Monthly Archives: March 2020

Women filmmakers with big dreams shine through The A.V. Clubs coverage of the SXSW that wasn’t – The A.V. Club

Posted: March 24, 2020 at 5:12 am

From left: Freeland, She Dies Tomorrow, I Used To Go Here

Normally, there are two ways to cover a film festival. One is to treat it like any other work week, responsibly blocking out time to get all your writing done and going to bed at a reasonable hour. The other is to push your body to its limit, getting up for early-morning press screenings and then staying out partying or, as one might put it to oneself, networkinguntil last call. The approach you choose is between you, your deadlines, and your editor, should you start missing those deadlines. But this years SXSW left attendees little choice in the matter, by becoming the first in a series of film-industry dominoes to fall after a forceful push from COVID-19.

And sure, you could stay up all night drinking alone in your apartment and then drag yourself out of bed and run to the living room at 8 a.m. to watch another film. But thats a punishing routine under normal circumstances. And in an environment where waking up with a slight tickle in your throat is enough to send many into a panic spiral, being exhausted with a hangover is less than appealing. And so, after a whirlwind series of events that started with the SXSW cancellation and ended with The A.V. Clubs parent company sending us home to work remotely for the foreseeable future, we found ourselves self-quarantining with a pile of online screeners. And so, the lonely, cozy, unventful remote watch party hereby dubbed Couch x Couchwest was born.

Not every film from SXSW is being made available for online review: Some are holding out for festivals scheduled for the summer and fall, and others are still figuring out what they want to do. And it is a risk to move forward with remote coverageif a film is reviewed that very few people are able to see, how does that affect its reception when it does finally become available to the public? Honestly, nobody is sure right now. This is an unprecedented situation for festival programmers and publicists and critics, as it is for everyone else.

From where The A.V. Club sits, the films that would have been our marquee reviews coming out of SXSWthe world premiere of David Lowerys The Green Knight, for example, or the Kumail Nanjiani-Issa Rae vehicle The Lovebirdsdo not need our remote coverage. But then there are the small indie films that had pinned their creative dreams on a SXSW premiere, films that normally depend on sites like ours to amplify them in festival coverage. Those are the films that are jumping into the unknown and uploading screeners to the online library SXSW created last week, and we hope that we can help their creators out by shining a little light on these otherwise rudderless films.

We watched 11 feature films in total for Couch x Couchwest, both through the SXSW portal and via email submissions. In the end, a handful stood out, all of which happened to be directed or co-directed by women. And so we decided to run with it, becausealthough the worlds mind is on other things right nowit is still Womens History Month. Add these films to your watch list, for warmer and freer days ahead.

Had SXSW gone forward, Kris Reys (formerlyKrisSwanberg) fourth feature I Used To Go Here (Grade: B) would have been hailed as a breakout comedy akin to last years buzziest SXSW title, Olivia Wildes Booksmart. This film is less self-consciously progressive than Wildes, though, and although it does feature a clique of effortlessly cool college kids including the dorky, aptly named Tall Brandon (Brandon Daley)this time theyre not at the center of the story. That distinction belongs to Kate (Gillian Jacobs), a 35-year-old writer whose life seems enviable on the outside: She just published her first novel, complete with a smug nod to her domestic bliss on the dust jacket. The thing is, in the time between Kate penning that bio and now, her fiancee dumped her. Adding insult to injury, the book is selling so poorly that her publisher cancels her book tourand thats before a negative New York Times review sinks any possibility of a rebound. Oh, and she hates the cover art.

In short, Kate is vulnerable, leading her to accept an invitation from her undergraduate writing teacher David (Jemaine Clement) to come give a talk at her old college in downstate Illinois. Adulation from a handful of starry-eyed undergrads isnt enough to satiate Kates neediness, however, and so she entangles herself in a very messy love triangle with Hugo (Josh Wiggins), the teenager who now lives in her old house. The setup is vaguely reminiscent of Old School, but the execution is more in line with Young Adult, full of sharp dialogue lampooning male sexual entitlement and subtle visual gags that underline Kates immaturity as well as the existential absurdity of her dilemma. (A scene where she holds up her book next to a lineup of friends posing with their pregnant bellies is equally cringeworthy and hilarious.)

But while Reys screenplay sets her up for success, its Jacobs who makes it sparkle, playing Kate with enough confidence that she comes across as a real, flawed human being and not an aw-shucks caricature of a mess. Like many comedies, visually I Used To Go Here isnt especially memorable. But Rey and Jacobs more than make up for it with charm and painfully relatable wit, and backed by a producing team of indie all-stars that includes Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Tacconea.k.a. The Lonely Islandtheres still hope of this film hitting theaters when they reopen.

In a funhouse reversal of this dynamic, She Dies Tomorrow (B+)another auteur effort pairing two indie-film darlings, Upstream Color and Pet Sematarys Amy Seimetz and frequent Alex Ross Perry collaborator Kate Lyn Sheilhas inventive, invigorating visual panache to spare, even when its screenplay is enigmatic to the point of obfuscation. The film opens with a quarantine-worthy scenario, as Amy (Shiel) putters around her house, picking out and putting on a sequin gown as bombastic classical music blares in the background before shopping for leather jackets (and, more curiously, cremation urns) online. When her concerned friend Jane (Jane Adams) comes by and finds Amy blankly standing in her backyard holding a leaf blower, we learn two key details: Amy is an alcoholic whos fallen off the wagon, and shes gripped by the unshakeable, eerily calm belief that she will die the next day.

The origins and function of this belief riff on a cosmic version of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers by way of It Follows, as everyone who Amy encounters catches this belief likewell, like a virus. The pandemic here is existential and emotional, as first Jane, then everyone she meets, is visited by a psychedelic onslaught of color, sound, and pummeling strobe light. Its sort of like being abducted by aliens while high on LSD, and it turns all who see and hear it into hollow shells of doom. And thats totally terrifying and disorienting, an effect that builds until Michelle Rodriguez intoning about death next to a swimming pool slowly filling up with blood seems about right for the situation. The film does lose its way a bit as it wanders through vast expanses of dread in search of an ending. But in terms of originality, Seimetzs second feature-length outing as a writer-director (her first, Sun Dont Shine, debuted at SXSW in 2012) is unmatched in the films we watched for this years virtual fest.

Meanwhile, with the gorgeous, misty hills of Northern California adding priceless production value, writer-directors Mario Furloni and Kate McLeans Freeland (B) was without a doubt the most visually accomplished of the bunch. Krisha Fairchildthe same Krisha who lent her name to Trey Edward Shults debut, Krisha (2015)stars as Devi, a Humboldt County pot farmer struggling to keep up with the complicated bureaucratic tangle of legalization. Riding the line between drama and thriller as Devis predicament becomes more dire, Freeland depends even more heavily on its lead performance than I Used To Go Here. Mainly, thats because its screenplay falters in its attempts to expand Devis world beyond the films core conflict. But Fairchild is magnificent in the role, giving a layered performance that evokes deep pathos for this woman left behind now that the communal values once associated with her crop of choice have been replaced by the capitalist power structures she retreated to the hills to escape in the first place.

Growing pot in the mountains far away from the prying eyes of the law is one version of the American dream. Another is changing the face of a quintessentially American junk food, like the subject of Alice Gus documentary The Donut King (B-). As an energetic montage at the beginning of the film states, Los Angeles has a much higher percentage of donut shops than any other city in the U.S.one for every 7,000 residents, as opposed to the national average of one per 30,000. And almost all of those donut shops are owned by Cambodian people, whose market dominance is so complete that even East Coast staple Dunkin Donuts struggled to break into Southern California in the 90s.

