Momentum Movement: The Boys from Pest – PoliticalCritique.org

This can already be seen from its utterly meaningless name. It is easy to remember and foreign media dont have to translate it; although in English momentum means something entirely different than in Hungarian [moment Transl.]. But this doesnt matter at all, because its a brand name like Nestl or Pull & Bear. The names of the other young parties, such as Jobbik, Prbeszd, or Egytt [meaning, respectively the better one/the one more to the right; dialogue; and together Transl.] dont mean anything either, but they lack the connotation of being dynamic and a sense of being in the present, so cleverly utilised by the marketing-minded founders of Momentum. At the same time, the term is equally neutral, so the potential voter can imagine and project anything onto it. Momentarily.

There are similar parties in the region: the Romanian USR is a bit to the right of its Hungarian relative, while Polands Razem is well to the left however, in line with the local political culture, they are much more explicit and committed, even though their generational character is also quite strong.

This generational character is not a new element in politics. The Giovine Italia movement was founded in 1831 in Marseille by Giuseppe Marzini, Junges Deutschland, the literary equivalent of the Vormrz, the revolutionary movement that led to the events of 1848, was banned by the Bundestag in 1835. The idea of youth has been associated with the ideas of creative imagination and change ever since German Romanticism the root of which, of course, is the Christian notion of childlike innocence. Youth: a new beginning, starting anew, novelty, progress, change. At the same time, the most famous journal of the Hungarian pre-emptive counterrevolution and the following years of White Terror and state racism between 1913-1944 was also titled New Generation.

The most well-known Hungarian generational party used to be Fidesz.

The most well-known Hungarian generational party used to be Fidesz [Fiatal Demokratk Szvetsge, Alliance of Young Democrats Transl.] which, contrary to popular belief, evoked the strongest feelings of enthusiasm and hope in the wider circle of liberals during the democratic transition. There was even mention of an idea for Fidesz to merge with SzDSz [Alliance of Free Democrats, a now defunct liberal party Transl.]. The idea later disappeared, together with Hungarian liberalism entirely.

But the political tenderness towards youth has never weakened. Its a deep and solid European tradition and not only a political one at that: its a basic form of hope and trust in the future. In European metaphorology, a rejuvenated, renewed world equals a better, happier world. From theology to advertisement, its use is ubiquitous and universally applicable.

MoMo is using it too but more smartly than others: although they are a party (which is usually a hindrance, considering that Hungarian public opinion is consistently averse to pluralism and ideologies), they unite the reactionary clich of neither left, nor right with the symbolic signifiers of novelty and youth, whilst simultaneously seem to be rising above the old conflicts and infamous divisions. At the same time, they connect this with the clich of hypermodernity and the twenty-first century.

Yet they enable an instant identification of an anti-Orbn oppositional public opinion, which is tired of struggling in vain, especially the students mobilized in the wake of CEUs and the NGOs harassment and the middle-class youth of the capital. (But even in these cases, MoMo doesnt make a clear or open statement very wisely).

Momentums most important characteristic is that they take no position in conflicts.

Momentums most important characteristic is that they take no position in class conflicts, ethnic conflicts, or gender conflicts. They are compassionate to both the poor and the rich by subtly referring to the conservative idea of national unity and its faint rhetorical copy: the all-time response of the all-time ruling classes to the challenge of egalitarian movements.

Hurting no one, helping no one. Optimising the congruence or synergy or whatever of potential donations they receive. They are attacking the Fidesz government as being outmoded and obsolete, twentieth century, and the ageing opposition as not being national enough (which is not true, but never mind), while formulating their own positive national consciousness in a way which rejects all historical forms of Hungarian nationalism, and naming a coyly neutralized multiculturalism as a healthy national consciousness.

Relativisation and neutralization can also preserve Momentums two greatest victories. The first being the genius overthrowing of the Olympic project, which was immediately neutralized and made acceptable to the spectator-sports-mania the main collective ethical ideology of late capitalism by only saying that the Olympics would be too expensive (which is true), thereby avoiding conflict once again.

A Hungarian Grassroots Organization, The Momentum Movement, Triumphs in Victory

The second, their Mayday mass demonstrations huge success, was also indebted to the implicit appropriation of the dates progressive spirit, all the while saying nothing about workers on 1 May. In his brilliantly conceptualized and delivered speech received with exultation and cheers, chairman Andrs Fekete-Gyr did no more than synthesise the clichs and epithets of left-liberal rhetoric, by simply but successfully reversing Orbns.

Fekete-Gyr ignored all the problematics of late capitalism as well as the structural elements and local particularities of the Hungarian semi-dictatorship and its civilisational, economic, social, and cultural deterioration. Instead, he positioned only external factors at the centre of his rhetoric, equating the Hungarian right with Russia and Putin, while naming Europe as the correct position. Thus, he cleverly replaced the traditionally Hungarian anti-Western nationalism with a pro-Western liberal nationalism, whilst giving it all a progressive-contemporary frame. This, nevertheless, still retains the neutralised reminiscences of the anti-Sovietism and anticommunism of the Communist regimes conservatives.

But beyond these reminiscences, Fekete-Gyr surpasses liberal nationalism, since he is, after all, much more modern than that: what hes doing is called, to quote Edward Saids notorious book (Orientalism, 1978), orientalism. Since 1848, in Hungary and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the east has not so much meant the colonialised and Muslim, but rather the Greek-Orthodox east. The entire Hungarian journalistic tradition including the political writing of 1945-1989 has equated backwardness with Orthodox Eastern Europe: the Balkans, Byzantium, phanariotes, and so forth.

However, since 1848, in Hungary this has mainly translated as anti-Romanianism and anti-Sebianism (anti-Russianism has always been weak here).Little Entente is one of the worst insults and the Danube Confederation is considered to be treason, while pro-Germanism isnt: Merkel is disliked in Hungary not because of the hegemony of German capital, but because of her pro-refugee policies. (N.B, in Hungary theres no particular hostility towards our former oppressors or occupants, such as the Turks, Austrians, Germans or Russians but rather it is directed towards those whom our own ruling class and state have oppressed and discriminated against the Romanians, Serbs, Slovaks, Gypsies, Jews: all the more so.)

By deploying liberal anti-Putinism it is possible to lend Europeanness a nationalist tint.

And now, by deploying this liberal anti-Putinism (and there is no doubt that the Putinist autocracy is terrible but terrible first of all for the Russian people, regardless what kind of schemes Putin sets up to cause trouble abroad), it is possible to lend Europeanness a nationalist tint which makes it acceptable even in the eyes of those for whom Europe is too liberal, too social, too feminist, and not racist enough. (Although the readers of this publication know all too well just how racist and chauvinist it really is.)

Furthermore, it fits into the spirit of the Fidesz-KDNP-influenced public opinion, according to which all ills come from abroad (case in point here are the law targeting NGOs and the Soros-myth), which is radicalised by saying that, in fact, Fidesz-KDNP also comes from abroad, in so far as they represent the interests of Putin and the Russian state, in unelaborate and untested ways.

The rule of the market in East-Central Europe is absolute [Interview]

But this is also only a tool. Articulating ideologies along cultural-geographical lines exempts Momentum from taking a genuine political stance. However strongly Orbn is affiliating himself with the eastern autocrats (Putin, Erdoan, Duterte, Aliev, etc.), the contemporary anti-freedom, racist far-right is not an eastern phenomenon and its effects are pushing the leaders of the western establishment to the right, as has been seen in Austria, the Netherlands, and even Germany but, on the contrary, very European; not to forget to mention Trump. By utilising orientalism, MoMo can say that the poor and uncool Russia is lame and therefore, from the iPhone-generations point of view, we cant follow in their direction, but we have to catch up with Brussels whatever that means.

What is this, if not the reincarnation of moderate nationalism?

What is this, if not the reincarnation of moderate nationalism, which is merely replacing racism with culturalism? Already during the late years of Communism, the anti-nationalists who were fighting the classically anti-western late-Bolshevik nationalism with contemporary Marxist tools, switched to a pro-western liberal nationalism. (And, as opposed to what Momentum maintains, the official Hungarian left has always been national meaning nationalist.) The seminal document here is the work of Jen Szcss The Three Historical Regions of Europe (1983), which is the root of liberal nationalism developing not out of the democratic opposition, but out of the establishment, with the mediation of orientalism and orientalising historiography. This predominantly the ideology of the contemporary Hungarian liberal intellectual sphere, as opposed to the Danubian patriotism, Eastern-European-consciousness, or the anti-capitalism of the former communist, socially democratic peoples left.

The tedious, unproductive, and false opposition of East and West, which has been poisoning the Hungarian intelligentsia at least since the Reform Era of the 19th century, has been resurrected, in its emptiest, most misleading form to date. I can attest to its success. The Orbnite propaganda posters saying, We have to stop Brussels! have been replaced in hundreds of places in the Budapest metro with ones now saying, We have to stop Moscow! It would be impossible to sink the intellectual level of Hungarian politics even further.

Of course, Putin isnt the cause of Hungarys terrible crisis, however characteristic it is of the Hungarian government to sympathise and cooperate with him. Momentum saves us the efforts we would need to exert to understand our backwardness, and, in accordance with the general tone of Hungarian reactionism , it summarises the national problems under the label of the damned foreign influence. It doesnt matter whether this means Brussels, Moscow or the New YorkTel Aviv axis, the dialectic unification of modernity and xenophobia has been accomplished. As if denouncing Russian poverty and backwardness would claim that poverty and backwardness are political programs. But even Orbn cant be accused of this. He wants autocracy, tyranny, servitude and development simultaneously. You cant even say this is impossible. The example of Southeast Asia (Singapore, Taiwan, China, South Korea, and to an extent Japan) illustrates the possibility of repression and economic development under late capitalism. This should be surprising only for those naive losers, who, for whatever reason, thought that capitalism and democracy are somehow connected. As if fascism had never happened. As if colonialism and the synonymic racial genocide had never happened.

Momentum dont push for change, but advocate a cautious adaption to the appealing western standard.

