‘The Gambler’ is new all-sports addition to Cleveland radio lineup – Crain’s Cleveland Business

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Cleveland has another all-sports radio station.

Only this one is going to have a Las Vegas lean.

IHeart Media Cleveland has announced that this week marks the debut of Fox Sports 1350 AM, a station that is being dubbed "The Gambler."

The station, according to iHeart, "will focus on sports talk with a concentration on gambling." There will be top-of-the-hour wagering updates from Vegas Stats and Information, along with programming from the BeTR Network.

Shows led by Dan Patrick, Colin Cowherd and Doug Gottlieb will occupy the 9-5 workday, and longtime Cleveland radio personality Mark "Munch" Bishop is hosting a three-hour program that begins at 6 a.m.

The full weekday programming lineup is as follows:

Midnight-2 a.m.: The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon

2-6 a.m.: The Ben Maller Show

6-9 a.m.: Munch on Sports

9 a.m.-noon: The Dan Patrick Show

Noon-3 p.m.: The Herd with Colin Cowherd

3-5 p.m.: The Doug Gottlieb Show

5-7 p.m.: My Guys in the Desert with Brent Musberger

7-9 p.m.: The Odd Couple with Chris Broussard and Rob Parker

9 p.m.-midnight: The Green Zone

"The Lombardi Line," which features former Browns GM Mike Lombardi, will also be part of the weekly rotation, as will such NFL-themed shows as "The Red Zone" and "Fox NFL Kickoff Simulcast."

Keith Hotchkiss, the president of iHeart's northern Ohio region, called The Gambler "the future of sports radio."

New York-based iHeart operates more than 850 radio stations. Its Cleveland presence is significant, with WAKS-FM, 96.5; ALT-FM, 99.1; WGAR-FM, 99.5; WMMS-FM, 100.7; WMJI-FM, 105.7; REAL-FM, 106.1; WHLK-FM, 106.5; and WTAM-AM, 1100 among the stations thatiHeart owns and operates.

The company, though, is undergoing what it described as a "new organizational structure," one that, according to Cleveland.com, has resulted in several layoffs in the Cleveland market.

Previously, 1350 had been a Fox Sports affiliate based in Akron.

The launch of The Gambler, though, has resulted in the studios being moved to Cleveland and the lineup being reshuffled to make room for gambling, an iHeart source told Crain's.

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The Familiar Gambling Game Bingo in Its Online Avatar Continues to be Popular – newsBTC

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BINGO! Everyone is familiar with the joyous phrase that usually follows some kind of achievement, and thats exactly what one shouts out loud by the winner in the game of Bingo. Here we will be discussing about the most popular game of chance Bingo which is so ingrained in the society that it is much more than gambling. It is also the game of choice when it comes to community building and educational activities. But if you are playing it for monetary returns, then forget the bingo sessions at your church or local community center, or the variant used to teach stuff at schools and start looking for high stake events at casinos and online platforms.

Bingo has predominantly been an offline event where the participants were handed out cards with B-I-N-G-O spelt on the top row followed by few numbers filling up the columns under each letter, with all the numbers forming a 55 square matrix. With the cards in the hands of each participant, one of the organizers would shuffle tiny balls with a number and alphabet associated with the word Bingo written on it to pick one at random and call out whats written on it. If the participant has that corresponding number and letter on the card, then they will mark it. The first person to get all the numbers in a row either vertical, horizontal or diagonal will call out BINGO! loud to notify their success. Sometimes, the game continues until someone gets all the numbers to fill the card. In the UK, the Bingo cards have a 93 matrix with 5 numbers and 4 empty cells in each row, and the one who marks all the numbers on their card emerges as the winner.

While thats the basics of Bingo, it has evolved over time leading to the creation of various versions of the game. And with the rise in online gambling, the game of Bingo has also gone digital as a part of cryptocurrency casinos and even as standalone Online Bingo platforms like Umbingo. The very first online version of Bingo is said to have appeared in 1996 and has continued to grow since then. It has now become one of the most played games in the world, with a significant portion of traffic originating from the United Kingdom totaling about 3 million players.

The ease of playing Bingo has also played a huge part in its popularity, and online platforms are increasingly making it accessible across all devices to further increase participation. Further fueling the demand is the adoption of cryptocurrencies by these online platforms, thereby enabling users from across the world to sign up and start playing without having to worry about the gambling laws in their jurisdiction by overcoming any restrictions placed on payments to and from such platforms. Another advantage of playing Bingo online is the ease of access, as one doesnt have to wait for that particular day of the week or drive to the nearest casino to play a round or two of the game. Instead, they can choose to play anytime by just signing into their platform of choice and making a deposit with their currency of choice. Given that the amount to be deposited is generally lower than other casino games, it is easily affordable to most people.

With so many choices and factors working in favor of the player, it is all about finding the right platform before one can start playing. In order to have the best game experience, there are few things that one has to consider while choosing the platform, which includes an intuitive user-friendly interface, promotional campaigns and bonus structures offered by the platform, prizes offered and jackpot structures, if any. Attractive bonus offering is an added advantage for the players as it will allow them to get the most out of their deposit by being able to play more rounds for the same amount, and decent winnings will ensure that the game is worth the amount of time spent playing. Once the player chooses the platform which can often be helped by the amount of different new offers available on sites like bingomummy.com, it is always advisable to browse through the website to check whether it is licensed or not. Also, read through disclaimers and terms and conditions for any surprises to avoid being cheated. Only after being convinced, they should go proceed with the signup and deposit funds.

Overall, online Bingo is a fun game that requires no special skills, making it the best option for those who want to try gambling. It is also suitable for all age groups (as long as the player is above the minimum legal age for gambling in their respective jurisdiction) and most people are already familiar with it and would have played it on more than one occasion. If interested, pick an online Bingo platform and try your luck. Gamble responsibly.

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The Familiar Gambling Game Bingo in Its Online Avatar Continues to be Popular - newsBTC

Washington bills would carve out exceptions for games in gambling law – GamesIndustry.biz

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A handful of lawmakers in Washington state have put forth legislation aimed at preventing class-action lawsuits against video game companies. Two similar bills have been put forward in the state's Senate and House of Representatives this month that would change the legal definition of "illegal gambling games" to carve out an exception for video games.

Both pieces of legislation would add a sentence to existing gambling law stating, "For purposes of this section, 'illegal gambling games' does not include online games of chance when played solely for entertainment purposes with virtual items if such virtual items may be used only for gameplay and may not be, per the terms of service of the game, transferred, exchanged, or redeemed for money or property."

The justification for the change is spelled out in each bill as an attempt to protect the state's gaming businesses from lawsuits after two companies based in Washington had class-action lawsuits filed against them. The law doesn't spell out which companies, but it would presumably be the social casino outfits Big Fish Games and Double Down Interactive, both of which have been named in class action complaints since a 2018 court ruling that Big Fish Games' Big Fish Casino qualified as illegal gambling because its virtual currency counted as a "thing of value."

While the new legislation deals with the ability of players to cash out virtual items for real-world money, it does not directly reference the primary reason Big Fish Casino was deemed to be illegal in the first place. The judge in the 2018 ruling specifically said the ability to cash out was not the determining factor in virtual currency having value. Instead, the reason Big Fish Casino chips qualified as things of value was how they extended users' privilege of playing the games with more wagers or spins on a slot machine.

The two pieces of pending legislation -- House Bill 2720 and Senate Bill 6568 -- both have bipartisan support, with Democrats and Republicans sponsoring the measures. Both bills are also clear in that their motivation is to protect Washington-based businesses from consumer legal action.

As the legislators wrote in the text of House Bill 2720, "These lawsuits, if decided adversely to the game companies, pose a substantial financial risk for video game development in this state. The further possibility exists that companies based in Washington will move their base of operations to other states, which would remove thousands of jobs from the state and a currently incalculable, but materially significant, amount of tax dollars.

"Therefore, it is the intent of the legislature to remove this economic uncertainty by clarifying that a player is not entitled to recovery under RCW 4.24.070 unless the video game played provides a mechanism for the withdrawal of money or property from the game."

The introduction of the bills comes a month after the formation of the Game On WA coalition, a group advocating for free-to-play and social game developers that warns the state legislature must act or else gambling concerns around social games "could mean game over for a vibrant and growing industry in this state." Game On WA is co-chaired by former Washington governor Gary Locke, Washington Technology Industry Association CEO Michael Schutzler, and Kristina Hudson, executive director of the OneRedmond economic development group.

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Washington bills would carve out exceptions for games in gambling law - GamesIndustry.biz

Gambling Disorder: ADHD Symptoms Tied to Greater GD Severity – ADDitude

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January 28, 2020

People diagnosed with gambling disorder who also demonstrate symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are more likely to experience gambling disorder with greater severity, according to a new study in the Journal of Attention Disorders.1

The study, jointly conducted by Spanish, American, and Australian researchers, looked at the relationship between ADHD symptomatology, emotional regulation problems, and gambling disorder. The researchers considered existing research that suggests ADHD may be a risk factor for gambling disorder, and aimed to measure the observed presence of executive regulation impairments in people with ADHD and gambling disorder.

