wrote for Time Magazine in 2009 entitled Why I Would Vote No On Pot.

For the first time, Dr. Gupta had been exposed to the medicinal properties of cannabis, and in what would become a timeless story with rippling effects, it was a little girl who got him there.

Charlotte Figi became the nations arguably greatest exposure to the benefits of CBD oil after using it to control the constant seizures experienced from her severe Dravet syndrome at age 5. The Colorado girl experienced up to 300 grand mal seizures per week and used a wheelchair, before using CBD drastically reduced her rate of seizures.

Dr. Guptas interviews with Charlottes family, cannabis researchers, and caretakers led him on an unchartered journey to more closely examine the possibilities of cannabis as a medicine. His findings were brought to a national and global audience in a way no other medical marijuana cases had been before, igniting a momentous push toward medical marijuana reform.

On March 26, 2020, her mother, Paige Figi, wrote on Facebook that all five family members were sick with "fevers, pains, coughs" and were "struggling to breathe," before taking Charlotte to the hospital. A COVID-19 test came back negative and Charlotte was discharged from the hospital after a few days.

Two days later, she suffered another seizure, resulting in respiratory failure and cardiac arrest. On April 7, 2020, Charlotte passed at age 13.

Her death was first announced by the group co-founded by her mother through the Realm of Caring Foundation, an organization she chartered to empowering individuals, medical professionals, and the community through research-based education on hemp, CBD, medical marijuana, and THC.

"Charlotte is no longer suffering. She is seizure-free forever, Paige Figi wrote on her Facebook page. Thank you so much for all of your love."

Charlottes story brings it all together: the imperative for scientific thought and consideration in political policy for both marijuana and COVID-19. The countrys partisan split regarding the relevance and dependence on science to make informed, data-driven health and wellness political decisions will play a key factor in Novembers presidential election.

Charlotte Figi exemplifies the importance of foundationally sound policymaking. By immersing himself more deeply into marijuana research, Biden can firmly demonstrate his commitment to leading a science-first presidency one very different than what exists today.

This is Dr. Sanjay Guptas tribute to the life of Charlotte Figi:

Weve already seen Joe Biden shift to the left before. Earlier this year he pivoted to include the Sanders-championed proposal of free college and university education in his platform, announcing a policy to make public colleges and universities tuition-free for all students whose family incomes are below $125,000.

See Also: Nothing Silly About Psilly From Mushrooms And Its Medicinal Properties

On April 9, 2020, the former vice president proposed lowering the age eligibility for Medicare from 65 to 60 and eliminating student debt for some lower-income families. Both are issues that make up the foundation of the Sanders platform.

A shift in his marijuana thinking would be much sharper, but perhaps even politically safer.

According to apoll from the Pew Research Center 78% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say marijuana should be legal.At the same time, 66% of Americans favor legalization, and more than 90% support enabling physicians to prescribe medical cannabis to patients, according to an April 2018 poll from Quinnipiac University.

At the same time, a new survey conducted by IBD/TIPP, found just 34% of independent voters believe Trump is handling the COVID-19 pandemic well, surging support for Biden among those voters, 47 percent to 41 percent, respectively.

This kind of pivot could set the tone for enabling so many other things, as well, including:

Each of these will be desperately needed in the eventual wake of this COVID-19 crisis. If there were ever an ideal time for marijuana to help invigorate the U.S. economy its soon to come.

Most of all, federal marijuana legalization would be a unifying, bold move.

The desire for bold moves is what Bernie supporters are driven by, and this is one that cannabis scientists, cancer researchers, struggling farmers, poor municipalities, and tax-burdened cannabis businesses are all eager for as well.

Illustration: Andre Bourque / Image: Dreamstime.com

Andre Bourque is a cannabis industry connector, executive advisor to several cannabis companies, brand strategy advisor, and a cannabis industry analyst. In addition to Benzinga, Andres articles have been featured in Forbes, The Huffington Post,Entrepreneur.com, Yahoo Finance, CIO Magazine & ComputerWorld.

You can connect with him at @socialmktgfella onLinkedIn,Twitter, andInstagram.

The preceding article is from one of our external contributors. It does not represent the opinion of Benzinga and has not been edited.

2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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From Charlotte To Science: Why Now Is Prime Time For Biden To Embrace Bernie's Marijuana Legalization Plan - Benzinga

Coronavirus Authoritarianism Is Getting Out of Hand – National Review

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Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gretchen Whitmer reacts after declaring victory in Detroit, Mich., November 6, 2018.(Jeff Kowalsky/Reuters)We should be preserving our laws and our freedom in times of crisis.

Its reasonable to assume that the vast majority of Americans process news and data, and calculate that self-quarantining, wearing masks, and social distancing make sense for themselves, their families, and the country. Free people act out of self-preservation, but they shouldnt be coerced to act through the authoritarian whims of the state. Yet this is exactly whats happening.

There has been lots of pounding of keyboards over the power grabs of authoritarians in Central and Eastern Europe. Rightly so. Yet right here, politicians act as if a health crisis gives them license to lord over the most private activities of America people in ways that are wholly inconsistent with the spirit and letter of the Constitution.

Im not even talking about national political and media elites who, after fueling years of hysteria over the coming Republican dictatorship, now demand Donald Trump dominate state actions. Im talking about local governments.

Under what imperious conception of governance does Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer believe it is within her power to unilaterally ban garden stores from selling fruit or vegetable plants and seeds? What business is it of Vermont or Howard County, Ind., to dictate that Walmart, Costco, or Target stop selling non-essential items, such as electronics or clothing? Vermont has 628 cases of coronavirus as of this writing. Is that the magic number authorizing the governor to ban people from buying seeds for their gardens?

Maybe a family needs new pajamas for their young kids because theyre stuck a new town. Or maybe mom needs a remote hard drive to help her work remotely. Or maybe dad just likes apples. Whatever the case, its absolutely none of your mayors business.

It makes sense for places like Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Maryland to ban large, avoidable gatherings. But it is an astonishing abuse of power to issue stay-at-home orders, enforced by criminal law, empowering police to harass and fine individuals for nothing more than taking a walk.

The criminalization of movement ends with ten Philly cops dragging a passenger off a bus for not wearing a face mask. It ends with local Brighton, Colo., cops handcuffing a father in front of his family for playing T-ball with his daughter in an empty park. It ends with three Massachusetts men being arrested, and facing the possibility of 90 days in jail, for crossing state lines and golfing a sport built for social distancing in Rhode Island.

There is no reason to close public parks, where Americans can maintain social distance while getting some air or space for their mental and physical well-being or maybe see a grandchild from afar. In California, surfers, who stay far away from each other, are banned from going in the water. Elsewhere, hikers are banned from roaming the millions of acres in national parks. Millions of lower-income and urban-dwelling Americans dont have the luxury of backyards, and there is absolutely no reason to inhibit their movement, either.

Two days before Easter, Louisville, Ky., mayor Greg Fischer attempted to unilaterally ban drive-in church services for the most holy day in Christianity. Its one thing if people are purposely and openly undermining public health. The constitutional right to assemble peacefully and protest or practice your religion, however, is not inoperable in presence of a viral pandemic.