The rhetoric of reaction according to which any change will harm the situation, or is pointless, or dangerous is a part of modernity, and has been the same since at least 1945. Because of the issues unpopularity, Momentum (and anyone aspiring for political success) cant say that they want to restore the state of transitional rule of law, which preceded Orbns constitutional coup dtat (naturally, in a cleaned-up, corrected version), and for this reason they only mobilise public opinion against the authoritarian-repressive excesses. They dont push for change, but (cautiously) advocate restoration and adaption to the appealing western, European standard. This is also the point of the similarly reactionist rhetoric of neither right nor left. When Andrs Fekete-Gyr says to the Neue Zrcher Zeitung that he supports both gay marriage and border control (meaning the border fence erected by Orbn to keep the refugees out), he positions his party within the complex status quo but with a new, streamlined hipster patriot foundation. At the same time this evokes the typically stupid reaction of the widely despised KDNP [Fideszs Christian democrat partner party in government Transl.], which strengthens Momentums position even more. At the same time, with mild anti-migration sentiments, they attract the casually racist and/but neoliberal young bourgeois voters, who were drawn to Jobbik, but who didnt quite feel comfortable there.

Dont misunderstand me I do not expect Momentum, or similar, fundamentally right-wing parties to deny their true nature. Only that they declare this nature. In other words: that they dont blatantly deceive their nave public.

But of course they wont.

This is precisely their advantage: this dynamic meaninglessness. The reference (once again related to the zeitgeist) to the local, means that their politics will be shaped by asking (in their own national consultation [The author refers to the governments National Consultation, whereby every citizen received a survey with loaded questions per mail Transl.]) the local focus groups what they find interesting, productive, popular, appropriate. Thats apolitical politics. (Which they falsely appropriate to the old democratic opposition: the defining tendency there was not the apoliticism of Havel and Konrd, but the pro-human rights, social, democratic, and liberal program of Saharov, Orlov, and KOR, the Polish Workers Defense Committee.) Extending the scope of law or preserving privileges? Pluralism or autocracy? Rule of law or developmental dictatorship? Equality before the law or racism and sexism? These are serious dilemmas even within civic politics, and many of us have already moved on from civic democracy and liberalism but, obviously, we will not make unrealistic demands to such bourgeois parties as Momentum. Obviously, if asked, Momentum would respond with progressive clichs in order to win left-wing voters, even though silence would be the wisest response.

Goodbye, Internationalism! On the Anti-Multicultural Left in East-Central Europe

It is tragic that more and more people, including to us congenial individuals and groups, will support and see this contentless nihil as a way out from the severe crisis that Viktor Orbns clique has pushed Hungary into. Momentum is not a remedy for this crisis, but one of its symptoms.

They will thrive precisely because of this.

It is undeniable that there is plenty of talent, willingness, and dynamic individuals within Momentum. They are attracting the hope of the hopeless. Its quite certain that by being honest and conscientious they would lose a lot of votes. Their tactics are excellent. Their rhetoric and style are chosen superbly. With a bit of luck they can determine the course of the next general election.

They will be successful. They are successful.

They want to discuss everything under the sun, except for their own values or goals.

I have no doubt that the founders of Momentum united selflessly, enthusiastically, with a willingness to make sacrifices, and with worthy intentions several of them left behind lucrative jobs abroad in order to help our poor old country, having had enough of the helpless and subpar parliamentary opposition. Undoubtedly, they are disgusted by the provincial, narrow-minded brutality, decadent depravity, irresponsibility, and authoritarianism of the Orbn regime. From the point of view of conventional morality, Momentum is at least for now spotless, and it is likely they will remain so. At the same time, by concealing their goals and hiding their basic principles (if there are any, which is uncertain) they radically contradict the contemporary democratic consensus; not with conspiratorial intentions but to secure votes and popularity. They want to discuss everything under the sun, except for their own values or goals (these terms are theoretically problematic, misleading, and unclear but at least they are understandable in their soft elasticity; so I use them in inverted commas). They want to gather these from the people and to begin with localized approaches to local issues. I detest the term populist, which is used for everything it does not fit (such as Orbn, who is the stark opposite of a populist). However, this is populist strategy in the classic meaning of the term. And, as always, its the struggle between volont de tous and volont gnrale (the will of all and the general will Rousseau).

However, perhaps, the volont de tous ought to be read as hidden agenda. And perhaps this agenda isnt hidden, but non-existent. The neutrality of the employed middle class, euphemistically called the intelligentsia and bourgeoisie (entrepreneurs, bureaucrats, spies, teachers, police officers, engineers, lawyers, marketing- and advertising-experts, entertainment and media-industry workers, academics, NGO-bureaucrats, etc, etc.) is the victim within the context of class conflicts of the attraction of governmentalitys (Foucault) certain formations. In the logic of media and communications this appears as the free and cool youth, who are beautiful, attractive, future-oriented: the Pest boys.

Ever since the Enlightenment, similarly to youth and novelty, West has been a synonym of progress and change in the underdeveloped East. But this symbol is more and more hollow which is not MoMos fault. The novelty is not new: it is 250 years old.

Indeed, there is a way out of Hungarys deep crisis. A way out into nothing.

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Momentum Movement: The Boys from Pest - PoliticalCritique.org

Russian cities court Indian tourists – Daily Pioneer

Sunday, 23 July 2017 | Rinku Ghosh | St Petersburg

The Runwals are not like the dysfunctional Mehras on a fancy cruise in the Mediterranean as embodied in Dil Dhadakne Do. If anything, they are conventional. But they are quite a merry bunch, choosing to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary in the family along the Gulf of Finland, blazing through the white nights of the North Pole, cruising along the rivers and canals of St Petersburg. They booked a premier floor of the Four Seasons, had the ballroom for the celebrations done up with classic floral arrangements and harps and had flown in their chefs for the event. Not only that. As part of a weekend of extended family revelry and bonding, they even watched The Swan Lake at the Ballet Palace Theatre, teary-eyed and fulfilled.

We caught up with Indian students, who had invited their peers for a group summer outing, techies and 30-plus professionals with associative memories of the Soviet times from Bengal, some of whom were doing a recce for a luxurious trans-Siberian Railway tour spanning the Orient and the Occident. That is precisely where St Petersburgs appeal lies as a city of 342 bridges. Besides the mechanical ones, the city bridges eras, the imperial grandeur of Tsarist Russia with its modernist reinvention, the Oriental sweep with Occidental interpretations, refined European heritage with contemporary sub-cultures, opulence with functionality.

Russia, particularly St Petersburg, is increasingly figuring as a must-do hotspot in the Indian travellers itinerary as that country has been aggressively courting the top travel markets of the world since last year. That has largely been prompted by Russias re-prioritisation post the Western worlds sanctions over Ukraine, falling oil prices and over-dependence on a resource-based economy. Asian countries, like China, are moving in with new investment in infrastructure thats having an inevitable spinoff in emergent sectors like tourism. No country can beat China when it comes to boosting Russias tourism industry, and the country has topped the list since 2014. Yes, the airports have Chinese signages and announcements, there are brochures in Chinese at tourist kiosks and dedicated hotels for Chinese tourists.

Indians still have to notch up the numbers to get specialised attention at this point but tourist officials are now targetting them, what with Indian companies investing in businesses and tourism officials keen to tap into Indian visitors with their highest spending traits.

We are increasing accommodation options, expanding schedules at heritage sites, easing visa and transit norms, allowing pitstop experiences by extending visas up to 72 hours and setting up friendly trouble-shooting kiosks. We know Indians like their micro-staples, like tea in the morning, and are making sure our hotel rooms stock beverage packs and kettles. We are profiling their interest areas and working out tour specials. We hope that Indians can rank second among Asian arrivals, says Evgeny Pankevich, Director-General, City Tourist Information Bureau.

Customisation has begun with tourism officials surveying Indian tourist behaviour, hotels allowing chefs for group tours and city officials considering destination reunions and wedding shoots though not the wedding fire rituals as yet. Indian restaurants like Oh Mumbai, whose Bengali chef is becoming a hot favourite among expats and locals, are quickly climbing up the fine-dining charts and endorsed by the city tourist board. On their part Indians have begun classifying St Petersburg with the A-category European experience, that is the London-Paris-Milan club class, according to Prashant Chaudhary of Salvia Promoters, the official partner of the Visit St Petersburg campaign and office in India. Ever since the Russian Tourism Board began aggressively wooing the Indian traveller over the last year, Indian interest and arrivals on the Moscow-St Petersburg circuit have gone up by 100 per cent, he says.

Chaudhary, who has been developing this market over the last 14 years, considers St Petersburg an experiential destination. It is clearly the worlds culture capital with its history, palaces, museums, cathedrals, gilded baroque art, its pavilions, parks and literary retreats. But theres much more more. This is one city that is fiercely protective of its facades and architecture discipline as it looks out to the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic Sea the same way it has done through centuries. Climb the Issac Cathedral and there are no jarring outcrops. Commercial or residential district, the facades have a contiguity of design depending on the imperial or Soviet blocks. The city has a vibrant night life, day and night river cruises, jazz bars, sailing and yachting prospects for the adventurous and fascinating activities for children. It is called Venice of the North and is much cleaner than the original. And the polar white nights are spectacular, the summer twilight extending into dawn and the waters of the Neva river a bright cerulean even at midnight.

As a river civilisation and with a maritime history of our own, St Petersburg is an example of how water tourism can be developed. With its founder Peter The Great developing grid-like embankments along the citys rivers and canals leading up to the gulf of Finland, portside pleasures abound. There are day/night cruises that let you float past the panoramic skyline of the city, while sipping wine or having dinner, halt-and-go boats at key banks besides conversations and music gigs at riverside cafes. Of course, there are the commercial cruiseliners on the Baltic, which can dock well into the bay and the deep Neva delta and offer such on-board entertainment like water surfing and bars tended by robots and Disney characters. Eighteen new ships are to be built and commissioned over the next few years.

The waterworld museum at the port is an interactive 4D experience of the creative and destructive forces of the earths primal element on giant LED screens and simulated chambers. Touch a pre-historic fish swimming by and watch it become the first amphibian! Or perform an experiment to understand the properties of water.

The city administration has even turned the rather mundane function of raising drawbridges across the city for letting cargo ships through into a midnight tourism event, taking advantage of the extended diurnal phase of the sun. Around seven drawbridges are lit up in national colours and raised up to the notes of Tchaikovsky in a rhythmic manner as cruise boats and jet skis pass under history and the earliest engineering feats of the modern world. With all heritage buildings lit up, the bay is garlanded by a string of jewels as it were and makes for a profoundly cinematic experience. Then there are sea festivals and fireworks. But given the activist citizens, there is strict compliance of environmental and sanitary norms and restricted licences for yachting clubs.

