Alector Reports Recent Business Highlights and Third Quarter 2019 Financial Results – GlobeNewswire

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SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Nov. 12, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Alector, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALEC), a clinical stage biotechnology company pioneering immuno-neurology, today announced Company highlights and financial results for the third quarter of 2019.

We continue to integrate insight from human genetics, immunology, and neuroscience to advance our portfolio of novel therapeutics. AL001 has advanced to a Phase 2 trial in two genetically defined patient populations suffering from frontotemporal dementia. In addition, AL002 and AL003 are currently being evaluated in Phase 1b clinical trials in Alzheimers disease patients, said Arnon Rosenthal, Ph.D., Alectors chief executive officer. We are looking forward to our first presentation of data from the AL002 program taking place at the CTAD annual meeting and an update on our clinical and development pipelines at our R&D Day in December.

Recent Business Highlights

Third Quarter 2019 Financial Results

Revenue. Collaboration revenue for the third quarter of 2019 was $2.7 million compared to $6.5 million for the same period in 2018. Alector recognizes revenue from the upfront payments under the AbbVie Agreement over time as the services are provided. Revenues are recognized as the program costs are incurred by measuring actual costs incurred to date compared to the overall total expected costs to satisfy the performance obligation. Changes in estimates for revenue recognized over time are recognized on a cumulative basis.

R&D Expenses. Total research and development expenses for the third quarter of 2019 were $28.5 million compared to $20.4 million for the same period in 2018. The increase was driven by higher personnel-related expenses as headcount grew to support the advancement of the clinical and preclinical programs, increased expenditures related to the clinical trials, increased laboratory expenses for the development of our pipeline, and increased facilities and other unallocated research and development expenses to support the growth of the business.

G&A Expenses. Total general and administrative expenses for the third quarter of 2019 were $8.3 million compared to $2.9 million for the same period in 2018. This increase was primarily due to higher personnel-related expenses, increased facilities and general overhead expenses, and increased expenses related to information technology, accounting, legal, human resources, and other administrative functions to support the growth of the business.

Net Loss. For the third quarter of 2019, Alector reported a net loss of $31.7 million, compared to a net loss of $15.3 million for the same period in 2018.

Cash Position. Cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities were $381.4 million as of September 30, 2019.

About AlectorAlector is a clinical stage biotechnology company pioneering immuno-neurology, a novel therapeutic approach for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. Immuno-neurology targets immune dysfunction as a root cause of multiple pathologies that are drivers of degenerative brain disorders. Alector is developing a broad portfolio of programs designed to functionally repair genetic mutations that cause dysfunction of the brains immune system and enable the rejuvenated immune cells to counteract emerging brain pathologies. The Companys product candidates are supported by biomarkers and target genetically defined patient populations in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimers disease. Alector is headquartered in South San Francisco, California. For additional information, please visit http://www.alector.com.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are based on our beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to us on the date of this press release. Forward-looking statements may involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These statements include but are not limited to statements regarding the Companys financial condition and results of operations, and plans for the Companys product candidates, clinical studies and anticipated regulatory and development milestones. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. Important factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially are detailed from time to time in the reports Alector files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in our quarterly report on Form 10-Q that is being filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on Alectors website and are available from Alector without charge.

Selected Consolidated Balance Sheet Data (in thousands)(unaudited)

(1) Upon the closing of our IPO in February 2019, all of the outstanding shares of our convertible preferred stock converted into 45,374,836 shares of common stock.

Consolidated Statement of Operations Data(in thousands, except share and per share data)(unaudited)

Source: Alector, Inc.

Contacts

Media:1ABDan Budwick, 973-271-6085dan@1abmedia.com

orInvestors:Alector, Inc.ir@alector.com

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Alector Reports Recent Business Highlights and Third Quarter 2019 Financial Results - GlobeNewswire

One of the World’s Greatest Geneticists, He Gave Up British Citizenship for India – The Better India

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As the legendary science fiction author Arthur C Clarke once suggested, JBS Haldane was perhaps the most brilliant science popularizer of his generation. #LostTales

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JBS Haldane ranks among the greatest scientists of the 20th century, particularly for his invaluable contribution to our understanding of genetics. More fascinatingly, however, this remarkable polymath left his home country of the United Kingdom in 1957 and moved to India permanently. He took up residence and Indian citizenship with his wife Helen Spurway, a gifted biologist in her own right.

Never before in the 20th century had a scientist of his standing chosen to take his scientific research to India from the Westnot to mention becoming a citizen.

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Born on 5 November 1892, in Oxford, England, JBS grew up in privilege with his father John Scotee Haldane, an Oxford University physiologist. JBS was a child prodigy, learning how to read and acquiring a certain degree of familiarity with scientific terminology by the tender age of three. The influence of John Scott loomed large on his son with the duo acting as their own guinea pigs in various experiments, including ascertaining the physiological effects of poison gases.

But the turning point for JBS came when his father took him to a lecture by A D Darbishire, a British zoologist and geneticist, about legendary scientist Gregor Mendels laws of inheritance, dominance and segregation. The lecture facilitated his fascination with genetics.

JBS studied at Eton, an elite boys school, and subsequently at Oxford University, where he pursued the Classics and Mathematics, graduating with honours in 1914. However, his academic pursuits were brought to a halt by World War I. Commissioned to the British Army, he served in France and Iraq, where he was wounded.

Following the War, he came back to Oxford to pursue his research in genetics.

His most important genetical contributions were a series of mathematical papers on the effect of natural selection, which were summarized in his book, The Causes of Evolution. This work became the foundation for population genetics along with the works of R.A. Fisher and Sewall Wright. Haldane [also] introduced the important idea that immunity to infectious diseases played an important part in human evolutionHe emphasized the importance of ethical considerations in evaluating eugenic programs and the impact of in vitro fertilization, writes Krishna R Dronamraju, a colleague of JBS, for the Indian Journal of Human Genetics.

In many ways, JBS played a critical role in laying the foundation of classical human genetics.

He derived the law of steady-state kinetics in enzyme chemistry, besides ascertaining the physiological effects of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide by testing them out on his own body, a method he learnt from his father.

After a four-year stint as a Professor of Genetics at the University College in London, he spent the next twenty as the Professor of Biometry. As a professed socialist and humanist, JBS was also deeply engaged in popularising the science to the masses beyond the laboratory.

As the legendary author Arthur C Clarke once suggested, JBS Haldane was perhaps the most brilliant science popularizer of his generation.

However, towards the fag end of his time in England, he grew increasingly disenchanted by British politics and society. The breaking point was his governments role in the Suez Crisis of 1956, which he saw as violations of international law, while admiring the Indian Independence Movement. Moreover, the warmer climate of India and Prime Minister Nehrus experiments with socialism also offered JBS and wife Helen with the necessary rationale for shifting base.

It was the legendary statistician P C Mahalanobis, who offered JBS a teaching position in the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. At this time, he also began immersing himself in Indian philosophy and logic systems, applying indigenous knowledge systems to scientific research.

He continued his work in the study of genetics in India, ranging from studies about inbreeding in Andhra Pradesh, and colour blindness in Andhra and Odisha, apart from other such studies.

Never before in modern times had a Western scientist of Haldanes calibre chosen to move to India not to speak of becoming a citizen. He was critical of Indian science and scientists but saw hopes in young people. During his stay here, he did much for research in animal and human genetics and in support of science education, writes Dr Veena Rao, a faculty member at the National Institute of Advanced Sciences. Science, he believed, must help common citizens understand what goes on inside the research laboratories, for some of which he pays, writes Dr Veena Rao, Adjunct Faculty at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, for The Hindu.

He also criticised the bureaucratic roadblocks that stifled true research in India. There was even a dust-up between him and the management at the ISI, which led to his resignation and the eventual shift to Bhubaneswar, Odisha, on the invitation of Biju Patnaik.

Haldane was appointed [the] head of an entirely independent research establishment, where he worked with his young colleagues from Calcutta, including S D Jayakar, with whom he published papers on population genetics that are as enduring as the best of Haldanes early work, says this Down to Earth profile.

Whats particularly remarkable about his life is how quickly people forgot him. More than anything else, however, he passed on to his students and peers a passion for the sciences.

Also Read:This is Your Prize, Sir. How a Pak Nobel Laureate Paid Tribute to His Indian Guru

Just before passing away on 1 December 1964 of rectal carcinoma, he issued strict instructions that he wanted to dedicate his body to scientific researchthe mark of a true scientist.

Our only hope of understanding the universe is to look at it from as many different points of view as possibleNow, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose, he wrote.

(Edited by Shruti Singhal)

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One of the World's Greatest Geneticists, He Gave Up British Citizenship for India - The Better India

Section 377A constitutional challenge: Expert evidence reveal sexual orientation cannot be changed at will, lawyers argue – The Online Citizen

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The legal team advocating the repeal of Section 377A of the Penal Code which criminalises acts of gross indecency between men argued before the High Court on Mon (18 Nov) that sexual orientation is a product of genetic and environmental factors, and cannot be changed at will.

Lawyers Eugene Thuraisingam, Suang Wijaya and Johannes Hadi of Eugene Thuraisingam LLP, on behalf of applicant DJ Johnson Ong Ming, said that the preponderance of scientific evidence shows that human sexual orientation ranges along a continuum, from completely heterosexual to completely homosexual.

In between are bisexuals who have varying degrees of preference for either sex, the lawyers added.

Homosexuals, like heterosexuals, cannot wilfully change their sexual orientation and/or attraction. There is no credible scientific evidence which supports the proposition that therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation (such as reparative or conversion therapy) is safe or effective, they argued.

Consequently, the crux of the legal teams argument is that Section 377A in the Penal Code violates two provisions in the Singapore Constitution, namely Article 9 of the Constitution which guarantees the right to life and personal liberty, and Article 12 which guarantees equal protection before the law.

Sexual activity between consenting adult males in private, according to Mr Ongs lawyers, neither harms nor impinges upon the rights or interests of any other persons.

Section 377A therefore violates Article 9 and 12 of the Constitution. It is absurd, irrational and discriminatory to criminalise a person on the basis of his natural, unchangeable identity and for non-harmful private acts, they added.

The relevant section in the Penal Code also reinforces the majoritys good old-fashioned discrimination against male homosexuals, who are a minority in Singapore, according to Ongs legal team.

The role of our Constitution and the Court is to protect minorities against the absurd, irrational prejudices of the majority, his lawyers argued.

Three medical experts were called by Mr Ongs legal team in the immediate case, namely:

The Attorney-Generals Chambers (AGC), the respondent in all three cases, called the following experts:

Little to no scientific evidence in support of proposition pinpointing socio-environmental factors as cause for homosexuality and bisexuality, according to medical experts on both sides

Experts from both sides concurred that genetic and non-social environmental factors (like the womb environment) contribute to the causality of sexual orientation and/or attraction.

There is little if any scientific evidence which supports the proposition that social environmental factors (like culture, parenting) play any role in the causality of sexual orientation and/or attraction, said Mr Ongs lawyers.

One of the sources cited by Dr Cai is a study by Bailey, J.M., Vesey, P.L., Diamond, L.M., Breedlove, S.M., Villian, E,M & Epprecht, M. (in press), titled Sexual orientation controversy, and science, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2016, Vol 17(2) 45-101 summarises the position, which details the following:

No causal theory of sexual orientation has yet gained widespread support. The most scientifically plausible causal hypotheses are difficult to test. However, there is considerably more evidence supporting non-social causes of sexual orientation than social causes.

This evidence includes the cross-culturally robust finding that adult homosexuality is strongly related to childhood gender non-conformity; moderate genetic influences demonstrated in well sampled twin studies; the cross-culturally robust fraternal birth order effect on male sexual orientation; and the finding that when infant boys are surgically and socially changed into girls, their eventual sexual orientation is unchanged (i.e., they remain sexually attracted to females).

In contrast, evidence for the most commonly hypothesized social causes of homosexuality sexual recruitment by homosexual adults, patterns of disordered parenting, or the influence of homosexual parents is generally weak in magnitude and distorted by numerous confounding factors.

Citing Dr Cais report, the lawyers argued that it can be inferred that Dr Cais findings align with those of Dr Rajesh, who posited that biological and non-social environmental factors influence sexual orientation, and that [e]vidence for the most commonly hypothesised social causes of homosexuality have generally been debunked.

