Conservative Voices Are Pumping Out Coronavirus Misinformation on Twitter – Vanity Fair

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Twitter has frequently been criticized for acting slowly, if at all, to curb the spread of misinformation. But with an unprecedented pandemic sweeping the U.S., the social media platform is taking unprecedented steps to rein things in, particularly when it comes to world leaders and the top rung of right-wing crankery. Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro had two of his tweets taken down on Sunday after he touted hydroxychloroquine, a drug used to prevent and treat malaria, as a miracle cure for COVID-19. One tweet featured a clip of Bolsonaro walking through Braslia while arguing that the drug, which is being tested on some COVID-19 patients but is still unproven, would allow the country to return to work, lest its stalled economy result in Brazil turning into Venezuela. Last week Venezuelas Nicols Maduro had a snake oil tweet of his own deleted after he claimed to have discovered a natural brew cure la Alex Jones.

To prepare for the wave of coronavirus news, Twitter published a blog post earlier this month announcing a zero-tolerance approach to platform manipulation and any other attempts to abuse our service at this critical juncture. In response to an inquiry from BuzzFeed News, which reported on the Bolsonaro deletions, a spokesman for Twitter said the site is making good on its word. Twitter recently announced the expansion of its rules to cover content that could be against public health information provided by official sources and could put people at greater risk of transmitting COVID-19, the spokesperson said.

The crackdown is notable given that Twitter often lets top dignitaries play by their own set of rules when it comes to disseminating lies. Last year the site issued a new term of service stating that if a world leader does violate the Twitter Rules but there is a clear public interest value to keeping the Tweet on the service, we may place it behind a notice that provides context about the violation and allows people to click through should they wish to see the content. That leeway has allowed people like Donald Trump to continue to spread misinformation unabated. HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine, he tweeted just over a week ago, presaging the claim that got Maduro and Bolsonaro in trouble. The FDA has moved mountains - Thank You! Hopefully they will BOTH...be put in use IMMEDIATELY. PEOPLE ARE DYING, MOVE FAST.

Some of the presidents lackeys are following his lead but facing the consequences hes avoided. Fox News host Laura Ingraham was forced to delete a March 20 tweet claiming that hydroxychloroquine had shown very promising results. One Patient was described as Lazarus who was seriously ill from Covid-19, already released. Rudy GiulianiTrumps cybersecurity adviser, among other thingstweeted a quote insisting that hydroxychloroquine had been shown to be 100% effective in helping coronavirus patients. Twitter temporarily locked him out of his account and deleted the claim on Saturday, but he is still touting the drug in tweets and telling followers to learn more about its efficacy by subscribing to his personal website.

Right-wing youth leader Charlie Kirk had tweets removed that made the original claims about hydroxychloroquine quoted by Giuliani. Conservative blog The Federalist faced similar repercussions; its Twitter account was temporarily locked down after promoting an article calling for Americans to throw coronavirus-themed chickenpox parties, i.e., herding large groups of people into confined spaces with COVID-19 patients so that everyone contracts it, allowing those who dont die or fall severely ill to return to their normal lives. Non-Trumpworld figures like progressive activist Alyssa Milano and fugitive libertarian icon John McAfee have also had misleading tweets related to coronavirus scrubbed by Twitter.

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Conservative Voices Are Pumping Out Coronavirus Misinformation on Twitter - Vanity Fair

Social media companies are taking steps to tamp down coronavirus misinformation but they can do more – Alton Telegraph

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(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)

Bhaskar Chakravorti, Tufts University

(THE CONVERSATION) As we practice social distancing, our embrace of social media gets only tighter. The major social media platforms have emerged as the critical information purveyors for influencing the choices people make during the expanding pandemic. Theres also reason for worry: the World Health Organization is concerned about an infodemic, a glut of accurate and inaccurate information about COVID-19.

The social media companies have been pilloried in recent years for practicing surveillance capitalism and being a societal menace. The pandemic could be their moment of redemption. How are they rising to this challenge?

Surprisingly, Facebook, which had earned the reputation of being the least trusted tech company in recent years, has led with the strongest, most consistent actions during the unfolding COVID-19 crisis. Twitter and Google-owned YouTube have taken steps as well to stem the tide of misinformation. Yet, all three could do better.

As an economist who tracks digital technologys use worldwide at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, Ive identified three important ways to evaluate the companies responses to the pandemic. Are they informing while simultaneously curtailing misinformation? Are they enforcing responsible advertising policies? And are they providing helpful data to public health authorities without compromising privacy?

Tackling the infodemic

Social media companies can block, demote or elevate posts. According to Facebook, the average user sees only 10% of their News Feed and the platforms determine what users see by reordering how stories appear. This means demoting and elevating posts could be as essential as blocking them outright.

Blocking is the most difficult decision because it bumps up against First Amendment rights. Facebook, in particular, has recently been criticized for its unwillingness to block false political ads. But Facebook has had the most clear-cut policy on COVID-19 misinformation. It relies on third-party fact-checkers and health authorities flagging problematic content, and removes posts that fail the tests. It also blocks or restricts hashtags that spread misinformation on its sister platform, Instagram.

Twitter and YouTube have taken less decisive positions. Twitter says it has acted to protect against malicious behaviors. Del Harvey, Twitters vice president of trust and safety, told Axios that the company will remove any pockets of smaller coordinated attempts to distort or inorganically influence the conversation. YouTube removes videos claiming to prevent infections. However, neither company has a transparent blocking policy founded on solid fact-checking.

While all three platforms are demoting problematic content and elevating content from authoritative sources, the absence of consistent fact-checking standards has created a gray area where misinformation can slip through, particularly for Twitter. Panic-producing tweets claimed prematurely that New York was under lockdown, and bots or fake accounts have slipped in rumors.

Even the principle of deferring to authoritative sources can cause problems. For example, the widely read @realDonaldTrump has tweeted misinformation. Influential figures who are not officially designated authoritative sources have also managed to circulate misinformation. Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, tweeted a false assertion about the coronavirus to 32 million followers and Twitter has declined to remove his tweet. John McAfee, founder of the eponymous security solutions company, also tweeted a false assertion about the coronavirus. That tweet was removed but not before it had been widely shared.

Harnessing influence for good

Besides blocking and re-ordering posts, the social media companies must also ask how people are experiencing their platforms and interpreting the information they encounter there. Social media platforms are meticulously designed to anticipate the users experience, hold their attention and influence actions. Its essential that the companies apply similar techniques to influence positive behavior in response to COVID-19.

Consider some examples across each of the three platforms of failing to influence positive behaviors by ignoring the user experience.

For Facebook users, private messaging is, increasingly, a key source of social influence and information about the coronavirus. Because these groups often bring together more trusted networks family, friends, classmates there is a greater risk that people will turn to them during anxious times and become susceptible to misinformation. Facebook-owned Messenger and WhatsApp both closed platforms in contrast to Twitter are of particular concern since the companys ability to monitor content on these platforms is still limited.

For Twitter, its essential to track influencers, or people with many followers. Content shared by these users has greater impact and ought to pass through additional filters.

YouTube has taken the approach of pairing misleading coronavirus content with a link to an alternative authoritative source, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or World Health Organization. This juxtaposition can have the opposite of the intended effect. A video from a non-authoritative individual appears with the CDC or WHO logo beneath it, which could unintentionally give viewers the impression that those public health authorities have approved the videos.

Responsible advertising

There is money to be made from ads offering products related to the outbreak. However, some of those ads are not in the public interest. Facebook set a standard by banning ads for medical face masks and Google followed suit, as did Twitter.

All three companies have offered free ads to appropriate public health and nonprofit organizations. Facebook has offered unlimited ads to the WHO, while Google has made a similar but less open-ended offer and Twitter offers Ads for Good credits to fact-checking nonprofit organizations and health information disseminators.

There have been some policy reversals. YouTube initially blocked ads meant to profit from content related to COVID-19, but then allowed some ads that follow the companys guidelines.

Overall, the companies have responded to the crisis, but their policies on ads vary, have changed and have left loopholes: Users could still see ads for face masks served by Google even after it had officially banned them. Clearer industry-wide principles and firm policies can help keep businesses and people from exploiting the outbreak for commercial gain.

Data to track the outbreak

Social media can be a source of essential data for mapping the spread of the disease and managing it. The key is that the companies protect user privacy, recognize the limits of data analysis and not oversell it. Geographic information systems that build on data from social media and other sources have already become key to mapping the worldwide spread of COVID-19. Facebook is collaborating with researchers at Harvard and National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan by sharing data about peoples movements stripped of identifying information and high-resolution population density maps.

Search and location data on YouTube and its parent, Google, are invaluable trend-trackers. Google hasnt offered its trends analyses for COVID-19 in any systematic manner to date, perhaps out of reluctance because of the failure of an earlier Google Trends program that attempted to predict the paths of transmission of influenza and completely missed the peak of the 2013 flu season.

Think with Google, the companys current data analytics service for marketers, offers a powerful example of insights that can be gleaned from Googles data. It could help with projects for contact tracing and social distancing compliance, provided its done in a way that respects user privacy. For example, as users locations are tagged along with their posts, the people theyve met and the places theyve been can help determine whether people on the whole or in a location are complying with public health safety orders and guidelines.

Moreover, data shared by companies stripped of identifying information could be used by independent researchers. For example, researchers could use Facebook-owned Instagram and CrowdTangle to correlate travelers movements to COVID-19 hotspots with user conversations to locate sources of transmission. Research teams I direct have been analyzing coronavirus-related Twitter hashtags to identify the primary misinformation sources to detect patterns.

The expanding footprint of the pandemic and its consequences are evolving quickly. To their credit, the social media companies have attempted to respond quickly as well. Yet, they can do more. This could be their time to rebuild trust with the public and with regulators, but the window to make the right choices is narrow. Their own futures and the futures of millions may depend on it.

[You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help. Read our newsletter.]

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/social-media-companies-are-taking-steps-to-tamp-down-coronavirus-misinformation-but-they-can-do-more-133335.

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Social media companies are taking steps to tamp down coronavirus misinformation but they can do more - Alton Telegraph

15 movies you can buy a virtual ticket to this weekend – Vox.com

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In the wake of theater closings due to the Covid-19 coronavirus, and as turmoil roils in the entertainment industry, many film distributors and theater owners have been scrambling to find ways to keep their businesses alive.

Quickly, art-house theaters began working with distributors to adopt virtual theater models. It works like this: Patrons buy a ticket to a film through a theater that had originally planned to show it. They receive a link to watch the film, usually within a window of a few days, often with a marquee branded by the individual theater. And theaters and distributors share the profits from the ticket sale, which means those businesses have a greater chance of still being viable when the crisis has passed. When the films theatrical run is over, the tickets will no longer be available (though most films will eventually come to on-demand services weeks or months later).

One silver lining of this virtual theater boom is that people from all over the country including those who dont live anywhere near a theater that would have shown the film under normal circumstances can now see the movie during its theatrical run and participate in conversations about it, all while giving business to an independent film distributor somewhere that likely needs the support, as well as a small theater.