Remarkablyalmost miraculouslythis is all the work of one man: Ted Ngoy, who sponsored hundreds of refugees to come to the U.S. and gave them turnkey loans to run their own donut shops in the 70s and 80s. The first part of Gus documentary celebrates Ngoy, as well as the ingenuity and tireless work ethic of immigrants in general, with a vivid hybrid of biographical documentary and food porn set to colorful animation and a hip-hop beat. In fact, The Donut King plays much like an extended episode of Ugly Delicious, before diving into darker territory in its second half that actively dismantles the myths it spent the first hour building. And although this abrupt turn destabilizes the films structure in a way it never quite recovers from, it also makes The Donut King much more than simple food pornnot that theres anything wrong with that, particularly when creative, mouthwatering treats like cronuts and emoji donuts are so lovingly showcased.

The Donut King is just one of several women-helmed documentaries about dreamers struggling against impossible odds screening virtually through SXSW: Film fans will find Cathryne Czubek and Hugo Perezs Wakaliwood documentary Once Upon A Time In Uganda of special interest. And for music fans theres Dark City Beneath The Beat, a stylish exploration of Baltimores club underground from director TT The Artist, as well as Tomboy, a documentary following four female drummers from different generations by Lindsay Lindenbaum.

Its surreal to think about how quickly such simple pleasures as going out for a donut or sitting down in a crowded movie theater have disappeared from the daily lives of so many people around the world. And as the industry adapts to the new normal of social distancing and shelter in place orders, its the scrappy ground-up filmmakers who are most at risk of having their already unstable livelihoods decimated. The future of SXSW itself is uncertain at this point, as the festival lays off employees amid a reported $355 million loss for the city of Austin following the cancellation of this years festival. But the dream of standing in the front of that crowded theater, taking in the applause that marks the culmination of years of hard work? SXSW or no SXSW, pre-or post-COVID-19, thats going to be difficult to destroy.

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Women filmmakers with big dreams shine through The A.V. Clubs coverage of the SXSW that wasn't - The A.V. Club

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There’s Something Hiding in Petscop – EGMNOW

Posted: at 5:12 am

Do you remember being born? Is there such a thing as a curse that can change your past? Can a closed door become an open door without actually opening?

Well, no. Obviously not. Those questions are absurd. Unless youre watching Petscop.

When youre watching Petscop, the very fact that these questions have been asked hints at a whole world of mysteryone that has kept a dedicated community of viewers hanging on every word, studying every frame, and piecing together whats been treated as a giant, mystifying puzzle.

Something like Petscop couldnt really have existed at any previous point in time. Its a series of videos that, at first, appear to be just amateurish uploads of footage from an unreleased video game, complete with halting, unpracticed voiceovers by the player. Its the kind of thing you might stumble across during a deep dive into YouTube, among the thousands of Lets Plays and game analyses that get uploaded on a daily basis.

However, it doesnt take long to realize that theres something different about Petscop, and over the course of its 24 videos, it slowly turns into a surreal, haunting, and often unnerving journey, filled with themes of abuse, trauma, and obsession.

To say that Petscop isnt a real game is mostly accurate. Nobody ever tried to develop a PS1 game by that name, and all the creators, players and testers hinted at in the videos are entirely fictional.

But on Tony Domenicos computer, theres a file called Petscop.exe. Everything seen in the Petscop videos comes from that file.

Every aspect of Petscopits programming, graphics, music, voiceovers, and recordingswas created by Domenico. He says it all started after he watched a talk called Stop Drawing Dead Fish, which discussed how computer-based art can be alive in ways that drawings and animations cant.

Afterwards, he had a dream about a livestreamed puppet show that used a game engine. Dreams being what they are, Domenico has since forgotten the details, but the concept came up again during a conversation with a friend about possible creepy projects that they could work on.

First he was talking about the idea of animating a Lets Play by hand, Domenico said. Then, as we talked about it more, it became, What if you actually made the game?

The more Domenico thought about it, the more he realized that he had ideas for what a game of that sort would be like.

His dream wasnt the only influence. Domenico says that Petscop drew a lot of inspiration from creepypastas such as Ben Drowned, a story regularly shared around the internet about a bootleg copy of The Legend of Zelda: Majoras Mask. While playing, the narrator experiences a series of strange events that at first seem to be minor bugs, but as they increase in scope and bleed into real life, he gradually realizes that the game may be haunted by its previous owner. Petscop also drew inspiration from Marble Hornets, a YouTube series that follows the aftermath of a low-budget movie shoot during which the filmmakers ran afoul of the supernatural creature Slender Man.

Domenico also noted that movies by surrealist filmmaker David Lynch had a huge impact on his work. Inland Empire is probably the largest single influence, he said. You know, this whole thing of being trapped in a cursed film, you can make certain connections.

He also drew on some psychological experiments and therapeutic practices. For example, a clear reference is made to the Strange Situation procedure, which is used to observe the attachment between children and their caregivers. Theres also a scene that involves playing a board game with what appears to be a school counselora strategy that therapists sometimes use to analyze a young patients behavior.

It was all stuff I read about years prior, said Domenico. I may have read about them further as I was starting, though I dont remember now.

On top of all that, he started working on the project because, well, it sounded kind of easy.

I hadnt finished anything substantial in a while and wanted something undaunting to get back into it, Domenico said. I guess it started as kind of a shallow thing.

Of course, the last word any Petscop fan would use to describe the series is shallow. Thats something thats made clear in in the very first video, where you hear the nervous-sounding voice of the character Paul, who explains to an unnamed person why hes uploading the videos.

This is just to, uh, prove to you that Im not lying about this game that I found, he says. Im just gonna walk you through everything that Ive seen so far, and uh obviously it will be exactly as I described it, because this is it.

In a normal Lets Play, the style of dialogue would be a turn-offan indication that Paul is nothing but a rote amateur who has no idea how to make a video interesting for his audience. But in the context of Petscop, it adds a thick layer of realism that sucks the viewer in. Most of us, if we tried to upload something to YouTube, would sound like Paul: stumbling over sentences, struggling to put into words exactly whats on our minds.

Its never outright explained who Paul is talking to, but theres clearly a backstory between the two characters, with hints scattered throughout the series that are left for the viewer to piece together on their own. Thats how it goes with a lot of things in Petscop: Nothing is said explicitly, but there are plenty of breadcrumbs that imply something larger, and darker, at play.

I like stuff that leaves a lot of room for the imagination, Domenico said. The way I thought about it was, Im only showing a slice of things. I hoped to get across a feeling like theres a lot more here, something strange and complex happening in the background, and you just arent getting a full view of it.

What is shownin the first video, at leastis footage of a strange, brightly-colored PlayStation 1 game about catching unusual pets inside an abandoned facility. Catching these pets requires the player to solve a number of puzzles, such as sliding a bucket under a living rain cloud or slipping into a cage after flipping a switch that slowly closes the gate.

The puzzles themselves are a little unusual, but they follow a sort of logic that a player could reasonably figure out given enough time to experiment.

If you pay enough attention, however, youll notice that somethings off about a number of little details. A sign laments that we have failed to remove all of the Pets from their homes. Another sign tells the player not to be discouraged if they run from you. A trophy calls one Pet a real champ for its refusal to leave its cage.

To make sense of this, Domenico said, you need to try to get into the mind of the fictional games developer.

That beginning part of Petscop was still created by someone, Domenico said. Thats a really important thing. Everything is there because somebody decided to put it there. And so you can wonder, who was it, and what was their state of mind?

Any unease caused by these strange elements are soon found to be justified by the end of the first video, where its revealed that the game contains an entire hidden world that dwarfs whats on the surface.

Its a massive, dark plane, holding mysteries and impossible puzzles that reveal a story about kidnappings, deaths, and an unknown group of conspirators that seems to be forcing Paul to keep publishing videos.