First, Dr Cai states that [s]exual orientation is no unchanging in everyone, and cites studies showing that some individuals have been found to experience spontaneous and naturally-occurring changes in sexual orientation, as opposed to willful changes.

Second, Dr Cai does not cite any literature or study supporting the proposition that sexual orientation can be willfully changed, such as through sexual orientation change efforts, conversion therapy or reparative therapy.

Mr Ongs lawyers also argued that Dr Cai has offered no credible evidence that sexual orientation can be willfully changed.

Studies showing that some individuals experience spontaneous and naturally occurring change in sexual orientation is nothing to the point, they argued, citing two reasons, namely:

i) spontaneous and naturally-occurring change is not willful change as demonstrated by the literature cited by Dr Cai himself; and

(ii) the studies show that close to 100% of homosexual males do not experience even any spontaneous or natural change.

Secondly, said Ongs lawyers, the literature cited by Dr Cai himself supports the point that persons do not experience choice over their sexual orientation and/or sexual attraction.

Ongs legal team added that the literature cited by Dr Cai demonstrates that there is no credible evidence for the purported effectiveness of conversion therapy, reparative therapy, and other forms of intervention to change sexual orientation are effective, which have been known present a significant risk of harm to individuals undergoing such interventions.

Genetics and other biological factors, including non-social environmental factors, contribute strongly to the development of sexual orientation

Another source cited by Dr Cai is a study by Roselli, C.E. titled Neurobiology of Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation, published in Journal of Neuroendocrinology, 2018, which states the following:

Most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation. There Is no scientifically convincing research to show that therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation (ie, reparative or conversion therapy) is safe or effective. The origin of sexual orientation is far from being understood, although there is no proof that it is affected by social factors after birth. On the other hand, a large amount of empirical data suggests that genes and hormones are important regulators of sexual orientation

The data summarised in the present review suggest that both gender identity and sexual orientation are significantly influenced by events occurring during the early developmental period when the brain is differentiating under the influence of gonadal steroid hormones, genes and maternal factors. However, our current understanding of these factors is far from complete and the results are not always consistent

Our current understanding suffers from many limitations in the data Despite these limitations, the existing empirical evidence makes it clear that there is a significant biological contribution to the development of an individuals identity and sexual orientation.

Ongs lawyers pointed out thatDr Cai accepted the proposition that it is not disputed by experts in the field that genetics has some contribution to the causation of homosexuality.

Secondly, the lawyers highlighted that Dr Cai cited, in approval, papers which conclude that there can be little doubt that [sexual orientation] is influenced by environmental factors.

The environmental factors referred to by the papers cited by Dr Cai are non-social environmental factors such as the womb environment, not social environmental factors, Mr Ongs legal team highlighted, adding that Dr Cai has already cited various studies and literature pointing to genetic and non-social environmental factors of sexual orientation.

Dr Cai, according to the lawyers, also cited studies indicating that hormones play a part in the causation of sexual orientation, and the fraternal birth order effect play a role in shaping a persons sexual orientation.

Mr Ongs lawyers also rejected Dr Tays assertion that cultural and social environmental factors are also likely to play a role in determining sexual orientation, as the expert has cited no material that supports such an assertion.

This assertion is also demonstrably false, Mr Ongs lawyers argued.

The closed High Court hearing on Mon was the second out of three cases to be presented against Section 377A this month.

The current cases, according to a statement by Mr Ongs legal team, set a precedent in examining legal questions on the nature of sexual orientation, as expert evidence is now presented before the courts.

Previously, the court was only asked to take judicial notice of scientific facts which required a different legal test, Mr Ongs legal team added.

The AGC began its submissions on Mon, and will conclude its submissions at the next hearing on Wed.

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Section 377A constitutional challenge: Expert evidence reveal sexual orientation cannot be changed at will, lawyers argue - The Online Citizen

Co-creator of CRISPR lectures about future applications of genome editing technology – Daily Bruin

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A University of California professor and co-originator of genome editing technology Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats said researchers plan to expand the technology in order to increase human applications at a campus lecture series Thursday.

Jennifer Doudna, a UC Berkeley biochemistry professor, engaged students and the greater UCLA science community during the quarterly Donald J. Cram Distinguished Lecture series.

The Cram lecture series, a quarterly departmental event, invites prominent academics in the field of chemistry to speak about their research. The series is dedicated to Donald J. Cram, who was a Nobel laureate and a chemistry professor at UCLA for over 50 years.

This fall, the series was hosted by UCLA chemistry professor and Cram Chair Patrick Harran.

Scientists use CRISPR technology, formally known as CRISPR-Cas9, to modify DNA sequences and gene functions. Cas9 is a protein that can cut the strands of DNA-like molecular scissors.

CRISPR is studied and used by students, scientists and researchers to advance progress in the field of gene editing, in medicine and the life sciences.

The UC holds the largest CRISPR patent portfolio in the nation with 16 total patents, according to a UC Berkeley press release.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office granted the UC, along with the University of Vienna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, the director of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, its 16th patent in October.

Doudnas involvement in CRISPR technology began around 2005, when a professor at UC Berkeley, Jill Banfield, invited Doudna to help her with research into the mechanism. From there, Doudna teamed up with Charpentier, who was working with a CRISPR system and its associated protein, Cas9, in 2011.

Doudna is one of the creators of the CRISPR utility for the permanent excision of harmful genes. Doudna said that she developed the idea for the CRISPR technology in 2011 in collaboration with Charpentier.

During the lecture, Doudna detailed how scientists regulate CRISPR enzymes to modify DNA.

CRISPR is a portion of the bacterial genomic sequence that acts as an adaptive immune system, Doudna said.

Bacteria encode the CRISPR system through viral infections, which allows its genome to recognize foreign DNA insertions. These DNA sequences incorporate themselves into the bacterial genome at the CRISPR locus, a genetic database of past infections.

Doudna said this locus was of unique interest to her.

Those sequences, called CRISPR, are transcribed in RNA molecules that provide the zip codes for Cas proteins, allowing them to recognize foreign DNA and cut it up, Doudna said.

Doudna and Charpentier, with the assistance of their team, were able to realize that CRISPR RNA is a 20-nucleotide sequence, which interacts with DNA in a complementary fashion.

This complementarity allows the protein to form a double-stranded break in DNA, necessitating a second RNA tracrRNA to form this functional unit, Doudna said.

And it was (biochemist) Martin Jinek in our lab who figured out that you could combine these two RNAs into a single guide RNA, Doudna said.

From this experiment, Jinek found that single guide RNAs were used by Cas9 to excise DNA at specific sites in a plasmid, a circular piece of bacterial DNA. The revelation from this was that, upon excision, DNA would repair itself in animals and plants, Doudna said.

Doudna said at the end of her talk that the system is becoming increasingly important in the field of medicine, and is currently being used at UCLA, by Donald Kohn, a professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics.

Were within about five years, maybe less, from being able to make, essentially, any change to any genome in any type of cell, Doudna said.

Doudna stressed that this ability to make changes in the genome comes with bioethical responsibility for genome editing in humans.

Fourth-year biochemistry student Jeremy Shek, who attended the event, said although he had done a project that was an offshoot of CRISPR, he had not heard of the progress Doudna discussed.

It is important to be informed on advancements and progress in the field, he added.

Fourth-year bioengineering student Timothy Yu said he came to the lecture to see Doudna in person and get a more solid grasp on the methodology of CRISPR.

Lexi Omholt, a fourth-year microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics student, said that she came to the talk to understand the basis of CRISPR technology.

Jennifer Doudna was one of the reasons I chose my major, Omholt said. At that time, CRISPR came into popular knowledge, and the knockout tool was just coming into use. I am involved in a cancer lab, the Soragni Lab, that uses CRISPR-Cas9 on a regular basis.

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Co-creator of CRISPR lectures about future applications of genome editing technology - Daily Bruin

The right to know: How does censorship affect academics? – Big Think

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Robert Quinn

Robert Quinn is a human rights advocate, lawyer, lecturer, writer and founding executive director of Scholars at Risk, an international network of more than 500 higher education institutions and thousands of individuals in 39 countries dedicated to protecting at-risk scholars, promoting academic freedom, and defending everyones freedom to think, question and share ideas.

ROBERT QUINN: The university space is a microcosm in its ideal of what we would like society to be like. People have adequate food, they have adequate housing and they have a chance to develop their capacities and contribute to the meaningful decisions and discourse of their lives. So that's the ideal. And academic freedom is the essence of that. It's what makes it work because there's an opportunity to talk and engage and bring in the voice that previously can't be brought in. And again, this is only when universities operate on the ideal and I get that.

But for me what really got me into this work and keeps me in this work is because it's a microcosm. We don't understand how much our thoughts, our very thoughts and therefore our identities are shaped by implicit permission to think that or ask that or say that. And the battle over academic freedom is essentially the battle over that inner mental space. As an example and it really opened my eyes to it, I was talking to a very senior professor at a U.S. top university who was a sinologist, an expert on China. And she said one of my dilemmas is as I'm late in my career my Ph.D. students come to me and they say I want to work on this topic relating to say Tibet or Taiwan or so forth. Sensitive topics. And she says I have a professional obligation, it's a great topic and it would lead to so much knowledge but I have a professional obligation to warn them that if they do that they may not be able to travel in and out of the country. Their career may be cut short because those are sensitive topics.

And so she said the challenge is we're not only going to lose the particular dissertation topic that that person wanted to work on but we won't get any of the knowledge that the questions would have led to and the questions beyond that. So there's whole zones of knowledge that we never get to because of the intimidation in the early part of the evolution of the chain of thinking. Sort of to borrow from Donald Rumsfeld where he said that the unknown unknowns, right. We simply don't know what we haven't even thought to ask. And that's why attacks on scholars just like attacks on journalists but really especially with the depth that academics can go to, they're very efficient ways for very subtly invisibly shaping. One of our projects that we're just starting now is how do we measure the self-censorship that goes on. When they come and haul away the professor in the office next to yours to prison that affects whether you're going to publish the next article. How do we measure that.

I call it the self-censorship is the dark matter of the academic freedom universe. It's all over the place and that we can't see it. Creativity comes in because creativity needs space. It needs freedom. We have a holiday card we sent around once that said new ideas begin with a safe place to think. They can be catalyzed by pressure. They can be catalyzed by bad experiences. We all know that. That can spark things as we respond to those things. But at the end of the day it needs space and time and legitimacy to go with it. So that's how I think they're connected.

One in particular really strikes me which is a scholar from Syria, a very established scholar in the dramatic arts. She described a moment that I think encapsulates why so many of these scholars are so impressive and so courageous. She describes the secret police coming to her classroom and at the door of the classroom saying give me so and so, a student who is in her class. So they're going to take away a student. The secret police are going to take him away to prison. She says no. She says you can't have him. For the next hour-and-a-half he's mine. And that just encapsulates the courage for her to do that just blows me away. Just absolutely blows me away.

Another scholar also happens to be from Syria. He describes he's been in exile for a while. He gets into exile but he keeps doing his advocacy work. He got targeted because he started doing reports on secret detentions in prison in Syria and torture by the regime. This is before the civil war. And he described sitting in front of his computer in exile so still trying to have an effect for the people of Syria. Having written the next article that's going to go up on the website and pausing before he hits enter because he knows if it's published they might bring in his mother or his brother for interrogation. Yet he does it anyhow because he knows that they know that this is more important. But living with that and living with the guilt of that and living with the pressure of that. So many of our scholars do that and they feel like they're the lucky ones. The ones who got out of Iraq because scholars are being assassinated in Iraq.

We had one scholar years ago she was from Aceh, Indonesia which is a very sort of more, well not rural but more remote part of Indonesia at the time. And at the time there was a lot of conflict there. She was literally on a death list by the government. The military was going to kill her if they found her so she had to flee the country. Then the tsunami hit if you remember the tsunami hit Indonesia. She went back despite being on the death list and did what scholars do. She started writing reports about the relief agencies and how they were trying to help and exposed that the relief agencies were not meeting the needs of women in Indonesia because they were passing out all the relief through men. And so she started submitting these reports to the UN and changed the way that they were distributing aid and just changed the content, literally the content of the relief materials that were being provided to make sure women were being provided for. So these are the individuals that we end up talking to. It's not just the people who stand up directly against governments. It's usually people just standing up for truth and for people.