Though some virtual theater screenings began rolling out around March 20, the weekend of March 27 has the first full crop of movies available to watch, from slick noir to sardonic comedies to repertory titles from the 1970s to Oscar nominees. If youre looking to see something new and exciting this weekend and support independent theater at the same time then here are 15 options available right now.

And Then We Danced is a gay love story set in a Georgian dance company. Georgia is a country where a kiss between two men, if observed by the wrong people, can have severe consequences. Swedish-Georgian director Levan Akin debuted the film at Cannes in 2019, and at the Playlist, Carlos Aguilar writes, Wielding the human body as a captivating artistic tool, Akin permeates his shots with the dynamic force of synchronized rhythm shared by Merab and Irakli or the freeform energy of a club where gays and transgender individuals let loose with total abandon.

Metacritic score: 69 out of 100

How to watch it: Virtual theater listings for And Then We Danced are available on the Music Box Films website.

Bacurau

Its unusually challenging to describe the frenetic, confounding Brazilian film Bacurau, which plays out like a particularly wild episode of Black Mirror crossed with a Western. Juliano Dornelles and Kleber Mendona Filhos film veers from action to horror to dystopian sci-fi to gallows comedy. Centering on a tiny Brazilian village named Bacurau, the film sees a mysterious threat endangering the lives of the residents who then decide they have had just about enough of being exploited by that threat.

Metacritic score: 80 out of 100

How to watch it: Virtual theater listings for Bacurau are available on the Kino Lorber website.

2020 Best International Feature Oscar nominee Corpus Christi is inspired by true events and theyre startling. A 20-year-old violent criminal named Daniel (Bartosz Bielenia) experiences a spiritual awakening while serving a sentence for second-degree murder in a youth detention center. But because he has a criminal background, he cannot become a priest when he leaves. After being mistaken for a cleric once hes free, he simply begins to act like one, posing as a recently ordained priest in a small community thats reeling from a recent tragedy. Corpus Christi (the Latin phrase for the body of Christ, part of the Catholic liturgical mass) explores guilt, redemption, grief, and salvation in a somber, hard-hitting drama.

Metacritic score: 78 out of 100

How to watch it: Virtual theater listings for Corpus Christi are available on the Film Movement website.

Bruno Barretas 1976 sex comedy is set in the Brazilian state of Bahia and stars Snia Braga as Flor, whose useless husband Vadinho (Jos Wilker), an objectively bad husband but a phenomenal lover, drops dead. She remarries his polar opposite staid Teodoro (Mauro Mendona) only to realize that she misses Vadinho. In the Los Angeles Times, Mark Chalon Smith writes that Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands should be seen as liberating, an unpretentious and uncomplicated slant on desire, and that it represented a step forward in Brazilian filmmaking.

Metacritic score: 52 out of 100

How to watch it: Virtual theater listings for Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands are available on the Film Movement website.

The critically acclaimed, award-winning Heimat is a Space in Time is the story of German director Thomas Heises family in three generations, which he tells through their own words. Through the familys letters and notes, the experience of living through some of the 20th centurys most devastating and formative periods comes alive: World War I, Nazi Germany, life in Communist East Germany, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. In Variety, Scott Tobias writes that the overall effect of Heises work is mesmeric, persuasive and cumulatively powerful, as each piece of the puzzle falls into place and he lands on overarching insights into a German century and what it portends for the future.

Metacritic score: 75 out of 100

How to watch it: Heimat is a Space in Time is playing in an exclusive virtual theatrical release with New Yorks Anthology Film Archives.

This lush tragic romance from Italian director Luchino Visconti, first released in 1979, is the tale of an aristocrat with a demanding mistress who becomes interested in his wife again when she begins an affair with a novelist. When the film was first released, Vincent Canby wrote in the New York Times that its a film of effortless command in which the directors presence is everywhere felt and nowhere intrudes.

How to watch it: Virtual theater listings for LInnocente are available on the Film Movement website.

The young director Miko Revereza was brought to the US from the Philippines by his parents when he was 5 years old and has lived in the country as an undocumented immigrant for more than 20 years. While contemplating leaving, he took a trip from Los Angeles to New York via Amtrak, and discovered once aboard the train that it didnt have any wifi available. And he didnt have a data plan on his phone, either. Unable to use the internet, he started filming what he saw with the camera he had brought along. The result is No Data Plan, a documentary that marries observational cinema with Reverezas narration in voiceover about his own familys experiences and, eventually, his frightening encounter with border patrol officers on the train. Its a beautiful, meditative, and jarring film.

How to watch it: Virtual theater listings for No Data Plan are available on the movies website.

Once Were Brothers is a warm and loving portrait of The Band, which broke onto the music scene in the mid-1960s while touring with Bob Dylan and spent years as both an heir to and counterpoint to the music of the time. Its also a portrait of the way that friendships and community can lead to great art. At the Washington Post, Ann Hornaday writes that Once Were Brothers is enormously valuable, if only as a reminder of what an extraordinary run this extraordinary convergence of talents enjoyed until their final show on Thanksgiving Day in 1976.

Metacritic score: 62 out of 100

How to watch it: Virtual theater listings for Once Were Brothers are available on Magnolia Pictures website.

Phoenix, Oregon, written and directed by Gary Lundgren, is an indie comedy about a graphic novelist and a chef who, presented with the opportunity to change their lives, quit their jobs to restore a bowling alley that will serve the worlds greatest pizza. In Variety, Joe Leydon calls it the sort of movie a lot of us need right now, saying its too playfully spiky and unaffectedly down-to-earth to come across as bland pablum.

Metacritic score: 43 out of 100

How to watch it: Virtual theater listings for Phoenix, Oregon are available on the movies website.

Kelly OSullivan (also the films writer) stars as Bridget, an adrift 30-something who lands a gig nannying for a six-year-old named Frances while navigating a relationship with a new maybe-boyfriend named Jace. Directed by Alex Thompson, the film has a lived-in wisdom that sees characters for all their messy complexity. Its truly refreshing to watch a film where nobody has anything figured out, where life proceeds messily and imperfectly, Sheila OMalley writes at RogerEbert.com. Saint Frances is unpredictable in a very human way.

Metacritic score: 79 out of 100

How to watch it: Virtual theater listings for Saint Frances are available on Oscilloscopes website.

Sorry We Missed You is an angrily searing piece of social realism set in modern-day Britains gig economy. Director Ken Loach specializes in realistic dramas built atop roiling class-based anger, movies about the ways ordinary peoples lives are disrupted and upended by systems that leave them powerless to change even as they try everything in their power to change. Sorry We Missed You is the story of a working-class English family trying to scratch out a living any way possible, and of the indignities they experience within a system of short-term contracts and gig work. Ostensibly, employees get to be the masters of their own destiny (to paraphrase an employer in the film), but in truth, companies are just trying to remove any responsibility the employers might bear. It premiered at Cannes in summer 2019, but it feels even more devastatingly, bitingly urgent now.

Metacritic score: 83 out of 100

How to watch it: Virtual theater listings for Sorry We Missed You are available on Zeitgeist Films website.

Vitalina Varela landed on a number of critics lists of the best movies of 2019, praised for its astoundingly beautiful images and deeply human sensibility. Directed by Pedro Costa, Vitalina Varela tells the story of a woman headed from Cape Verde to Lisbon following the death of her husband, who abandoned her for that city years earlier. In Cinevue, Christopher Machell called it a work of astonishing aesthetic beauty, made up of static compositions and use of chiaroscuro that recalls the Dutch masters.

Metacritic score: 83 out of 100

How to watch it: Virtual theater listings for Vitalina Varela are available at Grasshopper Films website.

The Whistlers is a quirky, sly Romanian crime comedy with noir overtones, in which a crooked cop caught in a scheme goes to a remote island to learn a whistling language, the better to communicate with his cronies. At the AV Club, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky writes, Playing with genre cryptograms of gangster villas, opera-loving killers, and glamorously lit cigarette smoke, the film never takes itself too seriously, even if its characters never seem to smile.

Metacritic score: 76 out of 100

How to watch it: Virtual theater listings for The Whistlers are available on Magnolia Pictures website.

Diao Yinans noir thriller is a twisty, dark dive into Chinas underbelly violent and unconventional, a story of mobsters, cops, and revenge. The Wild Goose Lake announces Diao as a major new force in Chinese cinema. Jessica Kiang writes in Variety that The Wild Goose Lake is like an organic feature of the Chinese cinematic landscape, as though it pooled onto the screen in all its oily, murky glory, having welled up from deep inside the ground. Suddenly, China feels like the noirest place on Earth.

Metacritic score: 76 out of 100

How to watch it: Virtual theater listings for The Wild Goose Lake are available on Film Movements website.

Zombi Child runs along two timelines. One follows the happenings in 1960s Haiti after a man is buried and then seems not to be dead at all. The other, set in the present day, follows a teenaged Haitian girl named Mlissa (Wislanda Louimat) , who begins attending an elite boarding school in Paris and becomes close friends with a set of girls. Zombi Child is the kind of lithe and lucid dream that gets its tendrils round your brain stem, so that when all hell finally breaks loose, you cant jolt yourself awake from its grip, Robbie Collin writes in the Telegraph.

Metacritic score: 75 out of 100

How to watch it: Virtual theater listings for Zombi Child are available on Film Movements website.

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15 movies you can buy a virtual ticket to this weekend - Vox.com

How coronavirus is speeding up the move to mobile money – The Paypers

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Steve Moffatt, Director of Payments at WorldRemit, on mobile money as the healthy way to manage money through coronavirus

The coronavirus pandemic is unfolding into an event that will starkly define our world in many ways. We are having to reassess and adapt our most routine behaviours, such as how we work, shop, and communicate with loved ones, and it is inevitable that when this is finally over, some of the changes we have made will lead to permanent behaviour change.

The response from businesses involved in payments has had a clear theme: discouraging the use of cash to rule out its ability to spread germs. While the WHO has stopped short of actively discouraging the use of banknotes, a spokesperson has said that, when possible its a good idea to use contactless payments.

Is cash really so dirty? In one study, published in 2017 on research platform PLOS One, researchers found hundreds of species of microorganisms on banknotes, ranging from those that cause acne, through plenty of harmless skin bacteria to vaginal bacteria, microbes from mouths, DNA from pets and viruses. Credit broker money.co.uk worked with London Metropolitan University in 2018 to examine a random selection of all denominations of coins and notes. 19 different bacteria were found across UK coins, polymer GBP 5 and GBP 10 notes and paper GBP 20 and GBP 50 notes. This includes two life threatening bacteria associated with antibiotic resistant superbugs: Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Enterococcus faecium (VRE). The life-threatening airborne bacteria, Listeria was also found.

The 2017 research noted that further tests are needed on whether the microbes it found can be stably transferred from money to individuals, and the potential for infection, and experts dont believe that touching an infected object or surface and then touching the mouth, nose, or eyes is the main mode of transmission for coronavirus, but in the face of a threat like this, who wants to take an unnecessary risk?

Many UK businesses are assuming that customers do not, and also that they should not. Costa Coffee is taking contactless payment only. Greggs, a company that has been incredibly successful at capturing the consumer zeitgeist in recent times, is discouraging the use of cash in its stores. The British Retail Consortium announced last week that an increased contactless limit of GBP 45 is being rolled out ahead of schedule by its members starting this week.