Close to 20 percent of individuals with gambling disorder also experience ADHD, according to research cited in the study. These conditions share many clinical features, like impulsivity, self-control difficulties, and executive functioning deficits. Emotional regulation problems observed in both groups, especially when faced with negative emotions, include emotional suppression, avoidance, and catastrophizing.

For the study, scientists tested 98 individuals diagnosed with gambling disorder, who were given the adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS) and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) two self-report measures that assess the presence of ADHD symptoms and ER, respectively among other measures.

The majority of participants (about 90 percent) were Spanish men with a mean age of 42.7 years.

The results showed that the 23 patients who tested positive for ADHD symptoms generally reported more severe symptoms of gambling disorder, too, and scored higher on DERS subscales. The results also suggest a direct link between ADHD symptomatology and emotional regulation problems, and a correlation between severity of emotional regulations problems and severity of gambling disorder, making emotional regulation a mediator between both disorders.

These results underscore the role of ER difficulties in the comorbidity between both disorders, part of the study reads.

The studys findings, according to the authors, emphasize the importance of evaluating both ADHD and gambling disorder in patients to identify possible comorbidities that exacerbate symptom severity, and treatments to address both conditions.

1Mestre-Bach, G., Steward, T., Potenza, M. N., Granero, R., Fernndez-Aranda, F., Mena-Moreno, T., Jimnez-Murcia, S. (2020). The Role of ADHD Symptomatology and Emotion Dysregulation in Gambling Disorder.Journal of Attention Disorders.https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054719894378

Updated on January 27, 2020

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Gambling Disorder: ADHD Symptoms Tied to Greater GD Severity - ADDitude

Fox Sports 1350AM rebranded as The Gambler, shifts focus to sports wagering – cleveland.com

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CLEVELAND, Ohio -- IHeartMedia is going all in on sports gambling radio in Cleveland even before betting on games is legal in Ohio.

Fox Sports 1350AM Akron signed off Sunday, playing Kenny Rogers The Gambler on a loop. On Monday, the station reemerged as Fox Sports 1350AM Cleveland, The Gambler.

The rebranded station features programming from VSiN (Vegas Stats and Information) and the BetR Network including hourly wagering updates and programs such as My Guys in the Desert with Brent Musberger and The Lombardi Line with former Browns GM Michael Lombardi. Fox Sports shows hosted by Dan Patrick and Colin Cowherd remain, while Doug Gottlieb has beed added to the afternoons.

The Gambler is the future of sports radio, said Keith Hotchkiss, president of iHeartMedias North Ohio region, in a press release. We are thrilled to bring this hot new format to the market, helping Clevelanders navigate the ever-growing world of sports wagering.

Sports betting is now allowed in 20 states. Gov. Mike DeWine has expressed support for making it legal in Ohio, though the matter remains in the hands of the state legislature.

The stations launch comes amid a restructuring by iHeart that has led to massive layoffs nationwide. Industry sources told cleveland.com the changes would likely lead to the consolidation of the iHeartMedia Clevelands studios in Independence with a less local and more national focus.

Indeed, both happened here as Fox Sports 1350AM moved from Akron to Independence. The stations daily schedule is made up of national shows with longtime local sports talker Mark Munch Bishop, who moves to the mornings, the lone exception. It becomes the second iHeart station to get The Gambler format. The other is in Philadelphia.

Here is the stations weekday lineup:

midnight-2 a.m.: The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon

2-6 a.m.: The Ben Maller Show

6-9 a.m.: Munch on Sports

9 a.m.-noon: The Dan Patrick Show

noon-2 p.m.: The Herd with Colin Cowherd

3-5 p.m.: The Doug Gottlieb Show 3pm-5pm

5-7 p.m.: My Guys in the Desert with Brent Musberger

7-9 p.m.: The Odd Couple with Chris Broussard & Rob Parker

9 p.m.-midnight: The Green Zone

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Fox Sports 1350AM rebranded as The Gambler, shifts focus to sports wagering - cleveland.com

Wise: Anticipation over sports gambling in DC has one minus: parting with your money and possibly your sanity – WUSA9.com

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WASHINGTON D.C., DC The adrenaline keeps coursing through everyone's veins, building up to that transcendent moment in D.C. sports history: the advent of legalized betting on games. And it's happening at actual reputable businesses, like Capital One Arena and a DC Lottery mobile App.

While most serious, casual and degenerate gamblers still need to illegally go through their online and on-probation bookies for their favorite Super Bowl prop bet -- like how many plays Tony Romo will predict correctly before the snap -- there is a hope that by the time March Madness rolls around, residents of the District will be able to wager away.

WUSA(

RELATED: VERIFY: Will sports betting be ready by Super Bowl Sunday?

Now, I don't want to be that rain-on-your-parade guy, the rotten-luck Charlie Brown or Kenny from South Park type. But memo to those eagerly awaiting their first legal sports bet: You do know the owners of these establishments got into this business because they'd like to part people with their money, right?

I know this might be a revelation, but you can lose. And you cannot play for the teams you pick to win, giving you less control of the outcome than your average Texas hold' em or blackjack game. I know this because I lost several thousand many years ago. I know this because a guy I met who used to be head of the Virginia Problem Gamblers Association, lost everything. His wife. His job. Nearly his freedom.

See, legalizing gambling in the District is like ending prohibition. Some people will have two glasses of wine per night and go happily to bed. And others will have a scotch, another and another and by the end of the week end up in detox or a recovery room. The term "Responsible Gambling" is among the worst oxymoron known to man. Gambling is not responsible. It's a huge risk. Especially if you have kids, a mortgage and plans for summer vacation.

RELATED: Daniel Snyder and MD lawmakers discuss allowing sports betting at a future Redskins stadium

And as much as I want to celebrate this new revenue stream that's going to allegedly create more jobs and make it so convenient to win big, while actually attending an NBA or hockey game, I also know for some this will create the loss of wealth, health and sometimes families. One person's new entertainment venue can be another's nadir in life.

Here's hoping the purveyors of betting in town have enough resources to help those who have no control over the impulse to bet. Because if that doesn't happen, nobody is going to win.

That's my take. Agree or disagree, I'd love to hear yours. You can get me at mwise@wusa9.com or @MikeWiseGuy on Twitter. And if you got a question for #TheQandA, hit us up at TheQandA@wusa9.com.

RELATED: Wise: Morgan Wootten was the high school coach that time forgot

RELATED: Girls wrestling grows nationally, but Virginia still has yet to form a female-only high school league

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Podcast Ep. 306: The Church That Doesn’t Want Old People – 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:

Donald Trump appeared at the misnamed March for Life. (0:25)

Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rodgers has an important question about God. (5:29)

Was a church wrong for telling old members to get out? (11:03)

The Church of England reiterates that only straight married people can have sex. (14:52)

A survey shows that atheists know more about the Holocaust than Christians. (19:10)

This controversy over invocations in Berea, Kentucky will inevitably lead to a lawsuit. (28:13)

Conservative Dennis Prager says private conversations arent an accurate reflection of someones character. (35:14)

Utah (!) has finally banned gay conversion torture. (43:20)

The Supreme Court heard a case that could upendchurch/state separation. (50:05)

Mike Pence spoke at a church where a pastor delivered a rabidly anti-gay sermon. Because of course he did. (55:00)

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. 306: The Church That Doesn't Want Old People - Friendly Atheist - Patheos

Tory politician who claims its Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve insists hes not homophobic – PinkNews

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Tory councillor Aron Klein (left) said gay Hackney mayor Philip Glanville (right) should 'stop crying' after singling him out for his sexuality. (Hackney Conservatives/Hackney Labour)

The Conservative party is investigating a local councillor who insisted he isnt homophobic in an email titled with the well-worn homophobic taunt: Its Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.

Aron Klein first hit the news last week, when he said No, thank you to LGBT+ inclusive education and that Jewish faith schools should remain unregistered so children dont get ideas about homosexuality or atheism.

The Tory councillor for Stamford Hill West, in north east London, also singled out gay Hackney mayor Philip Glanville for his sexuality.

The local Conservative branch confirmed it was looking into the matter but in an email sent to local media over the weekend, Klein took matters into his own hands.

Just tell Philip Glanville to stop crying like a innocent cheep [sic] was attacked by a wolf, Klein said.

I am not homophobic, neither misogynist. I dont care who people juggle around with.

The subject line of the email was: Its Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. When it was pointed out to Klein that a woman was arrested last summer after targeting attendees of Waltham Forest Pride with the same phrase, Klein attempted to deny hed written the subject line himself.

This was a mistake past [sic] from a email I received, Klein said.

Josh Bradlow, head of policy for LGBT+ rights charity Stonewall, said: People in positions of political power have a responsibility to champion the individuals they represent, and this includes LGBT+ people.

The latest comments from Cllr Klein show how much work is still left for us to do to combat discrimination and the use of offensive language against lesbian, gay, bi and trans people.

Klein also claimed he had met with the chair of the local Conservatives and that he believed the subject is now cleared.