Petscop wasnt shared to the public until after the first four videos were uploaded, and there was already a lot to digest in that first wave. Its creepy, though not in the way that threatens anyone directly. Its kind of a slow burn that strongly implies that theres something horribly wrong. Its a kind of horror that Domenico wishes there were more of.

Every October Im like, heres that mood again, and I get kind of excited about it, he said. Then I remember that the majority is cheese, or pure misery, or torture, or all of the above. That is not my thing. The whole vibe repels me and makes me feel kind of sick.

So its like, anything can happen. People could jump out of your TV, that kind of thing. I love trying to bring myself back to that.

Theres a door that appears after a long period of searching a seemingly endless open field, which only opens after Paul lets the game run idle for a few minutes. A strange tune plays as the path forward is revealed. Theres a mirrored bedroom in which Paul acts as someone elses reflection, which goes out of sync while the same music plays. Quitters room is written on the floor, and theres a note on the wall that asks Do you remember being born?

Theres a strange tool that looks like an awl, or a gourd, or a womb, which lets Paul ask it questions, but usually answers with I dont know. This tool is seen drawn in crayon, over and over again, and hung on the walls of the passageway leading up to it. It tells Paul to keep watching the windmill thats seen on a screen behind itPaul later finds where the windmill should be, but sees nothing but its foundation, bare on the ground.

Its a one of the series regular motifs: puzzles, challenges, and obscure hints that stretch the limits of what a player could be expected to solve or piece together. Each unusual moment adds a strange sense of apprehension that could really only work in the medium of fake Lets Play videos.

Each example has its own purpose, but in general, it felt important to me that I take advantage of the fake game format, Domenico said. That meant doing things that I couldnt reasonably do in a real game.

It all creates a feeling of dread thats hard to put a finger on. Domenico doesnt think hes the only person who wants that kind of experience in a horror work.

I dont even necessarily know what I want, Domenico said. But I always want something really strongly, and cant find it. A lot of stuff on the internet these days is getting so, so close. People are actively looking for it now, whatever it is.

A day after the fourth video was published, it was shared to the public on a small subreddit called /r/creepygaming, by a user named palescowitz. (Domenico confirmed he was indeed the one behind the account.) The title of the post was fairly straightforward: Videos of a mysterious unfinished PSX game from 1997, called Petscop. Theres something hiding in it.

I was expecting mixed reactions, Domenico said. I thought people might think it was stupid, and was bracing myself for that.

That wasnt quite what happened.

The replies were universally positive, and that initial Reddit post ended up being the only time Domenico ever needed to directly promote one of his videos. Viewers started latching on to all the connections and implications of everything and getting drawn into the uncanny atmosphere that left them ill at ease.

They noticed the hidden images in the loading screens and the things in the background that Paul didnt seem to notice. It drew people into the narrativeand that was by design.

Theres this thing, which Marble Hornets may have made popular, of involving people in your videos by hiding things in them. Giving off a feeling that theres maybe more here that you arent seeing, Domenico said. Thats great, especially for the people who never find those hidden things. Just knowing theres something that you arent seeing creates a great atmosphere for horror.

It soon became clear to viewers that there were shapes, ideas, characters, and themes that were all repeated and tied together in ways that hinted at something going on thats much larger than an unfinished game.

And so Petscops popularity began to grow. A community gathered around the videos: a subreddit, a wiki, a Discord server. Thousands, then tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands of people subscribed to the Petscop YouTube channel.

After it started blowing up, I felt sick for a while, because I didnt know what was going to happen. But after that wore off, it was just fun, Domenico said. It was such pure luck. It feels absurd sometimes.

Part of the community became dedicated to finding connections and meanings. YouTube channels like Game Theory, Nightmare Masterclass, and Pyrocynical made their own analysis videos. In addition to the wiki, fans wrote a 129-page shared Google Doc documenting what they knew, all in the hopes of getting to the bottom of just what was happening.

Domenico tended not to look at those discussions. He found that reading the theories and discoveries was unsettling. In general, its uncomfortable when people look at your work through a magnifying glass, he said. But also, people approach things in very, very different ways. I think thats great, but I dont need to see it all.

He would, however, pop into the Discord and subreddit after he released a video. Viewers initial responses were something he found far more interesting than the in-depth speculation that followed.

I liked reading immediate reactions, because those were more based on the feeling of the video, Domenico said. But those reactions were filtered through words, of course. It might have been nice to actually see more people watch the videos for the first time, as they were being released.

Domenico had been making games, music, and art for over a decade by the time he created Petscop. Hed never received anything close to this type of response to anything hed made before.

Before Petscop, his game 8:Capsule, created for a 2010 contest in the TIGSource forums, was the project that had garnered the most attention. The rather abstract puzzle game requires players to figure out which objects to throw at which targets in order to progress to the next level.

It placed third in the contest and eventually faded into obscurity.

After Petscop ended, though, people started looking at Domenicos old work again. The game that received the most attention, called Nifty, shares certain elements with his more-famous work. The two games are purportedly made by the same fictional company, and some of the same cryptic symbols are shared between them. Both have darker stories lurking beneath what, at first glance, appears to be an innocent, if quirky, game.

I enjoyed that continuity. It felt like Id been slowly developing this thing over time, Domenico said. There were a few people who played Nifty back in the day, and I wanted to communicate that feeling to them as well.

When Domenico started Nifty, he intended to create exactly the sort of simple, abstract puzzle game that it first appears to be on the surface. That didnt turn out to be very interesting, he admitted.

To spice things up, he started making levels that caused things to go completely off-the-rails. The result was a game with outside-the-box puzzles that forced players to read the games config files, delete saves, and edit file contents.

I was learning Game Maker, and I wanted to use all the features of Game Maker that I could for the puzzles, Domenico explained.

Theres also a very creepypasta-esque backstory hidden behind Nifty, involving hints at previous releases of the game that caused emotional attachment to its main character that eventually led to several cases of suicide.

Its the kind of creepy story that appeals to Domenicothe kind where you feel a sense of dread not just for the characters on screen, but for yourself as well.

Its not that youre scared of anything in particular. Its like when youre a kid, and you havent been in this universe long enough to have this really solidified feeling of what can and cant happen in it, Domenico said. So its like, anything can happen. People could jump out of your TV, that kind of thing. I love trying to bring myself back to that. I think you can do it by messing with basic expectations, operating on a foreign set of rules, making it difficult to predict whats going to happen.

Domenico announced on Twitter that the game only has superficial similarities to Petscop, but now he admits that theres more to it than that.

I cant deny that theres a certain thematic continuity stretching across all that stuff. Its more accurate to say that they arent canonically related.

Despite being such an enigmatic piece of work with ties to his more popular creations, Domenico would rather people didnt dig up his old stuff. Im not proud of that stuff, as it exists. I mean, thats part of why I recycle ideas, he said. For the people who didnt already know about my work, Id rather Petscop bury those old things than draw attention to them. But of course, thats not how it works.

And yet, Domenico admits that when he finished Nifty, he couldnt keep his mind off of what he had created. Petscop evolved partly from Nifty, he said. I kept thinking about that game after I finished it. I developed a whole story around it, which I combined with other ideas I had, and it eventually became its own thing.

For anyone paying attention, the rough outline of Petscops narrative isnt too difficult to hash out. It revolves around a man named Marvin, a tragedy that killed his childhood friend Lina, and an incident in which Marvin kidnaps his own daughter, whom he believes to be Lina reborn. Theres also a failed attempt to change a girl named Belle into someone named Tiara, a traffic accident, and a connection between Paul, the game, and his family.

But if thats all there was to it, it wouldnt have garnered such a dedicated fanbase that still wants to figure out its mysteries, and what different parts of the video imply about the story, the nature of the game, and what exactly it is that theyre watching.