Another one was a professor from Tunisia who worked on public health. So why would a professor for public health get in trouble? Well his research was on infant mortality so why do professors research infant mortality? Because they don't want babies to die. Why does he get in trouble? Because it turned out that the government statistics on infant mortality were saying everything is fine. And the fact is that infant mortality was much higher than the dictatorship was saying it was. So by putting that out he's saying the dictatorship is lying. He's exposing the fact that the government doesn't know how to take care of its own people. And so what do they do? They have him fired as a professor. Ultimately they put him in prison and so forth and so on. Now, sometimes we get happy endings. In that particular case the dictatorship falls. He ends up coming back to the country after being in exile and elected president of the country. So these are extraordinary people. They have extraordinary courage. It's really a privilege for us to be able to serve them.

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The right to know: How does censorship affect academics? - Big Think

Even with the best intentions, censoring books is dangerous – The Aggie

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Censorship of ideas will always have unintended consequences

Banned Books Week is an annual campaign in which libraries, schools, bookstores and other institutions rally to show their support for books that have been censored and banned for often irrational reasons. There seems to be a very clear understanding that banning books tends to do more harm than good. Almost all the classics have been subject to censorship, even the greatest of the Great American Reads.

My interest in looking at banned books and censorship was renewed for two reasons. This past month, journalist Ronan Farrow came out with Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators. This book has been at the top of my to-read list since it was announced. Catch and Kill isnt just a detailed account of Farrows experience reporting the Harvey Weinstein story for The New Yorker, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize, but also a window into the nefarious structural systems that have allowed for powerful figures such as Harvery Weinstein to remain in the public sphere with impunity.

Then, Amazon Australia and other major Australian booksellers blocked the sale of Catch and Kill for all the wrong reasons.

Dylan Howard, the Chief Content Officer for American Media, is prominently featured in Catch in Kill for his close alliance with Weinstein. Howards lawyers had sent letters to Australian booksellers warning them that if they sold this book, they would also face the same legal actions as the publishers for the defamatory imputations contained within the book.

At the outset, this is an affront to democracy and the free press. This book was written and published with tight scrutiny for factual accuracy and the utmost journalistic integrity. But what I didnt understand is why there was a threat to pursue legal action to get a book banned, and why there were booksellers who complied with this demand.

Censorship and banning books are all too common among schools, parent groups and organizations looking to keep certain concepts or ideas away from children. The list ranges from Animal Farm to the Harry Potter series. The most frequent justifications for banning such books are alarmist at best and malicious censorship of unique ideas at worst.

I have always been a staunch supporter of maintaining open access to banned books in order to assure the free and open flow of words, thoughts and ideas in a democratic society. But I recently came across a new trend in which books are being banned for the purpose of inclusivity and to ensure that children wont read material that could potentially be upsetting.

This may seem like an understandable reason to keep certain books away from children, but censorship is never that simple. Banning books because they might touch upon some difficult themes, or because they might contain damning information, is just another form of regressive censorship.

It seems we live in a time when we have become much more concerned about the content kids and young adults consume, especially online and through different forms of media. But unlike social media posts, books are written to foster an open and frank conversation about real-life experiences so that we may understand, process and accept the raw realities of life as a part of the human experience.

Books are meant to be openly discussed and contested in order to spark the kind of intellectual curiosity that allows for us to gain an understanding of the world in which we live. Even with the most misguided and perhaps even reprehensible content, books dont have the same sort of virality that we see on social media. They can be openly debated and aired out in a way that isnt possible with social media.

I can understand the instinct that is often the drive behind banning certain books, but even if done with the best of intentions, censorship still carries unintended consequences. Often, most of the books facing censorship are the ones with diverse characters and stories.

Books, no matter how egregious they may be, deserve to be circulated. In being circulated, readers are afforded the basic freedom to judge the value of a book and its meaning for themselves.

Written by: Simran Kalkat skkalkat@ucdavis.edu

Disclaimer:The views and opinions expressed by individual columnists belong to the columnists alone and do not necessarily indicate the views and opinions held by The California Aggie

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Even with the best intentions, censoring books is dangerous - The Aggie

Will the U.S. Follow East Germany on Self-Censorship? – National Review

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A pedestrian walks past segments of the East Side Gallery, the largest remaining part of the former Berlin Wall, in Berlin, Germany, September 19, 2019. (Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters)The Democratic Republic was an authoritarian state whose history holds lessons for todays America.

The modern German state the vibrant liberal democracy at the heart of a prosperous and peaceful Europe is one of the marvels of the 21st century, an embodiment of the triumph of liberalism and individual freedoms over tyranny. This openness and liberalism is not without its challenges, especially immigration, but German democracy is remarkably resilient and its society remarkably open and welcoming, especially in contrast to its history.

This political and social triumph is largely an American achievement. In West Germany, we and our allies did not create an emasculated puppet-Germany, as the Soviet Union sought to do in their vassal state in the east. Instead, we set out to create a Germany that was free to become even stronger than it had been when it turned on the world. Behind this creation of a strong, free Germany was a belief in the Enlightenment value of individual freedoms and a belief that basing a government and society on these universal ideals would inoculate the state against a return to tyranny.

The East German state ironically named the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was a sort of photo-negative version of the West: a paranoid and unfree society secured in a penitentiary state with absolute control of the media, commerce, and civil discourse, and what people could and could not say. This control was made possible through a myriad of government bodies, civic institutions, and citizen-volunteers that together ensured compliance through fear and suspicion. The apparatus included the infamous secret police (Stasi) and its informant networks, with an estimated 180,000 informal collaborators. Even children unwittingly betrayed their parents, spouses informed on spouses, and membership in the Free German Youth and party loyalty were prerequisites for attending university.

For many in the East, life was easy if one accepted (or pretended to accept) the party ideology, joined the Free German Youth, and visibly participated in parades or events that celebrated the successes of the GDR. But the system allowed little room for individual expression, much less for open criticism or dissent, leading to self-censorship at the most basic level. Open dissent from the party line was criminal. Even if a dissident avoided imprisonment at Hohenschnhausen or other prisons, one risked receiving disadvantage or, worse, losing the ability to work in a chosen professional field, Berufsverbot, if one was too outspoken.

Rolf Mainz, who lost his job days after leaving the Socialist Unity Party, might have been able to carry on with life outside of his profession, despite being shamed and unfulfilled.Yet he took an unimaginable risk in writing a letter to the editorof the West GermanDie Zeit. This got him sentenced to Brandenburg-Grden prison, where he and his brother were held under inhumane conditions. After an occupational ban, as Mr. Mainz wrote, The delinquent either stops or he does not keep still. If he keeps still, the states eye rests on him with reduced benevolence, serving as a living example of deterrence.

Mainz and other dissidents who went public knew the steep price they would pay, losing what little freedom they had. Yet they did it anyway, because they longed for the freedoms that Americans enjoyed and had fostered in the West, where people had the potential to live as a part of a free society.

Thirty years on, their dissent seems like a distant sacrifice. Commemorations and observances of the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification focus on what has changed in Germany, especially in the East, as it has been incorporated into the modern German state that the United States helped give birth to. But perhaps an equally important focus would be on what has changed in the United States over that period. What would East German dissidents make of todays American society?

No doubt they would be troubled by the social and political divisions. But I suspect they would be able to see past the fray that dominates the news and point to a more subtle change, where the freedoms that inspired them through decades of oppression are now being questioned. To be sure, todays American campuses and boardrooms are not the GDR, but the bias response teams, the self-censorship, the speech codes, the virtue signaling, cancel culture, and the expectation of uniformity of opinion have alarming parallels in their effect on individual freedoms and how they are used to shape society, language, and thinking. It is the absolutist inability to tolerate dissent from the expected uniform opinion that former President Obama called out in his brief yet remarkable comments last week, denouncing cancel culture. He surely recognizes the incompatibility in a free society of such illiberalism and intolerance.

Its not the specific acts of curtailment or censorship that are most troubling, since they are minor compared to those of the GDR and can be challenged in public opinion, lawmaking, and the courts. What would be most troubling to East German dissidents about America today is the fact that our liberal civil society would visit these changes on itself curtailing its own freedoms through intimidation and shaming of individual expression. They might recognize that bad ideas often have their origin in good intentions of protecting vulnerable groups, but would warn us that curbing individual liberties no matter how obnoxiously they are exercised is a dangerous turn for a free society.

As we celebrate the triumph of the freedom we helped create in Germany, we should consider what lessons about freedom Germany might, in turn, provide us.

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Will the U.S. Follow East Germany on Self-Censorship? - National Review

Tougher Than Leather: The Tom of Finland Foundation’s Fight Against Censorship Continues Into the Social Media Age – L.A. Weekly

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When it comes to sex and social media, the line between appropriate and potentially offensive has been murky, inconsistent and, more and more often, seemingly discriminatory. Were in uncharted waters with this relatively new technology, but many, especially in the LGBTQ community and sex industry, fear that were heading down a slippery slope that risks setting us back, countering the cultural progress weve made in acceptance of and attitudes about sexuality.

Just this past summer, Facebook and Instagram limited users from posting the eggplant and peach emojis in reference to sexual statements via an update to their Community Standards guidelines, and the past year has seen the fight for sexual expression go into high gear as users find themselves in Facebook jail, or limited by an Instagram suspension, due to content that someone or more likely, some algorithm, at the platform thinks too provocative.

Which brings us to Tom of Finland. For those unfamiliar, the Tom of Finland Foundation is a non-profit that has worked towards protecting, preserving and promoting erotic art for the last quarter century. The foundation was started in 1984 by Touko Laaksonen, better known by his pseudonym Tom of Finland, an erotic illustrator from Helsinki (originally from Kaarina, Finland). Tom of Finlands work as an artist and his work with his nonprofit were instrumental in shaping 20th-century gay culture and his impact is still being felt today. ToF has been active on social media since its beginnings, and its content has not changed, but last month the foundation saw its account banned from Instagram. It was reactivated within 18 hours after public outcry, but there remains a lack of clarity about why it happened to begin with.

(Courtesy Tom of Finland Foundation)

Though Instagrams guidelines state that, nudity in photos of paintings and sculptures is OK, the Free the Nipple movement, backed by several celebrities on and off the platform, has been pointing out IGs inconsistencies for a few years now. Breastfeeding and mastectomy shots have been allowed which is progress but the sexism inherent in allowing shirtless male images versus female is still present. The way the platform has handled LGBTQ content is even more problematic, and while the outright banning ToF suffered was a big setback, its mobilizing the community, as well as the queer artists associated with it. That Tom of Finland is ready to fight on the frontlines against censorship is not new; its what the art itself is and always has been all about.

Laaksonen never went to art school, instead moving to Helsinki when he was 19 to start a career in advertising. He came of age fighting in the Finnish army, defending his country against the Soviets during World War II. (His fellow soldiers uniforms would end up playing a big role in his artwork and in defining his style).

Tom drew loving couples and groups engaged in intense scenes all sex positive, says S.R. Sharp, the Tom of Finland Foundations vice president and curator for the last couple of decades. He drew a world so desirable that we started dressing like it, playing like it living like it.

(Courtesy Tom of Finland Foundation)

In fact, Tom of Finlands drawings went hand in hand with the emergence of the gay leather scene in Londons undergound in the 50s and 60s. Tom was certainly there. He was associated and friends with one of the early physique photographers who captured a lot of the leather scene, says Sharp. Im not going to say he was the creator, [but] I will say he was part of it. And because he rendered leather so well and he captured it so well in drawings, I think his work became iconically associated with [its] beginnings.

Laaksonen viewed his homosexuality as a non-issue, and wanted to normalize it for everyone else in his community at a time when being gay was literally a crime. In those days, a gay man was made to feel nothing but shame about his feelings and his sexuality. I wanted my drawings to counteract that, to show gay men being happy and positive about who they were, the 71-year-old explained before he died in 1991 from an emphysema-induced stroke. I didnt sit down to think this all out carefully. But I knew right from the start that my men were going to be proud and happy men, he added.

Indeed, Toms Men as they came to be known, were pretty much the first sex-positive modern art figures depicting the LGBTQ community. No doubt many have seen Toms artwork (or a rip-off of it) in a gay bar or in a gay magazine either one of Toms famous strapping beefcakes, with bulging muscles, big boots, a visor hat and leather, or a mixture of civilian clothes uniforms. And of course, everything about them is big and unapologetically bold, including their genitals.