It is unclear if he is aware that he is currently under investigation by his own party.

Klein made his original comments after it was revealed that the local council is struggling to get local schools to register with Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education, Childrens Services and Skills).

He said that Ofsted-registered schools would give children ideas of atheist, gay, early childhood sex.

The Haredi community pride itself with a youth clean and pure from crime, Klein said.

He continued: The way they do it is a total ban of television at home. Films or video or cinema is totally forbidden as not to give the kids any idea of crime, mischief of any sort.

Most boys and girls are getting married at around the age of 19 after years of learning in yeshiva to respect your partner.

Why bring in Ofsted to our yeshivas? They give the children ideas of atheist, gay, early childhood sex. We dont need all this thank you.

We pride ourselves with a divorce rate of one out of ten.

Klein had also hit out at Glanville, writing: I believe he is gay. Good luck to him. No thank you. We dont want Ofsted coming mixing, confusing our children.

For us its Adam and Eve. A man and a woman. A boy and a girl.

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Casteist Slavery: ‘I Was Made to Sleep With Cattle for Three Years’ – The Citizen

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NEW DELHI: At the mere age of 16, Simon, who is now 18, had realised that his father could barely eke out a living, and the attitude Being the eldest son, I have to be the financial aid of my family had already taken shape in his mind.

Simon, a Gond Adivasi, hails from Golaghat, Assam.

Four days ago on the evening of January 14 he was rescued by associates from the Human Rights Law Network and the National Campaign Committee for the Eradication of Bonded Labour along with administration officials in Patiala, Punjab, where he had been working as an agricultural worker for a promised wage of 6000 per month, for three years.

Daniel lured me here saying, You wont have much to do, its an easy job and you will have 6000 every month in your pocket Simon recalls, referring to his friend Daniel Tete, the alleged trafficker in this case.

Little did he know that he would end up working more than he was told, wageless and forcibly trapped in modern-day slavery.

According to ActionAid, a non-government rights organisation, over 50 crore workers in India employed in the unorganised sector struggle every day to be paid the minimum wage.

These labourers work on nominal wages or remain begar (wageless) for years on end, a practice which clearly violates the Supreme Courts historic verdict in the case of Bandhua Mukti Morcha vs. Union of India and Others, 1984.

These 50 crore workers fall under the category of bonded labour.

According to Sushila Prajapati, who works with ActionAid in Gujarat, The highest number of bonded labourers is in the agricultural sector. Children constitute most of the labourers, because they are easily recruited and exploited without being resilient to the employer and the agents involved.

Prajapati adds that local administrations deny the agricultural areas in villages vigilance and scrutiny in the form of regular visits by administration officials.

Simon recalls, I used to work in their farms, household, and cattle rearing for which my employer absolutely paid nothing and never provided me any leave to visit my hometown.

After incessant pleading to be given food on time and perpetual begging for his salary, Simon eventually decided to run away. But he found himself trapped.

They had handed me a mobile phone through which they tracked my location. I felt nothing but helpless because I knew I was trapped forever, he says in tears.

These are elements of new-age slavery and a clear violation of Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976.

I was made to sleep with the cattle for three years, says Simon.

Like many, Simon is not only a victim of trafficking and bonded labour but also of poverty and a casteist society. According to T.C.Suresh of the Working Peoples Charter, more than 80% of bonded labourers belong to Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe communities.

The majority of bonded labourers from such weaker communities are landless, therefore, they easily get trapped in this system, which is a rampant practice in villages, and live in continuous fear of violence from their employers, he says.

My life was restricted to a buffalo shed, which was not even separated by walls, filled with cattle excreta and heavy machinery which always smelled noxious, Simon recalls.

Besides the unhygienic living conditions, he was also denied access to proper sanitation facilities.

I would defecate in the vicinity of the woods nearby and had to bathe and drink from the tank where water was collected for the cattle, he says.

Human rights activist Nirmal Gorana says that violations of fundamental rights are seldom recognised in such cases.

Historic casteism is a subtle but significant form of slavery where upper-caste people, even in contemporary times, treat the minorities as cattle, he says.

The lethargic work system and cursory attitude of government officials worsens the situation even further.

The subdivisional magistrate in Patran told Simon, You have had a nice haircut, and you have an expensive mobile phone, how can you be a bonded labourer?

He also alleges that he felt constant intimidation while recording his statements, and his signatures were taken in a hurry without informing him what he was signing.

The act of hampering the process of investigation was condemned by the Supreme Court in the case of Neerja Chauadhary vs. State of Madhya Pradesh, 1984.

So far the SDM has not released even a single statement in regard to Simons release certificate.

According to the Central Sector Scheme for Rehabilitation of Bonded Labour 2016, state authorities must socially and economically rehabilitate survivors of bonded labour. The aspect of psychological rehabilitation hasnt yet been taken into regard.

According to Gorana, In the case of minors, the rehabilitation process is not done on the basis of release certificates, which largely amplifies afresh the cases of rebondage slavery.

Meanwhile, Simon lives his life in intimidation, often succumbing to numbness or despair. He carries with him deep mental and emotional scars.

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Blockchain Revolutionizing The Chocolate Industry – Business Blockchain HQ

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The chocolate industry is worth almost 10 billion dollars annually. Surprisingly, cocoa traders source most of the cacao supply from just two countries, Ghana and Cote dIvoire. Millions of farmers grow cacao on small farms. The three largest cocoa traders buy almost all of the beans.

However, before the beans are sold to these traders, the cocoa meanders its way through the extremely complicated cocoa supply chain. Most farmers cannot transport their cocoa to the port, so they sell their cocoa to a pisteur. The pisteur buys cocoa from farmers and then transports it closer to the port. Along the way, the cocoa could be sold to coops of differing sizes or other third parties before it finally arrives at the port. There, the cocoa is sold to exporters who sell the cocoa to cocoa traders who effectively control the market.

The cocoa supply chain systematically keeps farmers in poverty. Unfortunately, farmers have no control over the price of their cocoa. Because of this, many farmers live in poverty and have to resort to extreme measures to feed their families. Many farmers will illegally grow cocoa on protected forest lands. As a result, Cote dIvoire has lost 85% of its protected forests since 1990.

The cocoa industry also supports slavery. It is estimated that over 30,000 children are being trafficked to work in the cocoa industry. Farmers are poor, and growing cocoa is labor-intensive. Even today, methods for harvesting and processing cocoa at the farms have not evolved. Surprisingly, farmers still harvest cocoa using only a machete. Farmers have no money to invest in machinery or more sustainable growing practices. Unfortunately, this results in slavery, deforestation, and systematic poverty.

Regulations to keep the price of beans higher usually fail. The cocoa board of the Ivoirian government sets the price of cocoa beans. This price is called the farm gate price and fluctuates depending on the market supply and demand. Unfortunately, the farm gate price is not regulated. Often the pisteur buys cocoa at a discount since they serve as a middle man and the farmer has no way of transporting the cocoa to get a better price. Even if the farm gate price was regulated, it is still not a living wage.

The biggest problem with the chocolate industry is the supply chain. Thankfully, blockchain is a proven solution to supply chain management. Fortunately, companies in the cocoa industry now have the ability to track their cocoa beans from farm to chocolate bar using blockchain technology. Unfortunately, very few players control the chocolate industry, so new technology is not easy to introduce.

One company is striving to put an end to slavery in the chocolate industry. Tonys Chocolonely is using blockchain technology to track each batch of beans. To heal the supply chain, Tonys pays 40% on top of the farm gate price. Because Tonys knows from which farmers they get their beans, they can pay extra to reward those farmers using sustainable and safe business practices. The blockchain technology manages the supply chain by assigning a unique batch number to each batch of beans, and tracks those beans all the way through the supply chain. For now, the blockchain technology is not quite ready for use.

Tonys anticipates it will take another three to five years before the blockchain aspect of their Beantracker will be business operations viable. In 2012, the company partnered with Barry Cellebaut, the largest chocolate manufacturer. Hopefully, with this serious partner, Tonys and their blockchain technology can begin to transform the chocolate industrys broken supply chain.

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‘National shame’: MP sounds alarm over UK fast fashion factories – The Guardian

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Concerns over the ongoing situation of up to 10,000 garment workers in Leicester, who are feared to be trapped in conditions of modern slavery and paid 3 an hour, have been raised in Parliament.

Andrew Bridgen, MP for North West Leicestershire, raised a question on Tuesday about the continuing state of working conditions in factories supplying the UKs booming fast fashion industry, and sought a meeting with business secretary Kelly Tolhurst for clarity over enforcement of the national minimum wage.

Speaking to the Guardian, Bridgen said what is happening in Leicester is a national shame and must not be allowed to continue.

This is Leicesters dirty secret, he said. These illegal businesses are not only keeping their workers in miserable conditions, theyre also undermining the marketplace for legitimate businesses to make a living in a very difficult market. Ive seen the buildings where these workers are and it is shocking: the buildings are condemned if there was a fire there then hundreds would die, and this is Britain in 2020. Its a national shame.