So far so good. If theres a significant problem, there are businesses stepping into the breach to accelerate a change in consumer behaviour with the nudges at their disposal. But what about the left behind? In an increasingly mobile world, some people cant access the services others can, whether due to poverty, disability or simply geography. The underbanked and unbanked include those in the UK who cant handle modern technology, such as some of the elderly, and those who dont have bank accounts and the debit or credit cards needed to register even for some free levels of online services, such as some who work cash in hand in often unstable jobs. In some of the markets we serve, the statistics on the unbanked are hard to credit at first. Around a third of Brazilians dont have bank accounts, because the services are too expensive, branches are too far away, or they dont trust the institutions.

The world still has distance to travel in getting beyond cash, but governments and businesses across countries once thought of as developed and developing are all starting to think about mobile access as a right and a good. In the UK, Open Banking is expected to support efforts to widen adoption of mobile banking, as will the drive towards full fibre. In Africa, mobile money service M-Pesa, which is used by over 37 million people in the continent, recently announced it is waiving fees to discourage the use of cash in the wake of Covid-19.

There are still barriers to overcome in improving the speed, security and convenience of mobile money. Payment technical integration quality varies hugely per geography, and system complexities lead to payment and e-verification delays. Businesses like WorldRemit are working hard to provide the solutions in a way that makes the movement of money online simple, safe and fast, but an increase in awareness of a gradual push away from cash should complement the pull of increased access and its many benefits, and will strongly accelerate change.

About Steve Moffatt

Steve Moffatt is the Director of Payments at WorldRemit. A payments expert with over 15 years of experience in ecommerce, money movement and fraud risk, Steve has held similar roles at Spotify and Betfair.

About Worldremit

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How coronavirus is speeding up the move to mobile money - The Paypers

We got 5 game devs to explain why Animal Crossing is so damn good – The Next Web

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons for the Nintendo Switch launched last week and its been taking this weird quarantined world of ours by storm. Its the second biggest launch on the Switch ever in terms of physical sales in the UK (after Pokemon Sword & Shield), and every Switch owner I know wont shut up about it.

Im no better than them. I got the game last Friday and Ive barely stopped playing since just like I couldnt stop playing Animal Crossing: Wild World for the Nintendo DS back when I was 17.

So what is Animal Crossing, you ask? Well its incredibly complicated and simple at the same time. I dont have a good shorthand to describe it, and theres no other game like it. Wikipedia calls it a social simulation video game, but I dont think thats accurate.

I can tell you what you do in Animal Crossing: You do chores. To pay off a mortgage. Chores like chopping wood, catching fish, and plucking fruit. You pay off your mortgage so you can get a bigger house, with a bigger mortgage.

You fill your house with furniture, you collect fossils to donate to the museum, you decorate, you garden. Its all very mundane and chill. Theres no challenge, no game-over. Everything is cute, and nothing is stressful.

Its also the opposite of what I normally like about video games. I play frustrating games like Dark Souls and DOOM Eternal, because Im a sadomasochist and I want my games to punish me for playing them. Animal Crossing never punishes.

Long story short: I love Animal Crossing but I dont know why and thats a problem when youre tasked with reviewing it.

I had no choice but to get some people who are way smarter than me to do my job for me. I hopped on Twitter, and DMd some friends in the game industry to help me answer my two big questions: Why is Animal Crossing so addictive? And why dont more games like this get made?

Martijn van der Meulen, co-founder and development director at Snap Finger Click with nearly two decades of game industry experience, says Its the pressure of wanting to do the best you can for your village and your villagers. Collecting the fruits, catching the fish you want to get as much as you can every day. It feels like a waste if you dont shake one of the trees! Thats a few more bells you couldve given to [your loan shark landlord] Tom Nook.

Daily tasks and appointments are a big part of the loop in Animal Crossing. In order to get as much as you can out of the game, youll have to jump in every day to check on your villagers to make sure theyre happy.

Van der Meulen says, If you dont visit your neighbor, they might leave and thats personal. That would really hurt your feelings. Everything about the game makes you want to do your best which means spending as much time in it as possible. Animal Crossing has almost perfected the distribution of these tasks.

Sam Sharma, a veteran game producer whos currently working on a secret project at Electronic Arts, believes New Horizons couldnt have come out at a better time. He says theres definitely the comfort of doing daily tasks that weve been missing in self-isolation, that makes it a relaxing escape.

He continues, Even without that though, the game gives a lot of autonomy to the player, to discover and explore. [Animal Crossing] has completion levels and checklists for anything you can do.

He says this creates a virtuous cycle for both kinds of players. Those that like structured tasks have an unending list of things to accomplish all of which are rewarding, and those that like exploration and discovery are constantly rewarded for their curiosity.

Dennis van den Broek, senior designer at Guerrilla Games, expands; Looking at it from a game design perspective it has a level of psychology involved.

He draws a comparison with free-to-play mobile games: They often establish a hook which keeps you returning to it. The basic principle behind this is the player gets a feeling of accomplishment and euphoria when doing small tasks, constantly repeating this, and giving the player simple rewards (things like a different color wallpaper). He says this is exactly how mobile games get players addicted.

Van den Broek says that once this addiction has been established, these games ramp up the time it takes to get rewards, and push you towards paying to cut down the wait by spending real money. Animal Crossing doesnt let you use real money, but the cycle is similar otherwise.

Once the baseline is established, they scale it up. It takes longer to get a reward, but the reward itself is bigger. This means you arent hooked on paying your mortgage, but youre actually addicted to getting rewards.

Eline Muijres, whos currently a producer at Mipumi Games after a long stint as the communications manager at the Dutch Game Garden, says its the ultimate game for completionists like her. Collecting animals, decorating houses, fashion design, meeting neighbors, all at your own pace without time pressure. She adds that she loves the puns. I agree, the puns are so good that even a pun-skeptic like myself gets a chuckle out of them.

Rami Ismail, co-founder at Vlambeer and renowned industry spokesperson, says that Animal Crossing does three things very well:

First, its a game about you it gives you full ownership of your island, along with ways to make it feel yours very quickly, and finally, a loose structure to play. In Animal Crossing, you decide the goals, you set the pace, you decide the priorities and thats how its meant to be played.

His second point is the aforementioned daily tasks. He says Animal Crossing subtly uses a form of FOMO, the mechanic a lot of mobile free-to-play games use to bring you back each day. Animal Crossing expertly uses that by having you check back the next day for things, Rami says.

The final trick Animal Crossing uses is its social aspect. Players want their island to look nice and feel nice. The game allows you to customize your island to the minute details, which means that you can be judged by all [of those little details].

In addition, Ismail says theres actually a bunch of existential and social fear built into the core of the game design, but since it manifests in what is effectively a pleasant grind, I dont think anyone really minds.

Rami has a final word on what he believes makes Animal Crossing feel so good to play: Animal Crossing is also expertly tuned into what creates joy. Small animations, messages of thanks, little progressions, rare occurrences its all there to give a sense of joy and discovery. Nothing can actually harm you in the game and everything in the game builds towards something.

Together with a sense of progression whether its being able to drop off items faster, get more places to find cool stuff, or having a tent evolve into a building, it all combines into play sessions that are frequently almost entirely purely joyful even if you get stung by a bee.

The previous proper Animal Crossing came out eight years ago. In the meantime, weve had the phenomenal Stardew Valley and Dragon Quest Builders games, but beyond those, titles in this genre seem to be pretty rare, despite its popularity.

Martijn van der Meulen says its hard to make a seemingly simple game like Animal Crossing and have people genuinely care about it.

Animal Crossing has charming characters and a rich world with lots to do. Building a game that your players want to invest their time in takes some careful balancing. Its also a huge project. When you think about all the mechanics in Animal Crossing, theyre all minigames that have had tons of thought and effort to make them fun. Its a big risk to try and succeed in this genre.

Eline Muijres agrees that games like this are deceptively complicated. My guess is that because the replay value is so high, its hard to top existing games. These games have long development times and are complex to make; it might not be worth the risk for most developers. She says its especially risky for smaller indie developers who dont make free-to-play games.

Sam Sharma thinks there are two major reasons why these games are few and far between.

Its possible that the data on building and farming games suggest that the audience size for them is such that the peak of the market hits every three or four years or so. He adds that the low rate at which these games come out helps to ensure that the audience stays large enough and hungry enough for the next one to get popular.

His second reason is market dominance. Between Stardew, The Sims, Minecraft, and Farming Simulator there are games that cater to that audience in a big way and dominate the market for long periods. (The Sims 4 came out in 2014, Stardew Valley released in 2016, and Minecraft in 2009!)

Add to that the slow shift of many exploration/building/farming hybrid games to the mobile and free-to-play space, away from consoles; it could mean that its a fragmented and saturated market, that it takes a while for a franchise to find a renewed interest big enough for them to release a new iteration.

That being said, I see a shift towards more crafting- and exploration-based play in games coming soon, as the events we are going through shape our appetite and the tastes of our game developers. Itll start with film, as films have shorter development cycles, and then well see the cultural zeitgeist change in games as well.

Dennis van den Broek disagrees its a rare genre; he says theyre just on different platforms, with different revenue models.

The basis of these games can be found everywhere in mobile games, they just dont let you spend money up front to get it, and often end up hiding content behind a paywall.

But he agrees with the rest that these games are harder to produce then youd think. Making a game like this requires tremendous effort you need a LOT of items to fill your world (rewards), and the economy needs to be tested and tweaked to perfection.

In itself, that is a task that can take months to years; as a developer you then want a quick return on your investment. He concludes that this is why most of these games end up being mobile free-to-play titles.

Rami Ismail tells me developing games like this is like a little puzzle, where nothing really works until everything works. The economy, the activities, the storylines, the movement, the characters, the pacing, the world it all has to be tweaked well to even know whether it might work. The mechanics on their own are meaningless.

And like the rest, Rami emphasizes the perceived market saturation. Its one thing to develop in a difficult-to-develop genre that nobody has made a game in, its an entirely different thing to make a game in a difficult-to-develop genre in which the universally loved multi-million player game Stardew Valley exists, and where your upcoming competition might be a new [and almost certainly immediately popular] Animal Crossing game.

I havent been able to look at Animal Crossing: New Horizons the same way since these experts explained to me exactly how intricate and well-crafted this seemingly simple game is.

If you have a Switch, I cant recommendAnimal Crossing: New Horizons enough. When youre stressed out about this nasty virus, Animal Crossing is just the thing to take your mind off it and help you relax. I guarantee you wont be bored any time soon.

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We got 5 game devs to explain why Animal Crossing is so damn good - The Next Web

Rousing the Atheists – Deccan Herald

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In these scarring last months of Hindutvas blood-blazed march in a notional constitutional democracy, Indians are finding there is tiny space in their public consciousness for one of the most marginal of their minorities if we view them as an ideology, an intellectual persuasion, a way of being: I am speaking of Indias multifarious non-believers, atheists and agnostics.