What, for instance, does playing Stravinskys Septet have to do with rebirthing? Whats the purpose behind the two calendars from different years in the ghost room? What are we meant to learn from the video of dozens of pyramid-headed characters?

There is a story that ties it all together, Domenico said. He set forward with an idea of who the characters were, what their motivations were, and what the meaning behind the events was. Having that in place, he believes, means that viewers can intuitively sense that everything ties together.

Hes not going to tell us what he had in mind, though, and he allowed his gut feelings to influence what showed up in the videos.

I chose what details I wanted to include, based on what felt good, Domenico said. Now that its over, thats it. Saying more would be like extending the series.

In fact, he intentionally left gaps in the story because he felt like adding too much detail would ruin the sense of ambiguity that he was aiming for. This led to him scrapping some work when he realized it set too many things in stone.

Early on, I wrote a lot of stuff for a Petscop Discovery Pages website that I was going to release with the first video, along with a developer journal. That material could have destroyed the series immediately, Domenico said. I used that website in a later video, too small to be readable, and that was the perfect amount of detail. You can just make out the pictures, and see how much text there is, and youre informed of a page called Your Child, and thats all the information needed. I was so happy with that.

He says his viewers seem to have understood most of the themes he was trying to get across. But if it was his goal to outright explain his intentions, he wouldnt have made such a hard-to-penetrate series to begin with.

Theres room for interpreting it in different ways, based on your own experiences and what you care about, said Domenico. I prefer not to explain it in words myself, because that would take away from personal interpretations, and because I think too much is lost in that translation into words.

Domenico has remained insistent that his viewers personal interpretations are more important than anything he had in his head when he made the videos. Hes too close to the work to accurately analyze itanything he gets out of Petscop would be based on his thoughts while creating it, rather than the seeing whats actually in the videos.

After working on something for a long time, your perspective on it is really messed up, Domenico said. I say other people have a more valid perspective because, for better or worse, its more based on the work as it actually exists.

Some of his fans have shown frustration at these statements, many of them having approached the series mysteries as something that they were meant to get to the bottom of through carefully inspecting all the details. That wasnt Domenicos intention.

Its not a puzzle to be solved, and there is nothing that I would call a solution, he said. I like ambiguity, not as a tease or a challenge, but as something that stands on its own.

Its not even that Domenico wants his fans to come up with their own stories about what happenedhe just thinks that the sense of uncertainty and fear that comes with the series to be the main focus. Its not that Im asking people to literally fill in all the blanks with their own answers, either. Thats fine, but if you do that, youve removed the ambiguity, and changed the atmosphere of the entire thing, he said.

Even so, the hand of authorial intent is still visible in some elements of the series.Themes of childhood trauma and rebirth, for example, are impossible to miss.

Theres this sort of abstract idea of being lost and corrupted in an irreparable way that just feels so deeply sad and scary. Lots of different ideas and images feed into this. Rebirth feeds into it easily, Domenico said. It doesnt come from experience. I had a good childhood.

One thing that Petscop is not meant to be about, Domenico insists, is the death of Candace Newmaker. However, the series did make direct references to that tragedy.

Newmaker, originally born Candace Tiara Elmore, was a 10-year-old girl who died in April 2000 after her adoptive parents took her to an unlicensed therapist. The therapist wrapped her in a flannel sheet and covered her in pillows as part of a rebirthing ceremony. She suffocated inside.

In Petscops first 10 episodes, there are plenty of references to the tragedy. For instance, Pauls player is referred to as Newmaker, the endless dark field is called the Newmaker Plane, and the label of quitters room appears to be a reference to how the therapist called Candace a quitter when she was unable to free herself from the wrappings.

These references took on a life of their own once they were discovered. Many people following the series fixated on them, with the belief spreading that Petscop was about Candace Newmaker.

This was not Domenicos intent. After revealing himself as the creator of Petscop, Domenico tweeted out an admission that the references were intentionaland said that including them was extremely stupid of me. The tweet is still pinned to the top of his Twitter page.

The references, Domenico said, were only meant to tie into the themes of rebirth that are seen throughout the series. Looking back, he says he believes it wasnt appropriate to reference a real-life tragedy in a work like Petscop.

A decision like that, to reference a tragedy involving real people, should have a lot of weight to it. It should have been something I treated very carefully, Domenico said. I did not treat it carefully enough. But also, I feel that this series was just not the place for that kind of thing.

When he came to this realization, he made a few changes to how the series would play out.

The changes were subtle, because I was never gonna go much deeper with the references, Domenico said. Mainly, I avoided using the name Newmaker again. I didnt want to emphasize it any more than I already had.

With Petscop now behind him, Domenicos set his sights on another projectone that he says hell complete in its entirety before he starts revealing it to the public. One thing he will share is that it will apparently have some connection to the 1997 PC game Lego Island.

I loved that game. Its the silly and relaxed atmosphere, plus the mystery of itI mean, at the time, I thought there were secrets, but actually Id already seen everything, Domenico said. Theres not much to it. These days I also like it because its so rough and broken.

Domenico said that therell still be an element of horror to the project, but that he plans to tell the story in a much more straightforward manner than Petscop. Other than that, he doesnt have much that he wants to reveal yet.

Its still pretty early on, Domenico said. Though I have a lot planned, those plans usually change dramatically as a project goes on.

He also sees this new endeavor as a welcome change of pace following a project thats taken up the last few years of his life.

I loved making Petscop, and Im proud of it, and Im happy that I get to move on to something else, Domenico said.

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There's Something Hiding in Petscop - EGMNOW

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Coronavirus: DeWine in the vanguard of state leaders across the U.S. – Dayton Daily News

Posted: at 5:11 am

COLUMBUS

When public health experts sounded the alarm on coronavirus, Gov. Mike DeWine listened and started to move aggressively, even before Ohio had its first confirmed case.

Well before other governors or big city mayors, DeWine asked colleges and universities to suspend in-person classes, closed K-12 schools, shut down bars and restaurants to dine-in customers and put a limit on mass gatherings.

Other states soon followed Ohios example.

DeWine, 73, has spent five decades in public offices and has made decisions and directed the state to take action often two or three steps ahead of the rest of the country.

RELATED:DeWines first year in office: You can tell hes loving being governor

There are two reasons why. No. 1, his focus has long been on health and safety of families and children, which made a looming pandemic something he was inclined early to focus on and attempt to address. No. 2, he is being given significant credit for taking counsel from Dr. Amy Acton, whom he appointed in February, 2019, to lead the 1,100-employee Ohio Department of Health.

I think its because of Amy. I think hes the type of leader and I related to this you hire really good people and you trust them, said Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, a Democrat. She added, That still takes leadership, its still really hard. You come out on Sunday night and close all the bars, thats really hard.

RELATED:Who is Dr. Amy Acton?

Clearly our governor has been in the vanguard of state leaders across the U.S. on this issue, said Greg Robinson, a Republican running for Ohio Senate. Gov. DeWine has had a long career in public service, and one defining quality of good public servants is their ability to listen to others and take advice. He appears to be doing just that, for the benefit of Ohioans.

Meryl Justin Chertoff, director of the Georgetown Project on State & Local Government Policy and Law, said Dr. Acton is Ohios version of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infetious Diseases.

He added: Gov. DeWine himself is handling this extremely well. Besides relying on expert advice, he is using facts to make his case, he is not politicizing the crisis, and he is reaching across the aisle. As a former U.S. Senator, he also understands the limits of what federal government can do in an emergency like this, and how important it is for governors to step up.

DETAILS:Second resident of Koester Pavilion dies, awaiting coronavirus test results

Each day, DeWine, Acton, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted and a constellation of guests have held press briefings at the Ohio Statehouse. They have often unloaded bombshells of news: closing schools, shutting bars, banning mass gatherings. The briefings are in-depth often lasting 90 minutes so that they can explain their rationale, the ever-evolving facts, and pandemic control methods. And the speakers repeatedly express empathy and understanding that many of their decisions will be brutal on Ohio families and the economy.