Persistent investigations into the UKs domestic garment industry has raised the spectre of serious labour abuses thriving in factories across the north west of England with relative impunity.

Last February, an Environmental Audit Committee heard evidence of environmental and labour abuses flourishing in the UKs fashion industry. MPs found that the Modern Slavery Act was not sufficient to stop wage exploitation at UK clothing factories and issued a series of recommendations, including forcing brands to increase transparency in their supply chains. However the government refused to implement any of the committees recommendations, which also included moves to improve environmental sustainability and limit waste.

In November 2019, a scoping survey on the Greater Manchester textile and garment industry that included 182 companies operating across the region, also found evidence that workers were being paid as little as 3-4 an hour.

The survey, conducted by HomeWorkers Worldwide, a labour rights NGO, found that the garment workforce across the region was diverse with British workers employed alongside European and other migrant workers, but that many were working in insecure environments without permanent contracts. Some of the most vulnerable workers were undocumented migrants who had little recourse to public assistance or support.

One worker quoted in the report described illegal working practices at one factory: Were paid in cash instead of a bank transfer. They give us payslips but they only show 16 hours a week at 7.50 an hour, whereas in fact were doing many more hours than that usually we do 40 hours a week from 8am to 6pm and were paid around 500 a month.

Other workers interviewed for the survey claim that they have been forced to hand over part of their wages to their employer, and faced demands for money in return for help with passport applications.

The survey also highlighted concerns from small manufacturers that they were under increasing pressure from large retailers whose purchasing practices were driving down prices to levels at which it was impossible for them to pay their workers properly.

Last November campaigning group Labour Behind the Label said there needed to be greater accountability for brands sourcing goods from factories across the UK. It called on fast fashion brands sourcing clothing from factories in Leicester to end potential labour exploitation and increase transparency in their supply chains.

Transparency is the first step to holding brands accountable to the conditions their workers could be facing, said Meg Lewis, spokesperson at Labour behind the Label . A lack of accountability can lead to situations where really serious labour abuses can flourish and the anecdotal evidence we have received from Leicester indicates that this is happening in the UK.

In the Commons yesterday, business minister Kelly Tolhurst agreed a meeting to discuss conditions in Leicester but said, This is a particular sector that has been under focus; there has been much work that has been carried out by HMRC and cross-border agencies HMRC enforce the national living wage.

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'National shame': MP sounds alarm over UK fast fashion factories - The Guardian

Clash of the Titans – FXStreet

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In the decades that I have been listening to politicians clumsily trying to explain the economy there has never been a period, with the possible exception of the early Reagan years, in which major party leaders were able to present a solid grasp of economic principles. But I have never seen a time in which the levels of ignorance coming from those in leadership positions is so extreme.

The state of affairs can be illustrated by two interviews last week by Donald Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for the Democrats, the two undisputed leaders of our major political parties. Both put forth visions this week that are illogical, incoherent, and that completely ignore both data and experience. But these leaders are putting out beacons under which the vast majority of Americans are congregating. It's worse than the blind leading the blind, and it bodes very poorly for our ability to deal with the next economic crisis, which I believe is certainly slouching towards Washington, waiting to be born.

Before I get into particulars, let's dispense with the notion that AOC does not speak for the Democrats. She is the leader of the progressives, and the progressives are in control. The recent dust up between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders shows how far the moderate wing of the Party has fallen.

While it may be true that Warren is just as far left as Sanders, the Democrat establishment is more comfortable with her, as they know she would be willing to fake moderation and to "tack" toward the center if she wins the nomination. On the other hand, Sanders has been an unrepentant communist his entire life and is unlikely to alter that message one iota if he faces Trump in the Fall. (In a 1981 Today Show interview, Sanders stated clearly that he does not support the "capitalist idea of competition" and that people work better under a cooperative system. In other words, he believes in the absurd Marxist proposition that people are just as likely to work for the benefit of strangers than they would for themselves.) Establishment Democrats fear that Trump will win that contest going away, so they are in full panic. Last week they took the gloves off.

It began with Warren's calculated allegations that Sanders, in a private conversation between the two, had claimed that a woman could not be elected president. The allegation was pressed by establishment allies at CNN through supportive commentaries and stilted questioning at the CNN-sponsored debate. Leading pundits fell in line behind Warren with an awkward twist on the "believe all women" mantra of the me-too movement. They painted Sanders as out of touch at best, and sexist at worst.

The next anti-Bernie attack came a few days later when Hillary Clinton let loose, calling him unlikable and ineffective. She even failed to commit to endorsing him if he were to win the nomination.(J.Easley & A. Parnes, The Hill, 1/22/20) This simply made Hillary look like a more corrupt and opportunistic figure than many democratic activists previously thought.

But these attacks failed spectacularly and simply deepened mistrust about the Clinton wing of the Party and reaffirmed Warren's reputation as an opportunist. Despite the full court press, the Warren campaign is now in free fall and the Sanders campaign is surging.

The establishment is left hoping that doddery Joe Biden can somehow revivify over the next 10 months, and escape any contamination from the Ukraine affair. But no one who is not receiving a paycheck from the DNC really believes this. It's no accident that a major poll this week showed Biden trailing Sanders for the first time nationally.

And while Bernie has now emerged as the soul of Democrats, everyone knows that he is not the Party's future. That honor is increasingly falling on his young and telegenic protg from the Bronx, who would be running for president right now if she had enough candles on her cake to constitutionally qualify (she will be eligible in 2024).

For all his leftist authenticity, Sanders is also an old white man, a trio of sins that modern woke progressives have a hard time forgiving. On the other hand, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the fulfillment of their wish list: she's ethnic, young, female, and sees the United States as a notably racist, sexist, and tyrannical country that continues to be a slave state for its own citizens and an oppressor to the rest of the world. And despite the fact that her resume is thin enough to be written on half a napkin, she is bold enough to challenge the most senior members of her own party (without paying the slightest price politically). Those in the establishment dare not cross her and her statements, no matter how absurd; they are treated as wisdom from the burning bush. In that sense, she looms over the Democrats much the way that Trump looms over the GOP.

As absurd as it may sound, there are remarkable similarities between the appeal of Trump and AOC. Both are political outsiders who use social media fueled demagoguery to appeal directly to the people, and are largely contemptuous of party establishments. Both shoot from the hip and spin stories that are completely unrelated to history or economic reality. So, with that preamble, let's see what these two economic luminaries are now saying.

On January 22, in a sit down at the World Economic Forum in Davos, with CNBC's reliably pro-Trump anchor Joe Kernan, the President delivered a self-congratulatory turn that was brazen by even Trump's legendary standards. With a series of wildly inaccurate statements (and I'm not just talking about his idea that Thomas Edison invented the wheel), Trump claimed that the U.S. economy is now experiencing "unprecedented economic growth that the world has never seen before." This statement is absurd on its face.

In his first three years in office, the U.S. economy has expanded at about 2.6% annually, based on GDP statistics from FRB St. Louis. While this is just slightly higher than the growth seen in Obama's second term (which President Trump described in his inaugural address as "American carnage"), it is strikingly lower than the average growth rate we have had over the last 90 years, based on GDP data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). There are also many three or four year periods in our history in which GDP growth was multiples higher than the current growth rate. And that doesn't even address the growth rates that have been seen in recent history in Asian countries. For much of the past 20 years, Chinese growth has been north of 8% annually? Does he not know that?

Trump claimed that during his term in office, the net worth of the bottom half of wage earners has increased by 47%. I don't know where he got this statistic. I have looked, but I can't find it. But it does not pass the smell test. Median wage in the U.S. is about $63,000 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018). The bottom half of earners must earn less than that by definition. People making that kind of money often have little to no assets or savings. What savings they may have are usually more than compensated by household debt. What factors would have resulted in a near 50% expansion of their net worth? Trump simply may be assuming that the 50% growth in the stock market since his election has created similar growth patterns in the broader economy. But that is not the case at all.

As proof of economic success, Trump noted that for the first time there are more women in the workforce than men, according to data from the U.S. Labor Department. But what does that prove? Perhaps it points to the contraction of those sectors that have typically employed more men, such as manufacturing and construction, while the service sector jobs in education and health care, which typically employ more women, have been expanding. This reality is in stark contrast to Trump's typical boast that his policies have led to a boom in domestic manufacturing. Manufacturing jobs have declined consistently during his presidency.

Trump also spent a lot of time with Kernan talking about his opposition to interest rate increases or attempts to shrink the Fed's balance sheet, and his desire for negative interest rates. Showing no understanding of why debt is a drag on growth or why high rates would be good for the economy, Trump believes that negative rates would boost the stock market further and help the country pay off the debt. In reality, negative rates would only make it easier for the government to borrow more. He then repeated the rhetorical question he asked at the signing ceremony for the Phase 1 China deal, regarding just who is dumb enough to buy negative yielding bonds. The obvious answer, that somehow eludes the President, is central banks. So Trump wants the Fed to be dumb so that he can look smart and keep pretending the economy is booming.