(Courtesy Tom of Finland Foundation)

Tom went on to give us revolutionary images he was a liberator. He saw no reason queer men had to fit into the small compartment that society allowed us, says Sharp. We were made lesser than Tom gave us a new vocabulary of who we could be. We could be soldiers, cops, bikers everything they wouldnt let us be. We could be strong, we could be powerful he leveled the straight/queer playing field. For as much as he gave homosexuals positive roles models, the heteronormative sphere now could view us as, well, equal.

Tom of Finland was a part of the sexual revolution and the counterculture. His art made people feel OK to fantasize and not fit a social standard of get married, have kids, grow old, die, concurs Danny Fuentes of Lethal Amounts, an L.A. art gallery with similar ethos. Tom of Finland started getting published in the mid-50s in underground zines and rags because gay was outlawed in most places. A culture of its own had to be created in order to hide it from the rest of the world that wanted to harm those that identified as gay in the 50s. Sometimes its hard for people to contextualize how outrageous it was to depict two police officers or bikers or military men being homosexual and still masculine.

While Toms artwork was no doubt innovative, its fair to question if his men unwittingly promoted the heteronormative image of what a man and masculinity should be. For a gay man who is on the more feminine end of the spectrum, could Toms work just be seen as reinforcing toxic masculinity and setting an impossible and unrelatable standard for more feminine gay men? Sharp doesnt think so. I think toxic is only when you actually are putting down, demeaning or [lessening] other people. So in other words, masculinity is only achieved by that definition, by suppressing, by demoralizing, by demeaning other people, he says.

(Courtesy Tom of Finland Foundation)

Laaksonen gave up his job in advertising so that he could devote himself to his art full time in 1973. The landmark 1962 Supreme Court case MANual Enterprises, Inc. v. Day essentially legalized the mailing of male pornographic materials a decade prior, and allowed him the freedom to publish and exhibit his work on a larger scale. In the early 80s, he came to L.A. at the invitation of Durk Dehner, a gay businessman, film director and publisher. Together they started the Tom of Finland Company so that they could publish approved copies of Toms graphic novels and curtail all the bootlegs that were going around. Tom ended up living in L.A. for half of every year for the rest of his life, and each time he came, he would bring more materials with him: drawings, letters, uniforms, his stamp collection. As a means of archiving, they established the Tom of Finland Foundation in 1984, with Laaksonens actual house, located in Echo Park, serving as headquarters. It now functions as part museum, part event space and a safe place for the LGBTQ community.

After completely cataloging Toms materials, they focused their attention on other artists, giving them support and a space for their works to be shown via art and culture festivals, drawing sessions, and emerging artist competitions. They added an artist-in-residency program, screenings and most recently, a summer music program too.

The Tom House in Echo Park (Henning von Berg).

Rick Castro is one such artist. The foundation formed a strong relationship with the photographer, a third-generation Angeleno from Monterey Park. Working in the wardrobe industry for 15 years before focusing on photography in the mid-80s, Castros work is known for its strong social statements and pushing boundaries. His explorations of various fetish cultures have gotten a lot of attention in particular.

I personally always identified with fetish, even before I could actually call it that. My draw was [from] BDSM to leather to fetish to that kind of erotic esoteric, which to me goes beyond gay, its like your own kind of personal interest, says Castro. So thats what I started to document with my images.

The photographer, whos worked with performance art legend Vaginal Davis (their film Fertile Latoya Jackson was just screened as part of the acclaimed queer film series Dirty Looks), co-directed and co-wrote the feature film Hustler White (1996) with Bruce LaBruce, and a film about plushies and furries (currently available on World of Wonders WOW Presents Plus) also and had his own gallery in Hollywood called Antebellum, which still maintains a popular blog. Castro has been a major proponent of fetish culture in the gay community and beyond for decades and has known Dehner for many years since he published his first book with him in the early 90s. Hes also shown his work at Tom of Finland events and, more recently, helped produce their art fairs and holds salons at Toms House, with anti-censorship as a recurring theme.

I think that the connection for the Tom of Finland Foundation, what its become, what its evolved into now is just the place where a lot of people feel safe to express what they dont think they could express in mainstream everyday life, so it gives them a space to have fantasy, says Castro.

In April of this year, Castro had one of his first solo shows at the Tom of Finland House, a retrospective called Rick Castro: Fetish King. LGBTQ outlet The Advocate advanced the exhibit and posted the article with several images from the show. The more risqu photos required users to press a button confirming they were old enough to view the content; however, when The Advocate posted the story on Castros Facebook page, they suspended his account for 30 days. The image Facebook objected to featured two lucha libre wrestlers on top of each other, fully clothed.

(Courtesy Rick Castro)

The Advocate offered to take down the image but Castro strongly objected. There was not nudity. It was definitely homoerotic, but it was no more homoerotic than a Madonna video, Castro said. It was very obvious that because it was two men, thats why it was removed. If you look at this stuff thats for heteronormative images, and you look at the exact same thing that a homoerotic might publish, the homoerotic is removed, the heteronormative is still there for the viewing.

Castro says the hypocrisy shown by Facebook and Instagram (which it owns) goes to a much deeper, insidious kind of chapter that were in. I think its really important to fight back, insists Castro. He decided to write a statement about the Facebook fiasco, which The Advocate published as well, along with a (fully clothed) image of the artist sitting on a bench in Chinatown. When that piece was shared on Facebook by friends, Castro and the outlet itself, it was deemed a violation by Facebook, leading to another 30 day ban. Now Im banned for 60 days, meaning I cant promote my show on social media, recalls Castro. His curator and gallerist both tried posting the article too, only to be banned along with him. Even Sharp tried posting the piece on Castros behalf and was also blocked.

When L.A. Weekly learned of the censorship, it sought to investigate. After culture editor Lina Lecaro reached out to Facebook about the situation, Facebooks reps reviewed it and determined they were in the wrong, eventually issuing an apology. But by then it was too late the exhibit was already over. By the way, since this whole debacle, Facebook has not removed me, Castro notes. Ive been able to post whatever I want there, but on Instagram theyre removing a lot of my images with the same kind of dire warning.

Tom of Finland Art Fair (The Cobrasnake)

Theyre perverting us. Its the most perverting thing to ask us to self-censor. I mean, thats the most obscene thing about it, they want us to start thinking the way they think, Sharp says of Facebook and Instagrams inconsistent policies. So its very deep and very troubling and they are making deviants out of whats innocent. Social media rules are impossible to understand. They make no sense and theyre updating them constantly and not telling you theyre updated.

As for the foundations banishment from Instagram, the image that was apparently the final straw was from an art catalogue for a Denmark art show Tom was included in one celebrating the end of a ban on visual pornography in that country. Yes, its ironic.

According to Instagram, nudity in photos of paintings and sculptures is OK, but it obviously wasnt in this case. In response, Sharp and Castro presented a panel in October at their art festival, How Do We Communicate On/With Social Media. They invited reps from Facebook and Instagram to join the artists, activists, educators and lawyers on the panel. Neither accepted but Instagram did say they would include ToF in an upcoming West Coast discussion that it hosts on posting guidelines for nudity and art. They had one in New York last month with artists and art workers. It sounds like they want to progress on their policies, Sharp said hopefully.

Read this cover story in this weeks print edition.

In light of Mark Zuckerbergs recent hands-off approach concerning political content, some of which the platform concedes is dishonest, its policing of sexual content feels even more distasteful. While social media platforms should have the freedom to shape their own communities, they should not force-feed us what they think is sexually appropriate. Of course, the way to change policy, be it the government or a big corporation, is to put our money where our mouths are. The alternative is self-censorship, which Sharp sees as the antithesis of what freedom of expression is all about.

To censor is to kill off the voice of a person, echoes Fuentes, who recently co-presented an art show with ToF from trans icon Genesis P-Orridge. Art as a whole should never be censored, I still think art is our societys last sacred thing and I stand with [the] Tom of Finland Foundation in trying to keep art dangerous, provocative and even disturbing, but above all keep the conversation open and ongoing.

And doing so means involving everyone, beyond the gay, fetish or punk communities, which of course social media makes possible. An unwritten mission of ours is to make art and beauty a part of your life, says Sharp. Despite its recent struggles, the group has continued to do just that. Though the internet didnt exist when Touko Laaksonen created his original images, the fight for them to be seen then versus now isnt that different. And as long as the foundation continues to fulfill its official mission statement, freedom wins. It reads, Tom of Finland Foundation shall continue to encourage the work of erotic visual artists regardless of race, creed, religion, gender, sexual identity, medium of expression or any other censoring criteria.

Tom Of Finland and Lethal Amounts present Sex Cells X Daddywood Fundraiser at Precinct DTLA, 357 S. Broadway; Fri., Nov. 17, 9 p.m. (A portion of the proceeds will go to the Tom Of Finland Foundation for the preservation of erotic art). Info here.

Opening reception for the Foundations next artist-in-residence, Bas Koster, takes place Sun., Nov. 24. More info on Toms Blog. Follow Tom of Finland on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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Tougher Than Leather: The Tom of Finland Foundation's Fight Against Censorship Continues Into the Social Media Age - L.A. Weekly

Sara Lee Responds to SNL’s Sexually Charged Sketch, Reverses Instagram Censorship: ‘We Are Taking It in Stride’ – Yahoo Entertainment

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Despite briefly hiding Instagram comments after appearing in a sexually charged Saturday Night Live sketch, the Sara Lee Corporation says it is taking the SNL fame in stride.

On the NBC series Nov. 16 episode, host Harry Styles appeared in a Sara Lee-centric skit in which he played Dillan, a social media manager who was called into a meeting to discuss off-brand activity on the companys Instagram account. Dillan had used the @SaraLeeBread handle to leave sexually suggestive comments on multiple posts, including Wreck me daddy and Destroy me king on a Nick Jonas photo.

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In a statement to the New York Post on Sunday, Sara Lees parent company, Bimbo Bakeries USA, said, We didnt participate in creating the skit and its content doesnt align with Sara Lee Breads brand. But we all know SNL pushes the envelope for laughs and we are taking it in stride.

After the episode aired, though, the actual @SaraLeeBread Instagram account was flooded with comments referencing the sketch, including multiple Wreck me daddy replies to the companys latest post. On Sunday afternoon, comments on the post had been hidden, prompting SNL cast member Bowen Yang to call out the company for its censorship.

Sara Lee disabling and deleting IG comments, he tweeted. Wow they really could have been THE bread for f*gs.

As of Monday morning, however, comments on the post have returned, and Bimbo Bakeries USA explained the social media strategy in a separate statement.

We didnt delete any comments but did temporarily hide them until we could read through and understand what happened, the company told HuffPost. All comments are now visible, and we will be monitoring for any that violate Instagram standards.

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Sara Lee Responds to SNL's Sexually Charged Sketch, Reverses Instagram Censorship: 'We Are Taking It in Stride' - Yahoo Entertainment

MENstruation: A full analysis of censorship on television networks – The Gateway

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Ellie McCartneyCONTRIBUTOR

The networks ABC, CBS, BBC and others are censoring Thinxs MENstruation ad depicting men having their periods.

The ad features all ages of men experiencing their periods in all sorts of everyday situations, such as puberty, intimacy and in public places like school, at work and in public bathrooms.

What scenes are being censored from the ad?Thinx has been asked by several television networks to cut out two scenes from their ad including the bloodstain and tampon scenes, according to the New York Posts source.

Until these two graphic scenes are removed from the ad, television networks like CBS have banned the advertisement.

Why are tampon strings and bloodstains considered graphic?Although in most cases a little white string or bloodstain wouldnt offend most people, there are others who feel strongly about the ad being banned from television.

In fact, One Million Moms (OMM) has started a protest against the ad because its confusing gender roles for children.

To address these different opinions in society, networks like CBS had to consider how the ad would affect their audience. The Federal Communications Commission states that if a viewer believes an advertisement to be offensive, viewers can file a complaint to that network or station.

So, in this case, networks like ABC and others are trying to predict the ramifications of broadcasting the ad for all members of their audience to avoid protests and complaints.

The message behind the Thinx marketing campaignNot only was Thinx, looking to address a taboo topic involving menstruation, but they also recognized the impact they could have on those struggling to afford these hygiene products.

In fact, Thinx teamed up with a nonprofit organization, known as PERIOD, to combat the stigma women face and the poverty surrounding 1 in 5 teens struggling to afford feminine hygiene products.