St Petersburg is the home ground of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is actively encouraging soft and cultural diplomacy to make it the most coveted postcard brand. So there is peaceful co-existence of the Lenin-Stalin legacy, be it in terms of Soviet tours of architectural blocks or outposts, a sign that the city has matured into taking the middle path. Youngsters at speakeasies even talk of the good and bad of both open and socialist economies.

Interestingly, the tourism offices are manned and headed by young, dynamic, English-speaking Russians, who are recasting the image of St Petes as a happening destination. Midnight walking tours, fusion food (Russian fine-diners are a treasure trove of soups and salads), vodka tasting tours, Russian alternative rock and adventure sports are all on offer.

The city administration is offering cost-effective packages for the value-conscious Indian traveller. St Petersburg will provide bang for the buck to the Indian traveller. The rouble and rupee are almost equivalent i.e. 1 rouble = 1.09 rupee. Compared to the other tourist destinations, the Russian experience is going to be light on the pockets, says Chaudhary. Which is why Russian tourism officials are looking to penetrate not just metro cities but Tier II and Tier III cities as well.

Then theres the FIFA world cup next year that is expected to change the scenario for Indians visiting Russia. Many have booked their tickets already to the host country.

There are nationalist T-shirts and souvenirs of a bare-chested or covered Putin astride a bear in the wilds. As the tenth most visited nation worldwide, Russia is heaving out of its bearish days and charging ahead like a bull.

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Russian cities court Indian tourists - Daily Pioneer

Democratisation of Knowledge-Based Economy – eGov Magazine | Elets


eGov Magazine | Elets
Democratisation of Knowledge-Based Economy
eGov Magazine | Elets
There is an abundance of capital all over the world, but the skilled human resource is scarce. Here, India's demographic dividend is going to play a crucial role. Therefore, Digital Skilling is going to become a great potential for growth in the ...

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Democratisation of Knowledge-Based Economy - eGov Magazine | Elets

Raising the age of the state pension makes perfect sense – The Independent

The Governments proposal to raise the age at which people qualify for a state pension produced predictable responses. But none of them seemed to want to recognise the elephant sitting in the room.

In 1948, when the welfare state was effectively born, the retirement age was 60 for women and 65 for men, and the average life expectancy was 71 and 66 respectively.

Today average life expectancy for women is 81 and for men 77. That is a huge difference. If you combine this with extended good health and the abolition of any compulsory retirement age, you can see that later life looks totally different today from that envisaged in 1948.

People now have choices. For many reasons, not the least of which will be economic, people will choose to work beyond the current and future state retirement ages, maybe with a different employer, maybe part-time. Perhaps people will take later-life gap years. There will also be people unable to work for reasons of ill health, but that will require a different form of support.

All of this makes the recent commentary on pension ages by politicians and the media completely meaningless because it is based on the 1948 premise. The debate now needs to be around what form any future state provided support for later life should look like. Younger people today deserve to be able to look forward to a decent period of healthy retirement. Right now it looks bleak, with nobody addressing the real issues.

Bernard Cudd Address supplied

Your article titled Ten female presenters set to sue public broadcaster over gender pay gap reflects the situation women face worldwide.

Research by ActionAid shows that women in developing countries could be $9 (6.9 trillion) trillion better off if their pay and access to paid work were equal to that of men. Whenever they can, these women fight for this change too.

In Cambodia, women garment workers have conducted nationwide strikes in exasperation of years of low pay. The gender wage gap in the country more than doubled between 2004 and 2009, for example. Several companies have since expressed their willingness to support a living wage but the figure is paltry in comparison to those higher up the chain.

We must ensure womens work is valued and rewarded fairly. It is a key factor in fighting poverty and driving prosperity and goes hand in hand with sustainable business and economic returns.

Sarah Carson, senior womens rights campaign manager, ActionAid UK LondonEC1R

Its been two years since Cecil, one of Zimbabwes best-known lions, was callously snuffed out by a trophy hunter. Yet the global condemnation of his death didnt diminish hunters thirst for blood, and Xanda, Cecils 6-year-old son, has become the latest victim of this cruel sport.

Majestic wild animals will continue being slaughtered to boost hunters egos and perverse sense of fun as long as wildlife slayers with something to prove can ship heads, tails, and skins back home. More than 40 airlines have banned shipment of these grisly trophies, and Peta is calling on all others join them.

Jennifer White, Peta London N1

1.1m [wasted] in defending the Article 50 Court case was one of yesterdays sneaked-out announcements.

Has anyone estimated just how much the Brexit debacle has cost so far? Not just in tax-payer money (maybe calculated in how many nurses it would have trained), but as a massive distraction of resources and time taken from other things. Like running the country.

Surely it is time to admit we got it massively wrong. We werent ready, we still arent ready, and we need to stop this Yes Minister episode now and end the damage and waste.

Then announce another referendum in 10 years, this time properly thought-through with both possible results prepared for and a two-thirds majority required so the losing side dont whinge on afterwards.

Paul Keeble Manchester

When I watch a TV programme, I do it because of the content of the programme, not because of the personality or ability of the presenter.

Sadly, in a high proportion of cases, the quality of the presenters performance, possibly following stage instructions, appals me so much that I turn off. Why does the BBC keep them so long, with annual increments to their high salaries?

I imagine that many could nominate lots of people who would be prepared to do the job at a lower salary for a shorter period without seeking stardom.

Ian Turnbull Cumbria

The talented be they media presenters, sports stars or banking chief executives apparently are mainly motivated by higher and higher remuneration packages and are talented at securing them and usually at hiding them.

Might we not prefer people who are not so motivated and not so talented, but who have a sense of fairness and who would feel ashamed at receiving such vast sums compared with those of nurses, carers, cleaners and teachers?

Peter Cave London W1

The answer to unequal salaries seems to be to pay men less, as the BBC suggest. This is totally illogical; surely it is to pay women the same as men for doing the same job.

Equal pay should mean women getting paid more, not men less just to equalise injustice.

Gary Martin London E17

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Raising the age of the state pension makes perfect sense - The Independent

Journalism & accelerating technology – Tribune-Review

Updated 3 hours ago

Just for fun, I recently created a video of my beach vacation, posted it to Facebook and shared it with the world.

The entire production process took about 30 seconds and I reached hundreds of my friends online.

Doing the same thing 20 years ago, when I was in journalism school, would have taken far longer, moving images from one analog tape to another with a large and expensive editing bay. Sharing my work with the world? Almost impossible.

As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the iPhone this summer , it's worth taking some time to reflect on how quickly our world keeps changing and considering whether we're capable of keeping up.

Back in 2007, Sree Sreenivasan, who is now the chief digital officer for New York City, was asked to predict the technology we would be using today .

He started out by compiling a list of all the technology that did not exist even 10 years before that. The list included a number of innovations that most of us could not live without today GPS, HDTV, text messaging, cable modems, Google, Facebook, USB flash drives, Xbox. It also featured some that few people would consider essential today, such as Myspace.

Without being too specific, Sreenivasan came pretty close to identifying where we are: What I do know is that technology will continue to get cheaper, faster and better in the years ahead. But with that will come more dangers from cybercrime to loss of privacy.

What's truly frightening is that 2007 might have been just the tipping point for technological accelerations.

Rapid change affects the ways we consume news and information, how we interact, our use of natural resources and the broad reach of individual humans. We can use that change for better or worse, as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman points out in his November 2016 book, Thank You for Being Late.

What one person one single, solitary person can now do constructively and destructively is also being multiplied to a new level, Friedman writes.

For journalists and media consumers, these exponential growths should be inspiring. The disruptions obviously are painful in job losses, particularly. But this period of journalism also holds great potential for the future.

One could argue that we sit on the cusp of journalism's greatest age, as Peter Herford, one of my former journalism professors at Columbia University, recently posted on Facebook.

There is more investigative journalism being practiced today than ever before, he said, yes with fewer resources than when the behemoths of journalism were at work, but collectives, cooperatives and the worldwide reach of the internet and social media have multiplied the power of journalists.

Mistakes will be made, and not every news outlet will find success.

We still need to find ways for journalists to make money.

Undoubtedly, the end product will look different than it has for the past half-century.

But journalism today reaches more audiences, engages them in meaningful new ways and has more impact than ever.

Andrew Conte is the director of the Center for Media Innovation at Point Park University.

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Journalism & accelerating technology - Tribune-Review

The Navy’s put down a ‘significant bet’ on the $13 billion USS Gerald R Ford, which some say is a risky gamble – CNBC

Mandy Smithberger, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Project On Government Oversight, said some of the mistakes made by the Navy on big-ticket programs have been self-inflicted. The service's tendency to "develop really complex technology that's expensive to maintain and not reliable," has been a major drawback.

Added Smithberger, "It's not necessarily that it's new technology but it's immature so it has to be proven technology."

Some analysts said the new ideas for the next-generation ships originated in the 1990s, when there was a "go for broke" mindset by some decision makers.

In the case of the Ford-Class carrier, the Navy decided to make all of the key changes in new technology upfront on the first ship in the class, rather than wait for successive carriers. The Navy plans to spend around $43 billion on the first three Ford-Class aircraft carriers.

At the same time, the Navy and other services have faced fiscal challenges due to the ongoing effect of the budget caps signed into law six years ago.

"The Budget Control Act, as far as it pertains to defense, was wrong-minded and that should not have been systematically reducing defense spending," said Brian Slattery, a policy analyst for national security at Washington-based Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

He also said the inability of Congress to pass regular budgets is "very disruptive" to Navy and other service programs.

For the Navy, though, the budget situation is particularly pressing because of Trump's stated goal for a larger Navy fleet.

As a GOP candidate last year, Trump pledged the Navy would build 350 surface ships and submarines. He has since accepted the Navy's new force structure goal of a fleet of 355 ships up from the battle force of 276 ships as of Friday.

However, reaching the Navy goal could cost approximately $400 billion more over 30 years than the service's previously stated force goal of 308 ships, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Based on CBO's calculations, the Navy would need to buy around 329 new ships over 30 years to reach the 355-ship fleet. That compares with the 254 ships it estimates would be bought under the Navy's prior force goal.

"Cost is probably the biggest challenge reaching the larger fleet size," said Smithberger. "You'd have to increase Pentagon spending a lot to afford everything that they're trying to buy. It will require cutting other services or other Navy priorities, including airplanes."

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The Navy's put down a 'significant bet' on the $13 billion USS Gerald R Ford, which some say is a risky gamble - CNBC

District 91 upgrades technology in classrooms during summer vacation – LocalNews8.com

District 91 upgrades technology in...