The briefings are carried live on public radio and TV stations as well as live-streamed on OhioChannel.org. The briefings have racked up more than 125,000 views on OhioChannel alone. C-SPAN, the national broadcaster that typically focuses on the federal government, asked to start carrying them live.

MORE COVERAGE:Coronavirus puts strain on homeless system, officials say

Whaley said DeWine has a clear understanding of what levers in government he can pull to blunt the impact of the pandemic in Ohio. She praised him for using his authority. The one place where it got really messy is where he didnt have authority. And that was the election.

Up until March 16, DeWine, Acton and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose urged voters to cast their ballots absentee or in-person on March 17. LaRose made a plea for new poll workers to step up, expecting that many of the 35,000 workers often people in their 60s, 70s and 80s would drop out. Boards of Elections dispatched kits with latex finger covers, gloves, alcohol wipes and other supplies to polling place managers to disinfect voting equipment.

But advice from the Centers for Disease Control shifted, suggesting the mass gathering threshold drop to 50.

Less than 24 hours before the polls were to open LaRose and DeWine pivoted, recommending that in-person voting be suspended until June 2 and absentee by mail voting be continued until then. They said in the press conference in which they announced their recommendations that they didnt have the authority to change the primary date. But when a lawsuit was hastily filed to request an injunction on in-person voting, a Franklin County judge later that night rejected it. That led Acton to use Ohio public heath law to issue an order to shut down the states 3,650 polling locations.

FRANKS TAKE: Neighborhood kids are getting creative with their time

The abrupt shutdown triggered a slew of lawsuits and protests. The Ohio Democratic Party filed suit in the Ohio Supreme Court against LaRose, who issued a directive setting June 2 as the new primary date. Voting rights groups are demanding that the registration deadline be extended. And legislators are expected to meet this week to determine the next steps on the primary election.

DeWines actions are being contrasted by national commentators with some of the statements by President Trump in the early stages of the outbreak. In early March, President Trump downplayed the seriousness of the virus at the same time DeWine and Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther ordered that the popular Arnold Sports Festival in Columbus be closed to spectators.

RELATED:Mike DeWine ran governor race on his long experience and track record

Acton has said that on the front end of a pandemic, public health experts look like alarmists and on the back end theyre criticized for not doing enough.

Acton, a former assistant professor of public health at Ohio State University, strikes a balance between medical expert and relatable friend as she breaks down the pandemic curve, the coming surge of cases, the push to collect all available personal protective equipment. She offers a dose of hope at every briefing, assuring Ohioans that well get through this together.

Husted, the former Dayton Chamber of Commerce executive, has been calling banks and credit unions and other business leaders, assuring Ohioans that the food supply chain is strong, and working to shore up the unemployment compensation system. He also urged employers to send home sick workers and step up disinfection efforts.

This can be done right and employers need to own this and take the responsibility for it so that we dont have to take further actions. If people act responsibly, if employers act responsibly and their employees follow that guidance, we will get through this healthier and more economically sound, Husted said at a recent briefing.

Coronavirus: Grocery store workers hit hard

Still, the decisions to close businesses and restrict gatherings isnt supported by all.

I dont have access to all the same health information that all the government officials do but it does seem to me that we need to balance the other risks to peoples lives, such as shutting down the economy, causing people to lose their jobs and their health care, not be able to maintain their housing or feed their children, all of which will endanger peoples lives, said Democrat Richard Cordray, who lost the 2018 gubernatorial race to DeWine.

OSU College of Public Health Dean Amy Fairchild said DeWine is trusting the advice from medical, scientific and public health experts.

Hes embracing the science. He is listening to somebody who is telling him hard truths in the face of uncertainty, who is helping him navigate the situation and helping him react every single day, she said. Fairchild described Acton as someone who has the communication skills and intellectual and scientific punch to direct the Ohio Department of Health.

DeWine praised Acton for her background a medical degree with residencies in preventative medicine and pediatrics as well as a masters in public health and her ability to explain complex public health issues in plain language.

DeWine said this week that he believes an outcome of this pandemic will be a renewed emphasis on public health.

Ive felt for a long time that we have not paid enough attention to public health. When I look at the problems that we face in Ohio, so many of the challenges that we face have to do with health issues. So I think its going to make us look really hard at that, he said.

He also predicts that there will be a national assessment on what America needs to be able to produce without relying on other countries, including medical gear and personal protective equipment.

Acton predicted that the pandemic will bring a baby boom beginning nine months from now and longer term, the country will see a decrease in common infectious diseases as protocols are improved.

Public health is so vitally important. We go through these cycles through history with this field. Ive always talked about how the fact that we live 30 years longeralmost two-thirds of that came from this vast field we call public health and its an evolving field. The epidemics we face today are things like suicide and opiate addiction, Acton said.

The field is evolving and shows how everyone is interconnected.

We have to face the fact that human and economic development are inextricably linked. They just are. When we doing the kind of policy making that we are doing now, its like every single thing is inter-related. That is a profound thing, she said.

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National Guard Deployed to Help Distribute Food and Protect Vulnerable – The Peoples Vanguard of Davis

Posted: at 5:11 am

Food banks are seeing a shortage in volunteers and experiencing greater need due to COVID-19

Gov. Newsom: Its in these times of crisis that Californians are at their best, coming to the aid of those in their community who are most in need. I ask all Californians who are able to join our Neighbor-to-Neighbor campaign to safely assist those in need in your community.

(From press release) SACRAMENTO California Governor Gavin Newsom today announced the deployment of California National Guard members to provide short-term food security to isolated and vulnerable Californians. Building on Governor Newsoms prioritization of protecting the most vulnerable from the COVID-19 pandemic, the short deployment will help to stabilize the immediate need of food banks.

Its in these times of crisis that Californians are at their best, coming to the aid of those in their community who are most in need. Food banks provide a critical lifeline for families, and are needed now more than ever. Families across our state are suddenly losing work, and millions of Californians most vulnerable to COVID-19 are staying home to protect their health and the health of others. I ask all Californians who are able to join our Neighbor-to-Neighbor campaign to safely assist those in need in your community.

The Neighbor-to-Neighbor campaign is a testament to the strength of our larger California community, said First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Now more than ever we must create a culture of WE over me. I am so proud that Californians across the state stand ready to meet this moment by embracing our California values of inclusivity, generosity and community.

Due to COVID-19, many food banks have been affected by a significant decline in volunteerism, impacting logistical and local infrastructure for food distribution.The California Guard will initially deploy personnel and logistical equipment to a food bank distribution warehouse in Sacramento County starting today, and will conduct immediate site assessments statewide for those counties that have requested short-term support and stabilization. This short-term assistance from the California National Guard allows time to mobilize AmeriCorps, California Conservation Corps and Local Conservation Corps members, and other volunteers where counties have identified serious gaps.

The Administrations food deployment strategyalso launches the Neighbor-to-Neighbor campaign, which calls on neighbors to be first line of support for Californias most vulnerable residents who have been advised to stay at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Neighbor-to-Neighbor campaign is focused on older adults and promotes ways to safely check on your neighbors, family and friends, and will be run by California Volunteers, the state office tasked with engaging Californians in service, volunteering and civic action.

The Administration is partnering with the social networking service Nextdoor to provide valuable information to California communities about the states response to COVID-19. The collaboration will allow the state to reach more than 22,000 neighborhoods using the platform. Neighbors use Nextdoor to exchange helpful information and California Volunteers will use this site to share ways residents can safely check on each other during the COVID-19 outbreak. The platform will also be used to share ways to safely ensure community members have the basic necessities they may need during periods of home isolation.