Rebecca Weis, a junior at the University of Nebraska at Omaha said that she appreciates that Thinx is trying to end the stigma.

Even as a woman today, when Im in a restaurant and I need to change my tampon, I do feel like I have to put it in my sleeve or hide it, Weis said. Why should we be ashamed?

At first, the MENstruation ad made me smile. Not because it was funny or because men were experiencing their periods, but because of its accuracy. As a woman I experience these frustrations every month.

It was refreshing to me to see the ad before it was censored because it showed that organizations like Thinx and their partner, PERIOD, were addressing the stigma behind menstruation.

To me, the idea behind the ad was a strike of transparency thats needed to make a social change.

After all, if everyone had to go through it maybe, just maybe, they would understand its a part of life. Instead of being grossed out or shamed for having our periods, we could share our frustrations and bond over them.

Like Thinx said at the end of their ad, If we all had them, maybe wed be more comfortable with them.

Thats why, to me, the ad shouldnt have to be censored to be broadcasted on television because its a part of life for all women of all ages.

Where can you find the MENstruation ad now?Through the evolution of Thinx original ad, the ad was later accepted on all networks with the exclusion of the blood stain and tampon string scenes.

The ad will be aired 15 to 30 seconds for eight weeks in the United States across 18 networks.

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MENstruation: A full analysis of censorship on television networks - The Gateway

Inside the "Reckless" World of In-Flight Movie Censoring – InsideHook

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(Photo by Bob Riha/WireImage)

Last week, after edited versions of Booksmart and Rocketman on their flights caused an uproar for omitting key same-sex love scenes, Delta announced that it will restore the scenes and implement a new process for managing its in-flight entertainment.

That process for most airlines currently consists of working with studios and third-party companies on edited versions of films (read more about that here). But as one editor who has been doing this type of work for 30 years and worked for nearly every major studio in Hollywood tells InsideHook, corners are often cut to save money, and the Booksmart and Rocketman controversies are just two instances of a widespread problem in the industry.

The studios, outside of the creative groups, are full of people who have zero interest in or understanding of the creative process, the editor, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution, explains. They are pushing widgets. Decisions get made for cost reasons instead of creative reasons, and the creative execs and producers have moved on in most cases and take little interest in post-theatrical sales other than the number in the profit column of course.Compromises are made in the name of cost. The scene has nudity AND a key story element? Cut it! This has been my fight for 30 years, to find creative ways to protect the story and the original intent of the filmmaker while working under very strict budget restraints.

According to the Directors Guild of America (DGA) contract, studios are required to contact the director of a film to run edits by them in these instances, but that doesnt always happen (as evidenced by director Olivia Wildes reaction to the Booksmart cuts). As the editor we spoke to, who well call E, notes, getting a director involved in the process means more time and money, and studios will often skirt that responsibility.

People dont put a ton of efforts into contacting the directors even though theyre legally obligated to, so what they might do is send a letter which expires in five days, E explains. They send a little letter to the publicist or their agency, and then that gets lost and then somebody doesnt read it or doesnt contact the director. So now the director, after five days, their option to be involved is expired. And when you have a director involved, the director always complicates the process because the director wants to see whats happening.

This is a studio requirement in article 7 of the DGA contract and is often ignored, they add. The DGA needs to take a stronger stance on this topic, and the directors need to always be involved in the fight to protect their film from unnecessary and often arbitrary edit requests. They will often find an editor at the major studios eager to pick up the sword and fight with them.

E has tried to keep up the fight against unnecessary censorship throughout their career, and its a battle that has actually gotten easier in recent years. Airlines, those used to be really big money sales, and theyre not anymore, they explain. It used to be that you would create an airline edit that would show overhead, it would sell for like several millions of dollars. Now, the amount of money that the airlines pay is so little that often those fights are easier to win.

In the past, studios would make an edit suitable for all audiences that would be screened overhead in the main cabin as well as a seatback edit, where the guidelines of whats acceptable are much more liberal. Generally speaking, E says, only nudity and extreme violence as well as visual profanity from the subtitles get edited out for seatback displays in an effort to limit what a child might accidentally see over someones shoulder.

However, certain international airlines have their own sensitivities (Middle Eastern airlines, E says, are criminally strict, and the Chinese dont allow any depiction or mention of ghosts), and some companies will combine these into the one edited version they offer in an effort to cut costs resulting in situations like the Booksmart one.

Sometimes theyll give us specific requests like, Yeah, we dont want to see the women kissing or love scenes. We dont want to talk about gay stuff because you know, thats illegal in our country,' they say. That does happen from time to time. Paramount should have said, No problem, we will create a specific version for you. Its gonna take the editor 15 minutes to cut that out and then well just deliver another file to you. Itll cost us about a thousand dollars. But what they did possibly say is, Well just include that in the edit so that we only have to do this once. And that to me is the biggest crime of all. I mean, its like, how dare you destroy a film for a couple thousand bucks?

Ultimately, E says they hope that the attention that the Delta controversy received will create an ongoing conversation about how in-flight movies get edited.

It kind of illuminates a really big problem in this industry,and so thats something that would be great if it doesnt just kind of fizzle away, if it becomes a big thing that kind of opens up the can of worms that really makes people look at how this shits done and its done recklessly, man, they say. I mean, its like theres people that just dont follow the rules. They look at this stuff not like its a piece of art, but like its nothing. There are people that just have no care. Like, could you imagine if a museum that needs to restore a van Gogh, you know, just sends it out to a third party? Its like, no, you care for that. You know, you care for the product you take care of because it is a piece of creative art thats out in the world. You dont just give it to the cheapest guy, and thats what these people are doing.

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Inside the "Reckless" World of In-Flight Movie Censoring - InsideHook

Disney Plus Censors Gravity Falls, The Simpsons – Pirates and Princesses

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Censorship was a primary concern for potential subscribers to Disney Plus since it was announced, with many of Disneys older cartoons and live-action movies and television shows having scenes and imagery that Disney might not think are appropriate in current year.

While Song of the South will likely never see a release on Disney Plus, other movies like Dumbo have been left intact albeit with a content warning.

As users have had more time to poke around Disney Plus, its surprised many that some newer series have been altered as well, with some edits being made and controversial episodes dropped entirely.

Gravity Falls, a popular Disney XD cartoon series, has been on the receiving end of Disneys censorship blade. The series ended only a couple of years ago, but the character of Grunkle Stan has had the symbol removed from his fez in the first part of Season 1.

This didnt sit well with show creator Alex Hirsch, who took to Twitter to call Disney out.

The symbol was supposed to be a fish, but also resembled a crescent moon. Likely it was designed to reflect the symbol of The Shriners, which features a crescent moon shape.

The image changed on Grunkle Stans fez changed in later episodes, to one resembling a clam or fish.

The rumor is that the original version was too close to the flag of the Nation of Islam or the flag of Turkey, and that it was never broadcast with that symbol in some countries overseas. Apparently the Disney Plus version of Gravity Falls is the same edited version that ran abroad.

One of the biggest selling points of Disney Plus was access to every episode of Foxs The Simpsons.

However, its not every episode, and some episodes have been formatted to fit your screen in such a way as to cut out visual jokes.

According to Fast Company, the episode Stark Raving Dad is missing from Disney Plus due to HBOs controversial Leaving Neverland series.

In Stark Raving Dad, Homer is mistakenly sent to a mental institution, where he befriends a man who claims to be Michael Jackson. Its eventually revealed that hes an impostor who admits to speaking like Jackson because it made people happy. Stark Raving Dad was actually pulled from broadcast circulation earlier this year following HBOs documentaryLeaving Neverland, whichchronicles the allegations of child abuse against Jackson. That would explain why Disney chose not to include the episode on Disney Plus.

I guess we shouldnt expect a revival of Captain EO in the parks anytime soon, then?

In addition to dropping the Jackson episode, Simpsons fans are incensed that even though Disney promised to make the earlier episodes available in their native 4:3 aspect ratio, they instead dumped them in a cropped 16:9 format. The cropping has cut some of the visual jokes.

Due to the backlash, Disney has addressed the aspect ratio issue

We presentedThe Simpsonsin 16:9 aspect ratio at launch in order to guarantee visual quality and consistency across all 30 seasons. Over time, Disney+ will roll out new features and additional viewing options. As part of this, in early 2020, Disney+ will make the first 19 seasons (and some episodes from Season 20) ofThe Simpsonsavailable in their original 4:3 aspect ratio, giving subscribers a choice of how they prefer to view the popular series.

However, theres no clarification as to what early 2020 means. Also, there is no addressing the pulled episode episode Stark Raving Dad.

We expect more hiccups as Disney Plus tries to find its footing. While other streaming services might get a pass for a learning curve, Disney Plus is under the microscope given thats its Disney and that the company is seemingly betting the farm on the platform.

Check out this video for more on the Disney Plus censorship issue (language warning.)

[Source: Fast Company]

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Kanye West plans to evangelize Americas youth with music: No weapon formed against me shall prosper – The Christian Post

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By Leonardo Blair, Christian Post Reporter | Monday, November 18, 2019 Rapper Kanye West speaks with Pastor Joel Osteen at Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, on Sunday November 17, 2019. | Photo: Lakewood Church

Popular rapper and music producer Kanye West declared himself a formidable servant of Jesus Sunday as he called America back to God, teased big plans to evangelize the youth through new music and warned agents of the devil that no weapon formed against me shall prosper.

Every time I stand up, I feel that Im standing up and drawing a line in the sand and saying, Im here in service to God and no weapon formed against me shall prosper, West said in a wide-ranging discussion with Pastor Joel Osteen of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, before an audience of 17,000, at the churchs 11 a.m. service.

West, who revealed that his mother and father raised him in church and taught him the fear of God, said he now wants to do the same for his children he shares with wife, Kim Kardashian West.

As I now have a family. Im 42 years old, married for five years, there is a latent responsibility for me to become more like my mother, whos gone to Heaven, and more like my father, whos working and building a water purification system in the DR. You know with rappers theres so many things that weve done to maintain the idea of coolness. You know we have our own daughters and wed still be rapping about trying to hook up with somebody daughter, West said.

He explained that he is no longer blinded by the grip fame once had on him.

A lot of times when you are in service to fame, money, manpower, you start to feel like Satan is the most powerful. And you start to feel like if you service God that in life it means you will not prosper. And the only way to prosper is in service to fame. You know its like the devil stole all the good producers, the devil stole all the good musicians, all the good artists, all the good designers, all the good business people and said you got to come over and work for me. And now the trend, the shift is going to change.

Jesus has won the victory. Because now, now I told you about my arrogance and cockiness already, now the greatest artist that God has ever created is now working for Him, he said with a grin.

Looking back at Wests life in the secular music industry which glorifies anything but the fear of God, Osteen asked the rapper if he had any words of advice he could share with his younger self that could have helped him change the trajectory of his life.

While noting that there is nothing he could say that could reach his younger self, West explained that he believes music could and said he was working on new music to evangelize the younger generation.

Its nothing I could say to the younger Kanye through words. I could speak to the younger Kanye through music so this music gon come every month. We dropping that heat. We in the studio. God is strengthening our hands. We have writers, we have producers, were taking all the most fire producers and bringing them back to God. All the best voices, all the best dancers for us to see that its through Christ, West said.

The rapper, 42, who previously revealed that liposuction, a growing addiction to painkillers and wife Kim Kardashians robbery factored into a mental breakdown in 2016, told Osteen that he began feeling Gods call on his life around that time.

I know that God has been calling me for a long time. The devils been distracting me for a long time. When I was in my lowest point, God was there with me and sent me visions and inspiring me. I remember sitting in the hospital at UCLA after having a mental breakdown. Theres documentations of me drawing a church. ... Even after that I made, went and made the Life of Pablo album. I said this is a gospel album, he said.

I didnt know how to totally make a gospel album and Christians that were around were too, I would say, beaten into submission by society and not speak up and profess the Gospel to me because I was a superstar. But the only superstar is Jesus."

West launched his popular Sunday Service events, which generally include prayer and live music, inJanuary 2019. At the time, his wife said her family was on a path to spiritual enlightenment.

The journey has since led to West's recently released first faith-based album,Jesus Is King,which has gone on to make history onBillboard'sHot Christian SongsandHot Gospel Songscharts. The set opened at No. 1 on both the Top Christian Albums and Top Gospel Albums tallies (dated Nov. 9) with 264,000 equivalent album units earned in its first week (ending Oct. 31),according to Nielsen Music.