Would-be petty tyrants, such as Dallas judge Clay Jenkins, who implores residences to rat out neighbors who sell cigarettes for putting profits over public health, forgets that we are not ruled by him, and that he is merely our temporary servant.

But its important and necessary, say the experts. Great. Convince us. Most polls show that 80-something percent of Americans will stay home for the rest of this month even if lockdowns are lifted.

The question of how many lives would be lost if we didnt shut down economy is a vital one, but it is not the only one. There is an array of factors that goes into these decisions. One of them should be preserving our laws and our freedom in times of crisis.

Reality check, writes Bethany Allen-Ebrahimianin Axios, Citywide quarantines, travel restrictions and obsessive public health checks arent authoritarian. Theyre the kind of total mobilization that happens during major national crises such as war, regardless of the system of government.

This position, often repeated, is utter nonsense. For one thing, we arent at war. There are no coronavirus spies and no coronavirus sabotage. Affixing war to societal problems the war on drugs being the most obvious example is typically a justification for expanding state power. Also, authoritarianism isnt defined as strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom except when there is a pandemic. Your declarative sentences and forceful feelings do not transform the meaning of either authoritarianism or freedom. Though if we dump our principles every time theres a crisis, they might as well.

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Coronavirus Authoritarianism Is Getting Out of Hand - National Review

[OPINION] Where should academics stand in times of injustice? – Rappler

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I first entered the academe as a 20-year-old fresh graduate. I'd just served my term as the chairperson of our University Student Council, and was still very much involved in the student movement. When I was about to join the faculty, I remember contemplating about the way in which I should reconcile my politics with my being an instructor and a university employee. I then resolved that activism should never be deprived of rigorous academic labor, and that the academe is vain and hollow if it is dry of convictions for the oppressed and the disadvantaged.

My deepest resentment and indignation, however, is reserved for scholars and self-proclaimed experts who spin and twist academic knowledge to legitimize and validate oppression. In the Philippines, the first mass protests against President Rodrigo Duterte were held in remonstration of dictator Ferdinand Marcos burial in the Heroes Cemetery. Even the erstwhile ally of the Duterte administration, the Philippine communists, were quick to condemn the governments assault on the memory of our authoritarian past. Debates and conversations surfaced regarding historical revisionism.

My denunciation of such an act was two-pronged. First, I was angry for those who suffered and died during Marcos Martial Law, and for the country that was looted by the dead dictators family. Second, I was angry as a historian for the overt historical negationism done using state apparatus.

Some would say that the greatest failure of our geniuses was their failure to think politically. Indeed, the largest and the most massive atrocities suffered by humanity were not done spontaneously. These were products of thoughtful and careful deliberations in laboratories and conference rooms, and these would later be justified with painstaking research and theorizing.

Before the use of gas chambers in German concentration camps during the Second World War, Nazis executed the Jews and other prisoners through firing squads. After some time, they would realize that such a mechanism was inefficient and was causing too much stress and trauma to the Nazi soldiers, who usually turned to alcoholism or suicide after undertaking this ruthless task. Hence, they experimented on using poison. Gassing was impersonal, bloodless, and clean. It was mechanical. Did the chemists behind the use of Zyklon B for the extermination of Jews think about the moral and political implication of this idea?

In Los Alamos, New Mexico, the Allied forces led by the US and the UK spearheaded a well-funded project for the creation of the most advanced munitions for the war. They called this the Manhattan Project. Did the physicists of the Manhattan Project who worked diligently on the creation of nuclear weapons in the 1940s care about the repercussions of a nuclear war? Had it ever crossed their minds that the mere presence of such would dictate world politics in the succeeding Cold War decades, and the later 20th century imperialism and War on Terror?

Knowledge is hardly ever neutral. And if it is, then this neutrality is tantamount to blindness. The wisdom of Desmond Tutu is eternally true and relevant, especially for my colleagues in the academe who are responsible in purveying knowledge: If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

This is even more true in the historical discipline. As a teacher and a student of history, I always make it a point to go beyond mere presentation of facts and to move past demonstration of multiple perspectives. At the end of the day, historical discipline is a tool of issuing historical responsibility, of establishing causes, and of demanding accountability. It is a tool box in the formation of our moral judgments. Indeed, the historian is not judged by his skill in the collection of cold hard facts. As the eminent British historian E.H. Carr would put it, to praise a historian for his accuracy is like praising an architect for using well-seasoned timber or properly mixed concrete in his building. It is a necessary condition of his work, but not his essential function.

Unfortunately, in every oppressive regime that the world has ever seen, there has always been a guild of scholars who sided with the oppressors, not just through neutrality, but also through an active and methodical justification of the system. Nazi Germany had Alfred Rosenberg, Martin Heidegger, Fritz Lenz, and Josef Mengele. They backed up the oppressive regime by tweaking valid facts and theories to legitimize the modus vivendi of the oppressor and of their vision of the society. White supremacy, eugenics, anti-Semitism, slavery, and other systems of oppression were accepted as truths and were legitimized by academic establishments. (READ: [OPINION] The humanities vs Dutertismo)

During the American colonial period in the Philippines, American anthropologists and scientists would justify American colonization by proving the savagery and backwardness of the native population through ethnography, anthropology, and physiology. Later, American-sponsored historians would glorify the American period as a period of peace, prosperity, and relentless advancement in science, medicine, public instruction, and state modernization.

Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos economic plan was drafted by the countrys brightest technocrats, one of which was the dean of the premier University of the Philippines (UP) College of Business Administration, Cesar Virata. Marcos himself would publish scholarly works ghost-written by the most acclaimed historians and political scientists of the time. Widely known was the three-volume historical work Tadhana: The History of the Filipino People, which was said to have been penned by a group of the most brilliant historians of UP in the name of Marcos.

Ironically, this university was the epicenter of activism and resistance movement against the dictator during the Marcos years. Being the hotspot of resistance notwithstanding, some intellectuals in the university thought that in the time of injustice and oppression, their task remained the same: write and publish. This is disturbing. Academics are not slaves of academic undertakings. The task of the academic is not to proceed with neutral and apolitical theorizing especially in times of injustice. The commitment of the scholar is to the truth, but more importantly, it is in speaking truth to power. (READ: The moralist thinker in Digongs Philippines)

When Rodrigo Duterte came to power, a good number of academics and experts from different fields threw their support behind the macho brute from Mindanao. Some of them saw him as the antithesis of the establishment, a few saw him as a leader that would usher in Leftist politics in governance, while others saw him as a representation of the organic political culture of the Philippines. Almost 4 years into his presidency, with 30,000 Filipinos dead in his bloody war on drugs, and the external debt of the country increasing to P7.94 trillion, a lot of them have already changed their minds, but a good lot has remained.

Until now, Duterte is still compared to the celebrated figure of the Datu the political figurehead of Philippine ancient civilization. His perennial tardiness and the tolerance of such was justified by the concept of pakikipagkapwa an important concept in Filipino Psychology, which explains the nature and character of Filipinos relationship with one another, anchored on empathy and co-existence. Similar to what Marcos attempted to do with his Tadhana project, and several other works that provided justification for the dictators New Society trope, historical scholarship can also be used to explain and even legitimize Dutertismo.