The State of California has also released information to promote resources and options for those facing food insecurity. A resource list will be posted to serve.ca.gov on ways Californians can support vulnerable members of our community that may have limited food resources, in ways that are in line with CDPH guidelines.

Dade Police Switch to Citations Rather than Arrests For Misdemeanors – The Peoples Vanguard of Davis

Posted: at 5:11 am

One of Americas largest police forces says its drastically reducing the number of people it arrests during the coronavirus pandemic.

By Jerry Lannelli

The Miami-Dade County Police Department, one of the 10 largest law enforcement agencies in the U.S., has instructed its officers to issue promises to appear and civil citations for all misdemeanor crimes during the COVID-19 outbreak barring exigent circumstances requiring an arrest, a spokesperson confirmed to The Appeal.

The departments direction is the utilization of Promise To Appear (PTA) and Civil Citations for misdemeanor crimes unless exigent circumstances require a physical arrest, department spokesperson Alvaro Zabaleta wrote in an email. This doesnt mean we are going to stop doing police work, we just have to prioritize our strategies given the affect [sic] this virus has on the entire criminal justice system; e.g., jails, courts etc., and the wellbeing of the officers.

The announcement comes after the Miami Herald reported today that at least 13 officers and three civilian aides from the City of Miami Police Department were sent home to self-quarantine after exhibiting flu-like symptoms.

Other police departments in Floridaespecially the other 34 police departments within Miami-Dade County aloneare likely to follow suit in the coming days or hours. Spokespersons for the City of Miami and Miami Beach Police Departments did not immediately respond to messages from The Appeal this afternoon.

As Floridaand South Florida in particularemerges as a national hotspot for COVID-19, civil-rights organizations are pressuring local police departments and prosecutors to reduce their jail populations. In an open letter last week, at least 18 civil-rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, demanded that Miami-Dade County take drastic measures to reduce its jail population before COVID-19 spreads through the jail system.

During this pandemic, incarcerated people are at increased risk of exposure and death, the letter stated. The unsanitary and dangerous living conditions in our jails make them a petri dish for viral infection, and neither the jails nor the county hospital [has] the capacity to handle such a large outbreak.

The Herald has since reported that jail bookings are slightly down from county averages in the last week. (In the Tampa area, Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister released 164 people from his county jail Thursday to hopefully slow the viruss spread.)

Via email, Zabaleta, the Miami police spokesperson, said the departments directives are in place indefinitely until further notice.

With the ongoing challenges we are facing due to the spread of COVID-19 (coronavirus), we must continually adapt, Zabaleta wrote. Therefore, we must remain flexible as the departmental directives may change. We hope our county returns to its normality soon.

Originally published by the Appeal.

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UC Davis Researchers Race to Develop Coronavirus Solutions – The Peoples Vanguard of Davis

Posted: at 5:11 am

Goal Is to Develop New Reagents, Tests, Vaccines and Treatments

By Andy Fell

Clinical pathologists, infectious disease physicians and scientists at the UC Davis Medical Center,California National Primate Research CenterandCenter for Immunology and Infectious Diseasesare collaborating on new reagents, diagnostic tests and a vaccine for the COVID-19 coronavirus. Their goal is to unravel the biology and infectious pathology of this new virus, and to develop means for prevention and ultimately treatment.

The team began by isolating, characterizing and culturing coronavirus from a patient treated at UC Davis, the first community-acquired case in the U.S., with the goal of making diagnostic tests in-house. These tests will make use of UC Davis existing infrastructure for high-capacity clinical laboratory testing. Widespread testing is crucial to unravel the true prevalence, lethality and contagiousness of COVID-19. Genetic differences between the UC Davis coronavirus isolate and those from other countries or parts of the U.S. may give clues about how the virus has spread.

Culturing the virus in the laboratory will allow researchers to investigate the basic biology of coronavirus how it attacks and invades cells, and what treatments might work against it.

The UC Davis researchers were able to quickly launch their coronavirus research program because of the existing strong relationships between the School of Medicine, the CIID and the primate center, where researchers study HIV/AIDS, Zika and other infectious diseases.

We knew who to call when the time came it was our colleagues and partners at the CIID and CNPRC, said Nam Tran, associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and senior director of clinical pathology, in charge of the SARS-CoV-2 testing at UC Davis Health. The UC Davis Clinical Laboratory will be deploying such tests soon, while at the same time developing high-throughput assays to meet the growing demand in the community. The high-throughput tests can perform up to 1,400 tests per day. Collaboration with the CIID and primate center is crucial to accelerate test validation required by the United States Food and Drug Administration, Tran said.

Nonhuman primate model

The UC Davis researchers also plan to develop a model of coronavirus infection in nonhuman primates. Researchers in China have already shown that COVID-19 will infect rhesus macaques, said Chris Miller, an infectious disease scientist at the primate center and professor of pathology, microbiology and immunology at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and CIID. This animal model could be used to develop and test potential treatments and vaccines, Miller said.

Among other objectives, the researchers plan to use the nonhuman primate model to look at how age influences the course of COVID-19 disease. So far, it appears that the infection is generally mild in children and younger people and most serious in people over 60, but it is not clear why.

Nonhuman primates are a uniquely powerful model for investigating human disease, said Professor John Morrison, director of the primate center. The coronavirus pandemic shows the need for significant investment in the national primate research centers so that they can build collaborations and be ready for such outbreaks, he said.

Teamwork essential

All work with coronaviruses has to be conducted in biosafety level 3 (BSL3) facilities, requiring special precautions. The investigators obtained regulatory approvals from the institutional ethical and biosafety committees, a complex and sometimes lengthy procedure.

Given the clinical significance and global importance of these projects, emergency committee meetings were called and experts worked over time to assure safety and full compliance with CDC guidelines and all regulatory requirements in a record turnaround time, said Angela Haczku, associate dean for translational research at the UC Davis School of Medicine.

The researchers have applied for supplemental grant funding from the NIH to support their work. But they are not waiting for federal funds to be awarded. UC Davis is using internal campus and primate center funds to get the work underway.

Originally published in the UC Davis news

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Sunday Commentary: We Have Time to Put All-Mail Ballot in Place for November – The Peoples Vanguard of Davis

Posted: at 5:11 am

Last week several states went to the polls, but with reduced voting turnoutand five other states have postponed their elections until June. The reality is that, while the November election seems like a long way away, November is not very far off.

Increasingly, this is being viewed as a long-term threat. At best, a vaccine is seen as 12 to more likely 18 months away.

As Dr. Tom Frieden, who formerly headed the CDC, put it, The Covid-19 pandemic will change our world forever. Until it is controlled, we will all need to change how we wash our hands, cover our coughs, greet others and how close we come to others. We will rethink the need for meetings and conferences. We will need broadband for all as a public utility like mail or water. We will need to support the vulnerable, even if only because their illness can risk our health.

As the Atlantic put it: From a public-health standard, the pandemic will not end for another 18 months. The only complete resolutiona vaccinecould be at least that far away.

Until then, we will be vulnerable to subsequent waves of the new coronavirus even if the current wave happens to ebb.

This year happens to be an election year. While they could postpone state primary elections until June, they cannot postpone the November general election, which is mandated by the Constitution.

We are already likely to see huge changes. Gone will be large campaign rallies. Gone too will likely be the party conventions. We will see a lot more in the way of online and virtualcampaigning.

But that only addresses the issue of the campaignnot the election itself.

While states understandably were caught flat-footed in the face of the threat, with eight months to prepare, the US government should not be.

There is a simple answer, one that frankly we should have started to implement many years agoshift from in-person voting to mail-in ballots. We have seen several states including Oregon do it, and we have had our own all-mail ballot elections here in Yolo County for special elections without large issues.