This then led to a discussion about Trump's plan to tackle the growing deficits, which in the first three years of his presidency are significantly higher than in Obama's second term. Kernan asked if Trump would favor relying more on tax increases or spending cuts to achieve that objective. Trump replied that he would do neither, and that additional tax cuts in his second term would solve the problem. It mattered little to Trump that the tax cuts in his first term led to much larger deficits.

Trump then went on to claim that he favors a strong dollar, but immediately followed up on how great it would be for the economy if the dollar gets weaker instead. Ironically, I think Trump's wish will be granted. But I suspect a weaker dollar will not deliver the benefits Trump is hoping for. It will push up interest rates and consumer prices, and prick the bubble that Trump so proudly claims constitutes the greatest economic boom in history.

For her part, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sat down in NYC for a Martin Luther King Day event with an equally sympathetic questioner, Ta-Nehisi Coates, the black author and activist. In their extraordinary exchange, AOC gave her clearest view to date of her absolute opposition to capitalism, business ownership, and economic freedom, and her clear support for state seizure of wealth and the control of the means of production. In other words, she went full-throated Bolshevik.

The sad part is that unlike her mentor Benie Sanders, AOC probably never studied anything about the Russian revolution and its subsequent evils and failures. While it's true that she only lived for 11 years in the 20th Century, I would have hoped that it would have come up once or twice in her history or economics classes at Boston University. But she behaves as if she is completely unaware of anything that happened before the 2016 election.

In her interview with Coates, AOC offered further development of the controversial "you didn't build that" claim made by Barack Obama in which the former President claimed that American business only succeed because of investments the government makes in education and infrastructure. And while that statement is widely off the mark, it's nothing compared to AOC's comment that in America "No one ever makes a billion dollars. You take a billion dollars." Her theory is rooted in Marxist theories of labor, which assumes that workers produce all the value of a company's products and services, while owners simply 'sit on the couch' and count the profits. She sees profits coming solely from worker exploitation, and that private ownership of capital is a modern version of slavery. When asked how a billionaire entrepreneur like Jeff Bezos could regain his status as a "moral" person, AOC says that the answer is simple "turn your company into a worker cooperative."

Of course, AOC never delineated a threshold by which an owner of a company becomes an evil bloodsucker. We know that she would apply that label to a billionaire with 1,000 employees. But how about a less successful entrepreneur with only 100 employees and $10m net worth? How about a store owner with 10 employees and $1m in the bank? Is it only the scale that makes the billionaire immoral? Who decides when that line is crossed? Clearly, AOC's experience taking classes at Boston University and mixing drinks in New York provide her with that expertise.

AOC claims that she wants to democratically transform the U.S. economy so that we finally give power to the people. But what she really wants to do is to take the power the people already have and give it to the government instead. AOC does not realize that capitalism empowers workers to decide where they want to work, where they want to live, and how they spend their money. The entire system is based on the process of getting consumers more of what they want for less money. Jeff Bezos became a billionaire because he made shopping easier for hundreds of millions of people. Collectively, the world has benefitted more than Bezos from his innovations. AOC wants to replace the free market with a command economy, where decisions are made by coercion rather than choice.

She further described capitalism as a fleeting and outmoded economic model. She argues that a "worker collective" in which the workers themselves own the companies they work for is a better model. She does not seem to realize that such structures are perfectly legal in the U.S. and that business partnerships happen all the time. However, she does not grasp how those structures become unworkable at large scale as executive authority is critical to making the decisions that keep a company alive.

She also does not understand that the vast majority of workers do not want to be business owners. That requires sacrifices and risks that they are unwilling to assume. Business owners don't just lie back on a couch as she imagines. They often put in far more hours than their paid employees. Workers want the security of a steady paycheck, something business owners forego. They also don't want to risk their savings on a business venture that may fail. Workers at any business are free to quit and join together to form their own cooperatives. But few are willing to take the chance. AOC's solution is to let someone else take the chance, make the sacrifices, and do all the work, and then if they succeed, employees can use their votes and the power of the state to steal the business. Apart from the immorality of legalized theft, history shows that once confiscated, successful businesses are quickly run into the ground.

If AOC knew anything about history, she would be familiar with the mass experiments in socialization that have come to ruin and misery in the recent past. She is similarly blind to the enormous strides in living standards that the developing world has made in recent years by embracing capitalism and rejecting socialism. And, of course, she fails to understand the history of her own country, which owes its prosperity to the system she despises.

So, that's what this has come to, Clash of the Titans. Two people, whose collective ignorance of economics is staggering to behold, vie for the soul of the country. Lord help us.

Unfortunately, I think a worst-case scenario may be the most likely one. And it goes something like this: Disarray in the Democrat Party allows for the nomination of Bernie Sanders, who loses to Trump in the general election. But then the danger arises. Trump and the Republicans could not have taken credit more forcefully for the current economy. When the current bubble pops during Trump's second term, there will be no way for them to avoid the blame. The more we cling to the ridiculous idea that the current economy is booming because of Trump, the more we create the conditions for Bernie Sanders and AOC to make us the next Venezuela.

Unfortunately, I think a worst-case scenario may be the most likely one. And it goes something like this: Disarray in the Democrat Party allows for the nomination of Bernie Sanders, who loses to Trump in the general election. But then the danger arises. Trump and the Republicans could not have taken credit more forcefully for the current economy. When the current bubble pops during Trump's second term, there will be no way for them to avoid the blame. The more we cling to the ridiculous idea that the current economy is booming because of Trump, the more we create the conditions for Bernie Sanders and AOC to make us the next Venezuela.

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Clash of the Titans - FXStreet

Cameron Rowland: 3 & 4 Will. IV c. 73 – FAD magazine

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Cameron Rowland Jim Crow, 2017 Jim Crow rail bender 35 1/2 x 7 7/8 x 17 3/5 inches (91.4 x 20 x 44 cm) Jim Crow is a racial slur, derived from the name of the minstrel character played by Thomas D. Rice in the 1830s. A Jim Crow is also a type of manual railroad rail bender. It has been referred to by this name in publications from 1870 to the present. The lease of ex-slave prisoners to private industry immediately following the Civil War is known as the convict lease system. Many of the first convict lease contracts were signed by railroad companies. Plessy v. Ferguson contested an 1890 Louisiana law segregating black railroad passengers. The Supreme Court upheld the law as constitutional. This created a precedent for laws mandating racial segregation, later to be known as Jim Crow laws.

A new exhibition from Cameron Rowland: 3 & 4 Will. IV c. 73 opens at the ICA London on Tuesday 28th January.

WHEREAS divers Persons are holden in Slavery within divers of His Majestys Colonies, and it is just and expedient that all such Persons should be manumitted and set free, and that a reasonable Compensation should be made to the Persons hitherto entitled to the Services of such Slaves for the Loss which they will incur by being deprived of their Right to such Services.

An Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies; for promoting the Industry of the manumitted Slaves; and for compensating the Persons hitherto entitled to the Services of such Slaves, 1833.

29th January 12th April 2020 Public opening: Tuesday 28th January, 6 8pm, all welcome

About The ArtistCameron Rowland is an American artist, chosen as a MacArthur Fellow in 2019. He is one of the six fellows from New York City. Rowland graduated from Wesleyan University with a BA in 2011, and after being awarded the MacArthur Fellowship returned there to address the student body. He spoke about his 2018 work Depreciation that critically examined the economics of slavery. Cameron Rowlands art has been featured in such collections as the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, among others.[3] Rowlands artwork focuses on critiquing systems and institutions that perpetuate or benefit from racial injustices. Notably, his work featured in the Museum of Contemporary Art, entitled 2015 MOCA REAL ESTATE ACQUISITION, revealed the Museums history of benefiting from racist systems like redlining. In it, he used the Museums donor plaque listing the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeless sale of the land on which the Museum sits to point out the 8.4 million dollar profit the Museum gained from the redlining process.[4] Other works of his use such objects as manhole leveller rings, wooden desks, and wooden benches manufactured by prison labourers for far less than minimum wage.

Cameron Rowland 2015 MOCA REAL ESTATE ACQUISITION, 2018 Donor plaqueThe redlining map of Los Angeles drawn by the Home Owners Loan Corporation in 1939 gave Bunker Hill, block D37, the lowest possible rating. D37 extended from West 4th Street to West Temple Street, and from Figueroa Street to South Hill Street. The report indicated that residents were low-income level and were predominantly Mexicans and Orientals. The HOLCs Residential Security Map report for Bunker Hill states:

It has been through all the phases of decline and is now thoroughly blighted. Subversive racial elements predominate; dilapidation and squalor are everywhere in evidence. It is a slum area and one of the citys melting pots. There is a slum clearance project under consideration but no definite steps have as yet been taken. It is assigned the lowest of low red grade.

The Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles was formed in 1948 under the California Community Redevelopment Act of 1945, in conjunction with the 1937 and 1949 federal Housing Acts, which authorized its slum removal. The CRA was granted powers of eminent domain to be used in the redevelopment of blighted areas. A primary purpose for the CRAs redevelopment projects was to increase tax revenue for the city. One of the first redevelopment projects proposed by the CRA was in Bunker Hill, on the basis that the neighborhood spent more tax dollars on police, firefighting, and healthcare than it generated. A CRA pamphlet promoting the project stated, Blight is a liability, Blight is malignant, Blight is a social peril. The CRAs slum clearance project in Bunker Hill was adopted in 1959. Through seizure and through sales under the threat of eminent domain, all 7,310 residential units were demolished and their residents were forcibly removed. The CRAs slum clearance in Bunker Hill was one of the first redevelopment projects to rely on tax increment financing.

In 1980, the CRA issued a request for proposals for a project called California Plaza. Proposals were required to include an outdoor pedestrian plaza, a parking structure, and a modern art museum. The winning group of architects called themselves Bunker Hill Associates. The museum outlined in this proposal became The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In 1983, the CRA offered MOCA a lease on the land located at 250 South Grand Avenue for a ninety-nine-year term at no rent.

In October 2015, the CRA sold the land at 250 South Grand Avenue to MOCA for $100,000. One month later, in November 2015, a tax assessment triggered by the sale recorded the value of the land at $8,500,000.

Mark Westall is the Founder and Editor of FAD magazine, ' A curation of the worlds most interesting culture'[PLUS] Art of Conversation: A tri-annual 'no news paper'

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Cameron Rowland: 3 & 4 Will. IV c. 73 - FAD magazine

Martin Luther King Jr. and the fight for social equality – World Socialist Web Site

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Martin Luther King Jr. and the fight for social equality By Tom Mackaman and Niles Niemuth 23 January 2020

On Monday, the United States observed Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a holiday commemorating the birth of the civil rights leader.

Since its inception in the 1980s, the holiday has aimed to turn King into a harmless icon of social conciliation, while obscuring his radical criticisms of American capitalism and militarism. But now, in 2020, this has been joined by a new thrust. Kings conception of a mass democratic movement for civil rights based on the unified action of all the oppressed sections of the population is being replaced with an essentially racialist narrative that presents all American history in terms of a struggle between whites and blacks. This racial narrative requires the marginalization of Kings historical role.

This is exhibited starkly in the New York Times 1619 Project, whose reframing of the history of American race relations makes no mention of King. This is not an oversight on the part of a project that proclaims itself as nothing less than a new curriculum for school children. The core of Kings politicsthe struggle for equalityruns counter to the aims of contemporary liberalism, which is predicated on a fight for privileges among the upper-middle class.

King, a Baptist minister and theologian, emerged as the most prominent leader and voice of the mass civil rights struggle for racial equality that emerged in the period after World War IIfrom the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott in 1955 against Jim Crow segregation until 1968, when King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee while supporting striking sanitation workers.

King was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1929, during a period that scholars have called the nadir of American race relations. In the Jim Crow South beginning in the 1890s, a raft of laws stripped the right to vote from the vast majority of blacks. All public space was segregated by law or customschools and colleges; busses, trains, streetcars; water fountains and bathrooms; diners and movie theaters. Interracial marriage was illegal, and even casual interactions between whites and blacks, for example on city sidewalks, were to play out in a custom designed to humiliate and degrade blacks.

The Democratic Party ruled the Jim Crow South unchallenged. Behind it stood the ever-present threat of state-sanctioned racist violence. By one count, mobs and bands of killers lynched more than 4,000 blacks in the South from the 1870s through the 1940s.

Yet racism was not an end in and of itself. As C. Vann Woodward long ago established in The Strange Career of Jim Crow (1955), it was imposed as a direct response to the Populist movement of poor farmers, which, in the 1880s, had raised the specter of interracial unity among the oppressed. That Woodwards book was upheld as the historical Bible of the civil rights movement reflected that movements agreement with its key finding, that, as King put it, racial segregation as a way of life did not come about as a natural result of hatred between the racesthe position advanced by the 1619 Projectbut was really a political stratagem employed by the emerging Bourbon interests in the South to keep the southern masses divided and southern labor the cheapest in the land.

The Populist movement collapsed a few decades before Kings birth. Its inability to overcome the southern oligarchy resulted from its social composition among isolated rural farmers, an undifferentiated and rapidly declining section of the population. Yet its achievements were extraordinary. Shaking the two-party system to its foundations, Populisms challenge to capitalism ultimately fed into the emergence of American socialism.

While King looked to Populism for inspiration, it was ultimately a far more profound transformation, arising from the powerful development of American capitalism, that provided the basis for the civil rights movement: the development of the working class.

In 1900, after the defeat of the Populist movement, 90 percent of African Americans lived in the South, most in conditions of rural isolation. In the 1920s, over 1.5 million blacks left the South for northern cities, bound for wage work. Many more moved to cities in the Southincluding Atlanta, where King was born, as well as Alabamas industrial cities of Birmingham and Montgomery, which birthed the modern civil rights movement. By 1960, only 15 percent of African Americans remained on farms, a dramatic social transformation which historians now term the Great Migration.

In the cities, the black migrants faced new forms of racism and, as in East St. Louis in 1917 and Chicago in 1919, occasional paroxysms of vicious violence, typically overseen by their historical antagonists in the Democratic Party. Yet it is undeniable that this vast movementfrom country to city, from farm to factory, and from South to North and Westwas an intensely liberating development. Its impact on American culture can only be called exhilarating.

The arrival in the cities of this brutally oppressed people, a mere half-century separated from chattel slavery, germinated the cultural and intellectual florescence associated with the Harlem Renaissance, the first mass African American political organizations and trade unions, as well as the great forms of popular music including ragtime, rhythm and blues, jazz, and rock and roll.

The Great Migration raised African-American workers as a critical section of the working class. But the fusing of that class across racial and national lines was no mean task under conditions in which capitalist employers knew well that they could pit workerswhite, black, immigrantagainst each other in wage competition. The American Federation of Labor, among the most provincial and reactionary labor organizations on the planet, fed into these divisions. Most of its unions imposed racial exclusions against blacks and agitated against immigrants. Reformist socialists that oriented to the AFL, such as Victor Berger of Milwaukee, also excluded blacks from their conception of the working class.

Under these conditionsthe emergence of a powerful industrial working class, but one hamstrung by outmoded forms of organizationthe Russian Revolution of 1917 hit with meteoric impact. Among the black intellectuals inspired by the Bolsheviks were Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, and A. Phillip Randolph, who co-founded the socialist magazine The Messenger in 1917 and went on to head the largest predominantly black trade union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.

These intellectuals immediately drew comparisons to the situation of Jews under the seemingly eternal Romanov dynasty. For American Negroes the indisputable and outstanding fact of the Russian Revolution, McKay explained in 1921, is that a mere handful of Jews, much less in ratio to the number of Negroes in the American population, have attained, through the Revolution, all the political and social rights denied them under the regime of the Czar.

In the North, socialists took the lead in the fight for the great industrial unions in auto, meatpacking, rubber, and steel, insisting that blacks be accepted on equal footing with all others. Even in the Deep South, socialists fought under the banner of the Russian Revolution in the 1920s and 1930s, winning the allegiance of militant workers, black and white, in such places as Alabama, where the defense of the Scottsboro Boys, nine African-American youth falsely accused of rape, won the support of workers the world over. It is difficult to overstate the heroism of these workers who braved the wrath of the southern lawmen as well as the Ku Klux Klan.

The Stalinists of the Communist Party, along with the supposedly left CIO bureaucracy, betrayed these workers in the name of their alliance with the Democratic Party, whose southern wing remained in the hands of the white supremacist oligarchy. Nonetheless, socialism remained the bte noire of the Jim Crow politicians, who saw in every stirring of the southern workers the work of outside agitators and communists. And, despite the best efforts of reactionary red-baiters, socialism continued to influence a layer of southern intellectuals and leaders.

King was neither a Marxist nor a revolutionary. But his socialist sympathies, and those of his wife, Coretta Scott King, were well-known. He agitated for a significant economic restructuring of American society, albeit without calling for the overthrow of the capitalist system. Even though he cautiously adapted his politics to the pressures of the red-baiting environment of the United States in the 1950s, King spoke a language utterly incompatible with the racial narrative of contemporary rightwing affluent petty-bourgeois nationalists.

Communism should challenge us first to be more concerned about social justice, King noted in a sermon first delivered in 1953. However much is wrong with Communism we must admit that it arose as a protest against the hardships of the underprivileged. The Communist Manifesto which was published in 1847 by Marx and Engels emphasizes throughout how the middle class has exploited the lower class. Communism emphasizes a classless society. Along with this goes a strong attempt to eliminate racial prejudice. Communism seeks to transcend the superficialities of race and color, and you are able to join the Communist party whatever the color of your skin or the quality of the blood in your veins.

King eloquently articulated the democratic sentiments of Americans of all races and ethnicities striving to tear down all the artificial barriers erected by the ruling class in a conscious effort to divide the working class.

In a 1965 sermon King explained that the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence penned by Thomas Jefferson, that all men are created equal, were the cornerstone of the civil rights movement. He did not see that document, which gave expression to the Enlightenment principles which animated the American Revolution, as a cynical ploy or a lieas 1619 Project figurehead Nikole Hannah-Jones imagines itbut an as yet unfulfilled promise, lifted to cosmic proportions, and one the civil rights movement was fighting to make a reality.