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho - While teachers and students in District 91 are enjoying a summer off, technicians have been hard at work making some major technical upgrades at the two middle schools.

Justin Hurley is the Network Administrator in District 91 and has been working on planning these improvements for the better part of a year. They're getting rid of the decades old phone system, adding high tech digital clocks everywhere, and most importantly, putting in wiring for interactive white boards.

To do that they are installing miles of new cable. This week they were putting in cable trays in the attic of Taylorview.

"This cable tray makes it so we can have a new cable drop into a classroom for a teacher a lot faster." Hurley said. "Our main focus was dealing with audio video for the classroom."

Each classroom gets a sophisticated audio system.

"We know that hearing is the primary channel for learning, and so when a teacher is able to wear a microphone, a teacher is able to change her tone a little bit -- not always have that presentation tone and so it's a little calmer environment," director of secondary education Sarah Sanders said.

While Taylorview is still being worked on, the project is mostly completed at Eagle Rock. The interactive white boards with the projectors connect right to laptops and phones. Teachers can bring up material from the internet or downloads. They can even highlight and circle text on the white board.

"A teacher's able to bring things to life so much more, downloading videos and incorporate them into lessons," Sanders said.

These projects are paid for by state technology grants and supplemental levies.

The interactive white boards were put in all the elementary schools over the past couple years. Next on the list is upgrading the technology in the high schools.

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District 91 upgrades technology in classrooms during summer vacation - LocalNews8.com

Billionaire Mark Cuban: The Rise of Technology Will Cause a Lot of Unemployment – TheStreet.com

Billionaire Mark Cuban made an appearance today in New York City's Central Park at the second annual "OZY Fest", and he didn't disappoint.

Naturally, the conversation first gravitated towards President Trump, with moderator Carlos Watson leading a panel that also included Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush and comedian Samantha Bee. Watson first asked if any of the panelists would join President Trump's cabinet.

Cuban proclaimed that he wouldn't join Trump's cabinet, but he would meet with the President to converse about the state of our nation.

When it was Jeb Bush's turn, the former governor simply replied: "Let's move onto something [more] fun."

Watson then shifted gears to the hot-button topic of police brutality.

"I think every city is different," Cuban responded when asked if our police system nationwide is broken. "Different forces in different cities have different cultures."

Cuban also touched upon artificial intelligence during a one-on-one panel with Watson.

"However much change you saw over the past ten years with the Apple (AAPL) iPhone, that's nothing," Cuban continued. Cuban also claims that Montreal and China are "kicking our ass" with artificial intelligence.

Cuban also expressed concern about technology usurping the current standard of everyday business practices, leaving many unemployed.

"There's going to be a lot of unemployed people replaced with technology and if we don't start dealing with that now, we're going to have some real problems," said Cuban.

Dubbed as "TED meets Coachella", OZY Fest marries music, intellectual thought, food, and comedy into an all-day festival under the foliage of Central Park. Featuring a medley of speakers, this year's lineup is headlined by pop star Jason Derulo, HBO's Issa Rae, celebrity chef Eddie Huang, news anchor Katie Couric, and drag superstar Ru Paul.

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Billionaire Mark Cuban: The Rise of Technology Will Cause a Lot of Unemployment - TheStreet.com

Martha Burk reflects on progress since Masters protest in wake of Hootie Johnson’s death – New York Daily News

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Saturday, July 22, 2017, 1:49 PM

Fifteen years later, Martha Burk still chuckles at the response she received from William (Hootie) Johnson, then the chairman of Augusta National Golf Club, after Burk wrote Johnson a letter asking him to invite a woman to join the exclusive, men-only Augusta membership.

Well, Burk technically received two responses: a private letter addressed to her and sent via FedEx; and then the very public press release Johnson issued, which said in no uncertain terms that if Augusta National was to change its membership policy, it would be done according to the venerable Georgia golf clubs timetable, and not at the point of a bayonet.

The letter (Johnson) sent to me was only a few sentences long, and it was sort of a polite kiss-off, says Burk now. It wasnt an inflammatory letter. It didnt have the bombast like the press release.

The bayonet reference alone was inflammatory enough, alluding to an artifact from the Civil War era. But Burk says that she is still surprised all these years later with how quickly things went sideways in the wake of that 2002 press release the story exploded in the media and took on a life of its own, all during a pre-Twitter, pre-social media era.

Debate about the new LPGA dress code should be left to the ladies

And there was the speed with which Burks feud with Johnson escalated, along with the backlash Burk confronted, including anonymous threats via phone and mail. Burks battle with Augusta National culminated with the protest she organized and staged with others near the gates of Augusta National during the 2003 Masters.

The number of protestors who showed up that Saturday in 03 was much smaller than originally anticipated, and the rally took on a circus-like atmosphere when the media outnumbered the protestors, who included an Elvis impersonator, a drag queen and a Ku Klux Klan member. But the long-term reverberations concerning womens rights and gender equality are still being felt today, and Burk thinks her activism in 2003 played a part in pushing the conversation forward on those issues.

One need look no further than the staging of the 2017 U.S. Womens Open earlier this month at a Donald Trump-owned New Jersey golf course, and the controversy that event sparked. Or the womens march in Washington D.C. the day after Trump was sworn in as the 45th president.

Burk says she thinks Johnsons family was probably dismayed that the Augusta National controversy was revisited in the many published obituaries for Johnson after he died July 14 at age 86. But Burk, who in 2003 was the chairwoman of the National Council of Womens Organizations (NCWO), says she is still proud of the crusade she led against Johnson and Augusta National, and the doors that protest maybe helped knock open for progress in womens rights.

Sergio Garcia attacks bush with golf club, injures shoulder

I think (Johnson) was ignorant and vindictive. He brought it all on himself. He probably had some decent counsel from some family members over the years, but he refused to listen, says Burk. When that press release came out, (Associated Press reporter) Doug Ferguson called me and said, What did you think of Hooties response? I thought Doug was talking about the letter Johnson sent me. I didnt know about the press release that had gone out to the whole golf world. I didnt expect the volcano to erupt as it did.

It erupted and then some. When the protest at Augusta National finally commenced April 12, 2003, Burk and the protestors were forced to a muddy lot about a half mile from Augusta Nationals entrance. Burk says now that she should have allowed herself to get arrested, but at that time, she was worried about other protestors getting cuffed as well.

Being a Washington citizen, I know how to use an event as political theater. But word got out that there could be violence, says Burk. A lot of students who were planning to come said, No way. We didnt have a phalanx of lawyers, and if they arrested me and then arrested 10 or more others, that wouldnt have been fair to them. I decided not to go that route. Its a mild regret.

Burk later filed a federal suit against Augusta, claiming the city passed an ordinance that illegally barred the protestors from rallying near the clubs entrance. The city of Augusta ended up paying a $120,000.00 settlement to Burks attorneys, and the resolution was hailed as a victory for free speech. Augusta National, whose chairman is now Billy Payne, finally did allow two women to become members in 2012 former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and financier Darla Moore. IBM chief executive officer Virginia Rometty also became a member, after originally getting snubbed. IBM is one of the chief sponsors for the Masters.

STASI: Lucky Bieber gets banned from China for his bad boy antics

Burk, 75, left the NCWO in 2005, and now lives out west with her husband, Ralph Estes, a retired professor. Shes still an ardent womens rights supporter, and she is the director of a corporate accountability project, fighting for equal pay for women. Burk is also a money editor for Ms. magazine. Through her work with the Women on Wall Street Project in 2007 and 08, $79 million in settlement fees was awarded to female employees at Smith Barney and Morgan Stanley following gender-discrimination lawsuits filed against both companies.

At the recent U.S. Womens Open, none of the female golfers, including star Michelle Wie, wanted to go near the issue of playing on Trumps course, even though the president once boasted about groping women in a 2005 Access Hollywood video that became public last year. Burk says shes not surprised by how the women golfers shied away from any controversy.

The ruling bodies, the USGA, the LPGA, are controlled by men, says Burk. The only way to make any kind of statement is if all the golfers refused to play. That was the same problem at Augusta, nobody on the (PGA) Tour would speak up. These women are also balancing their livelihood against making a political statement. Were making progress in some areas, but its at a glacial pace. Given the current leadership, women are in for a rough ride for the next three and a half years.

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Martha Burk reflects on progress since Masters protest in wake of Hootie Johnson's death - New York Daily News

Firefighters make progress on blaze in Gold Country – SFGate

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

What locals call "The Little Church in the Hills" was totally destroyed in the Detwiler Fire in Mt. Bullion, as seen on July 21, 2017.

What locals call "The Little Church in the Hills" was totally destroyed in the Detwiler Fire in Mt. Bullion, as seen on July 21, 2017.

Firefighters with Cal Fire continue to battle the Detwiler Fire on the outskirts of Mariposa, on July 19, 2017.

Firefighters with Cal Fire continue to battle the Detwiler Fire on the outskirts of Mariposa, on July 19, 2017.

An air tanker drops fire retardant along the ridge line above Lake McClure, on July 20, 2017.

An air tanker drops fire retardant along the ridge line above Lake McClure, on July 20, 2017.

George Skogan stayed in his home during the evacuation and is now clearing brush around his backyard, in Mt. Bullion, Ca., on Friday July 21, 2017.The fire came within 30 yards of his home.

George Skogan stayed in his home during the evacuation and is now clearing brush around his backyard, in Mt. Bullion, Ca., on Friday July 21, 2017.The fire came within 30 yards of his home.

What locals call "The Little Church in the Hills" was totally destroyed in the Detwiler Fire in Mt. Bullion, Ca., as seen on Friday July 21, 2017.

What locals call "The Little Church in the Hills" was totally destroyed in the Detwiler Fire in Mt. Bullion, Ca., as seen on Friday July 21, 2017.

What locals call "The Little Church in the Hills" was totally destroyed in the Detwiler Fire in Mt. Bullion, Ca., as seen on Friday July 21, 2017.

What locals call "The Little Church in the Hills" was totally destroyed in the Detwiler Fire in Mt. Bullion, Ca., as seen on Friday July 21, 2017.

Jeana Marshall, made a sign for the fire personnel fighting the Detwiler Fire, near where they have made over 5,000 sandwiches, at the River Rock Inn, as seen on Fri. July 21, 2017, in Mariposa, Ca.

Jeana Marshall, made a sign for the fire personnel fighting the Detwiler Fire, near where they have made over 5,000 sandwiches, at the River Rock Inn, as seen on Fri. July 21, 2017, in Mariposa, Ca.