Brilliance and acumen are proven with doctorates and countless refereed publications. But scholars are not judged by degrees and academic accomplishments alone. At the end of the day, we are judged by our moral legacy expressed through the sides that we have taken in times of both normalcy and oppression. By whom? By history. Rappler.com

Veronica Alporha teaches History at the University of the Philippines Los Baos. She acquired her MA in History from UP Diliman.

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[OPINION] Where should academics stand in times of injustice? - Rappler

Chinas Small Companies Are Beating Almost Every Market. Here Are The Best Sectors. – Barron’s

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Tiffany Hsiaos focus on small Chinese companies gives her an unique view as to how Chinas domestic economy is faring as the country tries to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. That perspective has also helped the Matthews Asia fund manager build a resilient portfolio in the face of the pandemicand before that, the trade war.

Taiwanese-born Hsiao grew up in Silicon Valley, where she watched her father help reinvent a calculator company and build the worlds first laptop computer using Intels 386 CPUan early lesson on the power of innovation. Hsiao has used that in hunting stocks for the Matthews China Small Companies fund (ticker: MCSMX). The $200 million fund has beaten 99% of its peers over her five-year tenure as lead manager. The funds 18% gain this year has trounced peers again, as well as the Chinese market and the S&P 500 index.

Barrons spoke with Hsiao to get her views on how Chinese consumers and businesses are recovering after the country eased restrictions, the risk of a second wave of outbreaks, and why the portfolio has been so resistant to a black swan development that has rattled markets. Heres a condensed version of our discussion.

Barrons: China is a couple of months ahead in dealing with this pandemic. The Chinese market had its biggest drop in early February, before the global market tanked on Feb. 20, and is still holding up. What has helped its resilience?

Tiffany Hsiao: Confidence. There are a couple layers: Within China, theres confidence the disease is controllable. They have so much in resourcesthey can make five million masks per city when they ask people to work togetherso they are confident they have the medical supplies and people working together. And because of how swift and effective the [containment] was, people are not worried about job security. We cant say that about the U.S. or Europe. Everyone at the companies we own is back at work.

Market Data Center: EMEA and Asia

And if you look at demographics, the largest cohort [of investors] is millennials. When they see a correction, they are going to participate because that is not their nest egg. They are still building it and have the ability to capture the falling knife, whereas in the U.S. and Europe, investors are depending on that money in the next 10 years.

What about Chinas lack of transparency and attempts to muffle early warnings, like from Dr. Li Wenliang, who eventually died?

When this virus first broke out, the Chinese governments response was not transparent. But in the past, you would see very draconian measures to suppress freedom of speech. This time, they let people vent their frustrations. People were creating art pieces out of that doctors picture and posting on WeChat and mourning his death. The Chinese government publicly apologized [for its treatment of Li]that in itself instilled confidence.

It was an unfortunate event, but the response from the government was so different than what we had seen before that people had a lot more confidence in the government after that, especially after they saw the virus spread outside of Chinas borders.

Barrons wants to know your thoughts on the market, the economy, and how coronavirus is impacting your investments. Results will be published along with our biannual Big Money Poll of institutional investors. Poll closes at midnight on Apr. 20. Have your say here

Are you worried about a second wave of infections?

People on the ground are not fearful. The government has put in place very cautious, but reasonable, polices around public health. Any person who returns from overseas has to self-quarantine for 14 days. They give you electronic bracelets as you enter, and track you. That type of policy broadcast to the people gives them confidence that the government is doing its job, so they can safely go do theirs.

In terms of valuation, the Chinese onshore equity markets have not corrected much since the Covid-19 outbreak. There is risk that if a second infection shuts down the economy for longer, valuations could become even more stretched in the near term.

Small businesses are hurting in the U.S. How are they doing in China?

[Chinas] stimulus has been very measured, such as a deferred social security tax and local tax rebates. On top of that, a lot of the more wealthy parts of the economythe landownersvoluntarily offered two months of free rent and no collections on debt. Here in San Francisco, a lot of restaurants are going out of business because landlords refuse to do that.

How has consumer or corporate behavior changed?

We are a heavy investor in software, including China Youzan (8083.Hong Kong), which is the equivalent of Shopify, and helps mom-and-pops sell anything. As soon as everyone shut down, their users went through the roof, as companies tried to go from bricks-and-mortar to online. China is very dynamic. Small- to medium-size-business owners are very nimble. And theres still demand: People still need to eat and have kids entertained with educational programming. Their basic needs havent changed; they just need a different way to get it.

People are also embracing the digital economy even more. The e-commerce adoption rate is already much higher than in the U.S., with about 25% of retail sales done online compared with 11% in the U.S. In the past, people just ordered clothes or electronics and now are ordering groceries. During the crisis, they are also having kids educated online. We own Koolearn Technology Holding (1797.Hong Kong), an online education company that was ready with content and had teachers trained.

Have any trends been derailed?

Travel is a very large part of consumer discretionary spending. The Chinese love to go overseasand now they cant. And as we emerge from this crisis, there is a fear of racism, so [travel] will [continue to] be impacted.

Theres also some time shifting: Real estate transactions were down a lot in the first quarter, but theyre starting to bounce back in cities like Nanjing. The line to go see [a new listing] was wrapped around the building. Theres pent-up demand.

How will a recession in the U.S. or Europe affect Chinas recovery?

We need to see a more effective response globally to provide a stronger backdrop for China to recover. This was supposed to be a great growth year: A lot of businesses were holding back their checkbooks for three years, [waiting] for a resolution to the trade war to deploy the capital.

What concerns you at this point?

Policy missteps as the Chinese government tries to gauge the severity of unemployment. The situation is fluid, since many workers are still in process of returning to their normal jobs. However, if countries outside of China continue to suffer from Covid-19, then those jobs may not be waiting for workers as they return.

Some natural Darwinism to clean the economy of inefficient businesses is not a bad thing, but we need supportive policies to redirect those displaced into other productive industries. From a stock perspective, the stronger surviving companies will gain market share faster.

How do you invest around that?

We stress-test every company through all types of scenarios. When you are investing in a country as big as China, something will always go wrong. I call them black ducks [instead of swans] because they are not as rare as you think. If its not this virus, its going to be a natural disaster or something else.

We want the highest return on capital possible. To do that, we tilt toward asset-light companies that dont have much balance-sheet risk. Our companies never depended on [debt], and their products are intellectual-property driven and can be used digitally and remotely. So weve been very insulated, especially year to date.

China was trying to become more self-sufficient as tensions with the U.S. escalated. Has that been derailed by the latest crisis?

The self-sufficiency theme is alive and well. When the government was thinking about how to stimulate the economy, that was the first area it looked atinvesting more in semiconductors, biotech, and software. The chairman of our largest position, Silergy (6415.Taiwan), the largest analog semiconductor company in China, told me the company will grow revenue 20% to 30% unhindered, because the areas they invest in are the areas the government wants to speed up5G infrastructure, health-care equipment, and data centersas more people work from home and embrace the digital economy.

Chip companies have seen disruptions during this crisis. What about Silergy?

If you need 2,000 components, then youll have disruption. But a lot of the products they are making need 200 to 300 components that they can source domestically. We are very careful and have very limited exposure to the heavy industrial supply chain, because there will be a lot of disruption.

Health care makes up 20% of your portfolio. What is the draw?