In the movement against the CAA-NRC-NPR, the agitations against the violence at Jamia Milia Islamia, Jawaharlal Nehru University and north-east Delhi, there has been a spectrum-crossing conjoining of Muslims, Sikhs, the Bhim Army, Christians, people of many and no genders and some non-believers under one ark. Herein, the ragtag of non-believers has made a quiet re-entry into public life on a livewire issue. But, some unpacking first.

As Hindutva advanced in this era, the atheists became lightning rods for fanatics. They were organized opponents of religious extremism but weak on wherewithal. In societies like ours, such folk dont get sustained mass support (lest the whatabouters rise out of the swamp and flog this essayist with the whip of partisanship, let me add the customary caveat: India isnt alone in embattling religious extremism. Pakistani and Bangladeshi dissenters have been slayed for blasphemy. Sri Lankans, including monks, who rebuked Buddhist extremists have been attacked).

In the 2010s, under Congress state governments, individuals like Narendra Dabholkar, MM Kalburgi, Govind Pansare and Gauri Lankesh were threatened and then assassinated. Collectively, its been long since these murders took place. There are updates in the press. But if we seek out tangible justice, theres been little headway in the investigations yet. The information trickles and the case transfers from one agency to another. One wonders if the Establishment has left these in a vacuum.

In a way, their killings signpost the social acceptance of religious violence in this era. These people were at the frontline of the fight in the hinterland against obscurantism, superstition, fanaticism, false history. In the 2010s, the attacks on the rationalists paralleled those against Muslims and caste minorities: These processes have been ongoing for long. In this setting, and as we have seen till now, all our fault-lines have dreadfully relapsed. Delhi and Uttar Pradesh look like war zones. But theres an unarticulated upshot.

This essayist finds it numbing that the many gurus, pontiffs, mahants and leaders of the major temples, sects and denominations within Hinduism havent said much over the bloodshed or the militarisation of their faith (only Narendra Modis hosts at Belur Math were irate when he turned a non-political aegis into one about citizenship). Does their collective silence show their political bent? In contrast, some non-Hindu leaders of other faiths have stepped in to engage, converse, argue with the government and its votaries.

Lynch mobs, cow vigilantes, outsider rioters in Delhi: Have we ever seen such an extrajudicial panoply? Chants of greeting as war cries; an amiable god, remobilized on car trunks, as a bellicose warrior. If one is a true imbiber of religious values, how can such violations be vindicated? Finger-pointing at the weaponizing of other religions cant be their justification. Is mimicry the only pushback?

Hinduism is rich in irreligion. Sramana, Charvaka and Nastika are schools of thought that venerate atheism, reason. For long, these have been muted, kept away from the public eye. They beg to be recalled, remade, re-presented. The atheists have a great chance to steer a set of Indians (not just Hindus) who may be born into a religion but are put off by religiosity or its extremists.

For this to happen, they will need to face up to their past. If they are to pitch their world view, they will be probed on how the Age of Reason led to imperial colonialism; how agrarian collectivisation led to the mass killings under Stalin; or Maos Cultural Revolution; or the sins of the Left in West Bengal or Kerala. They will have to be honest; and still hold their own.

Societies like ours, overdosed on religions, nary become irreligious overnight. Some sections, parts, regions might, but not en masse. Organized religion is revered, since the subcontinents nation-states fail to provide the basics of human life for the masses so often. Thus, a middle path to non-belief is salutary. The onus for this is on the atheists. They ought to fight off their alienation from the body politic of India and reinstate it as a legitimate way of being.

Communist Cuba, now sending aid to hyper-religious Italy to fight Covid-19, made that switch. The Castros, reared in an orthodox society, fought against Catholicism while in power, but made peace with the Vatican. Contemporary subcontinental society craves for this balance, where it may keep its faiths but on many public matters accord primacy to irreligious reason.

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Rousing the Atheists - Deccan Herald

Atheist professor says he’ll believe in God — if the coronavirus kills Donald Trump – Washington Times

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ANALYSIS/OPINION:

A professor at Texas Tech University suggested in an email to Physics Department colleagues that he considering renouncing his atheism if get this President Donald Trump were to die from the coronavirus.

So a horrible untimely death of the president would bring this man to faith? Thats despicable.

Thats also a solid reason to take the estimated $27,000 in-state or $39,000 out-of-state costs per year to attend this school and spend the money elsewhere.

Who needs to be taught by idiots like this?

I am personally an atheist, wrote Richard Wigmans, the J.F. Bucy chair professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at TTU, in an emailed memo to his colleagues about the presidents handling of the coronavirus crisis, Campus Reform reported, but if #45 would die as a result of this virus, I might reconsider.

When confronted by Campus Reform about the quip, Wigmans said he hadnt expressed such a wish for Trump to die from the coronavirus.

He said hes being misinterpreted.

Wigmans said his statement is being blown out of proportion and taken out of context and wrongly interpreted as a death wish to the president and that this [was] a statement about myself, not about someone else.

Spoken like a true liberal: When caught red-handed, spin, spin, spin. Feign innocence, and the innocence will come.

But one has to wonder: What if Trump had said the same about, say, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi? Or a member of the media? Thered be mass hyperventilating, widespread hysteria.

The takeaway is this: The mass closing of schools and colleges due to the coronavirus may actually be a blessing in disguise. Itll keep the kids away from the overeducated fools of so-called places of higher learning, if only for a few months longer.

Cheryl Chumley can be reached at[emailprotected]or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast Bold and Blunt byclicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter byclicking HERE.

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Atheist professor says he'll believe in God -- if the coronavirus kills Donald Trump - Washington Times

If Trump dies of Corona, will believe in god: Atheist Texas prof – The Siasat Daily

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WASHINGTON: AtheistTexas Tech University Professor Richard Wigmans said that he will start believing in God if the United States president Donald Trump dies of, with a horrible untimely death.

In an emailed memo to his colleagues last week, Wigmans, according to areportby Campus Reform, suggestedthat he consider renouncing his atheism if Trump died after contracting the coronavirus.

I am personally an atheist but if #45 would die as a result of this virus, I might reconsider,wrote Wigmans.

Whenconfronted by Campus Reformabout the claimed, the J.F. Bucy chair professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at TTU said that his email is being misinterpreted.

This is a statement about myself, not about someone elseI have distributed some emails to my colleagues in which I provide a scientists perspective on the available COVID-19 data, and use the observed trends to make some predictions.

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If Trump dies of Corona, will believe in god: Atheist Texas prof - The Siasat Daily

Breaking: Freedom From Religion Foundation Opposes Teaching Evolution in Public Schools – Discovery Institute

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The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) was founded in 1976 by a prominent American atheist and abortion advocate. As the foundations website explains: The history of Western civilization shows us that most social and moral progress has been brought about by persons free from religion.

The website also features a quote from Charles Darwins unabridged autobiography: I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true this is a damnable doctrine. Appropriately, FFRF has in the past honored prominent Darwinists Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Lawrence Krauss (among others) with its prestigious Emperor Has No Clothes award.

Although FFRF devotes most of its energy to stamping out public displays of Christianity, it has also opposed the teaching of intelligent design (ID). According to ID, it is possible to infer from evidence in nature that some features of the world, including some features of living things, result from intelligence rather than unguided natural processes. Since ID contradicts Darwins core (and atheism-friendly) belief that evolution was unguided, FFRF has long regarded ID as a form of religious creationism. As such, FFRF argues that ID cannot legally be taught in publicly funded institutions.

The crowning achievement in FFRFs crusade against ID was its 2013 takedown of Professor Eric Hedin (pronounced he-DEEN) at Ball State University (BSU) in Indiana. Evolutionary biologist and FFRF Honorary Board member Jerry Coyne led the charge. Up until 2013, BSU physics professor Eric Hedin had taught an interdisciplinary honors elective that emphasized the relationships of the sciences to human concerns and society. It explored differing viewpoints on a number of issues, including intelligent design, and the assigned readings included critics as well as defenders of ID. Hedin had prepared the class in accordance with university regulations through the usual processes.

FFRF wrote a letter to BSU complaining that Hedin was engaged in religious proselytizing. BSU ended up cancelling Hedins course.

The following September, University of Washington evolutionary biologist David Barash published a piece in the New York Times titled God, Darwin, and My College Biology Class. Barash wrote:

Every year around this time, with the college year starting, I give my students The Talk. It isnt, as you might expect, about sex, but about evolution and religion, and how they get along. More to the point, how they dont.

He continued:

The more we know of evolution, the more unavoidable is the conclusion that living things, including human beings, are produced by a natural, totally amoral process, with no indication of a benevolent, controlling creator.

According to one student, Barash then had his class of 200 undergraduates sing his version of a Hank Williams classic:

Ive wandered so aimless, life filled with doubt.I didnt know what truth was about.Then Darwin came like a stranger in the night.Praise evolution, I saw the light!

I saw the light, I saw the light.No more darkness, no more night.No higher power, but Im oh so bright.Praise evolution, I saw the light!

Inspired by Barash, FFRF added the following logo to their stationery, Praise Darwin: Evolve Beyond Belief. Two members of FFRFs Executive Board of Directors had misgivings about adopting the logo. It looks too much like religion to me, one of them said privately. But the logo remained.

Two years later, Darwinian philosopher Michael Ruse published Darwinism as Religion, which pointed out that Darwinian evolution has always functioned as much as a secular form of religion as anything purely scientific. Two more Executive Board members became uneasy at FFRFs position on evolution. But the four dissenters were in the minority, and FFRFs position remained unchanged.

Then, early in 2020, FFRF received word that a high school student had secretly taped a biology teacher making disparaging comments about the theory of evolution. Outraged, an attorney for FFRF wrote to the school district that no controversy exists in the scientific community regarding the fact of evolution, and the teaching of alternative theories or a controversy is not only inappropriate and dishonest, it is unconstitutional. The tiny rural school district lacked the resources to challenge the FFRF, which has a legal staff of ten attorneys and two legal assistants. So the superintendent merely replied that the teacher in question would comply with the New York State Education Law and the U.S. Constitution.

On February 28, 2020, the FFRF issued a press release announcing: N.Y. public school reins in proselytizing teacher, per FFRF advice. According to the press release, the teachers anti-scientific rant was both unconstitutional and pedagogically deplorable.

The incident was subsequently reviewed by an FFRF Executive Board member (not one of the four original dissenters) who had training in both biological science and constitutional law. She knew that controversy over evolution does exist in the scientific community. Furthermore, she noted that FFRFs letter to the school district cited several court decisions but left out the most relevant one: Edwards v. Aguillard (1987). In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that teaching creation science in public schools is unconstitutional, but questioning the scientific validity of evolution is not unconstitutional and may in fact be encouraged. FFRFs criticism of the teacher had been dead wrong. The board member agreed with the four dissenters who had already concluded that Darwinism was functioning as a religion.

At an emergency meeting a week ago, a majority of the members on FFRFs Executive Board of Directors voted that Darwinian evolution is, in fact, a religion. The board resolved that FFRF would henceforth oppose public funding for it and work to prohibit its teaching in public schools and universities.