An inmate firefighter team out of the McCain Valley keeps watch on a fire line as they continue to battle the Detwiler Fire on the outskirts of Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

An inmate firefighter team out of the McCain Valley keeps watch on a fire line as they continue to battle the Detwiler Fire on the outskirts of Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

Air tanker drops fire retardant along the ridge line above Lake McClure, as the northern end of the Detwiler fire moves closer to Coulterville, Ca., on Thursday July 20, 2017.

Air tanker drops fire retardant along the ridge line above Lake McClure, as the northern end of the Detwiler fire moves closer to Coulterville, Ca., on Thursday July 20, 2017.

Firefighters with Cal Fire continue to battle the Detwiler Fire on the outskirts of Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

Firefighters with Cal Fire continue to battle the Detwiler Fire on the outskirts of Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

Structures and vehicles were destroyed as the fast moving fire tore through Mt. Bullion, Ca. on Tuesday night, as seen on Thursday July 20, 2017.

Structures and vehicles were destroyed as the fast moving fire tore through Mt. Bullion, Ca. on Tuesday night, as seen on Thursday July 20, 2017.

A helicopter makes a water drop as firefighters continue to battle the Detwiler Fire on the outskirts of Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

A helicopter makes a water drop as firefighters continue to battle the Detwiler Fire on the outskirts of Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

A scorched Highway 49 north of Mariposa, Ca., on Thursday July 20, 2017.

A scorched Highway 49 north of Mariposa, Ca., on Thursday July 20, 2017.

Dessy White packed up her chickens as Detwiler fire moved along the ridge lines at the northern end of the fire near Coulterville, Ca., on Thursday July 20, 2017. She lives about two miles from the fire.

Dessy White packed up her chickens as Detwiler fire moved along the ridge lines at the northern end of the fire near Coulterville, Ca., on Thursday July 20, 2017. She lives about two miles from the fire.

Cal Fire strike team leader Zack O'Neill works a fire line as firefighters continue to battle the Detwiler Fire on the outskirts of Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

Cal Fire strike team leader Zack O'Neill works a fire line as firefighters continue to battle the Detwiler Fire on the outskirts of Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

Jeffrey Hernandez with Cal Fire as firefighters continue to battle the Detwiler Fire on the outskirts of Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

Jeffrey Hernandez with Cal Fire as firefighters continue to battle the Detwiler Fire on the outskirts of Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

The Detwiler fire burned over 45,000 acres Wednesday as over 2,000 firefighters worked to gain control of the blaze, officials said.

The Detwiler fire burned over 45,000 acres Wednesday as over 2,000 firefighters worked to gain control of the blaze, officials said.

An inmate firefighter team out of the McCain Valley keeps watch on a fire line as they continue to battle the Detwiler Fire on the outskirts of Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

An inmate firefighter team out of the McCain Valley keeps watch on a fire line as they continue to battle the Detwiler Fire on the outskirts of Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

Structures and vehicles were destroyed as the fast moving fire tore through Mt. Bullion, Ca. on Tuesday night, as seen on Thursday July 20, 2017.

Structures and vehicles were destroyed as the fast moving fire tore through Mt. Bullion, Ca. on Tuesday night, as seen on Thursday July 20, 2017.

Structures and vehicles were destroyed as the fast moving fire tore through Mt. Bullion, Ca. on Tuesday night, as seen on Thursday July 20, 2017.

Structures and vehicles were destroyed as the fast moving fire tore through Mt. Bullion, Ca. on Tuesday night, as seen on Thursday July 20, 2017.

Structures and vehicles were destroyed as the fast moving fire tore through Mt. Bullion, Ca. on Tuesday night, as seen on Thursday July 20, 2017.

Structures and vehicles were destroyed as the fast moving fire tore through Mt. Bullion, Ca. on Tuesday night, as seen on Thursday July 20, 2017.

Structures and vehicles were destroyed as the fast moving fire tore through Mt. Bullion, Ca. on Tuesday night, as seen on Thursday July 20, 2017.

Structures and vehicles were destroyed as the fast moving fire tore through Mt. Bullion, Ca. on Tuesday night, as seen on Thursday July 20, 2017.

Structures and vehicles were destroyed as the fast moving fire tore through Mt. Bullion, Ca. on Tuesday night, as seen on Thursday July 20, 2017.

Structures and vehicles were destroyed as the fast moving fire tore through Mt. Bullion, Ca. on Tuesday night, as seen on Thursday July 20, 2017.

Structures and vehicles were destroyed as the fast moving fire tore through Mt. Bullion, Ca. on Tuesday night, as seen on Thursday July 20, 2017.

Structures and vehicles were destroyed as the fast moving fire tore through Mt. Bullion, Ca. on Tuesday night, as seen on Thursday July 20, 2017.

A burned sign along highway 140 west of in Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

A burned sign along highway 140 west of in Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

Burned out structures and vehicles along highway 140 west of in Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

Burned out structures and vehicles along highway 140 west of in Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

Burned out structures and vehicles along highway 140 west of in Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

Burned out structures and vehicles along highway 140 west of in Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

Burned out structures along highway 140 west of in Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

Burned out structures along highway 140 west of in Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

Barbara Milazzo, on Wed. July 19, 2017, rescued her friend's cat "Andromeda" and brought the cat to the animal rescue center at the Evangelical Free Church evacuation center in Oakhurst, Ca.

Barbara Milazzo, on Wed. July 19, 2017, rescued her friend's cat "Andromeda" and brought the cat to the animal rescue center at the Evangelical Free Church evacuation center in Oakhurst, Ca.

Burned out structures and vehicles along highway 140 west of in Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

Burned out structures and vehicles along highway 140 west of in Mariposa, Ca., on Wednesday July 19, 2017.

Melted lawn chairs rest outside a residence leveled by the Detwiler fire near Mariposa, Calif., on Wednesday, July 19, 2017.

Melted lawn chairs rest outside a residence leveled by the Detwiler fire near Mariposa, Calif., on Wednesday, July 19, 2017.

Flames rise behind a vacant house as a firefighter works to halt the Detwiler fire near Mariposa, Calif., on Wednesday, July 19, 2017. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

Flames rise behind a vacant house as a firefighter works to halt the Detwiler fire near Mariposa, Calif., on Wednesday, July 19, 2017. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

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Firefighters make progress on blaze in Gold Country - SFGate

Six Utahns receive Pioneers of Progress Awards – Deseret News

Sarah Jane Weaver, Deseret News

Elder Robert D. Hales and his wife, Sister Mary Hales, after he was honored with one of the 2017 Pioneers of Progress Awards on July 13, 2017. The awards were presented as part of the annual Days of '47.

SALT LAKE CITY Days of '47 trustees honored six Utahns "who perpetuate a legacy of industry and integrity" during their annual banquet at which Pioneers of Progress awards are bestowed.

The awards honor Utahns nominated by the public whose lives and achievements commemorate principles of pioneering such as faith, courage, industry, integrity and sacrifice, and whose work benefits present and future generations.

The honorees on Thursday were:

Michelle Baker Science and technology

Baker is a biology professor and an associate of the Ecology Center at Utah State University. Baker's research focuses on water quality, and she is the director of iUTAH EPSCoR, a program aimed at strengthening Utah's water future. In addition to the Pioneers of Progress award, Baker also received the 2015 Governor's Medal for Excellence in science and technology.

Dell Loy Hansen Business and enterprise

Hansen is the founder and CEO of The Wasatch Group, a real estate agency in Salt Lake City. He is also the owner and chairman of Real Salt Lake, a major league soccer team. In addition, Hansen contributes to the Hansen Scholars Foundation, which offers scholarships to underprivileged students in Utah State University's Jon M. Huntsman School of Business. He also serves on Major League Soccer's board of governors and on the Utah Sports Commission board.

Kathleen Christy Education, health and humanitarian assistance

Christy has spent her life working in education and has served in many different positions, including a teacher, an equity specialist at the Utah State Office of Education, an elementary school principal and an assistant superintendent for the Salt Lake City School District. In addition, she currently serves on the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice, the Utah Foster Care Foundation board and the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum board.

Susan Allred Historic and creative arts

Allred is a costume designer who developed a passion for her profession during her time at Southern Utah University. Her designs have been featured in Utah Opera, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir PBS Christmas Show and the Mormon Miracle Pageant. In addition to the Pioneers of Progress award, Allred was also awarded with the Governor's Award for her contribution to the arts in 2015.

Donald Evan Moss Legacy Award

Moss was an owner and co-founder of Chuck-A-Rama restaurants. He received an accounting degree from the University of Utah, and served in the Utah and Idaho National Guard for six years. He was also active in a Rotary Club and has housed several foreign exchange students throughout his life. He died in 2010.

Elder Robert D. Hales President's Award

Elder Hales was Presiding Bishop of the LDS Church from April 1985 until called to his current position on the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in April 1994. He served in the U.S. Air Force as a fighter pilot, and graduated from the University of Utah with a bachelor's degree, and an MBA from Harvard University. Other church positions held by Elder Hales include bishop, branch president, high councilor, the Sunday School general presidency, assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve and as a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy.

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Six Utahns receive Pioneers of Progress Awards - Deseret News

Battle lines widen as plans progress for high-powered transmission line between Madison and Iowa – Madison.com

Battle lines are widening as the prospective paths narrow for a proposed high-powered transmission line through southwestern Wisconsin.

Developers of the planned Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line from the Madison area to Iowa have shrunk the two corridors under consideration. Previously mile-wide swaths, the paths have been pared to 300 feet across and are being identified as "preliminary" routes, up for government analysis.

American Transmission Co., of Pewaukee; ITC Midwest, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and Dairyland Power Cooperative, of La Crosse, want to build the 345-kilovolt transmission line from the Cardinal electrical substation in the town of Middleton to the Hickory Creek substation near Dubuque.

It would run about 125 miles and would cost an estimated $500 million. The three utilities hope to have the line in service in 2023.

The two preliminary routes traverse Dane, Iowa and Grant counties; one of them also cuts through Lafayette County. The southern path runs along Highway 18-151 and existing transmission lines. The northern route aims straight west, about halfway between Highway 18-151 and Highway 14, before turning southwest near Highland.

"The majority of the preliminary routes follows either a transmission line or a highway ... except the northern route, from Cross Plains to past Highway T in Iowa County," said ATC spokeswoman Kaya Freiman.

Though the routes have been trimmed, a couple of options have been added back in at the request of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service -- one of the government agencies that will decide the project's fate. The additional options, both on the southern route, are just east of Mount Horeb and near Livingston.