Interestingly enough, while this column has been in preparation for several days now, the NY Times Editorial Board has issued a similar recommendation to go to all-mail elections.

They note: It is almost certain that the 2020 election wont look like any weve seen before.

There will be unprecedented challenges to a nationwide vote during a time when there is a need to keep people physically separated.

The Times believes: The most practical fix is to make voting by mail a clear and free option for every eligible voter in the country.

They note the good news is that five states already have all or most of their voters vote by mail: Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington. Moreover, in 2016, nearly one-quarter of all voters cast ballots by mail.

The US election system is rather unique. We dont actually have a national election. We have a national election day. Instead, voting occurs in local voting booths, tabulated by local counties, and cumulated by the states to determine electors.

That means that such changes would have to occur at the county level, but coordinated by state and federal government.

The Times points out that there are a number of advantages to voting by mail.

First is turnout is significantly higher nearly everywhere voting by mail is used.

That is not a huge surprise. It is easier to vote and drop a ballot in the mail than to drive to a polling place, wait in line, and vote.

Second, they note that voters of all political persuasions use it and like it.

Third and interestingly enough, because locally people like Bob Dunning have complained about the potential for fraud, its safe and secure. Bar codes allow for ballot tracking and validation.

They continue, saying that states that use vote-by-mail have encountered essentially zero fraud: Oregon, the pioneer in this area, has sent out more than 100 million mail-in ballots since 2000, and has documented only about a dozen cases of proven fraud.

There is a lot of work to do, however, to pull it off at a national level. They note: In 2018, 31 states had fewer than 15 percent of their ballots cast by mail. Switching to all or nearly all voting by mail will require printing at least 70 million additional ballots.

They point out: These ballots will have to be ready to go out by Labor Day, less than six months from today. They must be postage-paid, so that no one has to pay a penny to vote, and there need to be enough machines and poll workers available to start counting ballots as soon as they come in. Signature-matching software can help ensure ballots are coming from the voters they were sent to, without introducing partisan bias into the process. And where signatures dont match, voters should have an opportunity to fix the problem and cast a provisional ballot if necessary.

This would not be free. It would cost an estimated $2 billion, according to a report released this week by the Brennan Center for Justice.

But while that sounds like a lot, given the $1 trillion stimulus plan Congress is considering, it seems like an easy solution to what could otherwise be a vexing problem.

And if it works, maybe this becomes the new normin a good way. It is long past time to modernize our voting. In fact, it was just a year ago we asked whether we should do this locally.

Analysis: Should We Look At Going to All-Mail Elections?

David M. Greenwald reporting

Sunday Commentary: We Have Time to Put All-Mail Ballot in Place for November - The Peoples Vanguard of Davis

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Texas and Ohio Include Abortion as Medical Procedures That Must Be Delayed – The New York Times

Posted: at 5:11 am

The announcement in Texas on Monday sent abortion rights advocates and their lawyers racing to determine how likely it was that clinics would need to stop abortion services.

We are still waiting for various legal teams and local providers to work through what it means, said the Very Rev. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, president of the National Abortion Federation.

Texas has a history of being on the vanguard of reducing abortion access. The last major Supreme Court decision on abortion, in 2016, involved a restrictive law in Texas. But it was still not clear on Monday night whether the states abortion clinics would stop providing services. Some seemed determined to continue.

Patients cannot wait until this pandemic is over to receive safe abortion care, Amy Hagstrom Miller, president of Whole Womans Health, the abortion clinic at the center of the Supreme Court decision, said in a statement.

In Ohio, where anti-abortion activists have gained influence in recent years, health authorities issued an order to postpone all nonessential surgeries beginning at 5 p.m. Wednesday. On Friday and Saturday, the office of the states attorney general sent warning letters to abortion clinics in Dayton, Cincinnati and Cleveland, telling them to immediately stop performing nonessential and elective surgical abortions.

A spokeswoman for the attorney generals office, Bethany McCorkle, said the letters were based on complaints that had come to Ohios Department of Health. At least one came from Ohio Right to Life, an anti-abortion advocacy group, said its president, Michael Gonidakis.

In an email blast to supporters on Saturday, Mr. Gonidakis said he had sent a letter to Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio, warning its president, Iris E. Harvey, that by performing surgical abortions, your company is putting the health and safety of all Ohioans in danger.

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A destiny among the nations (1) – Vanguard

Posted: at 5:11 am

By Obadiah Mailafia

IAM delighted to be guest speaker at this colloquium to celebrate the 50th birthday of the Honourable Kudla Satumari and the great humanitarian work he has been doing with his Haske Foundation. The people of his native southern Borno have suffered a harrowing tragedy from the murderous insurgency that is looking more and more like a genocide. It is becoming crystal clear that Christian communities in the North are the principal targets of the Jihad being waged by Boko Haram and the herdsmen of the apocalypse. It is a fact that our dishonest and jaundiced power elites prefer not to acknowledge.

Our brother Kudla has lost 19 members of his own blood relations in the conflagration. And yet, I see a man with a forgiving heart; a champion of peace a true lover of humanity. He has made a great success of his aviation business. But he has never allowed success to go into his head. Instead, his greatest hunger is to win souls for the Lord and to touch lives in a positive way. He has used his personal resources to help the downtrodden among his people.

I prophesy a great destiny for this hero of our time! According to my dictionary, destiny is a noun referring to what happens to someone or what will happen to them in the future, especially things that they cannot change or avoid. Destiny is thought to be synonymous with fate or a mans portion in life. It implies, according to Merriam-Webster, something foreordained and often suggests a great or noble course or end.

Many of our traditional cultures believe that every human being has his or her own unique path in life. The ancient Greeks often consulted the Oracle of Delphi to know what destiny held in store for them. Among the Yoruba, the oracles of Ifa are central to the making of kingship and to shaping decision-making among the rulers. At one extreme are the Christian Calvinists who believe in pre-destination in the community of the elect that are predestined for salvation; at the other are the existentialist philosophers such as Soren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus who believe that man is the sole architect of his own destiny.

The post-war French existentialist thinkers were, of course, anti-religious in temperament; belonging to a long tradition of French anti-clericalism that goes back to the 18th-century Enlightenment from Rousseau and Voltaire up to the leaders of the 1789 French Revolution. Nelson Mandela was apparently a believer in this concept of self-determination. His favourite poem while imprisoned in Robben Island was said to be Invictus, by the Victorian English poet William Ernest Henley: Out of the night that covers me, / Black as the pit from pole to pole, / I thank whatever gods may be / For my unconquerable soul. / It matters not how strait the gate, / How charged with punishments the scroll, / I am the master of my fate, / I am the captain of my soul.

None of us chose the circumstances of our birth. We had no choice about our parentage, religion, community and even the country into which we were born. But it is also clear that life is ultimately what we make of it. Man is a creature of choice. We are born with conscience and with a sense of moral responsibility. The greatest tragedy that can befall a young man or woman is to go through this life without having discovered their life-purpose or vocation. And happy is the young man or woman who knows early enough what they were born to do.

When a person discovers early enough his or her life-purpose, nothing can keep him down. The Renaissance Italian artist and genius Leonardo da Vinci was the illegitimate child of a Florentine nobleman who never acknowledged his son. He never went to school because of his illegitimate status. But nothing could stop him.

Through communing with nature and the sheer power of his imagination Leonardo became a universal genius. His paintings and sculptures are immortal and priceless. His engineering designs prefigured modern aviation and aerospace engineering. He is arguably the greatest genius who ever lived. There is a noble line of men and women who overcame seemingly impossible odds to fulfil their life-purpose and destiny. They are the heroes and heroines of civillisation. Without their courage, our world would be a much poorer place. Like human beings, every nation has a destiny under the earth. The French have always defined their place in the world as custodians of the universal values of civilisation.