On Sunday, he pointed out how important it is to counter the influence of media on young children and explained how he is trying to do that through his music.

Thats why I say Closed on Sunday is the hardest record ever made. Its hard as the NWA record because its talking about protecting your kids from the indoctrination of the media. Thousands and thousands of images that are fed to children by the age of six or seven. And within those images, there are images mixed in that as parents we dont know about, purposely mixed in to lower the kids superpower and esteem so that they can be more susceptible to consumption and feel that they need to consume and become part of the robotic numeric system that controls so much of the media, West said.

West, who recently performed with his choir for an installment of his Jesus Is KingSunday Service concert in Texas jails,was praised by the states Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who encouraged other artists to follow his lead.

What @kanyewest does to inspire the incarcerated is transformative. Saving one soul at a time. Inmates who turn to God may get released earlier b/c of good behavior & may be less likely to commit future crimes. It would be great if other artists followed Kanyes lead, Abbott noted on Twitter.

West alluded to the experience of ministering in Texas jails and called on America to set itself as an example of a Christian nation.

Following the Bible can free us all. Its an interesting thing, when we were at the prison professing how Jesus can set you free and its true. The more and more this entire country follows Christ and sets the example that we are a Christian country. They are attempting to take prayer out of schools. When you remove the fear and love of God you create the fear and love of everything else, he said to applause.

Reinstate the fear and love of God and eliminate everything else, he said, noting that he got that wording from Osteen.

Theres a lot of people in the Christian community that try to give Joel a hard time because when you turn on the radio he keeps on showing you how good God is.

God is not the enemy. God is not the negative part. God is not just the perception of fire and brimstone. God is love God is family. God is friendship. God is prosperity. Keep your eye on the sparrow. Keep your eye on the beauty and love and grace of God that allows us to be here today with all of our sins, West further noted.

When youve got Kanye defending you, youve made it man, Osteen quipped in response.

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Kanye West plans to evangelize Americas youth with music: No weapon formed against me shall prosper - The Christian Post

The Real Housewives of Atlanta Recap: Baby of the House – Vulture

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She. Has. Arrived. In all her glory and with all her mess and all her weird problematic speeches about why she loves gay people, NeNe has arrived. NeNe has also decided that her strategy for this season is to remain completely above it all and spout faux-spiritual nonsense. There seems to be a lot of wiggle room when it comes to those spiritual beliefs. She is walking in the hands of the Lord and at the same time calling Cynthia desperate. Listen, Im not saying that NeNe did a lot in this episode or even that shes achieved moral enlightenment. The main tension for NeNe is if shes going to say hello to Cynthia. Thats her moral quandary this episode, and we dont even get to see if she says hello to Cynthia. NeNes spiritual advisor clearly works hard, but the Real Housewives editors work much harder. Lets get to it.

First up, we get to hear Cynthias side of the story. Shes out shopping for houses with Eva because Eva needs to move houses again. Her sperm donor ex seems to have figured out where she lives and her husband is a lawyer. Should she be on a reality show if there are this many security concerns? Lets show her house hunt on TV just in case.

We need to talk about this positively bizarre Atlanta house. Its a five bedroom house and every bedroom has an en suite bathroom. Wait what hold on Is that really necessary? You can walk through every single bedroom and find a full bath. Who is this for? Eva, maybe. Also, its $775,000 and to my Chicago real-estate mind, thats a goddamned steal for a completely incomprehensible amount of bathrooms.

After looking at the house, Eva and Cynthia sit down to talk about what is happening with NeNe and everyone else. Cynthia says that theres just no universe where NeNe is willing to be accountable or apologize. Eva also says that shes regretted not bonding with Cynthia sooner and we get a montage of all the moments where Eva shaded Cynthia. NeNe and Cynthia will both be on Bravos NYC Pride Float and it will be so awkward because that moment will be all about them. Cynthia is confident she can peacefully coexist with NeNe and there is no evidence on Earth thats possible.

Porsha heads over to Tanyas house for lunch. Porsha points out that Tanya has been half of the groups best friend and Tanya and her husband were Porsha and Denniss couple friends. When the conversation turns to Porsha and Denniss troubles, Tanya asks Porsha if this whole thing can be fixed. Porsha presents exhibit A: Dennis claims that Porsha wasnt emotionally available to him during her pregnancy with his child so Porsha shows Tanya a bunch of photos of them at their happiest. Christmastime with Dennis. Concerts with Dennis. Smiling and giggling with Denniss cheatin ass. Unavailable, where? Porsha wants to work on healing but she doesnt know if when she heals, shell be healing with Dennis.

Up next, Kenya is hanging out at home with baby Brooklyn. Can a baby have a chocolate-chip cookie? Her cousin Che, who is a Kenya clone, stops by for a little baby time. Kenya starts freaking out any time Che wants to touch Brooklyn and the freaking out doesnt stop once the conversation turns to her husband, Marc Daly. According to Kenya, Marc is only in Atlanta every seven to ten days and they havent had any alone time or alone time since the baby has been born. Marc insists on the baby sleeping in the bed with them and thats certainly getting in the way of any intimacy. Kenya says that shes starting to get jealous of how much attention Brooklyn gets from her father.

This. Is. A. Lot. When it comes to Kenya, its always a lot but things are starting to get psychosexual. So many of these women will go all in on a shaky relationship in order to have a baby. Kenya Moore should be pioneering genetic technologies to enable her to use the DNA from a hair from Beyoncs head to create her own egg-fusion baby. But because Kenya has bought into the myth that a man will improve your life, shes stuck with a husband who doesnt seem to think he should spend time with his wife. This also leads to Kenya asking her husband to rank how much he loves her and their daughter. Oh. Oh Kenya, no.

Meanwhile, NeNe and Gregg are getting ready for a video shoot with the American Cancer Society about their experience of NeNe being Greggs caregiver. Gregg tries to give NeNe a pep talk by telling her she did a champions job, which is what your dad tells you after the science fair.NeNe wont let herself cry because then shed be making it about her so instead she says shes ready to move forward with her life. Yes, she sent Cynthia a horrible text message, but shes in a different headspace now.

Well, in other news: Todd took his daughter to a strip club and thats somehow appropriate in his mind??!?! In addition, he repeats, If shes going to go, Id rather her go with me, which is not something people say about strip clubs. Thats what you say about drinking at home if youre a white parent from the suburbs. No one has ever said that about strip clubs. Theres no moderate strip-club use that Todd is trying to ensure. And if theres anyone on this show I would trust to help someone budget their time and money at a strip club, it would not be Todd. At the same time, Todd keeps lecturing Kandi about what she should do with the surrogate despite the fact that he took his daughter to a strip club. He is not allowed to give anyone advice about anything.

Its time for Marc Daly to stop by his wifes home for breakfast. Kenya is trying to swan around the kitchen, pretending to be a dutiful wife, but she didnt buy anything to cook for breakfast. Every time Kenya does or says anything that Marc doesnt like, he makes a face or complains to the baby that Mommy is so silly! I dont like any of that. Im not a fan of this man. Marc spends more time making direct eye contact with a 7-month-old baby than having a meaningful conversation with his wife. Kenya offers that a friend or her cousin can take care of the baby while they go on his birthday trip and he says that wont be necessary. A baby can come on their romantic getaway.

Kenya doesnt really phrase it elegantly but she says that she doesnt feel like a girlfriend anymore. Shes spending time as a mother (taking care of Brooklyn) and being a wife (putting up with Marcs bullshit), but she doesnt get any attention or care from him. She doesnt have any moments where shes Marcs girlfriend. So, how does Kenya deal with this tension? She asks him if shes his No. 1 or his child is. Oh. My. God. Kenya. Marc just pretends that Brooklyn can talk. This is not great.

The girls have made it to New York and Marlo stops by to remind NeNe to forgive and forget. Marlo is just trying to impress upon her that she should be polite, say hello, and keep it cute. NeNe says she plans on doing just that, but we all know shes not going to do just that. Cynthia forwards an interview where NeNe calls her desperate and weak to Eva.

So the time for the float has come. In the hot summer sun, a veritable gaggle of Bravolebrities swarm around and Andy Cohen stands watch. Hes never been more fucking ready. Hes even put Tardy for the Party on the float playlist. NeNe climbs on the float

To be continued

Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows!

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The Real Housewives of Atlanta Recap: Baby of the House - Vulture

Who Was the Buddha? – Lion’s Roar

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Each Friday, we share three topical longreads in our Weekend Reader newsletter. This week, Lions Roardeputy editor Andrea Miller tells the story of Siddhartha Gautama. Sign up hereto receive the Weekend Reader in your inbox.

For thirteen years, Ive worked as a journalist, interviewing writers, actors, activists, dharma teachers, and more. Recently, someone asked me whom Id interview if there were no limits and I could interview anyone I wanted.

This was not a question I had to think twice about. Beyond a doubt, I would zip back in time some 2,600 years and hoof it all over northern India until I found the Buddha. Then I would turn on my recorder and dive into my million and one questions.

Tradition has it that the Buddha was born a prince named Siddhartha Gautama. There was a prophecy that Siddhartha would either become a great king or a great spiritual master. Siddharthas father carefully sheltered his son from anything unpleasant so his son would choose the path of royalty.

Prince Siddhartha got married and had a son of his own. Then, at the age of twenty-nine, he saw suffering for the very first time: an old person, a sick person, and a corpse. He also encountered a spiritual seeker who was attempting to find freedom from suffering. Siddhartha was profoundly affected and, in the middle of the night, he slipped away from his worldly life in the palace.

For six years, Siddhartha lived as an acetic, eating almost nothing. Eventually he realized that if he continued to mistreat his body, he would die. If he wanted to reach enlightenment, he needed a middle way neither harsh asceticism nor indulgence. Siddhartha ate a bowl of milky rice, which gave him enough strength to sit under a tree until he understood the true nature of things, becoming the Buddha.

For the next forty-five years, the Buddha taught others how they too could reach enlightenment. Then at the age of eighty, he apparently died of food poisoning.

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So that is quite a lot of information about the Buddha and, trust me, there is a mountain more but is it true? Nothing, apparently, was written down about him neither his teachings nor his life story until the end of the first century BCE. Passed down orally for hundreds of years, parts of his biography were surely misremembered and maybe even fabricated.

Since I cant actually get that interview with the Buddha, each of us will just have to decide for ourselves what we believe is factual and what we believe is myth. But in the end Im not convinced it matters so much. Whats important is whether or not we feel the basic tenets of the teachings attributed to the Buddha, such as the four noble truths and the practice of mindfulness, are deeply true and helpful to our lives, however they originated.

Here are three articles from theLions RoarandBuddhadharmaarchivesabout Siddhartha Gautama.

Andrea Miller, deputy editor,Lions Roar

The Buddha was a real historical person who ate, slept, sweated, and got tired. Yet he was also an extraordinary person who developed inspiring qualities that we are all capable of developing. If you find some of the details of the developed hagiography of the Buddha an off-putting burden, look to him as a great human teacher of the path beyond human limitation.

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I approached him, the twenty-fifth buddha, knowing that something new and marvelous had happened in the forest that night. Instead of going where the path might lead, he had gone instead where there was no path and left a trail for all of us. I asked him:

Are you a god now?

Quietly, he made answer. No.

Well, are you an angel?

No.

Then what are you?

Awake.

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Like the Stoics, Epicureans, and Platonists in ancient Greece and Rome, Gautama instructed in the manner of a philosopher, a lover of wisdom. He taught and modeled a viable way to human flourishing, and did so rooted firmly in everyday life. With precision, care, and intelligence, Gautama articulated for us the categories and practices through which we may clearly understand our lives and, doing so, know for ourselves the simple happiness of existing, in difficult as well as trouble-free times. And all of his advice onthesematters stands in full view conspicuous, open to scrutiny, testable.

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Lions Roar is a nonprofit. Our mission is to share the wisdom of the Buddhas teachingsto inspire, comfort, support, and enlighten readers around the world. Our aspiration is to keep LionsRoar.com available to everyone, providing a supportive, inspiring Buddhist community that anyone can access, from curious beginners to committed meditators. Do you share our aspiration? We cant do this without your help.

Lions Roar reaches more readers like you than ever before. Unfortunately, advertising and other revenues are falling for print and online media. We know we have something deeply precious to share with the world, and we want to continue this important work. Can you help support our efforts now?