The three utility companies proposing Cardinal-Hickory Creek contend the extra wires will bolster the electric grid's reliability, offer access to lower-cost power and increase the number of connections to the region's wind farms.

Local residents say the new transmission line would spoil the rural beauty they cherish and endanger sensitive nature areas. They say the line is not needed. A growing number of communities are raising questions as well.

"This is a very rich area" with endangered birds and animals as well as unique natural resources that are not federally protected, said David Clutter, executive director of the Driftless Area Land Conservancy, based in Dodgeville. Those include petroglyphs -- rock carvings dating back at least 2,000 years -- that could be damaged if vibrations from construction machines erode the soft sandstone, he said.

Some groups look favorably on the project, though, as a way to boost the use of wind-generated power, much of it in Iowa, Minnesota and North Dakota.

The Cardinal-Hickory Creek line is a continuation of the 345-kilovolt Badger Coulee transmission line between the La Crosse area and the Madison area, said Chris Kunkle, regional policy manager for Wind on the Wires, a St. Paul-based organization that promotes renewable energy.The 180-mile, $580 million Badger Coulee line is currently under construction.

"These projects are vital to ensuring we can transition our energy system to cleaner energy," Kunkle said.

Developers sent letters to property owners who may be affected by Cardinal-Hickory Creek's preliminary routes and environmental surveyors began combing the corridor in mid-May, collecting data on wetlands, waterways and wildlife.

Opponents, meanwhile, are digging in, especially against the northern route. Theysay they don't want high-voltage power lines and towers as tall as 100 to 150 feet sprouting up in Wisconsin's Driftless area, where the natural landscape was not bulldozed by glaciers.

The Driftless Area is a "unique eco-region and special scenic landscape," a 37-page statement submitted to regulators by the Driftless Area Land Conservancy says. It includes world-class trout-fishing streams and serves as "a rest stop for more than half of North America's migratory bird species," the organization says.

If a transmission line were built across the area, rare, threatened and endangered species could be at risk, such as Henslow's sparrow; the loggerhead shrike; the rusty patched bumble bee; Blanchard's cricket frog; and Blanding's turtle, the Driftless Area Land Conservancy claims. The group says cutting a swath through conservation areas could make rare birds more vulnerable to attacks by owls and raptors, and encourage populations of skunks and raccoons that hang around the edges of wooded areas.

Recreational trails also would be affected, including the Military Ridge State Trail, Governor Dodge State Park, and Blue Mounds State Park, the group says.

For Dan and Lisa Orman, the value of their home in rural Black Earth is at stake, Lisa said. The Ormans' 25-acre property is no longer in the line's proposed path -- at least, at this point. But that hasn't helped them sell their home so they can move closer to ailing parents.

"We have had, maybe, five showings since June of last year and all five of them gave great feedback on the house ... But they won't write an offer because of the pending project," said Lisa Orman. a member of the Vermont Citizens Powerline Action Committee. "Our realtors told us it would have an impact on the ability to sell our house, and that we're likely to take a 40 percent to 50 percent hit."

Local communities have held public meetings over the past eight months or so to discuss the project. More than 110 towns, villages and counties -- including Dane County -- have passed resolutions asking for a complete cost-benefit analysis comparing the big transmission line to alternatives such as boosting smaller power lines or using renewable energy sources. The Iowa County Board approved a resolution opposing the Cardinal-Hickory Creek project.

The proposed transmission line is one of 17 recommended as multi-value projects by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), the Indiana-based regional transmission authority, in 2011. The projects are aimed at meeting regional electricity needs, providing economic benefits, and hooking into renewable resources across the 15 states and Canadian province of Manitoba within MISO's jurisdiction.

The Driftless Area Land Conservancy says, though, MISO's analysis is outdated. More recently, electric demand has flattened or declined, the group says. It says MISO's list considered the region's needs as a whole, not the need for the specific Cardinal-Hickory Creek line.

Meanwhile, Alliant Energy, of Madison, is building a 700-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant and a two-megawatt solar field in Beloit, and at least two wind farms are being developed in the state, so a transmission line bringing in more power is not needed, the organization says.

Residents opposed to the proposed Cardinal-Hickory Creek high voltage transmission line make their sentiments known with signs along the proposed route, including this one on Union Valley Road in rural Black Earth.

"The world has changed since MISO began this," said Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center, with offices in Chicago and Madison, serving as attorney for the Driftless Area organization. "It's sort of like saying it's important to build more telephone wires and poles to serve the additional landlines that people in Middleton and Cross Plains are going to use, and then all of a sudden, cell phones came in."

Learner, who has a home near Spring Green, said upgrades to local power lines would be more appropriate than a huge transmission line that will carry electricity produced by fossil fuel and nuclear plants, as well as wind power.

"This is not the right place ... unless it's absolutely needed to keep the lights on, and this line is not needed for that purpose," Learner said.

Kunkle, of Wind on the Wires, whose members include renewable power developers and environmental nonprofits, said while the Cardinal-Hickory Creek line would not be limited to wind-generated electricity, it would open the door for more wind power on the electric grid.

"There are wind farms that have to shut down generators because they are short on transmission capability," he said. "All of the wind plants ... are hinging on this line."

Madison-based RENEW Wisconsin has not taken a formal stand on the project but executive director Tyler Huebner said the lines recommended by MISO are an important investment.

"Wind power is expanding tremendously throughout the Midwest, driven by lower cost. It really is setting up a very exciting future where wind energy can keep rates down or even lower rates for customers in Wisconsin and throughout the Midwest," Huebner said.

The USDA's Rural Utilities Service will analyze the preliminary routes and compile a draft environmental impact statement, expected to be issued in March 2018, said environmental protection specialist Dennis Rankin.

The federal agency is involved, in addition to state utilities regulators in Wisconsin and Iowa, because Dairyland Power is requesting financing from the Rural Utilities Service for its portion of the project, Rankin said.

The Cardinal-Hickory Creek application is expected to be submitted to Wisconsin's Public Service Commission in 2018 and to the Iowa Utilities Board in 2019, Freiman said.

If approved, costs would be spread across MISO's territory. She said Wisconsin utility customers would pick up 10 percent to 15 percent of the tab.

Cardinal-Hickory Creek is part of about $4 billion of transmission construction anticipated by ATC through 2025.

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Battle lines widen as plans progress for high-powered transmission line between Madison and Iowa - Madison.com

Visibility and progress are key messages at ADA celebration in Iowa City – The Gazette: Eastern Iowa Breaking News and Headlines

Jul 22, 2017 at 8:53 pm | Print View

IOWA CITY For Erin Noon, visibility is important.

Thats why events like Saturdays 27th anniversary celebration of the Americans with Disabilities Act in Iowa City are important for Noon, who has cerebral palsy and serves as resources coordinator for the Johnson County National Alliance on Mental Illness or NAMI.

I think the ADA celebration is very important for visibility and making sure people with disabilities whether you have an invisible disability or an actual physical disability are represented in the Iowa City community, Noon said during the event that took place from 10 a.m. to noon on the Pedestrian Mall.

Iowa City has celebrated the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act since it was signed into law in 1990. The federal civil rights law prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in employment, state and local government services, public accommodations, commercial facilities and transportation.

I love this program because since I actually have a physical disability, its just so wonderful to celebrate it and get excited, Noon said.

The annual ADA celebration is presented by a host of community organizations including Access 2 Independence, Combined Efforts, Goodwill of the Heartland and NAMI. Notable attendees at Saturdays event included Iowa City Mayor Jim Throgmorton; Dave Leschtz, who formerly served as a social worker and University of Iowa disabilities educator; and Democratic U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack, who represents Iowas 2nd District.

Throgmorton read two proclamations from the city, including one designating the week of July 17-21 as National Disability Voter Registration Week and July 22, 2017, as Americans with Disabilities Act Awareness Day.

The proclamations, he said, were to urge community members to participate in activities that celebrate and honor the spirit of the act.

Loebsack, who kept his message brief, encouraged his constituents to keep fighting for their rights because, the minute you rest on your laurels, thats when somebody is going to try to turn the clock backward.

You can never, ever assume that were going to continue to make progress, Loebsack said, noting ways to engage in the political process. Its going to be up to you to talk to me ... to talk to your other representatives, to send letters and emails to your senator ... to be in touch with the President of the United States to make sure that we do not fall back.

His bottom line: To make sure that we keep going forward.

With informational booths set up to promote education and advocacy in Iowa City, groups in attendance included the UI Stead Family Childrens Hospital and the Aktion Club, a service club for adults with disabilities.

Jeoffrey Hacker, of Iowa City, an advocate for those with disabilities, also was on hand collecting signatures on his petition to ask the Iowa City Community School District to reinstate its Special Olympics program.

With Special Olympic medals wrapped around his neck, Hacker said he uses the medals as an example to show others with disabilities what they, too, might achieve through Special Olympics.

I want equal opportunity for sports, Hacker said.

Collecting signatures for nearly a month, Hacker said Saturday morning he was up to 58 as he works toward a goal of 1,000. Benefits of reinstating Special Olympics he said, include equal opportunity and providing an avenue for people with disabilities to gain self-confidence, obtain community building skills and have fun.

Also during Saturdays celebration, longtime disabilities advocate Keith Ruff received the Terry Cunningham Community Award and the Bill Reagan Vitality Award went to Combined Efforts, a visual and performing arts company with a mission of artistic excellence through purposeful collaboration between artists with and without disabilities.

l Comments: (319) 368-8531; alexandra.connor@thegazette.com

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Another Voice: Build on progress in police reforms – Buffalo News

By Sarah Wooton and Denise Walden

Recently, the Buffalo Police Department has announced two promising changes: It will start a body camera program and seek state accreditation. These address two of 32 recommendations in Collaboration, Communication and Community-Building: A New Model of Policing for 21st Century Buffalo, a 2016 report by the Partnership for the Public Good and Open Buffalo. These changes require careful implementation, however, and they must be accompanied by other reforms.

Body cameras can benefit both officers and civilians. Footage can be used to substantiate citizen claims of use of excessive force or to exonerate officers of unsubstantiated claims. Research suggests that both officers and residents behave better when being filmed.

But the policies that govern body cameras will be crucial to their success. First, the departments policy should outline exactly when officers must turn their cameras on, and establish consequences for violating this rule. Second, the policy should protect the privacy of vulnerable individuals, such as children. Third, it should make footage available to the public through an independent committee. In cities where footage is controlled by the police, body cameras lose credibility and value. Lastly, the body camera policy should be easily available to the public (currently, the department does not put its policy manual on its website).