I went to school there and I should know. It is only in France that the greatest scientists and intellectuals are arrogated the same status as royalty. In the 1960s, so the story goes, the great philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre was arrested by the police around the Quartier Latin district of Paris for driving under the influence. The law required that he spend some days in prison. President Charles de Gaulle, however, invoked his own right to exercise the prerogative of mercy. He gave the reprieve in full glare of national television. Sartre, he declared, is France. And France could not, under any stretch of the imagination, be imprisoned. Case closed!

Britain has always prided herself in being the mother of liberty. Magna Carta is the writ that enshrined the constitutional principle of the supremacy of parliament and representative democracy. Only in Britain could an English judge such as Lord Mansfield declare, as in the famous case of Somerset v Stewart (1772), that every slave who sets his foot on English soil is a free man. Britain defines herself as the Land of Hope and Glory.

Brexit has entered the modern political lexicon today because the British voted to leave Europe. At the heart of this historic decision is the conviction that British liberties are non-negotiable and cannot be usurped by a supranational body, however enlightened. Nowhere has this sense of manifest destiny been so deeply rooted in the national psyche as in the United States.

There is no denying that many of the Founding Fathers were slave-owners. And yet, they crafted a Declaration of Independence that is timeless in its universal appeal: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness; That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Race, unfortunately, remains an enduring blot on the American character. And yet, America managed to elect a Black man, Barack Obama, as its president. The American Dream resonates among all its inhabitants as the quintessential land of infinite opportunities for all peoples and races. Because of its commitment to the rule of law, liberty of thought and respect for property rights, however, American grandeur will endure. America will remain unsurpassed in the dominant fields that matter: science and technology, inventiveness, creativity and sheer entrepreneurial energy.

Does Nigeria have a destiny? What are our national ideals and collective purpose as we enter the second decade of our twenty-first century?

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Scientists are racing to find the best drugs to treat COVID-19 – Vanguard

Posted: at 5:11 am

Three months into the novel coronavirus pandemic, its still unclear which drugs could combat the viral disease and which wont, despite public figures like President Donald Trump extolling the unproven promise of some medications. With public health on the line, the scientific community is searching for answers faster than ever.

When the novel coronavirus tore through China in January and February, researchers and doctors quickly launched dozens of clinical trials to test existing medications against COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. But the research done so far in China hasnt generated enough data for conclusive answers.

We commend the researchers around the world who have come together to systemically evaluate experimental therapeutics, said Tedros Adhanom, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), in a press briefing. Multiple small trials with different methodologies may not give us the clear, strong evidence we need about which treatments help to save lives.

In their fight for clear, strong evidence, the WHO is launching a multicountry clinical trial to test four drug regimens as COIVD-19 therapies: an experimental antiviral drug called remdesivir, the antimalarial drug chloroquine (or the related hydroxychloroquine), a combination of two HIV drugs, and those same two HIV drugs along with the anti-inflammatory interferon beta.

The trial will be flexible and could add or drop additional treatment approaches or locations over time. In that way, it appears to be similar to the adaptive trial that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases started in the US in February, which initially set out to test remdesivir but could expand to other drugs. The US is not currently involved in the WHO trial.

Hundreds of other clinical trials are underway, and other groups also continue to test the medications that the WHO selected heres a breakdown of some of the drugs that researchers are zeroing in on.

Studies found that hydroxychloroquine and the related chloroquine can stop the novel coronavirus from infecting in cells in the lab, and anecdotal evidence suggests that it may help patients with COVID-19. Because the drug has been around for decades as an antimalarial treatment, scientists have experience with it.

Its a known medicine, says Caleb Skipper, an infectious disease postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota whos working on a smaller trial of the drug. Little blips of lab data over the last several years show this drug has activity against viruses.

Skippers trial is looking to see if hydroxychloroquine can prevent people who are exposed to the virus from developing severe disease. Theyre hoping to recruit health care workers, who are at a high risk of exposure to the virus, to participate in the trial.

The goal, Skipper says, is to get the drug in peoples systems early. Particularly with viruses, the earlier you inhibit their ability to replicate the better off youre going to be. If a drug is going to work, it is more likely to work early on in disease, he says. If you catch someone really early and provide treatment early virus will have replicated a lot less.

The existing evidence on hydroxychloroquine points in the right direction, Skipper says, but all of the research on the drug is still in very early stages. Its a long ways from being proven effective, he says.

Despite the limited evidence available, public figures, including Elon Musk and Trump, are pushing the message that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are the solutions to the outbreaks. I feel good about it. Thats all it is, just a feeling, you know, smart guy. I feel good about it, Trump said in a press conference on Friday.

As a result of the hype, demand for the drug has spiked, and manufacturers are increasing production. In Nigeria, two people overdosed on the medication after Trump said it could cure COVID-19. People who take it for other conditions, like lupus, are struggling to access their usual supply.

To be very clear, there is still no conclusive evidence that chloroquine will treat COVID-19. And treatments that appear promising based on anecdotal reports or feelings often dont end up working, which scientists know well: the majority of clinical trials fail, and theyre seeing that reinforced in coronavirus treatment efforts.

In February, doctors in Thailand said they saw their COVID-19 patients improve on the combination of two HIV drugs, lopinavir-ritonavir. The WHO is testing the drug combination in their trial, along with anti-inflammatory interferon beta, which the body produces naturally to ward off viruses. The drug combination was used in patients during the SARS and MERS outbreaks, and it appeared to help.

But a clinical trial of those two drugs in China just found that patients with COVID-19 who were given the drugs did not improve more quickly than patients who didnt receive it.

The study, which was published this week, focused on a group of 199 severely ill patients, which may be why the drug wasnt effective the patients were already too sick. But Timothy Sheahan, a coronavirus expert and assistant professor at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, says he wasnt surprised the drug didnt work. Weve done work on that particular drug cocktail, he says. The fact it failed is totally in step with everything weve done in the past.

The antiviral drug remdesivir was first developed to treat Ebola, but research later showed that it could also block MERS and SARS in cells. Lab tests have shown that it can inhibit the novel coronavirus in cells as well.

Theres also anecdotal evidence that remdesivir helps treat COVID-19 patients, but thats also no guarantee that a clinical trial will show that it works better than a placebo. Thats why the data collected on the drug through the WHO trial, the US adaptive trial, and the other studies is so important: before giving it to sick people en mass, doctors have to be sure that it actually works.

Though not a part of the WHO trial, Chinese officials also reported that the Japanese anti-flu drug favipiravir, which it tested in clinical trials, was effective in treating COVID-19 patients. Japan is studying the drug more closely, though data from those trials on the drug has not yet been published.

Based on the drugs antiviral activity in cells, Sheahan says hed be surprised if this drug ultimately ended up being effective. It doesnt work against MERS in cells, he says, and MERS is similar to the novel coronavirus.

In addition, some pharmaceutical companies are looking to repurpose anti-inflammatory drugs to try to calm lung inflammation in people with severe cases of COIVD-19; others are identifying the protective antibodies that people develop after theyre infected with the virus in an effort to manufacture a treatment.

Clinical trials take time to collect data properly, so there likely wont be concrete evidence until next month or later. Patients are already receiving these drugs through compassionate use programs, which allows doctors to order experimental medications in certain cases, and under off-label use, where doctors prescribe drugs outside of what theyre approved for.

But ensuring the clinical trial process takes place alongside that, before jumping to conclusions about the best course of action, ensures patients can be treated based on evidence.

The sheer number of trials going on around the world for each particular treatment approach will give researchers more data to work with and data from different groups of people. The more populations you can show a particular intervention works or does not work for, the more valuable that is, Skipper says. The bigger the amount of data available, the better.

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