Part of it is my constant paranoia that something is going to go wrong, so half [of the allocation] pertains to basic stuff like vaccinesincluding CanSino Biologics (6185.Hong Kong), which is doing clinical trials in Seattle for a coronavirus vaccine medical waste, and companies trying to develop strong health-care infrastructure to keep 1.4 billion people healthy so it doesnt turn into a social problem.

And the other half?

Its focused on human DNA; 99.9% is similar, but that small difference results in Caucasian and Asians having very different critical-illness disease types, especially with cancer. In Asia, the more prevalent cancer types are of the liver and stomach, whereas those are designated by U.S. Food and Drug Administration as orphan diseases, with fewer than 200,000 new diagnoses in the U.S., compared with 1.2 million new diagnoses of liver and gastric cancers in China.

In the past, China relied on the Western world for medical advances and newer therapies. But as the drugs become more DNA-based, you need to come up with drugs that fit the Asian DNA better, so we focus on scientists who earned their stripes at Western companies and start their own businesses, like Innovent Biologics (IVBXF), whose management is top-notch talent from global drugmakers like Roche, Applied Genetic Technologies, and Eli Lilly. Its a top oncology biopharma company that focuses on drugs for Asias prevalent cancer indications and has a very strong pipeline of innovative, novel therapies in addition to blockbuster drugs.

The crisis has raised concerns about liquidity, as some markets have seized up. Have you encountered any problems?

Chinese small-caps comprise the worlds largest small-cap asset class. It surpassed the U.S. two years ago in terms of liquidity, number of stocks listed, and total market cap listed. If you are worried about liquidity, Chinese small-caps are much more liquid than the U.S.and have done much better year to date.

What happens if tensions between the U.S. and China escalate again?

A third of our portfolio are trade war beneficiariescompanies that help China turn self-sufficient. The other two-thirds are steady compounderscompanies that make soy sauce, education companies, and property managementand are not going to be affected if theres a trade war. If you hit [companies] with a couple of black swans and you still need to buy them, those are the kinds of companies we want to own.

Thanks, Tiffany.

Corrections & Amplifications The Matthews China Small Companies fund has gained 18% so far this year. An earlier version of the article listed the 3-year average return instead of the year-to-date figure.

Write to Reshma Kapadia at reshma.kapadia@barrons.com

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Chinas Small Companies Are Beating Almost Every Market. Here Are The Best Sectors. - Barron's

Gen X Strong: An Ode To The Lost Generation In A Global Pandemic – Elemental

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A moment of ironic notoriety, amid COVID-19

My fellow Gen Xers hello there! Circa 74 here; it was a vintage year. Full bodied. Oaky. Top notes of vanilla. Granted, its more palatable once you look past the oil crisis, the college campus trend of streaking, and the culmination of Watergate ending with President Nixons resignation a mere month after I was born. But there were nuggets of perfection, too. Like the continued success of All in the Family, a groundbreaking and important TV show I didnt come to fully appreciate until I was an adult, of course.

So anyway. Here we are. How you holding up? Howre you fairing, my fellow lost generation pals, during this global pandemic that has us on lock-down, sort of like a virtual house arrest?

Whats that? Youre doing just fine, thankyouverymuch? Funny; I kinda thought so. Me too!

After all, I think we may be the only generation who doesnt have any problem whatsoever with staying the eff at home to ride out this unprecedented global pandemic. Social distancing? Shelter at home? We were made for this sh*t. Though the summertimes of our collective childhood were spent outdoors til the street lights came on, during the school year, we all knew that latchkey kid translated to shelter at home.

So I say again: Gen X was made for this sh*t.

We were the kids who went from having a Carol Brady mom figure at home, to having two yuppy, full-time professional working parents seemingly overnight. There were no family meetings or pep talks to prepare us for this; it just happened whether we liked it or not (feelings be damned!)

Were the ones who were forced to grow up with self-reliance before we were even ready for it. Were the ones who went straight from the comfort of Moms fresh baked cookies served hot after school, to whiling away afternoons however we saw fit hours upon hours spent at home (or elsewhere) with little to no parental oversight.

We werent forced to have playdates or attend extra-curricular enrichment activities. Our babysitters consisted of MTV and Oprah Winfrey.

As latchkey kids, we had to entertain and protect ourselves when we werent quite old enough, and nourish ourselves before we could properly cook. Which meant meals of bologna sandwiches, if we were feeling responsible. Otherwise, it was Nabisco snack classics straight out of the box, like Tid-Bits or Doo-Dads (personally, I preferred combining the two). Maybe Jello pudding pops for dessert, or a giant bowl of Fruit Loops eaten on the carpeted floor, no more than 10 inches away from the TV screen.

Speaking of food, hell. Were the generation that could survive for days-on-end eating nothing but maybe a can of Planters Cheez Balls and a box of Fruit Corners Fruit Roll-Ups.

Gen X was totally made for this sh*t.

As for entertaining ourselves during this oddly familiar house arrest time? Well, that comes naturally for us Gen Xers.

Hunkering down with days-worth of video games and mindless TV is like comfort food for our souls. Pure nostalgic bliss. Tuning out the entire world from beneath our (knockoff) Sony stereo headphones? Absolutely. Give us the chance to live in complete autonomy over our music intake (even if it is only the same 10 or 12 songs), and we will not disappoint. In fact, you might not know it, but these are exactly the things that Gen X does whenever we take off work for a mental health day.

As Gen Xers, we were the last generation to experience an old-school, hands-on, down & dirty, outdoor childhood that was led (or taught) by the Baby Boomers. We took what little we learned from the pull yourselves up by the bootstraps, kid mentality, and tossed out the rest.

Using paddles as a form of in-school discipline was slowly phasing out, but it was not so passe that teachers had lost respect (or was that fear that we felt?) Either way, they were able to control their classrooms by the sole presence of one. A worn-out, used paddle hanging on the classroom wall was a relic that served as both threat and badge of honor, while simultaneously reminding you that the game was all about power and control. And it was not fixed in your favor.

One teacher at my school was notorious for her hanging wood paddle because it also featured the signatures of each student scrawled out in Sharpie whod received a paddling at her hands.

When the materialism and corporate greed of the 80s fascinated the world at large, us Gen X kids didnt invest too much energy. We knew better, for we saw the rise and fall of many things in the span of just one decade. Technology that proved here today, gone tomorrow Sony cassette tape walkmans, and later, discmans; Kodak Disc cameras; VCRs, Betamax.

We withstood dot matrix printers, cumbersome telephone books and yellow pages, floppy disks, classroom overheard projectors, and other now obsolete technology and we werent phased by the coming and going of any of it.

We were made for this sh*t.

Were the generation who grew up weary of stranger danger but not until after having enjoyed at least a handful of more innocent years where we didnt know stranger danger.

That innocence was ripped away from us like everything else, seemingly overnight along with Adam Walsh, non-childproofed medicine containers as used in the Tylenol murders, and the ability to ever enjoy Halloween as kids again. (Allegations of razor blades found in apples and candy, and fearful mothers ensured that.) With at least a decade to go before the emergence of the internet and Snopes, how else were we supposed to quash urban legends?