Yesterday, FFRF issued a brief press release confirming the boards decision:

After long and careful deliberation The Freedom from Religion Foundation has recognized that Darwinism, like Christianity, is a religion. So the foundation now opposes the teaching or even the mention of Darwinian evolution in publicly funded institutions. Let freedom ring!

In other news: Today is April Fools Day.

Photo: A (genuine) sign in Harrisburg, PA, from the Freedom from Religion Foundation, by Jason / CC BY-SA.

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Breaking: Freedom From Religion Foundation Opposes Teaching Evolution in Public Schools - Discovery Institute

Texas Tech Prof. Would Reconsider Atheism if Donald Trump Dies of Chinese Virus – Breitbart

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Texas Tech University Professor Richard Wigmans told his colleagues in an email last week that he might reconsider his atheism if President Donald Trump died after contracting the Wuhan coronavirus.

According to a report by Campus Reform, Texas Tech Professor Richard Wigmans has come under fire this week for an email he sent to faculty members in which he suggested that he would reconsider his lack of faith in God if President Trump contracted the Wuhan coronavirus and died.

Wigmans, who focuses his researchesparticle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology, is referred to on his faculty profile as the worlds foremost expert on calorimetry for particle physics experiments. Calorimetry refers to the measurement of the amount of heat that is released or absorbed during a chemical reaction.

I am personally an atheist, but if #45 would die as a result of this virus, I might reconsider, Wigmans wrote in the email.

In a short comment to Campus Reform, Wigmans claimed that his email is being misinterpreted.This is a statement about myself, not about someone elseI have distributed some emails to my colleagues in which I provide a scientists perspective on the available COVID-19 data, and use the observed trends to make some predictions.

When asked directly if he hoped that President Trump would die from the virus, Wigmans blurred the line further. I have not expressed such a wish, he said.

Skyler Wachsmann, chairman of Young Conservatives of Texas at Texas Tech, condemned Wigmans for his distasteful remark.Implying that the President would enjoy for supporters of political opponents and for the elderly to suffer from this virus is disgusting, as is his comment expressing hope that President Trump would die from the Coronavirus, Wachsmann said.

Stay tuned to Breitbart News for more updates on this story.

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Texas Tech Prof. Would Reconsider Atheism if Donald Trump Dies of Chinese Virus - Breitbart

Podcast Ep. 315: COVID-19 and Bad Decision-Making | Hemant Mehta – Friendly Atheist – Patheos

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In our latest podcast, Jessica and I discussed the past week in politics and atheism.

We talked about:

Hemant will be on Jeopardy on Wednesday! (0:20)

Yes, the government can force churches to close down in the pandemic. (3:48)

Liberty University is open for business for some reason. (7:45)

A Pennsylvania lawmaker proposed a resolution blaming COVID-19 on our sins. (13:30)

A boy drowned at a low-budget Creation Museum and Kent Hovind doesnt seem to care. (18:16)

Is abortion an essential health service during a pandemic? (25:13)

A Texas lawmaker praised COVID-19 for saving lives by shutting down abortion clinics. (26:45)

A pastor who said our COVID-19 response was mass hysteria died of you know what. (34:49)

A Louisiana pastor brought in 26 busloads of people for Sunday services. Hes not planning to stop. (38:01)

Oklahomas governor led a televised Christian prayer rally while Mississippis read from the Bible during a livestream. (42:57)

The White Houses Bible study leader is blaming COVID-19 on gay people and atheists. (54:30)

A Romanian priest gave communion to people with the same spoon. (57:00)

A GOP leader in Nebraska said the virus wouldnt affect them because there arent a lot of Chinese people there. (57:38)

Wed love to hear your thoughts on the podcast. If you have any suggestions for people we should chat with, please leave them in the comments, too.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Google Play, stream all the episodes on SoundCloud or Stitcher, or just listen to the whole thing below. Our RSS feed is here. And if you like what youre hearing, please consider supporting this site on Patreon and leaving us a positive rating!

(Image via Shutterstock)

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Podcast Ep. 315: COVID-19 and Bad Decision-Making | Hemant Mehta - Friendly Atheist - Patheos

Trump’s Bible Study Leader Blames Gays, Greens, and the Godless for COVID-19 – Friendly Atheist – Patheos

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Since the entire world is following the COVID-19 pandemic, changing their lives to accommodate it and thinking of little else, it stands to reason that the weekly White House Bible study group would focus on the coronavirus too.

But when said Bible study is led by Ralph Drollinger of Capitol Ministries a man who likes to take public potshots at non-Christians, LGBTQ+ people, and working moms, among others that conversation is bound to turn ugly.

So maybe we should have predicted that this weeks Bible study, titled Is God Judging America Today? and sharply focused on whether Gods wrath is a spiritual root cause of the pandemic, would zero in on the usual suspects.

Drollinger starts by identifying five different subspecies of Gods wrath before zeroing in on the one he clearly finds most interesting: Gods forsaking wrath.

This is also referred to by theologians as the wrath of abandonment. In Romans 1:18-32 notice the following five identifying characteristics that surface when God pulls back and allows a person or group of people to go in the way of their wicked desires, i.e. God no longer restrains the fallen nature of man as He usually does.

He goes on to detail these five characteristics which arent causes of Gods forsaking wrath necessarily, but rather signs that God has given up on people and abandoned them to wallow in sin however they see fit.

So who are these fallen sinners?

Surprise! It didnt quite make headlines, but atheism is right at the top of the list!

You know God has given up on a society when youve got atheists or at least, lying liars who pretend not to know about Gods existence, since Drollinger doesnt believe in atheists:

The first evidence of the presence of Gods forsaking wrath is that people suppress (katecho), meaning to hold back that which they know is the truth. I am always amazed when people say, I dont believe in God, or I dont believe in the Bible It is not that the unregenerate dont know there is a God and His Word it is that they suppress these truths (cf. Romans 2:15). There is a big difference! [Emphasis in original]

So if you thought you didnt believe in God, pipe down. Youre wrong. And youre the reason society is currently primed to experience Gods forsaking wrath.

Youre not alone, though. Drollinger next points to environmentalists, whom he sees as apostates who serve a religion other than Christianity because environmental stewardship is itself a religion, in his eyes.

It explicitly follows from Genesis 1:26 that mankind is not equal or subservient to all that God has created; conversely he has preeminence over creation and the environment. Properly understood, God has appointed man to be His steward over the earth. Clearly indicative of Gods forsaking wrath is when the abandoned serve the creature rather than the creator. See my previous studies on the religion of environmentalism at capmin.org/biblestudies that detail this aberration.[emphasis in original]

And of course, its so obvious that LGBTQ+ people are part of Gods abandonment of America, it barely needs more than a sentence to make the point:

If youre curious, the remaining two signs that God has abandoned America to its wickedness are the lack of moral integrity and the praise heaped on those who lack it. If Drollinger sees any irony in citing those factors while working for the current administration, he gives no indication.

After focusing more than half the Bible study on the evidence for Gods forsaking wrath in our society which undeniably contains environmentalists, unbelievers, and gay people Drollinger turns tail to spend the rest of the document explaining through dense exegesis why he believes COVID-19 is not Gods forsaking wrath.

Says Drollinger in an accompanying blog post:

I dont see a forsaking form of Gods wrath in the New Testament relative to nations like those certainly on display in the Old Testament Relative to the coronavirus pandemic crisis, this is not Gods abandonment wrath nor His cataclysmic wrath, rather it is sowing and reaping wrath: a biblically astute evaluation of the situation strongly suggests that America and other countries of the world are reaping what China has sown due to their leaders recklessness and lack of candor and transparency.

Talk about a plot twist! It was China the whole time!

But even though America isnt experiencing Gods forsaking wrath through coronavirus, the people he targeted earlier as signs of it are absolutely responsible for the consequential wrath being meted out by way of COVID-19. The only reason they havent dragged America into utter abandonment is that the country still has enough good Christians to outnumber them:

Abraham, if he were to plead with God for America, would have a much stronger case than he did pleading with God for Sodom and Gomorrah.

In fact, Todays America is not by in large [sic] characterized by people who are unfaithful to Gods precepts. Conversely, there is only a small minority of individuals who are grossly disobedient to God, individuals to whom the five indicators of Romans 1 apply. Unfortunately for the vast majority of faithful individuals in America, too many of the unfaithful have been allowed by the faithful to gain high positions of influence in our culture.

Those individuals who are rebuked by Gods forsaking wrath are largely responsible for Gods consequential wrath on our nation.

Theres a lot going on in that paragraph. It sets up an us-versus-them ideology, a good-versus-evil narrative that casts the majority as good people being dragged into suffering by a powerful minority of virtual super-villains who deliberately and knowingly thumb their noses at God. It broadly blames that minority for the woes Americans currently face (including but not limited to the pandemic). And it warns readers that more suffering is to follow if these villains arent punished and made subordinate.

And this is from the Bible study document that went out to some of the most influential and powerful people in the United States of America.

(via The Intercept. Screenshot via YouTube)

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Trump's Bible Study Leader Blames Gays, Greens, and the Godless for COVID-19 - Friendly Atheist - Patheos

Why was early coronavirus coverage so lazy? The media’s insatiable thirst for political correctness – The Spectator USA

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When the media views its entire mission through a lens of meting out social justice while presenting itself as the opposition to the current administration, it completely misses the forest for the trees. Usually this just leads to harmless sparring between ideological opponents on the pages of the New York Times opinion section, but its lazy coverage of the early spread of coronavirus had national and international consequences.

President Trumps order to halt all travel from China on January 31, for example, was met with hollers of xenophobia from the loudest corners of mainstream media. Those cries have since been memory-holed quite literally, in some cases (Vox) but its worth revisiting the where the worst actors in media stood when this pandemic started. In fact, it was the very next day after Trumps executive order that mainstream media outlets published stories downplaying the threat as merely another xenophobic reaction to foreigners, just like theyve done with Trumps position on immigration at the southern border.

The night that President Trump issued his order, Vox tweeted, Is this going to be a deadly pandemic? No. That tweet was then deleted with a correction earlier this week. Lenny Bernstein at the Washington Post wrote on January 31, Get a grippe [sic], America. The flu is a much bigger threat than Coronavirus, for now. The next day, the Washington Post published an op-ed titled, Past epidemics prove fighting coronavirus with travel bans is a mistake. In what appeared to be a full court press against the presidents order, the paper published another piece on January 31, How our brains make coronavirus seem scarier than it is. On February 3, they hit us with another op-ed headlined, Why we should be wary of an aggressive government response to coronavirus, arguing it would lead to more stigmatization of marginalized populations.

On January 29, in concert with the Washington Post, BuzzFeed News tweeted, Dont worry about the coronavirus. Worry about the flu. Just a few days before President Trumps Oval Office address to the nation, CNNs Anderson Cooper said on air that if youre freaked out about the Coronavirus you should be more concerned about the flu. And then shortly after Trumps address, CNNs Brian Stelter commented that Sean Hannity and Fox were going to celebrate the travel ban while evading the scourge of community spread within the US. CNN then published online in late February that racist attacks against Asians (only of which a handful in the United States have been authenticated and documented) spread faster than the coronavirus.