In addition, the department has announced that it will seek outside accreditation, as required by the City Charter. This long-awaited move will provide an outside set of expert eyes to review policies and practices and suggest improvements. To ensure that it receives accreditation, the department should promptly negotiate with its union to begin annual performance reviews of all officers a glaring gap in its current management practices.

While accreditation and body cameras are promising, they cannot be the only improvements. In Open Buffalos 2016 survey of more than 2,000 Buffalonians, only 20 percent of residents felt that the police respected people of color. The policing reports 32 concrete recommendations are based on policies that have succeeded in other cities. Two examples are instituting fix-it tickets for minor offenses and requiring all officers to commit hours to community policing activities like foot patrols and attending community

meetings. Finally, it was disturbing that the Common Council canceled the Police Oversight Committee meeting scheduled for July after Police Commissioner Daniel Derenda said he could not attend.

The department should be seeking more, not fewer, opportunities to meet with lawmakers and citizens to discuss public safety and ideas for change. This is especially so given the infrequency of these meetings and the unanswered questions surrounding the deaths of Wardel Davis and Jose Hernandez-Rossy. Buffalo needs policing that is more community-based, open and accountable and those changes cannot happen without real citizen engagement.

Sarah Wooton is the policy analyst at the Partnership for the Public Good. Denise Walden is the community impact coordinator for Open Buffalo.

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Another Voice: Build on progress in police reforms - Buffalo News

Fringe movements key to changing the world – Winnipeg Free Press

"The more things change, the more they stay the same" is a common interpretation of a French quote by critic Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr. Yet, as events of the past year and a half have demonstrated, sometimes things change so much that underlying assumptions must be questioned.

Western society has always had its share of extremist, fringe activists, who are generally dismissed tolerantly or not by the mainstream culture.

British journalist and tech blogger Jamie Bartlett points out that successful radicals of the past are now heroes who changed both history and culture. For instance, in the United States: "American revolutionaries, the abolitionists, the civil rights activists, the LGBTQ rights groups."

Radicals Chasing Utopia interestingly, if unevenly, chronicles Bartletts experiences embedding himself in various radical groups.

"In streets, halls, fields, chat rooms and even parliaments, more and more people are trying to change the world. And for the last two years, Ive tried to find them."

Bartletts 2014 book The Dark Net, about underground and sketchy sub-cultures in various corners of the internet, included "transhumanism," and thats where Radicals Chasing Utopia begins.

Transhumanists "believe that technology can make us physically, intellectually, even morally better."

Bartlett accompanied other journalists and fellow travellers on Zoltan Istvans quixotic 2016 presidential campaign, in a bus "redesigned to look like a giant coffin."

Some transhumanists believe even mortality can be overcome by scientific advances and obsessively careful living.

Other chapters cover anti-immigration activists in Europe, psychedelic drug experiences, the Italian Five Star Momentum movement, and a commune in Portugal attempting to establish "a healing biotope, a template of how man could live in harmony with himself, his fellow man and his environment."

Bartletts reports on most groups achieve his stated goal of "assessing them as honestly and objectively" as possible, but retaining "a degree of scepticism."

The chapter Interlude: Prevent examines the U.K. governments difficulties attempting to "deal with the spread of radical ideas that directly seek to undermine or destroy" liberal democracy.

His chapter about taking part in direct action to protest a coal mine in Wales somewhat exposes his own bias, but the rest of the book does not come across as a polemic either for or against the radicals he observes.

That chapter, The Activists Paradox, discusses the tendency of some radicals to turn off the general public, whose participation in the machinery of change is so important to fundamental shifts in cultural or political norms.

Engaging as Bartletts coverage is, reading the book can be frustrating, partly due to the overwhelming documentation. Over 50 pages of endnotes often containing additional exposition or explanation, not just attribution compete with numerous explanatory or illustrative footnotes.

Some passages point the reader to both a footnote and an endnote. Much of that information would be less intrusive if it were included in the text, rather than interrupting it.

Bartletts observations and analyses of particular groups culminate in an especially thoughtful and challenging epilogue, discussing the dilemmas and difficulties inherent in radicals who are trying to change the world.

"Their energy, imagination and passion might save us; but those very attributes might also lead to ruin and desperation. Yet, for all this, radicals remain our best hope."

Whether one agrees or disagrees with this conclusion, Bartletts book is an enjoyable and thought-provoking addition to the conversation.

Bill Rambo teaches at The Laureate Academy in St. Norbert. He adheres to the radical idea that knowledge of Shakespeare could arrest virtually all decay of the English language.

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Fringe movements key to changing the world - Winnipeg Free Press

Review: Nolan’s ‘Dunkirk’ is as Riveting as it is Groundbreaking – First Showing (blog)

by Jeremy Kirk July 22, 2017

When it comes to telling a story about war, the filmmaking game has been hitting many of the same strides for a couple of decades now. Ever since 1998's Saving Private Ryan and the opening scene set on Omaha Beach, war movies, especially those set during World War II, have been satisfied retreading that same water, rolling with similar tides, giving us much of what we've already seen before. It takes a true craftsman in the game to deliver something fresh but still maintain a sense of scope, compassion, and intensity. That craftsman, apparently, is Christopher Nolan, who has been reshaping genres and defying expectations since his 2000 thriller, Memento, floored audiences with its disjointed structure. Nolan is the craftsman, and Dunkirk, a WWII movie unlike any seen or experienced before, is the stunning result of his craft.

Told over the course of one week in the extremely early days of the Second World War, the film quickly brushes over the necessary exposition setting the stage with simple narration through title cards. In the town of Dunkirk in the North of France, hundreds of thousands of Allied troops were trapped and surrounded by the invading, German forces. In May and June of 1940, these Allied soldiers were evacuated from the area with what little resources Britain, France, and Belgium could spare at the time. Needless to say, the evacuation was a long and arduous process with many Allied troops believing help and their salvation would never come. For many of them, it didn't before it was too late.

With the setting established, Nolan drops us right into the thick of it all: the constant barrage of attacks against the troops lining the beach from the fighter planes buzzing around above them. Nolan, who also serves as the screenwriter here, isn't satisfied letting this play out in the typical way either. His screenplay is broken up over three, separate stories showing the events as they play out from the land, the sea, and even the air. Not satisfied with telling these individual stories in typical fashion, either, Nolan jumps between them, sometimes at the expense of straightforward continuity. The weeklong attempt of survival for the soldiers on the beach is edited along with the day-long trip it takes for the boats to reach the island from the mainland and the hour-long trip for the planes in the sky. It all comes across as somewhat confusing at first, but, once the timelines are established and begin to be fleshed out, it all moves together in a beautiful and riveting symphony of survivalism and heroism.

Nolan's film is completely stripped of needless exposition or even the typical developments commonly found in films about war. We aren't given any backstory for any of the characters, and, oftentimes, we aren't even given a name to go along with the character. While this may appear to keep the emotion at an arm's length, the very notion of surviving an impossible situation and the bravery of those who faced it down comes through crystal clear. Dunkirk allows these ideas to speak for themselves without being bogged down by explanation. This may come across as awkward for some, but Nolan's structure here is deliberate and ends up benefiting the stories as a whole as well as the war film in which it makes up.

The moments of silence are few and far between with Nolan inundating us with the constant dangers that surround these characters. He also utilizes Hans Zimmer's throbbing score as a character, itself, hardly ever falling away completely and constantly serving as a reminder that there is no rest for those involved. Likewise, the choices made in the film's narrative structure only help to amplify the harrowing task of those attempting to rescue these men, in particular the story of a Royal Air Force pilot (Tom Hardy) whose hour in the sky is a constant onslaught of bravery and danger.

Hardy, to his credit, gives a resonating performance despite the simplicity of his story. As with many of Hardy's previous performances, his eyes do most of the talking, what they are saying giving off as much emotion as many, straightforward performances of this ilk. Likewise, the story of soldiers on the beach, particularly those played by Fionn Whitehead and Harry Styles, are filled to the brim with emotion despite the lack of commonly found narrative beats. The story told at sea, however, is the most powerful of them all with Mark Rylance giving an incredible performance as a civilian mariner en route to help with the evacuation. Rylance is rock steady and perfectly informed even with the lack of typical emotion to drive him, and it's this story that Nolan could have easily turned into a feature-length film all by itself.

Christopher Nolan has quickly established himself as a filmmaker who is always looking for the road less traveled when it comes to the stories he tells. With Dunkirk, he has once again shaken up a genre and delivered something that will likely become the new establishment for future stories. Hard-hitting and wrapped in the inherent emotion that comes from stories about war, Dunkirk is an experience of World War II unlike any we've seen before. It has quickly become a wonder to guess where Nolan's career will take him next, but, with Dunkirk it will be even more interesting to see where war movies go from here.

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Review: Nolan's 'Dunkirk' is as Riveting as it is Groundbreaking - First Showing (blog)

Ill Behaviour, review: the chuckles are broad but the grisly nihilism is rather unpalatable – Telegraph.co.uk

This prompts his friends Tess (Jessica Regan) and Joel (You're the Worst's Chris Geere) to bundle their pal off to a country house for a crash course of involuntary chemotherapy. Noble intentions dont make them any easier to root for. Joel is a nostalgia-obsessed man-child recently divorced by his megabucks wife, Tess a frustrated IT drone dabbling in robot porn.

Riley's real-life fiance Lizzy Caplan (Masters of Sex) also pops up as an alcoholic oncologist who furnishes the conspirators with purloined medicines. Caplan is great at playing drop-dead cynics. However, shes jarring here, her hard-nosed performance at odds with a comedy which, serious subject matter notwithstanding, is largely concerned with gross-out gags and puerile back-and-forths.

Episode one, in particular, zipped along but how much of Bains freewheeling nihilism can we stomach before turning green at the gills and requiring a lie-down?

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Ann McFeatters: What we’ve learned from 6 months of Trump – The Exponent Telegram (press release) (registration)

WASHINGTON Its strange how six months can feel like six exhausting years when theyve produced nothing but a string of nonsensical superlatives.

As Donald Trump celebrates the first eighth of his ridiculous amazing, stupendous, unsurpassed presidency, we mere mortals are left to ponder what we have learned. Well, here are some takeaways:

Facts do not matter to this White House. Trump has publicly lied about important matters more than 100 times since becoming president. These are not just equivocations open to dispute; theyre flat-out, verifiable untruths. For example, he said he has accomplished more and signed more bills into law than any previous president. Not true. His staff follows his lead, disseminating statements that are lies.