Were the generation that lived through Reagan, and dear God, Reaganomics, which hollowed out the middle class:

When we had heavily regulated and taxed capitalism in the post-war era, the largest employer in America was General Motors, and they paid working people what would be, in todays dollars, about $50 an hour with benefits. Reagan began deregulating and cutting taxes on capitalism in 1981, and today, with more classical raw capitalism, what we call Reaganomics, or supply side economics, our nations largest employer is WalMart and they pay around $10 an hour.

Reaganomics killed Americas middle class, by Thom Hartmann

Gen X were born in the eras of Roe v. Wade, the Vietnam war, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, and the murder of John Lennon. We lived through the Challenger explosion as kids, and 9/11 as parents. Some of the shaping events of our generation were the end of the Cold War, the beginning of personal computing, and an overall Jan Brady feeling of being invisible. Or rather, lost. A tiny generation sandwiched between two considerably larger ones: the Boomers and Millennials.

We had to grow up during Nancy Reagans just say no campaign, and the this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs; any questions? commercials. Along with the crack epidemic and the ubiquitous war on drugs.

We survived the AIDS crisis, televangelists screaming against sodomy, and gay conversion therapy. We survived our parents shock and horror over MTV and gender-bending musicians like Boy George (Culture Club), Prince, Robert Smith (The Cure), David Bowie, and so many others. Oh and how could I forget Annie Lennox? To this day I can still remember a heated argument in 1984 with my Mom, whereby I tried (in vain) to convince her that Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics (who I was watching on TV) was indeed a woman.

No, honey, my Mom protested. Women dont have sideburns growing out of their heads like that. I gave up. It was a futile attempt to make her understand the wonders of stage makeup.

For many Gen Xers, including myself, music was our only connection to anything resembling an identity.

Unlike our parents, we survived (indeed, thrived) from attending diverse public schools. As we grew older we learned about mass incarceration especially of black men. With Anita Hills revolutionary testimony and the help of some third wave feminists, we Gen Xers were the precursor to the #MeToo movement (which, incidentally, was the inception and vision of a black woman named Tarana Burke, not Alyssa Milano).

Most of us occupy a new sandwich space: between caring for aging parents and caring for our own growing kids. On top of that, our generation currently carries the highest debt load, and are simultaneously trying to plan for our kids college years, and our own retirements. Were financially f*ked, for the most part. But not jaded. Sarcasm is our native language. And humor is a mighty fine coping mechanism; it has served us well through dark periods before.

Thanks to our distrust in authority figures and our tendency to question everything, were pretty good at fending for ourselves. Thats not to say we cant be useful or helpful when need be. Were also the ones who serve to bridge the gap between the non-tech-savvy Boomers and the digital native Gen Zers.

Were the only generation who introduced both our parents and our kids to Facebook which most respectable Gen Xers have now fled from, seeing as how its been completely overtaken by Boomers and now tends to be an endless void of hollow gestures and trends pushed by the subtle art of online peer pressure.

Gen Xers may have chased the millennials and Gen Z off Facebook before the Boomers ever thought to, but then Gen Z opened up a whole new world for us. They showed us all the fun stuff, like TikTok, and finsta accounts, and the now-defunct Vine. And its contagious. Even political leaders from Gen X have paved the way showing these diverse generations how to connect and engage with constituents via various social media outlets.

As Gen Xers, we may be small but were mighty. We were built to survive, were highly adaptable, and we know how to quietly seize the right opportunities in the right time. You might call us opportunistic survivors, kinda like rats or cockroaches or bottom feeders in the fish tank. (And you know, those creatures dont die off so easily.)

All in all, Gen Xers feel like we were handpicked and placed on Earth exactly for this type of important moment in history, when the world would depend on us to do our part by sheltering at home. It kinda feels like our whole lives have been leading up to this one point where our nation would, at long last, call upon us to do absolutely nothing. On that, we promise to deliver.

But. Dont call us slackers. Were not slackers. Thats purely myth. We just know how to relax properly.

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Gen X Strong: An Ode To The Lost Generation In A Global Pandemic - Elemental

Black GA Dem Endorses Donald Trump From Alternate Reality Where That Makes Sense – Wonkette

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Joe Biden just received a glowing endorsement from his former boss, Barack Obama, but Donald Trump, the president in every disaster movie ever made, can now claim support of another prominent black leader although when we saw prominent," we mean just heard about him today." Georgia state Rep. Vernon Jones told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Tuesday that he's all in for a second Trump term, which America couldn't possibly survive.

The economy is in shambles. More than 16 million Americans have lost their jobs within the past month, and that includes almost 500,000 Georgians. This is a pre-COVID tap dance for the president. Jones needs new material.

Yes, Trump signed a mostly meaningless executive order in 2017 that physically moved the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities from Betsy DeVos's gingerbread house inside the Department of Education over to the White House itself. Kellyanne Conway took photos of the event with her dirty feet on the Oval Office couch. Trump's still practically racist in every way.

Jones praises Trump's "criminal justice initiatives." There's the "First Step" program he grudgingly signed as a favor to his useless son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Kim Kardashian also convinced Trump to release Alice Marie Johnson (possibly in exchange for Kanye West's soul). Jones notes that Johnson had repeatedly petitioned Obama for clemency but been denied, so we should now trust the guy who still wants to execute the Central Park Five.

Apparently, Trump's "leadership" on criminal justice reform is a stark contrast from Biden's, as Jones explains with bogus rightwing talking points we'll have to endure until November.

What a maroon! Trump's first attorney general was white supremacist Jeff Sessions, and Trump didn't fire him because Sessions wanted to escalate the War on Drugs. No, he got canned because he wouldn't serve as Trump's personal lawyer.

Trump bungled the nation's response to the coronavirus, which is currently targeting black people like New York's old stop-and-frisk" policy. What the hell is wrong with this guy?

Jones says he plans to remain a Democrat, but other Democrats aren't on board with Jones remaining in office. Democratic Party of Georgia Chairwoman Nikema Williams released this scathing statement Tuesday.

Jones represents Georgia's 91st District, which includes the heavily Democratic DeKalb County. He's described himself as a conservative Democrat" who supports gun rights and tough immigration laws. He's also reportedly made offensive comments about Georgia's only transgender elected official, Stephe Koontz. He voted twice for George W. Bush but, hey, so did Colin Powell, probably. He's also kept photos of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on his desk, which we hope was for target practice.

Rhonda Taylor, who does not support Trump because she's black and conscious, is running against Jones in the upcoming Democratic primary. Unless she keeps nude photos of Robert E. Lee on her desk, she has our unconditional support.

[Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

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Black GA Dem Endorses Donald Trump From Alternate Reality Where That Makes Sense - Wonkette

Cancer drugs will be tested for use as antiviral treatments against COVID-19 at Hunter Medical Research Institute – Newcastle Herald

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coronavirus,

Researchers in NSW are set to test cancer drugs for use in the fight against COVID-19. The project comes amid a worldwide push to repurpose existing drugs with antiviral properties to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, alongside global efforts to produce a vaccine. A vaccine is expected to take at least 12 to 18 months to develop, so antiviral treatments are considered crucial to prevent deaths. And even if a vaccine is found, antivirals will be needed because vaccines aren't perfect. Two professors, Hubert Hondermarck and Nathan Bartlett - of the Hunter Medical Research Institute and University of Newcastle - are leading the project. As the coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2 began causing global havoc, Professor Hondermarck realised some cancer drugs should be explored as a possible treatment. "There are indeed biochemical reasons to believe they could work. And this is really a war. Just like for a war, we need to try everything we can to defeat the enemy," Professor Hondermarck said. The pre-clinical research will be done in vitro with donated human-airway cells. Professor Hondermarck [a cancer biochemist] approached Dr Bartlett [a virologist] with the idea of testing some cancer drugs. Their partnership represented a coming together of two disciplines - cancer biology and virology. The pair pinpointed a link between growth factor receptors, which promote many cancers and viral infections. They will test two categories of drugs used in the treatment of cancer - "growth factor receptor blocking monoclonal antibodies" and "tyrosine kinase inhibitors". "I've been working on growth factor receptors for many years, so I know those molecules very well," Professor Hondermarck said. "Viruses use the same molecules that cancer cells use to proliferate. "I was aware of previous work done using growth factor inhibitors to target other viruses like influenza and dengue fever." This previous work went largely unnoticed as there wasn't a pressing need for this type of medicine. "It was more or less forgotten," he said. Dr Bartlett said there was good evidence to suggest these cancer drugs could inhibit viral infections, "particularly through blocking growth factor receptors". "These receptors are hijacked by viruses. By inhibiting the activity of these receptors, you can also inhibit the ability of viruses to replicate." Dr Bartlett said a research grant application had been submitted to the federal government to fund the research. "This is a government scheme aimed at fast-tracking clinically approved drugs that might be effective against coronavirus," he said. The government is expected to make a quick decision on which projects get funded, given the circumstances. "We've got all the systems set up to do this straight away," Dr Bartlett said. The pair's research project will also test the capacity of other drugs to treat COVID-19, including the malaria treatment hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin. "There's a range of drugs approved for other uses that there's reasonably good evidence to suggest might be effective against coronavirus," Dr Bartlett said. "The advantage of those drugs is they've already been through the approval process for another disease, so they don't need to go through the rigorous type of pre-clinical safety testing that a completely new drug has to go through."

https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/3AijacentBN9GedHCvcASxG/3d28b93e-e47a-4bcc-bec5-9895567bfb70.jpg/r0_221_6720_4018_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

Researchers in NSW are set to test cancer drugs for use in the fight against COVID-19.

The project comes amid a worldwide push to repurpose existing drugs with antiviral properties to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, alongside global efforts to produce a vaccine.

A vaccine is expected to take at least 12 to 18 months to develop, so antiviral treatments are considered crucial to prevent deaths. And even if a vaccine is found, antivirals will be needed because vaccines aren't perfect.

Two professors, Hubert Hondermarck and Nathan Bartlett - of the Hunter Medical Research Institute and University of Newcastle - are leading the project.

As the coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2 began causing global havoc, Professor Hondermarck realised some cancer drugs should be explored as a possible treatment.

"There are indeed biochemical reasons to believe they could work. And this is really a war. Just like for a war, we need to try everything we can to defeat the enemy," Professor Hondermarck said.

The pre-clinical research will be done in vitro with donated human-airway cells.

Professor Hondermarck [a cancer biochemist] approached Dr Bartlett [a virologist] with the idea of testing some cancer drugs.

Their partnership represented a coming together of two disciplines - cancer biology and virology.

They will test two categories of drugs used in the treatment of cancer - "growth factor receptor blocking monoclonal antibodies" and "tyrosine kinase inhibitors".

"I've been working on growth factor receptors for many years, so I know those molecules very well," Professor Hondermarck said.

"Viruses use the same molecules that cancer cells use to proliferate.

"I was aware of previous work done using growth factor inhibitors to target other viruses like influenza and dengue fever."

This previous work went largely unnoticed as there wasn't a pressing need for this type of medicine.

"It was more or less forgotten," he said.

Dr Bartlett said there was good evidence to suggest these cancer drugs could inhibit viral infections, "particularly through blocking growth factor receptors".

"These receptors are hijacked by viruses. By inhibiting the activity of these receptors, you can also inhibit the ability of viruses to replicate."

Dr Bartlett said a research grant application had been submitted to the federal government to fund the research.

"This is a government scheme aimed at fast-tracking clinically approved drugs that might be effective against coronavirus," he said.

The government is expected to make a quick decision on which projects get funded, given the circumstances.

"We've got all the systems set up to do this straight away," Dr Bartlett said.

The pair's research project will also test the capacity of other drugs to treat COVID-19, including the malaria treatment hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin.

"There's a range of drugs approved for other uses that there's reasonably good evidence to suggest might be effective against coronavirus," Dr Bartlett said.

"The advantage of those drugs is they've already been through the approval process for another disease, so they don't need to go through the rigorous type of pre-clinical safety testing that a completely new drug has to go through."

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Cancer drugs will be tested for use as antiviral treatments against COVID-19 at Hunter Medical Research Institute - Newcastle Herald

The Coming Ecosystem Collapse Is Already Here for Coral – The New Republic

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The emissions fight has never been more important: Its the only way to avoid these battles of diminishing returns with other ecosystems down the line.

The problem with coral restoration is the one we could soon be facing with multiple ecosystems: Its right to invest billions of dollars in protecting coralwithout fighting to preserve these structures, we risk of the complete collapse of coral ecosystems, involving massive environmental and economic fallout. But focusing on coral-restoration technology can also draw attention away from the culprit driving this change to begin with: emissions.

The most important step for saving coral is moving away from a reliance on fossil fuels. The future trajectory of reef health is entirely dependent on how soon we act, Camp said. The sooner we reduce emissions, the more likely we are to have healthy reefs in the future. While scientists are increasingly wearing multiple hats as activists and communicators, the dialogue around restoring reefs can sometimes glance over the more important truth: Stopping emissions is the best and surest way to guarantee that reefs survive the century. Scientists have only turned to these alternative solutions because the world wont act. Our biggest tool to save coral, reducing emissions, isnt working. So we have to think about the other tools in our toolbox like assisted evolution and geoengineering, Camp said. But, at the same time, the emissions fight has never been more important: Its the only way to avoid these battles of diminishing returns with other ecosystems down the line.

The situation facing coral reefs right now is a dry run for the tipping points rainforests, agriculture, and the polar ice caps could soon face. Right now, the most effective ways to save the Amazon rainforest are preventativestopping deforestation and reducing carbon emissions. But if the Amazon suddenly starts to collapse, it will already be too late and scientists will need to look to new, murky horizons, investing tremendous amounts of money in risky solutions in order to avoid imminent, drastic consequences.

Ecological systems under warming pressure can turn into a runaway train. The trillions of dollars in economic costs of climate inaction are not theoretical: The collapse of reef ecosystems today show us clearly what those economic and ecological costs will look like. Eliminating oil industry subsidies, a transition to a green economy, carbon taxes, far-reaching changes to individual lifestyleseverything needs to be on the table. While scientists can help coral survive into the short-term, its up to the greater communityand, in particular, that means policy at the national and international levelto create a future that coral can survive in.