This was all, of course, reflexive coverage to a president they see as an emotional and oppressive opponent. Trump has made a hobby of hitting the media over the head with whatever bat they hand to him, and its one of the reasons its hard to listen to any of their sky-is-falling coverage now. Donald Trump is going to spin his way through this crisis, just like any communications-minded president would do, and the medias attempts to play catch-up will leave them with a public that no longer trusts them.

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Why was early coronavirus coverage so lazy? The media's insatiable thirst for political correctness - The Spectator USA

Are progressives afraid of challenge to their socialist agenda? – Wyoming Tribune

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Could America be in the midst of a shift where good and evil are seen as they really are? Have we replaced "censorship" of obscenity with the "censorship" of free thought and speech by "political correctness"? Are "political correctness" buzz words of diversity, social justice, moral relativism and multiculturalism usable decoys of socialism?

Is confusion the purpose behind "identity politics?" Could the reason "Make America Great" is so offensive to many is because it exposes and challenges the agenda to destroy America through socialism? Are we being shown by the Democratic primary that Bernie Sanders is too honest as a socialist, Communist; that powers in the Democrat Party don't want their real agenda disclosed?

Here is just a couple of goals from the 1958 book "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen: Goal 40, Discredit the family as an institution, encourage promiscuity and easy divorce; and Goal 27, Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible.

Another Communist goal manifesting in public education and reinforced by the media has been to give our children a collective, socialist mindset so that they will be dependent on the government. How many know Karl Marx was the originator of Communism and the environmental movement, that Earth Day is Lenin's birthday, all while communist China is one of the Earth's worst polluters?

Has it become obvious that liberal math is addition for liberal progressives and subtraction for everyone else? Could the scamming of consumers, students and voters actually be challenged by people pursuing the truth? Although progressives preach democracy, freedom and utopia, is not their practice totalitarian socialism, which destroys real freedom, and the market economy, which has brought prosperity?

Ironically two things (among others), that I remember traveling in Russia and Ukraine in 1993 shortly after Communism supposedly collapsed was a shortage of food and toilet paper. What if, rather than jumping on the media's fear bandwagon that's pushing panic and chaos, we choose to know the Prince of Peace, giving us the ability to discern the real situation and calmly respond with wisdom (Proverbs 3:5-8)?

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Are progressives afraid of challenge to their socialist agenda? - Wyoming Tribune

The Coronavirus Death Count and Trumps TV Ratings – The Bulwark

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Was President Trump bragging about his television ratings? Or was it his polling? Maybe it was that he wanted credit for New York governor Andrew Cuomos high marks. Forgive me for not remembering or even caring. Theres only enough bandwidth for one number at the momentthe national COVID-19 death toll that stalks a new record high each day.

As of the evening of March 31, the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 counter reported over 189,600 cases in the United States and over 4,000 dead. FEMA is sending refrigerated trucks to transport corpses from New York hospitals. Gymnasiums and parks have become makeshift emergency hospitals. Medical professionals, many reporting to the frontlines without proper personal protective equipment, are risking their lives to treat patients who carry the deadly infection. By one count, more than 260 million Americans are now under some kind of stay-at-home orders. Businesses, big and small alike, are fighting to survive. More than 30 million American children cant go to school.

Already concerned about scraping a victory from the ashes, Trump said over the weekend that he thinks the final death toll will be 100,000 or maybe even less and that he and his team have so far done a very good job.

On Tuesday, in a presentation that was more sober than his usual performances, Trump told Americans during a two-hour marathon White House press conference that were going to go through a very tough two weeks. Still, he couldnt refrain from again praising his own performance. I think only good things can be said when you look at the job thats been done, he said.

At Tuesdays briefing, Trump stood in front of a screen presenting a slide that showed the goals of community mitigation would result in deaths totaling between 100,000 and 240,000. Citing the possibility of more than 2 million deaths had the government taken no action, Trump reiterated I think weve done a fantastic job . . . I think weve done a great job . . . I think Ive done a really good job of mobilizingas if 75,000, 90,000, or even 230,000 dead should provide him a grand Mission Accomplished moment. He can probably see himself now standing on the deck of USNS Comfort docked in New York basking in the gratitude of a thankful nationwhen in reality, millions of people would be in mourning.

Podcast April 01 2020

On today's Bulwark Podcast, Politico's Ben White joins host Charlie Sykes to discuss the economic ramifications of COVID...

President Trumps often-bizarre press conferences are reminders that he is concerned first and foremost about how COVID-19 affects his image and his re-election chances.

Over the weekend, he tweeted about his TV ratings:

He vainly believes that he is getting stratospheric television ratings because of his leadership appeal and not because millions of people are trapped in their houses in the middle of a pandemic desperate for clues about what happens next.

Meanwhile, those who question his approach are scolded because, as he said on Sunday, When they disrespect me, theyre disrespecting our government. (This sounded better in the original French: Letat cest moi.)

Instead of focusing all their energy and attention on the pandemic, Trump and his allies are picking many of the same kinds of vapid fights they always have.

Think back to what he has said over just the last six weeks. In late February, Trump accused the Democrats of politicizing the virus and described it as their new hoax. When he couldnt downplay COVID-19 anymore, he and his allies labeled it the Chinese virus and stoked a debate about the political correctness or racism of that term. In just the last few days, his allies have gone back to denigrating Democrats, saying they diverted the presidents attention from the emerging crisis with the impeachment proceedings.

Its all so tiresome to keep up with, mainly because of how pointless the blame-shifting is.

Anyone with access to Google can see how wrong hes gotten it. Roll the tape of how he promised back in January that We have it totally under control. Its one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. Its going to be just fine. Find the transcript where he told Fox Newss Sean Hannity, Well, we pretty much shut it down coming in from China. Look at his February 26 remarks, when there were only 15 known cases of COVID-19 in the United States and he claimed that within a couple of days that number is going to be down to close to zero, thats a pretty good job weve done.

When it finally became apparent that the number wasnt going down, Trump pivoted. He implied a vaccine would be available soon. He said, anyone who wants a test can get a test, and it would be coordinated through an easy-to-use, Google-designed website that would be rolled out very quickly. All of it was a firehose of falsehood, an avalanche of lies.

Is there any point in proving how much he lies anymore? Because right here before us all, there is a far more critical number than his TV ratings, polling, or the Dow Jones Industrial Average: the tally of the sick and the dead. As the president crows about his TV ratings, a black cloud looms over every American householdthe dread that comes of knowing that you or someone you care about could be next. It could be a family member, a teacher, a doctor, or that lady at the gas station who calls you, and everyone else, sweetheart when you go inside to buy snacks. Its an invisible terror, ruthless and random. Theres no telling who it will strike down or when.

But we will know their names. They will be recorded in a terrible ledger. And there would be far fewer names in that grim list if our president had acted differently.

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The Coronavirus Death Count and Trumps TV Ratings - The Bulwark

Transgender activist talks about what transitioning was like in Israel – University Press

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FAUs Owls for Israel and National Organization for Women chapters hosted an online event featuring transgender activist Michael Alroy.

Michael Alroy. Courtesy of Alroy's LinkedIn

When he was four years old, Michael Alroy knew he wanted to be a boy upon receiving a Barbie doll as a gift, while his brother got a tractor. Another major point in his life was when he moved to Israel from South Africa at 7 years old with his mother and two siblings to start a new life.

And at 20 years old, Alroys life changed again: he transitioned from female to male, from Michelle to Michael. Alroy said his transition allowed him to fully be Michael Alroy, and that is it.

FAUs Owls for Israel and National Organization for Women chapters hosted an Alroy last week via Zoom, where he gave a lecture called Life Begins Where Fear Ends. He discussed the complicated relationship he had between himself and his religion throughout his transition.

The lecture is important because [people] have no idea what being transgender is, Alroy said. Theres a lack of knowledge and lack of political correctness.

Michael began the lecture by asking the seemingly simple question: What is a man? Alroy said there were two answers: biological concepts and social, cultural concepts.

Though he said his transition brought many struggles, some involving family and others involving society and cultural influences, Alroy said the process taught him to love himself.

When Alroy began identifying as a man, he said that ultimately shifted the dynamics of his family and his religious affiliations.

Upon arriving in Israel, Michael then named Michelle was enrolled into an all-girls religious school, which caused him to struggle with his mental health and gender. He said those struggles allowed him not to just become religious, but become a believer in God and in the good of others.

After finishing school and joining the Israeli Defense Forces which he enlisted in as a woman more difficulties arose when he decided to transition. (The first openly transgender officer of the Israeli Defense Forces wasnt announced until 2017.)

The Owls for Israel president, Jayda Pierre, said the event was both successful and enlightening.

Israel is a beautiful and diverse country, Pierre said. We are happy that Michael shared his incredible story with us and showed us that although Israel is not perfect, it is on the right path with LGBTQ+ rights.

According to the Jewish Virtual Library, Israel was ranked as the seventh happiest place in the world for gay men to live. Another important step for LGBT people in Israel was the opening of a mixed-gender praying space at the Western Wall, a holy Jewish site, the Jewish Virtual Library website reads.

Alroy also discussed his 2015 appearance on the Israeli version of the reality show Big Brother, which led to an increase in discussion of the transgender community in Israel, he said.

Hes presented his Life Begins Where Fear Ends lecture at multiple universities.

Haley Flamenbaum is a contributing writer for the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [emailprotected]

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Transgender activist talks about what transitioning was like in Israel - University Press

Sheltered in Place? Read The Best Of The New Campus Novels – Forbes

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There's a new batch of campus novels - just it time for good reading during this spring of ... [+] self-isolation.

Campus closed? Still self-isolating? Fed up with zoom? You need some entertainment, or at least a bit of distraction? Well, nows a good time to curl up with the latest campus novel, and this year brings a good crop for your consideration.

The campus novel continues to push its boundaries, serving as a vehicle for all kinds of fictional explorations. Heres my recommendations of five recent good reads, including tales of love, revenge, reminiscence, intimacy and loneliness; you know, the typical campus scene.

In Real Life, Brandon Taylor covers three days in the life of Wallace, a black, gay graduate student in biochemistry at an unnamed university in the midwest (although it sure resembles the University of Wisconsin, where Taylor was once a biochemistry student himself). Taylor brings the precision of a scientist to his descriptions of Wallaces desires and defenses, at war with each other throughout the story. And he captures the ennui of those caught between the lure and the loneliness of academic science, trapped in an existence that doesnt qualify as a real life - Stay here and suffer, or exit and drown.

A search for purpose, complicated by being black in a white space, suffering his own estrangement from these people he calls his friends is Wallaces struggle, and its told bleakly but beautifully in Taylors debut novel.

Published in 2019, Richard Russos Chances Are... is not a campus novel so much as a college nostalgia (the title drawn from the Johnny Mathis classic that backgrounded a generations foreplay). Three men, now in their sixties, life-long friends since their undergraduate days at Minerva College, get together on Marthas Vineyard for a reunion. Forty years earlier theyd come to the same beach house for a post-graduation farewell weekend, accompanied by Jacy Calloway, a fellow student with whom all three were in love. That weekend was the last that Jacy was seen or heard of, a disappearance thats haunted the three men ever since.