He and many others who were part of the mass movement in the 1950s and 1960s understood very well that no lasting progress could be made without the unity of the working class and recognized that under capitalism workers were being oppressed regardless of the color of their skin.

Writing in 1958, King noted that two summers of work in a factory as a teenager had exposed him to economic injustice firsthand, and [I] realized that the poor white was exploited just as much as the Negro. Through these early experiences I grew up deeply conscious of the varieties of injustice in our society.

Whether or not Kings assassination was more than the work of the small-time hood James Earl Ray, it is a documented fact that, from the early 1960s on, the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover aimed to destroy the civil rights leader through a campaign of dirty tricks, media leaks, intense surveillance, and even encouraging King to kill himself. Yet somehow, historian William Chafe writes, King emerged from the ordeal a stronger, more resolute, more courageous leader.

King responded to the attack from the FBI in 1967 by launching his interracial Poor Peoples campaign, an initiative seeking economic justice for all impoverished Americans. He also became among the most outspoken critics of the American onslaught in Vietnam, memorably denouncing the United States government as the greatest purveyor of violence today in his 1967 Riverside Church speech.

He had become convinced, King told his staff the same year, that we cant solve our problems now until there is a radical re-distribution of economic and political power. It was time, he said, to raise certain basic questions about the whole society We are engaged in a class struggle dealing with the problem of the gulf between the haves and the have nots.

Kings recognition of the necessity of interracial struggle and the contributions that whites had made to the civil rights movement informed Kings criticism of the racial separatism espoused by the Black Power movement, which he rightly called, in 1967, a cry of disappointment born of the wounds of despair.

Kings turn to the left caused alarm among conservative civil rights leaders. To them, King respondedin words that echo with the same force against the lavishly funded race experts of todayWhat youre saying may get you a foundation grant but it wont get you into the Kingdom of Truth.

The logic of these positions, indeed his entire lifes work, placed King on a collision course with the Democratic Partythe same party that ruled over the Jim Crow South and the big city political machines in the North, and had led the United States into Vietnam. Even if his political limitations caused him to delay this reckoning to the end, his lifes work had a real impact on the lives of millions.

Now the universal, Enlightenment principles King fought for and defended are under vicious assault. It is striking that in the 1619 Project, the Times initiative to write the true history of America as rooted in slavery and racism, Kings contribution to the fight for equality is totally ignored. This doesnt represent a different interpretation of facts or a mere oversight but an outright historical falsification.

The Times is seeking to impose a new narrative on US history in which anti-black racism is presented as an immutable feature of Americas DNA. This, Hannah-Jones argues, emerged out of the original sin of chattel slavery, itself a function not of labor exploitation, but of white racism against blacks.

Promoted by the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, which is heavily endowed by corporations and billionaires, the 1619 Project proposes itself as a new curriculum for public education. Crumbling schools and hungry children from Chicago to Buffalo are being given lesson plans that argue the American Revolution and Civil War were conspiracies to perpetuate white racism, and that all manner of contemporary social problemslack of health care, obesity, traffic jams, etc.are the direct outcomes of slavery.

Following other eminent historians interviewed by the World Socialist Web Site, Stanford Professor Clayborne Carson, director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, criticized the 1619 Project from the standpoint of its treatment of history, its dismissal of the American Revolution, and the obscure and rapid process through which it was produced. He went further, however, making powerful observations about King and the civil rights movement he came to leadtwo subjects almost entirely absent from the 1619 Project.

Carson noted that the ideals of the American Revolution and the Enlightenment played a key role in the civil rights movement and Kings own role as a political leader. One way of looking at the founding of this country is to understand the audacity of a few hundred white male elites getting together and declaring a countryand declaring it a country based on the notion of human rights, Carson explained.

Obviously, they were being hypocritical, but its also audacious. And thats what rights are all about, he noted. It is the history of people saying, I declare that I have the right to determine my destiny, and we collectively have the right to determine our destiny. Thats the history of every movement, every freedom movement in the history of the world. At some point you have to get to that point where you have to say that, publicly, and fight for it.

It is these principles and perspective which are being explicitly rejected by the New York Times as upper middle-class layers marshal various forms of identity politics to jockey for a greater share of the massive amounts of wealth which have been piled up in the coffers of the top one percent. In this struggle for privilege and wealth the political principles which King stood for can find no place and therefore he too must be excised from the historical narrative.

2019 has been a year of mass social upheaval. We need you to help the WSWS and ICFI make 2020 the year of international socialist revival. We must expand our work and our influence in the international working class. If you agree, donate today. Thank you.

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Martin Luther King Jr. and the fight for social equality - World Socialist Web Site

You Will Know Them by Their Trail of Hypocrisy – Liberty Nation

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During its halcyon years, the Democratic Party can be credited with having achieved great things for America. The Civil Rights era of the 1960s comes to mind as a time when the clarion call sounded from the American left to make right what had been so wrong for so long. Drafting the brave example of Martin Luther King Jr. and his quiet strength, the Democrats helped accomplish an inarguable good, expiating the sins of their forefathers and banishing the ghosts of the darkest periods of their remembered past including their opposition to the abolition of slavery and the establishment of the Ku Klux Klan.

No matter that their gimlet-eyed sincerity during these salad days often resulted in well-intentioned legislation riven with unintended consequences, such as the Great Society programs, which would millstone generations of inner-city minorities with the decidedly mixed blessings of the welfare state. At least, it could be argued, in contrast to their reputed bloodless, unfeeling colleagues across the aisle, the Democrats were pure of heart.

What happened?

In 2020, with a hot crush on Wall Street and a platform that opposes school choice for inner-city minorities, the Democrats seem to have Freaky Fridayed the Republicans, who have delivered historically low unemployment for African Americans and Hispanics and enacted criminal justice reform. The weird science that seems to have wholly reconstituted the DNA of the Democratic Party has either distorted it grotesquely, like a funhouse mirror, or revealed its true nature in a cold light. Ever since a wide swath of Americans voted the Barbarian King into office to wage war against the elites and the Washington Swamp, Democrats and the progressive left have shown themselves to be vessels of limitless, inchoate rage, bereft of reason.

Its not a good look.

The thin gruel of the impeachment gambit followed hard on the heels of the DOA Mueller report, while the economy booms and new trade deals are signed. This bodes poorly for progressives for the remainder of this presidential term and beyond. The trail of policy breadcrumbs that might have led the Democrats out of the political woods has been boot-heeled by the radicalized fringe in control of their current fortunes. Democrats are offering themselves up to be devoured by the electoral witch, in the house of 2020 once again.

But as the wheels come off the clown car being driven over a political cliff by rouged manikin Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) and the increasingly erratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), there is no sign of a course correction. In a perpetual fever of loathing for President Trump, the Democratic Party and the American left have jettisoned what once appeared to be genuine sincerity for two intoxications: hatred and its heinous handmaiden, hypocrisy.

Please enjoy an abbreviated Greatest Hyps List courtesy of the Democrats and the American left.

And now: a lightning round of progressive hypocrisies.

The big takeaway?

Virtue-signaling leftists typically are guilty of the very thing of which they accuse others, which is the very essence of hypocrisy. Unable to confront the tar pits of their own dark, psychic morass, progressives often project their own moral deficiencies and inferiorities onto those with whom they disagree.

So, will the Democratic Party, the American left, and much of the Fourth Estate ever take ownership of their legendary hypocrisies in the era of President Donald Trump?

Sure, they will.

When Bigfoot signs his endorsement deal with Nike.

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You Will Know Them by Their Trail of Hypocrisy - Liberty Nation

More railroad and highway closures in Ascension Parish Friday – WBRZ

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PRAIRIEVILLE - The railroad crossing at La. 73 near Airline Highway will likely be closed until Thursday afternoon and drivers should expect evening and morning delays in Ascension Parish.

The railroad company is doing work on its tracks and requires the highway be closed. DOTD has been alerting drivers of the ongoing progress.

Originally scheduled to be open by 5 p.m. Wednesday, a mechanical issue at the worksite delayed the crossing being open until Thursday at 2 p.m.

DOTD posted this warning:

The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development advises motorists that on Wednesday, January 22, 2020 starting at 7:00 a.m., LA 73 (Old Jefferson Highway) near its intersection with US 61 (Airline Highway.) in Ascension Parish will be closed. This road closure is scheduled to take place until 5:00 p.m.onThursday, January 23, 2020and is necessary to allow KCS Railroad to perform maintenance on its tracks.

Plan for delays. Click HERE for a live traffic map from WBRZ.

The railroad closure caused chaotic traffic congestion in parts of Ascension Wednesday morning.

Other Wednesday closures included Highway 74, New River Street and Ascension Street.

Additionally, the city of Baton Rouge announced two different spots on College Drive and Pecue Lane will be closed for roadwork from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday.