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The Coming Ecosystem Collapse Is Already Here for Coral - The New Republic

Coronavirus Pandemic Linked to Destruction of Wildlife and World’s Ecosystems – EcoWatch

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By Charli Shield

After the novel coronavirus broke out in Wuhan, China in late December 2019, it didn't take long for conspiracy theorists to claim it was manufactured in a nearby lab.

Scientific consensus, on the other hand, is that the virus SARS-CoV-2 is a zoonotic disease that jumped from animal to human. It most likely originated in a bat, possibly before passing through another mammal.

While the virus was certainly not engineered in a laboratory, this doesn't mean we haven't played a role in the current pandemic. Human impingement on natural habitats, biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation are making virus spillover events much more likely, a major new study from scientists in Australia and the US has found.

The number of emerging infectious disease outbreaks has more than tripled every decade since the 1980s. More than two thirds of these diseases originate in animals, and about 70% of those come from wild animals. Many of the infectious diseases we're familiar with Ebola, HIV, swine and avian flu are zoonotic.

Aided by a hyper-connected global population, SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes, COVID-19, has also demonstrated how quickly modern outbreaks can become pandemics.

While the speed at which COVID-19 has spread across the world has shocked many, scientists have long been warning of such a pandemic.

By disrupting ecosystems, we have created the conditions that allow animal viruses to cross over into human populations, says Joachim Spangenberg, ecologist and vice-president of the Sustainable Europe Research Institute.

"We are creating this situation, not the animals," Spangenberg told DW.

As people move further into the territories of wild animals to clear forests, raise livestock, hunt and extract resources, we are increasingly exposed to the pathogens that normally never leave these places and the bodies they inhabit.

"We're getting closer and closer to wild animals," says Yan Xiang, professor of virology at the University of Texas Health Science Center, "and that brings us into contact with these viruses."

"As you increase human population density and increase encroachment onto natural habitats, not just by people but by our domesticated animals, you're increasing the rolls on the die," David Hayman, professor of infectious disease ecology at Massey University in New Zealand, told DW.

But, as well as increasing the likelihood of transfer, ecosystem disruption also has an impact on how many viruses exist in the wild and how they behave.

In the last century, tropical forests, home to around two thirds of the world's living organisms, have been halved. This profound loss of habitat has ripple effects throughout the entire ecosystem, including on the "parts we tend to forget infections," says Hayman.

In some cases, scientists have observed that when animals at the top of the food chain disappear, the animals at the bottom of the food chain, like rats and mice that carry more pathogens, tend to fill that space.

"It's not just about how many species we have in an ecosystem," says Alice Latinne at the Wildlife Conservation Society, "it's about which species."

"Each species plays a different role in the ecosystem and sometimes, if you just replace one species with another, this can have a huge impact in terms of disease risk. And sometimes we can't predict it," she told DW.

Habitat changes can also force animals and their pathogens to go elsewhere, including areas populated by people.

Latinne draws on the example of the emergence of Nipah virus in Malaysia in the late 1990s, where deforestation drove fruit bats from their forest habitat to mango trees on pig farms. Bats often carry pathogens that don't bother them, but in this case when the pigs came into contact with bat droppings and saliva, they became infected. The pigs then went on to infect farmers.

Evidence linking disruption of ecosystems to increased risk of novel infection transfer is why, Spangenberg says, experts talk about the importance of the "One Health" concept; the idea that the health of animals, the ecosystem and humans are all interlinked, and when one is out of balance, others follow suit.

So-called "wet markets" selling produce, meat and live animals provide another incubator for the emergence of infectious disease. Scientists believe there's a strong possibility SARS-CoV-2 emerged at a wet market in Wuhan, China.

Cramming stressed, sick animals into cages together is, in many ways, the "perfect setting" to incubate new pathogens, Spangenberg says, and "an excellent way to transfer diseases from one species to another." For that reason, many scientists, including Spangenberg, say the world needs, at the very least, to introduce strict regulations for live animal markets.

That's the message from Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the United Nations' biodiversity chief, who has called for a global ban on wildlife markets.

But as Mrema also pointed out, millions of people particularly in low-income communities rely on the food and income sources these markets provide.

That's part of what makes solutions to preventing disease outbreak complex, according to Hayman. Animal exploitation is one part of it, he says. But "poverty, access to jobs, how people are treated in remote areas, the way people engage with food" also contribute to conditions that lead to spillovers.

Even just on an economic level, Latinne believes, "we will be forced to change because the cost of disease emergence and spillover from wildlife will be much higher than the economic benefit of our exploitation of the environment."

"We are part of nature we're part of the ecosystem where our health is linked to the health of wildlife, the health of livestock and the health of the environment," Latinne says. "We have to find a better way to live together safely."

Reposted with permission from Deutsche Welle.

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Coronavirus Pandemic Linked to Destruction of Wildlife and World's Ecosystems - EcoWatch

A new venture studio is aiming to foster the development of the Algorand ecosystem – CryptoSlate

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Eterna and Borderless Capital are joining forces to launch a new initiative that is intended to support developers and entrepreneurs who want to build their decentralized applications on top of the Algorand protocol. Dubbed Eterna Borderless Venture Studio, it is set to provide a range of tools and resources to those interested in creating or transitioning their projects to the open-source public blockchain.

Silvio Micali, founder of Algorand, stated:

An important component of the Algorand community today is broad support for the accelerating momentum of DeFi organizations, enterprises, and governments using this next generation technology. I am excited to see two thought-leading organizations come together and create a rigorous program that will support innovation and frictionless exchange on Algorand.

Eterna Borderless Venture Studio partnered with different excelling student groups from some of the top-notch universities around the world including the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, and Imperial College of London, to help developers and entrepreneurs succeed. Additionally, MarketAcross as well as F6S will be helping with public relations and marketing campaigns for those who pledge to join, according to Andrea Bonaceto, Partner at Eterna Capital.

Bonaceto affirmed:

We are looking forward to supporting talented teams with innovative ideas. We are creating an ecosystem of industry partners to help our portfolio companies to achieve success while accelerating the adoption of blockchain technology.

The new venture studio is currently accepting applications from eligible startups that will be selected to receive up to $100,000 to push forward the development of their projects. Those firms that emerge as category-leading business will be able to receive a follow-on investment of up to $2 million.

Multiple blockchain companies have already joined Eterna Borderless Venture Studio, including SingularityNET who is looking to increase the speed of transactions between AI agents for a variety of applications in fintech, health tech, and IoT, according to its CEO, Ben Goertzel.

The acceleration program is currently seen as a new way to foster the development of the Algorand borderless economy.

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Disclaimer: Our writers' opinions are solely their own and do not reflect the opinion of CryptoSlate. None of the information you read on CryptoSlate should be taken as investment advice, nor does CryptoSlate endorse any project that may be mentioned or linked to in this article. Buying and trading cryptocurrencies should be considered a high-risk activity. Please do your own due diligence before taking any action related to content within this article. Finally, CryptoSlate takes no responsibility should you lose money trading cryptocurrencies.

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A new venture studio is aiming to foster the development of the Algorand ecosystem - CryptoSlate

Ethereum Tops DApp Ecosystem in Q1 Followed by Tron and EOS: DappRadar Report – Bitcoin Exchange Guide

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According to the Q1 2020 stats by DappRadar, the crypto market dip by 30%-40% amid the COVID-19 rush for liquid money significantly affected blockchain activity in March. Notably, the dApp ecosystem experienced an immediate drop in activity as the crypto market consolidated to its lowest support level this year. Despite the slump in general dApp activity, market stakeholders on Ethereum, Tron, and EOS seemed to have reacted differently to the extraordinarily dynamic conditions.