Mixed in with reminiscing about their Minerva days and disclosing the triumphs and trials of their lives, the three men remain obsessed with Jacy - and what became of her. Their preoccupation bends much of the novel into a mystery - too melodramatically at times. But nobody does rueful masculinity as well as Russo, and his powers are on poignant display here, particularly when exploring the often fraught bonds between fathers and sons.

The Truants by Kate Weinberg is a twisty tale narrated by Jess Walker, whos been drawn to enroll in a drab college in East Anglia so she can study under Dr. Lorna Clay, an enigmatic, provocative expert on Agatha Christie and the author of The Truants,in which she puts forth her lifes theme - writers must live dangerous, selfish lives in the pursuit of unique insights.

With gestures to Donna Tartts The Secret History, this debut novel is a blend of murder mystery, coming-of-age story, campus intrigue and academic pretense. Jess and her three eerie friends (Georgie, Nick and Alec - all Clay aficionados) galavant through the full landscape of young adult emotions - rebellion, friendship, envy, lust, treachery - into adulthood, doing their best to cope with the betrayals they regularly deal to one another. Great characters, lots of deceit, messy love triangles, and several intriguing asides for Christie lovers, this is an enticing read.

We Wish You Luck by Carline Zancan is story about three aspiring writers attending a highly competitive, low-residency MFA program at Fielding College. Zancan, herself an MFA graduate from Bennington, spins an absorbing, suspenseful tale about the culture - the recognition and the rejection, the closeness and the competitiveness - that develops in graduate writing programs.

After Jimmy, one of the novels featured trio of students, is devastated by a lacerating critique of his workshop poem by the hotshot writer leading the class, the story turns to his colleagues revenge. Reading like a low-speed thriller, this is a novel that honors the hard craft of good writing and respects the obligated response of serious reading. It lays bare the torture and triumph of becoming a writer and how writers shape one another - for better or worse.

A staple among campus novels is the satire of academias pretentious and insularity. This year that base is covered by Scott Johnstons Campusland, a sharply written and hilarious send-up of the elite Devon University, not so subtly modeled after Yale. Johnston takes aim at the precious sensibilities of todays campuses, skewering everything from trigger warnings, safe places, tenure tussles, Title IX excesses and deficiencies, diet fads and identity politics.

The cultural wars are fought all around the central character, Ephraim Eph Russell, an earnest assistant professor of English who is unlucky enough to be falsely accused of two incidents of misconduct. The first - trumped up by competing honchos in Devons camps of progressive students - is that he allowed racially insensitive language to be used in a class on Mark Twain. The second - a frame job by undergrad Lulu Harris, a histrionic, social climbing ,it girl - is that Eph sexually assaulted her in his office.

Eph is surrounded by a cast of campus archetypes, including the glad-handing president Milton Strauss; overpaid administrators blinded by political correctness; clueless frat boys preoccupied with sex, alcohol, and flatulence; ever-fractionating progressive student groups waging internecine power struggles, and humanities faculty with their agendas of grievance. He has one true ally - his girlfriend DArcy, who also happens to be Milton Strauss administrative assistant. Campusland throws a lot of jabs and, unless you think the academy is too sacrosanct to ever be poked, many strike a chord.

Self-quarantine has left all of us with a lot of time on our hands. Put a book in them instead. For those of you longing for a return to campus, these five novels will take you there, at least for a little bit.

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Sheltered in Place? Read The Best Of The New Campus Novels - Forbes

Jeff Cooper: The Man Behind the ‘Modern Technique’ – American Rifleman

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This article, "Col. Jeff Cooper," appeared originally in the October 1993 issue of American Rifleman. To subscribe to the magazine,visit theNRA membership page hereand selectAmerican Rifleman as your member magazine.

Some years ago, Big Bear Lake, a southern California ski resort town, put on a *'Miners' Days" extravaganza for the commendable purpose of attracting its share of summer tourists. Among the major activities was a "Leatherslap" fast-draw contest, organized by a retired colonel of Marines, John Dean Cooper, always known as 'Jeff.'"

Decrying the blanks commonly used in"fast-draw" matchesCooper held even then that the purpose in shooting is to hit the targethe decided on man-on-man bouts using paper silhouette targets at about 7 yds.

Though paper targets made it difficult to determine the match winner, the Leatherslap was a huge success, so much so that it became first an annual and then a monthly event, and the Bear Valley Gunslingers and later the South West Combat Pistol League were formed to run it.

In that first Leatherslap, single-action "cowboy" and double-action police revolvers predominated. Only Cooper and Hugh Carpenter were eccentric enough to use the 1911 Colt .45 pistol. All held their guns with one hand, naturally, and most employed point or hip-shooting, though Cooper says he did use the sights. The next year, a deputy sheriff named Jack Weaver shocked everyone by winning decisively while holding his revolver in both hands, and handgunning was changed forever.

Weaver was far from being the first pistolero to use both hands. Although the pistol was developed mostly as a cavalry arm that was necessarily used one-handed in order to leave the other free to control the steed, it had on occasion been grasped in both hands, probably from the beginning.

For example, in his 1930 book, Shooting, J.H. FitzGerald has a photo of himself using a two-handed hold that, at least superficially, resembles the Weaver stance. "Very accurate shooting can be done ... and the officer will find he can shoot faster and with moreaccuracy after a run if the arm is held in this manner," he advises.

There is an illustration of a young Elmer Keith using two hands in his book Sixguns, and Don Martin, writing in the 1957 Gun Digest, advocated a two-handed hold in the field. None of these men suggested that the two-handed grip originated with him.

However, there is more to the Weaver than holding the pistol in both hands. Normally the weak-side foot is slightly advanced so that the supporting arm elbow can be bent while the firing arm is fully extended, or nearly so. The supporting hand pulls back against the firing hand to set up isometric tension that controls muzzle flip and tends to return the pistol to the original line of sight after each shot.

This principle is what distinguishes the Weaver from all other stances, and if the earlier exponents of two-handed pistol shooting knew about it, they made no mention of it that I can find.

Jeff Cooper was born in 1920 into a comfortably well-off California family that kept a summer home on Catalina Island, where he ran free during his formative years. He was introduced to rifle shooting at age 11 (a rather ripe old age, he says), acquired his first rifle, a Remington Model 34 .22 rimfire that he still owns, at 14, and was harassing the wild goats with a .22 Hornet ("not enough gun") at age 16.

Thus he began his shooting career with the rifle, though he did gain some experience with the handguns used to kill sharks on a fishing boat owned by one of his father's friends, including a broomhandle Mauser.

Cooper joined the Reserve Officers Training Corps in high school because it issued free .22 ammo to the rifle team, and continued in it at Stanford University, where he earned a BA in political science and met the girl who would become his wife.

In those days, the Marines were permitted to recruit from the Army ROTC. The enticement they offered, besides the glamour of an elite unit, was a regular commission as opposed to a reserve commission in the Army.

Cooper was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps in September 1941 and was attending Basic School when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He served the first 2.5 years of the war in the Pacific on the shore bombardment battleship Pennsylvania,and was preparing to invade Japan with the 3rd Marines when the atomic bombs were dropped.

He spent a few years after the war as a student and staff instructor at the Marine Corps Command and Staff School at Quantico, Va. There he began his serious research into the art of the combat pistol by evaluating an FBI course, after which he and Capt. (later Col.) H.G. Taft created a radical Advanced Military Combat Pistol Course." Some elements of that course are still in use today.

After a brief spell as a civilian, Cooper served through the Korean War in clandestine operations so covert that his oath of secrecy still prohibits him from discussing them. He resigned with the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1955 and settled with his wife Janelle and three daughters into a large house in Big Bear Lake. He dabbled in automobile racing, and wrote some articles about it for one of the Petersen's magazines, but did not find his true vocation until that first Leatherslap.

Cooper realized that competition was the means by which the full potential of the combat pistol could be discovered and the tool by which the best techniques for realizing that potential could be developed. To that end, he insisted on freestyle competition.

"Service-type" sidearms and ammo were to be used, and all strings started with the pistol holstered, but apart from that there were few limitations, and competitors could use any technique, stance or holster they chose.

Targets included balloons, paper silhouettes and-metal gongs, at ranges from arm's length to more than 100 yds. The courses of fire were diversified so that none was repeated during the competition year, and all attempted to simulate real-life situations that might occur on the street.

From all this, men like Jack Weaver, Elden Carl, Ray Chapman, John Plahn, Thell Reed and Cooper developed the "Modern Technique" and learned to shoot the pistol so well that it was elevated, as Cooper remarked, from being a mere badge of office or last-ditch trinket to a serious personal-defense tool. In this open competition, the Browning-designed M1911 Government pistol proved to be the best handgun available.

The Weaver Stance is only one component of the Modern Technique, which includes among other things the use of the flash sight picture even at close range, the compressed surprise trigger break, proper gun handling, safety rules, malfunction drills and reloading, and perhaps above all, the combat mindset.

Cooper has written that "Man fights with his mind. His hands and his weapons are simply extensions of his will He says that of the 50 or so of his students who have been involved in lethal confrontations, not one student claimed to have saved his life by his dexterity or his marksmanship, but rather by his mindset.

He defines the combat mindset as that state of mind which ensures victory in a gunfight. It is composed of awareness, anticipation, concentration and coolness. Above all, its essence is self-control. Dexterity and marksmanship are prerequisite to confidence, and confidence is prerequisite to self-control.

Cooper wrote about this new doctrine of practical pistolcraft, and presently he was being asked to teach it, mostly overseas. Working with the good guys in hot spots in Latin America, Europe and Africa, he evolved simple and effective ways of teaching the modern technique.

The demand for his services grew so that he was seldom home, though he did find time to earn his masters in history at the University of California, Riverside, in 1965. Finally, in 1975, he and Janelle moved to Gunsite, a 200-acre ranch near Prescott, Arizona, where he created the American Pistol Institute, now Gunsite Academy, a complete school for small arms. The first class gathered in the fall of 76.

In the meanwhile, the popularity of practical pistol competition had grown so enormously both at home and over-seas that a conference was held the same year at Columbia, Missouri, which resulted in the formation of the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC), with Cooper as founding president, and with DVCDiligentia, Vis, Cereritas (accuracy, power, speed)as its motto.

Cooper has always regarded competition primarily as a research tool, and as a means of improving one's ability to defend himself and others in an increasingly dangerous world. Of late, however, the gamesmen have rather taken over IPSC (as inevitably happens),) with the result that its courses of fire, and the equipment and techniques used, are becoming somewhat detached from real-world defensive pistolcraft, It remains great fun, though.

Cooper is a serious student of the rifle, and a big game hunter of considerable experience both in this country and in Africa. He has developed two designs that he feels will cover most of the practical applications to which the rifle may be put in the field. The first is the "scout rifle," a light, handy general-purpose piece meant to be suitable both for most big game hunting and as a lone scout/sniper's weapon in war.

Cooper the hunter posed with "Baby," his ironsighted .460 G&A cal. wildcat on the Brno ZKK 602 bolt action, during his 1990 Botswana safari.