Trump not only failed to drain the swamp, he deepened and widened it. He has filled top posts with Wall Streeters and business cronies, doling out jobs like mints to loyal minions. After he promised not to touch Medicaid, which serves the disabled, poor and elderly in nursing homes, we were introduced to a Trumpcare plan that called for disqualifying 75 million and taking another 22 million off health insurance.

He is a costly public servant. He is on track in his first year to spend more taxpayer money on personal travel than President Barack Obama did in eight. We also pay for security at Trump Tower, his hotels and his golf courses. His re-election committee (of course he wants four more years after 2020) has raised millions to pay legal fees and rent for office space in Trump Tower.

Trump does not care that he has the lowest approval rating of any president since polling started (about 70 years). His base loves him even though he has done nothing for them since taking office. Is it any wonder that 34 percent of Americans do not believe in scientific evolution, according to the Pew Research Center? Is it surprising that a majority of Republicans believe that colleges and universities are a negative influence on the country? (Pew again).

Trump has set the precedent that a presidents conflicts of interest do not matter. Refusing to divest himself of his holdings, he has put his son Junior (the one who loves meeting with Kremlin operatives) in charge. His wealthy daughter and son-in-law have offices in the White House. His hotels draw foreign leaders who want to curry favor. Fees at his Mar-a-Lago golf resort have doubled to $200,000.

Getting rid of excessive and overlapping regulations is one thing. Gutting environmental protection and consumer protection regulations as Trump is doing is another. A future column will detail the astonishing number of actions the administration quietly has taken to further the interests of big business to the detriment of Americans who love their parks, want to breathe clean air, drink clean water and buy products that wont hurt their children.

The artful dealmaker has not managed to make any good deals. Even with a GOP-controlled House and Senate, he could not repeal Obamacare. Instead, he sabotages it by eliminating advertising, shortening the enrollment period and not enforcing the mandate to buy insurance or pay a tax to keep premiums low. Wages are not increasing. Exporters of American goods and services will be hurt by the lack of free trade he is engineering. No wall. No tax reform. No infrastructure plan.

The number of investigations caused by Trumps inexplicable fondness for Vladimir Putin, the Russian thief, thug and murderer, is unparalleled for a first term. Trump refuses to admit Russia meddled in our elections yet wants a national registry of all Americans personal information to root out voter fraud the experts say does not exist. Hey, Russia, Trump will make it easy for you to re-elect him.

The United States is no longer the leader of the free world and fighter for human rights in the eyes of our once closest allies. After seeing Trump up close and personal at international meetings, some say openly they may never again trust us.

Trumps misogyny, hedonism, lack of discipline, coarse language, bullying and refusal to read briefing papers or attempt to learn what he doesnt know diminish us. The man who convinced millions to watch him say Youre fired every week parlayed celebrity into the White House, but the applause is fading. Only 12 percent liked his disgraceful health-care plan. It died.

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Women Comics Creators Talk Censorship, History and Social Relevance at CBLDF: She Changed Comics SDCC ’17 – Comics Beat

By Nancy Powell

If there was one takeaway from Thursdays CBLDF: She Changed Comics panel, it was the critical role that women play in advocating for the key social and cultural issues in todays world, and that these women as writers, artists and historians act as the collective voice to challenge the status quo.

Betsy Gomez (She Changed Comics) moderated a roundtable discussion of women who have created and continue to create some of the most important works in comics today. The panelists included Joyce Farmer (Special Exits, Tits & Clits), Caitlin McCabe (She Changed Comics contributor), Thi Bui (The Best We Could Do), and Newberry Honors and Eisner Award-winning writer Jennifer Holm (Babymouse series, Squish).

Gomez started off the hour-long discussion by asking each woman how she came into comics. Farmer read comics with her father and found comics to be an easier medium to communicate ideas than writing. Farmers $1 per week allowance allowed her to buy five candy bars and five comics.

McCabe had a more unconventional childhood; she grew up in a family that encouraged the reading controversial materials, including comics, and so enamored was McCable of the medium that she went on to earn a Masters degree in the subject matter. Bui discovered comics at an older age, concentrating mostly on women-written or women-centered comics.

Like Farmer, Holms father shared with her and her brothers his love of comic strips, such as Prince Valiant and Flash Gordon, from his youth. I wanted the girl version of Peter Parker, a teenage version that I could relate to,

Gomez then asked each of the panelists to share their experience of creating comics. Farmers Abortion Eve in 1973 as a way to distribute information about birth control birth control before Planned Parenthood took off. Her anti-Catholic stance on birth control made the comic unsaleable, and the comic was not well received because it did not fit into the underground comics genre. As history would play out, Abortion Eve is being reproduced in full by the University of Pennsylvania and has since increased in relevance as a result of the ongoing debate on womens reproductive rights.

But Farmers first comic, Tits & Clits, found itself on the banned books list after a Laguna Beach, California bookseller, Fahrenheit 451, got in trouble for selling it. Farmer was advised by the ACLU that she could potentially lose everything if she continued to publish the title, and while the suit was thrown out on account of its violating free speech, the effect of that experience was traumatizing. Censorship damages the creativeness of people who are working, Farmer said.

Buis call to creativity occurred in response to her anger about the incorrect stereotypes of the Vietnameses role in the Vietnam War. At the time, she was also trying to figure out her own origins, so The Best We Could Do became as much a project that was personal as it was a historical journey. Comics were my revenge against Hollywood. I didnt have a Hollywood budget, but I had pens, and I could draw, remarked Bui.

On the other end of the spectrum, Holms involvement with comics was family business; her brother Matt was an illustrator, which made collaboration easy. The comics you read as a kid stay with you forever, recalled Holm, who found plenty of opportunity to become involved in a medium she loved by writing kids comics. They [publishers] are open to taking risks on graphic novelist and women. It may not be Marvel material, but Scholastic snapped it up. Childrens publishers are willing to take risks, and they really helped the whole movement start.

McCabe used her scholarship in the genre to advocate for notable, but lesser known, female comic book writers as a contributor to She Changed Comics. Comics scholarship is really importanthow it impacts our lives, how it makes us feel, and how it makes us represent ourselves.

Gomez final question revolved around the issue of censorship, specifically regarding the overrepresentation of women on the censorship lists. Bui felt that people used censorship as a weapon to shut down important voices. McCabe went further to highlight the point that women comic book creators do not represent the status quo, and any challenges to the status quo could scare people. Holm punctuated the point by citing the popularity and performance of bestselling, questionable titles co-authored by women, such as This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki, Drama by Raina Telgemeier, and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.

Farmer ended the discussion by pointing out an obvious fact; that these five women were sitting in a panel and discussing the success of their own careers, a defiant contradiction to naysayers questioning womens impact on the medium. And each of the panelists confirmed, through personal experience and in their discussion of upcoming projects, that they continue to push the boundaries on important cultural and social issues.

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Women Comics Creators Talk Censorship, History and Social Relevance at CBLDF: She Changed Comics SDCC '17 - Comics Beat

‘Ninth Circuit poised to resolve major free speech issue in secret proceeding’ – Washington Post

A very interesting post from Paul Alan Levy (Public Citizens Consumer Law & Policy Blog); here are the opening paragraphs:

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has issued an order signed only by the Clerk declaring that a significant free speech issue bearing on the rights of anonymous Internet users will be decided in a totally secret proceeding, involving sealed briefs, a sealed record, and without any help from would-be amici (including Public Citizen) seeking to explain the dangers posed by the proceeding.

The case arises from a subpoena served by the United States on the employer-rating site Glassdoor, originally demanding identifying information about the owners of more than one hundred pseudonymous accounts that had, it appears, been used to post reviews of a particular employer whose contracting practices were subject to a federal criminal investigation. Glassdoor refused to produce the information demanded by the grand jury subpoena, citing the First Amendment right of its users to speak anonymously.

In an effort to compromise, the government limited its production demand to eight specified reviewers. Glassdoor responded to that offer by proposing that it notify the users of the subpoena and provide identifying information for such of its users who were willing to be identified to the prosecutors. After the government rejected this offer, Glassdoor moved to quash the subpoena, invoking its users First Amendment right to speak anonymously which, Glassdoor contended, created a privilege against production of the information. At the same time, it notified its users of the subpoena, thus meeting one of the conditions of the Dendrite line of cases that it cited in its motion. Those cases rely on the First Amendment right to speak anonymously as a basis for posing procedural and substantive obstacles to civil subpoenas seeking to identify online speakers so that they can be served with process and sued for wrongful speech. Eventually, Glassdoor also invoked Bursey v. United States, a decision in which the Ninth Circuit quashed in part a grand jury subpoena directed at the process of publishing the newspaper of the Black Panther Party.

The entire subpoena litigation was conducted under seal, but we know some of the details because, having taken a contempt citation to secure its ability to appeal, Glassdoor next obtained the governments stipulation for the partial unsealing of the briefs exchanges by the two sides on Glassdoors motion to quash. Glassdoor had appealed, and raised the possibility that parties beside itself might wish to provide the Court of Appeals with the benefit of their views of the applicable law. The trial judge granted that request; as a result the briefs supporting and opposing the Glassdoor motion to quash, as well as reply briefs both from Glassdoor and from the government, are available in the public record, as is the judges ruling on the motion. The finer details from the papers were redacted, including for example the name of the company under investigation and some of the detail about the content of the employee reviews whose authors.

We know from Judge Humetawas opinion that she refused to apply the Bursey line of cases because she considered that it only protected against grand jury subpoenas directed at dissent against the government, and she refused to take seriously the First Amendment rights of Glassdoors users because well, for reasons that showed a misunderstanding of the First Amendment rights at issue. On the one hand, the judge thought that the First Amendment privilege being asserted could extend only to political speech, and on the other hand she seems to have suggested that no First Amendment obstacles could be posed to a grand jury subpoena because newspapers do not generally have any First Amendment rights to stop grand jury intrusion into their sources absent a showing of bad faith on the part of the government; the judge deemed Glassdoor indistinguishable from a journalistic enterprise.

Grand jury proceedings have historically been secret, and there are good reasons for such secrecy; but its indeed dangerous to have significant legal issues resolved in secret proceedings. Im not sure quite what should be done in cases like this, but I agree that this is an important issue, and Levys post is much worth reading.

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'Ninth Circuit poised to resolve major free speech issue in secret proceeding' - Washington Post