Lions Roar is independent, unbiased, not-for-profit, and supported by readers like you. Please donate today and help the lions roar echo for readers around the world.

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Who Was the Buddha? - Lion's Roar

MOVIE REVIEW: Scorsese, De Niro and Pesci at their best in ‘The Irishman’ – Gwinnettdailypost.com

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Four out of four starsThe Irishman is director Martin Scorseses 37th feature film. While it marks a milestone in his storied career, many are prematurely considering it to be his swan song.

If this is the case, hes certainly going out on a high note. But dont expect him to quietly fade into the sunset. This is a man who views his art as lifeblood and will continue working until his dying breath.

Scorsese (who turns 77 this Sunday) has six more projects in various stages of preproduction (including biographies on Theodore Roosevelt, George Washington and Mike Tyson) and he shows no sign of slowing down.

In the pantheon of Scorsese films, The Irishman ranks near the top (fifth in my opinion) and joins his other crime dramas as the finest of that particular genre ever produced. Scorsese has successfully branched out into other types of storytelling (documentary, spiritual enlightenment, fantasy, musical), but he will be always associated with crime movies which is accurate but also a disservice to his legacy. Hes made many other great movies, but mob flicks are the undeniable zenith of his output.

Clocking in one minute shy of three and a half hours, The Irishman is an epic by any definition, yet it goes by in a relative flash. The narrative is the cinematic equivalent of Shakespeares Hamlet, Mozarts Jupiter symphony or Miles Davis Kind of Blue album.

Beginning with nary a whisper, the story builds with exacting precision; every frame, glance and word of spoken dialogue serves a distinct purpose, slowly growing in intensity. Scorsese, his longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker and screenwriter Steven Zaillian (Schindlers List, Gangs of New York) are determined to let the story breathe and evolve at its own measured pace, and never once do they ever allow it to lull or languish.

This deliberate, methodical and patient approach to storytelling might not work for everyone. Those wishing for another variation on Mean Streets, GoodFellas, The Departed or Casino should avoid the film or greatly temper their instant gratification expectations. There are no jump cuts, no whiplash editing, zero classic rock accompaniment or overt grandiose, operatic flourishes. It is bravura, but not braggadocio, and shows a master filmmaker clicking on all cylinders without ever getting winded or appearing to break a sweat.

Playing the titular character, Scorsese mainstay Robert De Niro takes the lead as Frank Sheeran, a foodservice truck driver who figures out early on hes stuck in a dead end job. He starts a side hustle by short-changing some customers, paying off others, selling stolen goods on the cheap and gaining a reputation for pinching without too many people noticing. This grabs the attention of Philadelphia mob kingpin Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci), a man wielding immense power with a similar low-key approach.

More resembling Paul Sorvinos calm Pauly from GoodFellas than his high-voltage character from the same film, Pesci speaks in a muted cadence for the duration and recalls the unfussy grandeur and knowing self-confidence of Marlon Brando in The Godfather or Al Pacino in The Godfather II.

As Teamster head honcho Jimmy Hoffa, Pacino has the showiest part in the film, often recalling his roles in Scarface and Scent of a Woman. This is not in any way a slam on Pacino. Hes playing a guy who reveled in blustery self-promotion and barking his resentment at the most minor slighting. One of the movies best subplots portrays Hoffa as a huge JFK supporter-turned-enemy after Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy began investigating organized labor in general and Hoffa in particular.

After a breaking-in period of sorts, Bufalino assigns Sheeran to be Hoffas shadow and right hand. For a while, all three men are content with the arrangement. As he did with Bufalino, Sheeran gains the respect, affection and admiration of Hoffa, who is indebted more than hed like to be to Bufalino.

The principal rub of the main plot occurs when Sheeran becomes torn in his allegiances to the two men who control his life; it permanently drives a wedge between him and one of his daughters (Anna Paquin).

Based mostly on the Sheeran biography, I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt, Zaillians screenplay is air-tight regarding continuity, but also takes some degree of artistic liberty on at least two key occasions. Its worth noting that Brandts book is Sheerans slant on events when Sheeran was in the throes of death; a period when he might have been seeking some type of confessional moral cleansing or semi-inflated puffing up of his own legend. In either case, Sheeran by proxy becomes something of a third person, Richard III unreliable narrator, and the story is presented from his often unverified perspective.

If you wish to see The Irishman on the big screen, you better do so prior to Nov. 27. That is the day when it will only be available on Netflix. Whatever viewing venue you choose, The Irishman is a film which furthers the searing impact of the medium to a level we havent yet experienced and is something every serious movie fan should treat themselves to at their earliest possible convenience.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Scorsese, De Niro and Pesci at their best in 'The Irishman' - Gwinnettdailypost.com

The Funeral Traditions of Different Culture and Religion – Agence de presse D.I.A.

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The funerals Ive attended have all been very much the same. Relatives and friends arrive in all black and take seats in the church or synagogue pews for a somber ceremony where prayers are said, memories are shared and tears are shed. The attendees walk slowly out to their cars and form a single file line a behind the hearse, arriving at the graveyard where they place roses on the casket just before its lowered into the ground. Then, they proceed to the immediate familys home, where the doorbell rings with a steady stream of loved ones casserole dishes in hand since, in the days ahead, people often forget to eat.

A funeral usually consists of a religious service followed by a procession to the cemetery or crematory. A brief service usually takes place as the body is buried or cremated. Most funeral services as held in chapels, mortuaries, or in churches. Muslims bury their dead as soon as possible. The body is buried with face facing towards the holy city of Mecca. Signs of grief are discouraged, for Muslims believe they should accept the will of God without murmur.

Hindus in India perfume the corpse and adorn it with flowers. They then burn it, and later throw the ashes in the Ganges River. Buddhists believe in reincarnation and that death is a transformation into the next incarnation. Each incarnation brings the soul closer to nirvana, which offers complete spiritual enlightenment. Because of this belief, Buddhist funerals celebrate the souls ascent from the body, rather than the demise of the body itself.

Beside different funeral tradition in religion, there are different tradition in many culture. For example Traditional cremations in Bali are a colorful and elaborate event that can take weeks or even months to prepare.

The coffin, or Lembu, is shaped like an ox or horse and decorated with gold and red. The Waddhu is a decorative tower carried during the funeral procession. Orthodox, Russian rituals, that are held to say farewell to the deceased one. Eastern Orthodox funerals are important rituals with a set structure. There will often be an open coffin, which mourners will circle round in an anti-clockwise direction. Priests sprinkle soil and holy water onto the person who has died as part of the traditional funeral ritual.

Another example Aboriginal mortuary rites in Australia. When a loved one dies in Aboriginal society in Australias Northern Territory, elaborate rituals begin. First, a smoking ceremony is held in the loved ones living area to drive away their spirit. Next a feast is held, with mourners painted ochre as they partake in food and dance. The body is traditionally placed atop a platform and covered in leaves as it is left to decompose. It has been reported that in some traditions, fluids from the platform can help identify the deceaseds killer.

What will your funeral be like? Will you have a traditional ceremony or modern celebration of life? You make arrangements in advance and know youre getting the farewell you want with a funeral service company to prepare a funeral in Sydney.

A funeral service, whether traditional or more modern has two primary functions to publicly acknowledge the death and lifetime achievements of an individual and to bring grieving family members and friends together in support of one another during this difficult time of transition. While the event also involves the final care of the physical remains of the deceased through burial or post-funeral cremation, the service helps repair the tear of the social fabric of a community caused by the death and helps grieving friends and family members through an orchestrated time of social support.

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The Funeral Traditions of Different Culture and Religion - Agence de presse D.I.A.

Children in Need events across Gwent – South Wales Argus

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FUNDRAISING events are going on up and down Gwent today as part of Children in Need.

Across the UK adults and children are putting on fun events to raise money to help children all over the world - culminating in a mammoth live TV show.

And this year youngsters from Gwent will be taking part, with children from Pillgwenlly Primary School and Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhymni taking part in a special performance at Cardiffs Broadcasting House.

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Here are some of the events going on across Gwent today:

Caldicot

Caldicot town centre will be a hub of all things Children in Need this evening. Between 5pm and10pm there will be a load of events going on in the town. Hosted by Winds of Time, the entertainment will be hosted by DJ Sam of Get Dancing. Circus skills will be on show, theres crazy golf, inflatable domes, glitter painting, balloon making and more for the kids and adults to do. Pudsey himself will even be along for a visit and you can get your photo taken with the bear.

Malpas

Malpas Spiritual Enlightenment Clinic will be hosting an event to raise money for the charity. Between 6.30pm and 9.45pm, you will be able to take part in a psychic supper. This event will give you the chance to have a one to one reading and a nice supper. This is a ticketed event and you will have to book ahead of turning up. Tickets are 12 and can be bought from Malpas Spiritual Enlightenment Centre.

Valleys Gymnastics

Valleys Gymnastics Academy are hosting a pyjama day to raise money for Children in Need. So, if your child is attending a class at the academy today, make sure theyre ready with their PJs over their leotards.

This is happening at all their venues.

They are also able to make donations and bring in cans of food for the foodbank making it a double whammy of fundraising.

Do you have an event for Children in Need? Let us know and send us your pictures and you could be featured in the South Wales Argus.

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Children in Need events across Gwent - South Wales Argus

With Kartarpur, Pakistan says: Our arms are always open for you whenever you visit – Gulf News

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"I want to congratulate our govt for readying Kartarpur, in record time, for Guru Nanak jee's 550th birthday celebrations," twitted Prime Minister Imran Khan. Image Credit: Twitter/ @ImranKhanPTI Highlights

As hope lays frail, darkness recedes when slivers of sunlight, splendid, proud, reach an arctic cave. The world moving towards its moral centre is a barefoot walk on a frozen expanse. It is still joyous.

Asia bibi, a poor Christian woman from the village Ittanwala in Punjab, arrested in 2009 on an allegation of blasphemy, was sentenced to death in 2010. Her life was a series of solitary confinements, her punishment based on an unproven, false accusation a challenge for a few human rights activists and conscientious lawyers, her release a taboo in a Pakistan where even mentioning her case placed a bullseye on your faith. Salmaan Taseers midday assassination in a public place was the deadly silencing of any future courageous voice rising against the blackness of the British-made blasphemy law, practised in Pakistan, that destroyed lives in the name of Allah and His prophet who require no human protection.

Many appeals failed. Several years passed. Asia bibi remained jailed, forgotten, hidden in the dark.

On October 31, 2018, two months after swearing-in of Imran Khan as the new prime minister of Pakistan, the Supreme Court, in a historic move, overturned Asia bibis conviction and death sentence. A nationwide protest, headed by self-appointed vigilantes of religion, swelled on the outrage of a blasphemer having been pardoned. Instead of jubilation that even the highest human court had found Asia bibi not guilty of any kind of blasphemy, hordes of men, duped on the sanctification of their intention, threatened harm if the decision remained unrevoked.

Prime Minister Khan, reiterating his absolute faith in Allah and His prophet, supported the Supreme Court verdict, and issued an ultimatum to those who threatened to unleash havoc in Pakistan misusing religious injunctions. He told them not to clash with the state.

Protests ended without any damage to life and property. The Supreme Court verdict and Khans stance brought a hint of solace amidst the lingering dismay and disappointment of Khan governments September 7 rescinding of its appointment of the world-renowned Princeton economist, Atif Rehman Mian, as an advisor to Khan-led Economic Advisory Council. Atif Mian, despite his impeccable educational and professional credentials, was removed, albeit much reluctantly, because a large section of Pakistan, ostensibly, had a fundamental issue with his faith. Atif Mian is an Ahmedi Muslim. Human beings have forcibly patented as their religious right what is only a divine prerogative: judging an individuals faith.

Kartarpur Corridor

On November 26, 2018, Prime Minister Khan, along with Chief of Army Staff Qamar Javed Bajwa, inaugurated the Kartarpur Corridor or Rahdari in the Narowal district of Punjab. The corridor linking Pakistans Kartarpur to Indias Gurdaspur opened the way for Sikh pilgrims to visit one of their holiest places, the shrine of Guru Nanak Dev Saheb. Celebrated as the residence where Guru Nanak is said to have spent the last eighteen years of his life, the Gurdwara Darbar Saheb in Kartarpur is as sacred to Sikhs as Mecca is to Muslims. Khan promised to open the corridor for the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Saheb in November 2019.