This platform emerged as the most active smart contract ecosystem during the first quarter of 2020. Its active user wallet sparked by 16% which translated to 17,489 as March came to an end. The highlight, however, is Ethereums 64% year-on-year growth which is largely attributed to DeFi and Exchanges.

Source: DappRadar

DappRadar has since noted a bounce back in DeFi and DEX activity could largely improve Ethereums performance as we navigate the Q2 of 2020. The steep uptrend in these markets had taken a hit from rising gas fees on Ethereum when the network was congested by stakeholders looking to hedge their positions amidst the uncertain market.

Trons dApp activity has also surged since the year began although the platform was not spared by the bear market in mid-March. Its native token, TRX, recorded a significant 48% drop on the 12th of March while its daily activity decreased by 20% three days later. The platforms general dApp activity was, however, up by 18% since we began 2020 with gambling and high risk category projects accounting for 88% of this ecosystem. Interestingly, this performance is still below the Q1, 2019 stats hence a 15% year-on-year drop in Trons dApp activity.

While its counterparts recorded positive figures, EOS experienced a prolonged drop in activity since November 2019 when they released EIDOS airdrop which eventually congested the network. Compared to Q4 of 2019, EOS lost 10% in dApp activity while its year-on-year trajectory took a massive 73% cut.

Currently, the platform is struggling to maintain 10,000 daily active unique wallets; this is pretty low compared to the EOS glory days when the figure was over 40,000. Notably, this ongoing plunge on EOS dApps made the March 12 market crash insignificant to the networks activity. All dApp categories within its ecosystem have consequently dropped compared to the previous quarter,

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Ethereum Tops DApp Ecosystem in Q1 Followed by Tron and EOS: DappRadar Report - Bitcoin Exchange Guide

New report reveals a growing and diverse VR/AR ecosystem in B.C., but challenges loom – BCBusiness

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Credit: Courtesy of the Vancouver VR/AR Association

We dont know about you, but given the state of the world, strapping on a pair of VR goggles sounds pretty appealing right now. Looking beyond escapism, virtual reality and augmented reality (VR/AR) technologies might end up playing a key role in helping people stay connected during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whatever happens, B.C. is at the centre of the action. A new report, Reality Check: The State of Vancouver and BCs VR/AR Ecosystem, paints a detailed picture of our growing hub. Published by the Vancouver Economic Commission, the Vancouver VR/AR Association and the Vancouver International Film Festival, the report also offers several policy recommendations.

With more than 230 so-called immersive technology companies in 2019, the Vancouver VR/AR sector is the worlds second-largest, trailing only the Bay Area and Silicon Valley. VR/AR businesses could add US$1.5 trillion to the global economy by 2030, according to PwC, a huge jump from their current contribution of US$46.4 billion.

Like other industries, VR/AR is feeling the impact of COVID-19. But physical distancing during the crisis could drive adoption for a variety of uses. Virtual reality and augmented reality technologies can help defy distance and bring us closer together, Dan Burgar, co-president of the Vancouver VR/AR Association, said in a statement. Real-time collaboration through telepresence, virtual tourism, virtual classes and virtual events are just small samples of how VR/AR technologies can connect people in the comfort of their own homes.

Reality Check is partly based on online survey sent to 237 VR/AR entitiesincluding businesses, post-secondary institutions, nonprofits and investorsthat saw a 38-percent response rate. To augment the survey data, the authors interviewed the CEOs of six local VR/AR companies at various stages of development.

The reports key findings:

VR/AR is an emerging sector

The local industry is relatively young: 71 percent of companies that responded to the survey were founded in the past decade.

VR/AR has a wide range of applications

The survey revealed a diversity of involvement in VR/AR technologies and applications, the report states. This bodes well for the local and regional ecosystem as companies are either fully immersed in the different dimensions of VR/AR, or are researching and developing relevant applications to the full extent of this technologys potential.

The sector creates high-skilled jobs

On average, companies surveyed employ 25 full-time staff, 18 of them highly qualified STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) hires. Keeping in mind that the poll was conducted before COVID-19, 92 percent of respondents said they expected to expand over the next two years.

B.C.s VR/AR sector is growing

Sixty-four percent of companies surveyed are in the startup or developing stage, with less than $500,000 in annual revenue. Another 20 percent are in the growth stage, with revenue of $500,000 to $3 million. The remaining 16 percent are larger and more mature companies earning $3 million or more in revenue.

VR/AR is a global opportunity

The report highlights a diversity of markets for the provincial industry. Among the companies surveyed, B.C. accounts for 35 percent of total revenue, while other Canadian provinces contribute 14 percent. Of the 51 percent of total revenue that comes from international markets, the U.S. accounts for 39 percent.

The provinces VR/AR companies are investing in R&D

When it comes to research and development, 17 percent of companies surveyed have spent more than $1 million apiece, while 24 percent have devoted $150,000 to $1 million. Meanwhile, 59 percent have spent $150,000 or less on R&Dstill a notable number, given that 64 percent of respondents are startups or early-stage ventures.

The local industry lacks homegrown investors

B.C.-based sources of capital account for just 23 percent of total investment in the provinces VR/AR companies. Foreign investment comprises 53 percentwith the U.S. contributing 17 percent of that portionwhile the remaining 24 percent comes from other provinces.

Access to capital and investment is a major challenge

About half of the companies surveyed have each raised less than $50,000 in capital, while 29 percent have raised between $50,000 and $1 million. Just 22 percent have assembled more than $1 million.

B.C.s VR/AR companies need more access to customers and talent

Besides access to capital, other key challenges cited by survey respondents include finding new domestic and foreign customers, finding and retaining qualified talent, inadequate government support, high operational costs, and finding and keeping affordable spaces.

Satisfaction with current infrastructure is low

According to respondents, the top three gaps in the B.C. VR/AR ecosystem are investment, corporate matchmaking and government support.

Credit: Courtesy of the Vancouver VR/AR Association

Based on its findings, the report makes seven recommendations:

1. Community

Fund basic operation costs for key community organizations to facilitate regular workshops, networking events and talks.

2. Talent

Incentivize post-secondary institutions, accelerators/incubators and bootcamps to develop skills training programs.

3. Support infrastructure

Build a shared facility to incubate early-stage VR/AR startups and provide mentorship, coaching and device rental services.

4. Investment

Foster the creation of angel networks and investor education programs, and fund inbound delegations of foreign investors to meet local companies.

5. Corporate matchmaking

Connect VR/AR startups with traditional domestic sectors to explore new, innovative use cases of VR/AR technology.

6. Tax incentives

Increase the provincial Interactive Digital Media Tax Credit from 17.5 percent to 25 percent, and advocate for fair distribution of Telefilm Canada and Canadian Media Fund funding in the interactive and experimental programs.

7. Export development

Fund operational costs for organizing trade missions to foreign markets.

For the full report, click here.

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New report reveals a growing and diverse VR/AR ecosystem in B.C., but challenges loom - BCBusiness