Chambered usually in .308 Win, the scout rifle's most obvious feature is a low-power scope sight mounted low with its ocular lens just ahead of the action port. This enables the shooter to see around it, gaining in effect an unobstructed field of view, gives unhindered access to the action and permits the use of stripper clips.

The other concept is a crumpler for large, dangerous game, nicknamed Baby after Sir Samuel Baker's fearsome child of a cannon that threw a half-pound explosive shell. It is a short, heavy, extended-magazine bolt-action (preferably the Brno ZKK 602) fitted with a ghost-ring aperture sight and chambered to the .460 G&A wildcat cartridge.

Based on the .404 Jeffery case, this round propels a 500-gr. bullet to 2400 f.p.s. from a 21" barrel, and I have no doubt it will do an expeditious job on anything if directed properly. Cooper used Baby to crumple up a great buffalo bull in Botswana on his 70th birthday.

The American Pistol Institute at Gunsite has been a very successful shooting school, with up to 700 students a year. In the past, students received part of their instruction from Jeff Cooper. This is no longer the case.

Testing himself once again, Cooper shot his Cape buffalo at nine paces on his 70th birthday, May 10, 1990.

Having passed his three-score-and-ten, Cooper says he wanted to divest himself of some of the day-to-day chores of running Gunsite. Thus, Gunsite was sold early last year to a former student and instructor with the understanding, according to Cooper, that he would remain in chargein other words he would sell the ship but stay on as skipper. I know of a couple of instances where that sort of arrangement has worked out, but mostly it does not.

Gunsite, says Cooper, allowed him to teach what he believed in, and to make self-defense techniques available to all who deserved them. Besides, it was fun, and what he wanted to do. He now regards the sale as mistake.

A man of many parts is Jeff Cooper, apart from being the guru of the combat pistol, warrior (as all true men are at bottom), Marine officer, spook, swordsman, bon vivant, historian, scholar, adjunct professor of police science, connoisseur of fast cars, expert rifleman and big game hunter, adventurer (peril not varietyis the true spice of life), philosopher, NRA director, a superb writer and author with a wonderful command of the language, father and grandfather, husband to one of the most gracious, charming and delightful of ladies (doubt not her core of steel, though else how could she have managed Jeff for more than 50 years?), a seeker of excellence whose creed is Honor, Duty, Country, a man with a great gusto for life, and, perhaps above all, a teacher.

He is a strong-willed person who expresses his opinions confidently, defends them with verve and erudition in debate, suffers not fools, and scorns political correctness. Consequently he has deeply offended some people, mostly of the left. On the other hand, he has also attracted an almost cultist group of true believers for whom his every pronouncement is The Word. I am not one of them.

Cooper is a very human man, and thus by definition grievously prone to sin and error (I will wager, though, that he is right more often than most of his detractors). I disagree with Cooper about many things, such as the comparative effectiveness of various cartridges and bullets, magazine cut-offs, the best form of shooting sling, and other matters. But these are trivial; when it comes to values, philosophies of life, what is a man, and what the Republic should stand for, we are on the same side. Warts and all I like and admire Cooper a lot.

Be all that as it may, he is truly the father of the modern technique of the pistol. Others helped evolve itand it continues to evolvebut he put it all together, promoted it, and taught it. No one since Samuel Colt has had a greater impact on practical pistolcraft than Col. Jeff Cooper.

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Jeff Cooper: The Man Behind the 'Modern Technique' - American Rifleman

No one is safe from the puritanical poison of wokeness says SIR JOHN HAYES – Express

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After all, student high jinx is par for the course. Yet in fact, the decision to exclude a former Cabinet Minister is part of a dark mission to destroy the essence of democracy freedom of speech.The sinister missionaries hand was evident again in the suspension of Trevor Phillips by the Labour Party and in a campaign by Guardian newspaper staff against their own columnist Suzanne Moore. In both these cases the targeted individuals appear to be guilty of nothing more than stating what to most of us is glaringly obvious. In Phillips' case his crime was to draw attention to the fact that members of vile paedophile gangs in Northern cities were of Pakistani Muslim origin, in the case of Moore she simply pointed out that being a woman is a biological fact, not a lifestyle choice. That Phillips, a brave crusader against racism as founding Chairman of the Equalities Commission, can be branded an Islamaphobe and Moore, a leading feminist writer, as transphobic should be a warning to us all - no one is safe from the puritanical poison of politically correct wokeness.

Too many leading institutions have, in effect, been taken over by an intolerant left wing elite who regard any viewpoint other than their own as unacceptable. Once, most academics put aside their personal political views to provide students with a balanced education. Today, much of academia has become the most narrow-minded branch of the liberal establishment. Consequently, it is increasingly difficult for academics with anything other than liberal left views to survive. A survey at the time of the 2017 election found that just 7 percent of university staff intended to vote Conservative. My friend, the late, great political philosopher Sir Roger Scruton recalled that when he taught at Birkbeck College, he was the only conservative there, apart from the lady who served meals in the Senior Common Room. Sir Roger was for years denied the recognition he deserved by the academic establishment.

Much of the student body is affected too, with young minds dulled by the simplistic dictums of political correctness. Which is why many student societies have become vehicles of cultural oppression, at best marginalising and at worst vilifying views that offend snowflake undergraduates. Presumably, university authorities are either complicit or complacent.

The dominance of the liberal establishment is aided and abetted by the echo-camber of social media, which has spawned a new form of ugly discourse where everything is understood through the prism of identity. It has become commonplace for someone to preface a statement with qualifications like as a member of a certain ethnic group, as a gay man or transgender female. As such statements are so ubiquitous we have become numb to just how disturbing they really are. Identity has become the ultimate arbiter of opinion. This is the triumph of relativism; of the ego over discussion, of opinion over knowledge. We live in an era where the national conversation is so degraded that, for wokes, it is acceptable to deny a speaker a platform simply on the grounds that what they have to say, even when evidentially based, might possibly make someone in the audience feel uncomfortable.

For most of us, busy with work and family lives, such issues may appear marginal. But in practice, the way debate is increasingly shut down, with speakers no platformed and books denied publication, should worry us all. It represents the ruthless exercise of power by the few over the many. Although the result of the General Election last December demonstrates that most people reject the woke agenda of the left, it does not mean that the culture war is won. Far from it, the liberal left elite are in control of almost all our leading cultural institutions, including the BBC, and are using their power to influence how people think. Even television adaptations of Agatha Christie mysteries now routinely come with an unsavory dose of political correctness and liberal moralizing. No element of our culture is safe.

The announcement that the government is considering legislation to strengthen free speech in universities is a welcome start, but no more than a beginning. Whilst institutions can be legally forced to allow certain speakers, legislation alone will not weaken the dominance of an ideology that vilifies those who dare to think for themselves. The only way lasting change can be made is by redistributing the power of the liberal establishment. The Government must proactively ensure that all appointments made to cultural bodies play a part in bringing about a greater range of views more in keeping with the sentiments of hard-working patriots. Perhaps communal panels of workers supported by worthy local organisations could vet applicants. Such an approach would leave the left up-in-arms because they know that it would give a voice to the voiceless and power to the powerless.

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No one is safe from the puritanical poison of wokeness says SIR JOHN HAYES - Express

Listing the pros and cons of the post-coronavirus era – Indian Link

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Itsthe dawn of the PC era, folks.

No,Im not talking about the Personal Computer era. Thats some four decades old,and our life is now run by said electronic device(s).

Thisis not about Political Correctness either, which has dramatically altered ourtolerance and attitude for better or worse, depending on who you talk to.

Andno this is definitely not about actor Priyanka Chopra, fondly referred to asPeeCee by industry colleagues (and by the paparazzi who rush behind herscreaming Pissy Pissy).

Thisis about the Post Corona era.

Thepretty looking microbe that is bulldozing the bull market and badgering thebudgets of nations, has left everyone wondering what lies in its aftermath.Many futuristic scenarios have been depicted by scientists, economists,politicians, even stand-up comedians. Heres my two bobs worth.

PChas Pros and Cons in heaps.

Pro: The environment is the biggest winner. Companies that ask employeesto work from home find it profitable, with reduced overheads like rent, power,insurance etc, and may even embrace it permanently. This will lead to fewercars on the roads and less air pollution. The loser will be Greta, nay, chota,Thunberg and her teeny-weeny followers flunking school on Fridays. Back toschool, girls and boys, the climate is ok.

Con: With millions of jobs gone, commercial complexes lie vacant, fewertowers built and less construction work overall. Every cloud hath a silverlining. These empty buildings may come handy when the next virus breaks out(God, oops, China forbid), to be used as temporary hospitals. Or converted intoaffordable apartments or even as haven for the homeless.

Pro: With our universities offering courses online to overseas studentsdue to restrictions on their return, many of them prefer to stay home andreceive their education at less cost. This may obviate the need for theirparents to grab properties off the market, reducing real estate values andhelping Aussies buy their first homes. At (private) school, the launch of onlineeducation will render obsolete the constant need for new buildings; therell beno excuse therefore to fleece parents for donations year after year.

Con: Social distancing may spike the consumption of alcohol, causing ablow-out in obesity. With no work to go to and time on hand, a baby boom islikely.

Pro (followed by Con): With over a million newly unemployed willing totake up any work at lower wages, some entrepreneurs may consider starting newventures creating a resurgence in manufacturing. Will Holden come back? Donthold your hopes high though. Now is a wake-up call to stop the gallopingglobalisation that has led the world to depend on single sources of supply.

Pro? Con? China-badgers have had a field day asking why theresbeen no Beijing blockade or Shanghai shut-down. How come COVID-19 hasnttouched Russia next door, or battered its all-weather ally Pak? Has Imran hitthe virus for a six? Did Kim Jong-un fire his missiles to drive the demon away?Was it indeed, a plot to bring down western economy??

Con: On the lighter side, the Crown it seems is no cover against the corona (poor Charles). The corona can even down a Downing St prime resident.

Pro: About the face mask, were all realising now why our Jain munis weresuch visionaries. Today though, creative advertising gurus have millions ofmouthpieces as canvases to convey their messages. In true in your face style,I might add. I would advocate for smiley emojis, to cheer the current depressedlot. How about this slogan: I am OK. Hope you are too? to convey empathy tofellow maskers. Footy clubs will follow suit to issue masks in club colours hopefullytheyll muffle the barracking and the out-of-tune and drunken singing.

Pro: The five-guest wedding will be a welcome new social phenomenon (andnot just for the brides parents who usually have to foot the bill for thewedding party). The guests will typically include the bride, the groom, the priestand the brides parents. No room for the brides mother-in-law: that categoryof humans has been weeded out because too many of them have been dowry demandingdemons in the past.

Ultimate Pro: My personal favourite is ScoMos specification of four square meters of personal space. I have drawn lines in my living room to keep my other half at a safe distance. Absolute domestic peace now. You beaut, oh Wuhan virus!

Disclaimer: This piece was written on my old Smith Corona typewriter, as my laptop has had a virus attack. At least my old Corona is sanitised and safe.

READ ALSO: COVID-19: A world of new realities

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Listing the pros and cons of the post-coronavirus era - Indian Link