The January of 2019 ended with the Supreme Court upholding its verdict of Asia Bibis release. Outrage whimpered in the background.

One road opens the way for another. In March 2019, the government of Pakistan stated its willingness to open the Sharda Temple Corridor in Pakistan Administered Jammu and Kashmir for Hindu pilgrims from Kashmir across the border and India.

In April 2019, the government announced restoration and reopening of Hindu temples that had been closed for prayer for decades. The restoration work, according to the Evacuee Trust Property Board, was to start with two historic Hindu temples in Sialkot and Peshawar.

In May 2019, Asia Bibi, despite strident noise about her release, was sent to Canada to join her family.

Speaking to a delegation of Thai Buddhist monks in October 2019, Pakistan Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood said: Pakistan is proud of its multicultural heritage, which has been assiduously preserved and promoted as the shared heritage of mankind. Thai Monk Most Venerable Arayawangso, reiterating Pakistans mission to realign its ethos vis--vis recognising and respecting sensibilities of followers of other faiths, stated: This sends a message to the world that peace existed on the land of Pakistan...This will be a gateway to peace and harmony.

Buddhist monks from South Korea visited the Bhamala Stupa in Haripur, Pakistan, earlier this month. Buddhist chief monks Dr Neung-her Sinim, Jeok Kyung and Jeong Wei prayed for peace in the region at their scared stupa. Speaking to Gulf News, Dr Neung said: Pakistanis and the world must realise the significance Bhamala holds for the spiritual community. Our ancestors chose this place. This is why we pray here for peace in the region and the world.

Earlier this week, PTI Central Secretary Information Ahmad Jawad announced the reopening of four hundred Hindu temples in Pakistan. He said: This development is being made in line with the longstanding demand of the Hindu community that their places of worship be restored to them.

On November 9, Indias Supreme Court announced the Ayodhya verdict. The verdict reopened, in all its bleeding horror, the memories of the enormity of the demolition of the centuries old Babri Masjid and its aftermath.

Landmark day

On November 9, Pakistan opened the Kartarpur Corridor. The day became another landmark in Pakistans rediscovered enlightenment and acceptance with generosity of spirit a fundamental tenet of humanity: inclusiveness. With the arrival of Sikh pilgrims from India, including former Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, the few-mile Kartarpur Corridor became the pathway to one of Sikhs holiest places. Today, the Guru Nanak Gurdwara is the magnificent symbol, resplendent in its white simplicity, of deep significance of religion working as a collective embrace of humanity, and not a divisive political tool.

A year ago, Prime Minister Khan made a promise to his Sikh friend and guest, Navjot Singh Sidhu, and all visiting Sikhs that Pakistan would open the Kartarpur Corridor for the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak. Pakistan kept its promise.

Khan, speaking on the occasion of the opening of the Kartarpur Rahdari said: First of all, I congratulate the Sikh community on the 550th birth anniversary of Baba Guru Nanak and welcome you all... I am always so happy to see the Sikh community that has come here. God lives in the hearts of all of us. All the messengers who have come and gone only ever brought two messages, that of peace and justice.

Khan said: I am happy we could do this for you. Believe me, I had no idea of the importance this place holds; I found out a year ago. That Khan is the leader of a Pakistan that is inclusive, diverse, generous, compassionate. That is the Pakistan of Mohammad Ali Jinnahs vision, and the hope of millions of Pakistanis. That is my Pakistan.

And that is the Pakistan of all those Pakistanis who think of their neighbours like the bus driver Saddam Hussain does. His unrehearsed, glorious words to an Indian journalist on November 9, while driving a shuttle bus from the Kartarpur terminal to the Gurdwara, echo the collective sentiments of a Pakistan that believes in the power of religions, even in their differences, acting as a unifier.

Hussain said: My happiness is such it might be more than yours. My eyes have welled up with tears that you have come to your home, to your Gurus home. Allah knows. We have that feeling when we go for Haj. The way you have come, I swear I dont know how to describe it. I dont have words; I feel so much joy. Punjab has united again. May Allah keep you happy like you are now, and you keep visiting like you are now. Our arms are always open for you whenever you visit, sir.

Continued here:

With Kartarpur, Pakistan says: Our arms are always open for you whenever you visit - Gulf News

The Rights Judeo-Christian Fixation – The New Republic

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Second,Gaston reveals that Judeo-Christianitys ascendance was not powered by the liberalbelief that all religions should be equal in the eyes of a neutral government.Instead, Judeo-Christianity was most commonly the domain of fiery anti-secularists,who railed against any separation between church and state. Building off ideas developedin the interwar period, thinkers in this camp spent the 1940s and 1950s claimingthat religious teachings needed to dominate the public sphere. Limiting state supportfor religious schools or charities, they warned, would foster secularism, whichwould directly lead to nihilism and social anarchy. Indeed, in their minds, secularismwas the true core of totalitarianism; Hitler and Stalins regimes were notsimply oppressive, but were atheist plots to replace religious authority withsoulless states. Such anxieties even motivated thinkers later consideredprophets of tolerance, such as the influential Catholic theologian JohnCourtney Murray. While he vocally advocated for Catholic cooperation with otherfaiths and embraced religious liberty (a principle that the Catholic churchformally opposed until the 1960s), he also warned that limiting funding forreligious schools would send the United States down the path of Nazi Germanyand the Soviet Union. Judeo-Christianity, then, sometimes served as a tool ofanti-secular exclusion.

Thisexclusionary impulse only hardened after the U.S. intervention in Vietnam, aswriters began to understand Judeo-Christianity not only as a religioustradition, but as one with clear racial and sexual meanings. Up until the early1960s, progressive activists occasionally employed the term; Martin LutherKing, Jr., for one, claimed that Judeo-Christianity should engender racialequality. By the 1970s, however, anti-racist and anti-sexist activists condemnedthe concept as a source of Americas moral rot. Black radicals such as OssieDavis railed against white Western Judeo-Christian capitalist civilization. Feministwriter Mary Daly agreed, decrying in Beyond God the Father: Toward aPhilosophy of Feminist Liberation (1973) the history of antifeminism inthe Judeo-Christian heritage. Thinkers in this camp found little comfort intradition. Rather than providing the template for freedom, the United Statesalleged spiritual tenets had to be overthrown.

Conservatives,in response, doubled down on their insistence that the United States was an inherentlyreligious nation and appealed to Judeo-Christianity to challenge taxation andabortion. American values, wrote Secretary of Defense Elliot Richardson in1973, called for Judeo-Christian charity, not big government. By the 1980s,the term encapsulated the rights powerful cocktail of white resentment,sexism, and anti-welfare rage. Judeo-Christianity, writers implied, was morethan a specific variation of American evangelism; rather, it was a timelesstradition whose defense necessitated opposition to affirmative action, equalityfor women and sexual minorities, and redistributionist policies. Jerry Falwell,for example, in his best-selling booklet Listen, America! (1980), replacedhis older language of Christian nationalism with praise for traditional Judeo-Christian values concerning thefamily. That same year, Judeo-Christianity made its first appearance in aparty platform, as the Republicans swore to defend it. It would reappear there insubsequent elections, an epitaph for the terms anti-egalitarian flavor.

Inthe conclusion to her book, Gaston wonders if Judeo-Christianity is approachingthe end of its journey. In the decades since the terms emergence, after all, thenations religious and ideological composition has changed substantially, fosteringnew political languages. This shift is especially pronounced on the Americanleft, where political coalitions have expanded not only to include religiousgroups beyond Christianity and Judaism, but also the religiously unaffiliated(the so-called nones). Barack Obama was sensitive to this reality when hebecame the first president to celebrate American atheists and agnostics. Trump, Gaston argues, has similarlybroken with Republican precedent, measuring righteousness not through piety butthrough military and economic domination. While the president may utter somehollow paeans to Judeo-Christianity, these are merely bones he throws hisevangelical supporters and their anti-secular fixations.

Thoughthis may be true, Imagining Judeo-Christian America spends less time than it could* on the termsmore recent adoption on the radical right. Perhaps because Gaston is focused onexposing Judeo-Christianitys anti-secularist bent, she is sometimes less attunedto its entanglement with racial politics and to its use by avowedethno-nationalists. Few represent this transmutation better than Steve Bannon, Trumpsformer senior advisor and a significant figure in the global alt-right. Hardlya practicing Christian, Bannon has often claimed that societies strengths lay in theirethnic homogeneity. This is why, he argues, nationalists must smash the powerof globalism, epitomized by international organizations, finance, andmigration. For Bannon, however, this nationalist revolution also has ageopolitical aspect, best captured through a religious terminology. The whitenations, he explained in a recent interview, constitute the Judeo-Christian West,which should to come together with Russia to defeat their Muslim and Chineseopponents. Indeed, Judeo-Christianity has been a long-standing obsession forBannon, who nostalgically waxed about the long history of the Judeo-Christian Wests struggle against Islam in a 2014 speech to a Vatican conference organized byreactionary Catholics. So enchanted hewas with this concept that in 2018 he sought to establish a new center in Italy for nationalist and populist teachings, the Academyfor the Judeo-Christian West.

Theradical rights embrace of Judeo-Christianity is more than a linguistic tic. Inusing this terminology, the new right replicates its predecessors ambiguousfeelings about Judaism, simultaneously depicting Jews as villains and allies. Theradical right remains haunted by the specter of Jewish financial control, ananxiety dramatically embodied in the conspiracy theories swirling around GeorgeSoros. And as the murderer in the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting explainedin his violent manifesto, some also associate Jews with support for immigrationof non-whites, vilifying them as agents of white genocide. At the same time, Israeland Jews often loom large in the right-wing imagination as a powerful incarnationof Western values. Israels military clashes with Muslim neighbors and itsinsistence on preserving ethnic exclusivity, recently solidified in the 2018 nation state law declaring that the state belongs to Jewsalone, enchant the radical right. As the white supremacist Richard Spencer has gushed, Jews are, onceagain, at the vanguard, rethinking politics and sovereignty for the future,showing a path forward for Europeans. In all of this, the American right ishardly alone. Hungarys Viktor rban and Frances Marine Le Pen similarlytraffic in anti-Semitic tropes about Jewish global control while simultaneouslymusing on Judeo-Christian values and warmly embracing Israels BenjaminNetanyahu.

Thesedynamics matter not only when it comes to Judaisms status in American politics.They are part of the rights broader strategy to bolster hierarchies by using termsthat sound as if they foster egalitarianism. Freedom of religion, forexample, ostensibly a universal protection for worship, has been recentlyappropriated by American evangelicals in their crusade to protect Christianprayers in state-run events. The Trump Administration followed suit, and complementedits Muslim ban with the establishment of a special Religious Freedom TaskForce, whose goal was to defend conservative Christians right to discriminateagainst women and LGBTQ+ people (by protecting corporations and organizationsright to deny coverage for contraception and to fire individuals based onsexual orientation and gender identity). Similar dynamics have come into playwhen right-wing speakers have weaponized the right to free speech. In thehands of figures like Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro, free speech is mostly invokedto support the right to harass and insult women and people of color. Collegecampuses have drawn especially intense attention from conservatives, who, underthe banner of diversity of thought, demand spaces and resources for right-leaningfaculty and speakers. In the intellectual universe concocted by the Americanright, universities most urgent challenge is not to curtail crushing studentdebt, address savage budget cuts by legislators, or improve the representationof women and people of color; instead, it is to protect the opinions of the alreadyprivileged.

Inthis regard, Gastons brilliant book uncovers not only a fascinating history,but also a powerful template used in conservative politics today. She shows howeasily inclusive language can be mobilized for anti-egalitarian purposes. Bydoing so, her book further hints at the limited nature of many Americanconcepts of inclusion. The radical rights use of Judeo-Christianity, afterall, is not a brazen co-option or appropriation so much as it is an update of theterm, which has largely been used in an exclusionary way. A more egalitarianfuture cannot simply rely on reclaiming or rescuing historical concepts. Thereis little point on insisting that progressive agendas fulfill long-standingAmerican virtues, especially those that have become linguistic mainstays ofconservative politics. New realities are instead more likely to emerge by discardingsuch historical concepts altogether. And among the first terms to be retiredshould be Judeo-Christianity.

* The article originally stated that the book overlooks the terms more recent adoption on the radical right.

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The Rights Judeo-Christian Fixation - The New Republic