A full list of closures to expect from Jan. 20 to Jan. 25 are listed below:

-January 21- Post Office Road and Duplessis Road

-January 22- Highway 73, Highway 74, New River Street, and Ascension Street

-January 23- Coolidge Ave., Felix Ave., and Purpera Road

-January 24- Highway 30, Railroad Street (Sorrento)

-January 25- Highway 621, College Drive @ Perkins, Pecue Lane @ Perkins

Most of these closures are expected to last from 7 a.m. until 5 p.m., each day and are necessary to allow KCS Railroad to perform maintenance on its tracks.

Closures of crossings in East Baton Rouge are expected in the future but those have not been scheduled, a railway spokesperson told WBRZ.

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More railroad and highway closures in Ascension Parish Friday - WBRZ

Second half surge lifts Ascension Catholic over St. John – Weekly Citizen

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Ascension Catholic held the lead the rest of the way, eventually claiming a 77-60 win over the Eagles.

After battling to a 30-30 tie at halftime, Ascension Catholic came out of the locker room determined in the second half Tuesday night at St. John.

Ascension Catholic's J'Mond Tapp snagged a steal, then coasted for a wide-open dunk to open the scoring in the third quarter. He then followed with a three-point play, giving the Bulldogs the spark they needed.

Ascension Catholic held the lead the rest of the way, eventually claiming a 77-60 win over the Eagles.

Bulldogs head coach Kylon Green said his team came out flat, but was able to gel after the half.

"We had two emotional games back to back," he said. "They were kind of on a high horse after the Donaldsonville game. Coming back, we're in another heated rivalry in a hostile environment. We showed our youth at times, but we were able to turn it on in the second half."

Eagles head coach Franky Hebert said his team gave the visiting Bulldogs a window of opportunity to separate themselves.

"I thought we started out really well," he said. "I thought we were executing the game plan well. We kind of became a little too relaxed defensively toward the end of the first quarter and into the second. As soon as we picked it up, we went into halftime tied. Defensively, we kind of lost it for a two-minute period in the third. Against a good program, a good team like that, you can't lose it for two minutes."

St. John led through the first quarter. Connor Barbee, who led the Eagles with 22 points, hit two 3-pointers in the first. His second shot fell at the buzzer from beyond half court.

In the second quarter, Ascension Catholic's Demarco Harry, who finished with a game-high 28 points, began to heat up. He opened the second with a 3-pointer, then gave the Bulldogs their first lead by completing a three-point play.

The Eagles took back the lead later in the second, and went to the break tied after a pair of free throws by Galvin Martin.

The Bulldogs built their lead through the third quarter. Dorian Barber, who finished with 13 points, hit three of his four 3-pointers in the third. Jack Abadie also contributed a 3-pointer during the quarter. At the buzzer, Demarco Harry tacked on a three, giving the Bulldogs a 56-43 lead going into the fourth.

The final quarter started with more of the same as Barber sank a three, prompting a timeout.

Demontray Harry, who finished with 12 points, followed by adding three free throws after getting fouled while attempting a three.

The Eagles hit four 3-pointers of their own in the fourth quarter, as they tried to battle back into the game.

Ascension Catholic's Khai Prean scored ten points for the Bulldogs, while Tapp finished with nine. Abadie recorded five.

"We had a lot of depth tonight," Green said. We practice hard. I was happy to see some aggressiveness on defense from guys who came off the bench. They came in and took some shots we like them to take. We always have faith in those guys making those shots."

Martin finished with 15 for St. John. Chris Holmes scored ten, while Cobie Lockett had six. Jacob Schlatre added four, Isaiah Jones two, and Joseph Schlatre one.

"We're playing hard right now," Hebert said. "I think we're finally putting the pieces together. Last year I think we peaked kind of early. This year, I think we're peaking at the right time. I know this game doesn't show it, but we're playing better as a team. We're coming together, and I think this is the right time to do it."

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School in Ascension Parish closed on Tuesday out of an abundance of caution – BRProud.com

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ST AMANT, La. (WVLA/WGMB) An elementary school about 40 minutes from Baton Rouge is closed on Tuesday after a fire damaged one classroom.

That classroom in Lake Elementary School is considered a total loss.

Parents from the school received this message from the principal:

Dear Lake Lions,

This evening, there was a fire at Lake Elementary School that was contained to one classroom. The cause is not yet determined, but we are very fortunate that early assessments indicate only Classroom 119 in the fifth grade hall was impacted.

Out of an abundance of caution, we are going to cancel school at Lake Elementary School on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020. Students and staff attending the BETA Convention tomorrow can still depart from the Lake Elementary parking lot. There will be no access to the building.

We are expecting to resume normal operations on Wednesday, but a final decision will be made after a thorough assessment is completed.

Special thank you to the St. Amant Volunteer Fire Department for their quick response and actions to protect our campus.

Sincerely,

Jeremy MusePrincipal

Ascension Schools provided an update on whether classes will resume on Wednesday at Lake Elementary.

We are expecting to resume normal operations on Wed., but a final decision will be made after a thorough assessment is completed.

Special thank you to the St. Amant Volunteer Fire Department for their quick response & actions to protect our campus.

Jeremy MusePrincipal (3/3)

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School in Ascension Parish closed on Tuesday out of an abundance of caution - BRProud.com

Going to church fills an empty place in our hearts – Times Record News

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Deanna Watson, Wichita Falls Times Record News Published 6:26 a.m. CT Jan. 25, 2020

According to tradition, Jesus went "up" to heaven which may not be up, exactly, as much as it's beyond and what he went there to do was to finish what he had begun with us here on earth.

The Very Rev. John D. Payne: By ascending bodily into heaven, Christ showed us that our human nature is good, not bad.(Photo: Contributed)

It was not enough that through Jesus God was born into the body of this world; that was just his Christmas gift to us. His ascension gift was that through him the body of the world was borne back to God.

By presenting his own crucified, risen body to be seated at the right hand of God, Jesus imported human nature into those holy precincts for the first time. He paved the way for us, so that when we arrive there later everyone will not be quite so shocked by us.

The ascended Christ restored the goodness of creation, and ours in particular. By ascending bodily into heaven, he showed us that our human nature is good, not bad; that it's good enough for Jesus, good enough for heaven, good enough for God. By putting on human nature and keeping it on through the resurrection, Jesus has not only brought God to us; he has also brought us to God!

There is another way to look at Acts 1:1-11. The ascension of Christ is the day the present Lord became absent, which may be one reason why Ascension Day is the most neglected feast. Who wants to celebrate being left behind? Who wants to mark the day that Jesus went out of this world, never to be seen again?

This may be, however, the one compelling reason why we do go to church. Because we have sensed God's absence in that hollow, empty place in our hearts and because this thing has not discouraged us from coming. We come to seek the presence we have been missing.

Absence is an entirely underrated thing. Absence is not nothing, after all. something: a heightened awareness, a sharpened appetite, a finer perception. When someone important to me is absent from me, I become clearer than ever what that person means to me. Details that get lost in our togetherness are recalled in our apartness, and their sudden clarity has the power to pry my heart open.

There's something else that happens during an absence. If the relationship is strong and true, the absent one has a way of becoming present. There can be no sense of absence where there has been no sense of presence. You can't miss what you have never known, which makes our sense of God's absence the very best proof that we knew God once, and that we may know him again. It is our sense of God's absence, after all, that brings us to church in search of God's presence.

The angels in the ascension story remind Jesus' friends that if they want to see him again, it's no use looking up. Better that they should look around, at each other, at the world, at ordinary people in their ordinary lives, because this is where they are most likely to find him.

We also hear the angels' admonishment to stop looking up and to start looking around. Don't feast your eyes on some romanticized version of the church in the past, or on some idealized vision of a perfect church in the future.

What we must do is look around us at the church as it is, a company of saints and sinners who hold out empty cups to be filled with bread, with wine, with the abiding presence of the absent Lord.

The Very Rev. John D. Payne is the Rector Emeritus of All Saints' Episcopal Church in Wichita Falls.

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Ascension Episcopal’s Matt Remondet named Male Athlete of the Week – Daily Advertiser

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Lafayette Daily Advertiser Published 7:00 a.m. CT Jan. 23, 2020

Matt Remondet(Photo: Submitted Photo)

Ascension Episcopal split their two district games last week, with a loss to Delcambre and a win against Houma Christian.

In both of those games, one player who turned in consistent performances was Matt Remondet. Remondet a junior, scored 25 points and pulled in seven rebounds against Delcambreand finished with 15 points and nine rebounds against Houma Christian.

For his efforts Remondet has been named the Male Athlete of the Week.

After a successful sophomore season that saw him lead the Blue Gators in scoring and rebounding at 13.4 points and 6.5 rebounds per game en route to garnering All-District honorable mention honors,Remondet has picked up right where he left off last season.

This year, Remondet is on par with what he did a year ago, averaging 14.9 points and 7.4 rebounds per game for a Blue Gators team that is 12-10 overall.

Remondet, who was an All-District football player at tight end, has a 3.7 GPA.

Jan. 21, 2020, 1:43 p.m.

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Ascension Episcopal's Matt Remondet named Male Athlete of the Week - Daily Advertiser