Daily Archives: July 5, 2020

In India, we are dealing with a peculiar situation at the moment we seem to be having a major problem with numbers! Which numbers are citizens supposed to trust? We know the numbers we cant trust the official ones. That being the case, which ones do we take seriously, which do we discard, which do we totally ignore?

It started with the Rs 20 lakh crore stimulus package that nobody could fathom, least of all our finance minister, who looked bewildered each time she was asked to elaborate on the figure. The Prime Minister took his favourite position during tricky situations he placed a finger on his mouth and changed the subject. Soon we all changed the subject too. Whats the point in banging on about the package when one couldnt wrap ones head around the astronomical sum? Is it purely notional? Has anybody seen it? Counted the notes?

Its a number game, at the end of it all. I confess I am severely number-challenged and can barely add 2+2. But even with my very limited grasp over multiplication and division, I can tell when sarkari numbers dont add up. With this administration, numbers seem to pose a huge challenge. Which means one of two things the FM and PMO probably believe we (yes, 1.3 billion of us) are all duds when it comes to simple arithmetic, or that they are clever by half. Indians are known to excel at math Gujaratis and South Indians in particular. Maybe their ways of number crunching are different from everybody elses?

At the moment, we are left scratching our heads trying to make sense of many gaps. Most Indians understand one important aspect of life, even if they are not intuitive mathematicians like Srinivasa Ramanujan or human computers like Shakuntala Devi. The man on the street is saying, Forget bogus government statistics, I am only interested in one thing why is there no money in my pocket? Nobody has money, bro. But gold prices did cross Rs 50,000 for 10 gm this week! Someone somewhere must be buying sona-chandi, right? My generation will recall buying the entire wedding jewellery in gold for Rs 50,000 what were sweetly called gold sets. During the same week as this startling news hit headlines, we also read about the GVK group being booked for siphoning off Rs 705 crore. Mumbais spectacular T2 terminal opened in 2014 after an agreement was signed in 2006. It was built, promoted and operated by the same group. Is it possible that nobody was aware of the jiggery-pokery going on so blatantly all this while? Or does the sudden crackdown suggest something else? Arent there fresh bids galore to construct and develop new airports across India? Does that mean that new players angling for these multimillion-dollar contracts will get preference? And are all these new players entirely kosher in their business dealings? Someones going to be making a lot of money!

Our issue with numbers goes beyond money. We cant seem to accurately calculate land areas for example: which hostile country has grabbed how much land that rightfully belongs to us that sort of thing. We still dont know for sure how many people were involved in the Ladakh standoff or whether such a standoff took place at all! The Prime Minister said on national television that nobody intruded into our territory and we didnt intrude into anybodys. OK, Sirji, if you insist. We have made it a habit to hit delete when we dont like certain numbers whether its casualties on our borders or victims of the pandemic. Yes, we are able to count bodybags because those cannot stay hidden. For the rest, like the number of Covid cases or the number of people struggling for life, your guess is as good as mine. But dont worry, take a look at all those colourful graphs and mind-boggling graphics try and figure. All guesses are equally valid.

In Mumbai, weve been juggling with other information that is pretty puzzling the fines being imposed right and left on motorists and two-wheeler owners flouting lockdown rules which change every few hours. From 6,000 cars being impounded in a day to fines between Rs 5,000 and Rs 20,000 imposed in a totally arbitrary fashion, we meekly pay first and protest later. Ditto for astronomical electricity bills. What we do know for sure is that our chief minister and his wife drove to Pandharpur, a distance of 358km, to seek Vithobas blessings on Ashadi Ekadashi day. The stated purpose of the visit was to pray for a Covid miracle. Well, considering Uddhav Thackeray formed a government in Maharashtra with just 56 MLAs, he is going to need a double miracle to continue in his job. People have pulled out their calculators to work out the dates for the exit plan. Not that the alternative is any better. Politics has always been a game of dirty numbers.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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The number game in India that nobody can make any sense of - The Times of India Blog

This is no time to funnel thousands of strangers into a convention hall. Especially not in Houston, a city that has become an epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. Hospitalizations there have quadrupled since Memorial Day. The regions intensive care unit beds are nearly full. Local officials have implored residents to stay home.

The Republican Party of Texas should heed that call and cancel its in-person convention, slated for July 16-18.

Proceeding with such a large-scale gathering at this point would be unconscionably reckless not only for the roughly 6,000 attendees converging from all over the state, but for the Houston workforce that would be exposed to this mass of people.

After receiving a letter Tuesday from the Texas Medical Association urging the convention be canceled, Texas Republican Party chairman James Dickey indicated the party is evaluating its options. "We are taking all input from those involved with our Convention, including that from our Party leadership and our delegates, very seriously," Dickey said in a statement.

This shouldnt be a tough call. Not when Gov. Greg Abbott, the top Republican official in Texas, has already deemed gatherings of just a couple hundred people so risky that he has shuttered bars statewide. Not when Abbott has halted elective surgeries in Harris County because of the need to keep more hospital beds open. Not as long as the Texas GOP can do what so many of us have done in recent months: move meetings to video platforms.

Unfortunately, President Donald Trump has set such a toxic example on coronavirus response eschewing masks as weak or politically incorrect, barreling ahead with his Tulsa rally, even pressing to move the Republican National Convention to another state after the original host refused to welcome large crowds that Texas GOP officials are in a bind. Follow the president? Or abide by the science?

This isnt an abstract exercise. As Texas Monthly recently reported, Texas GOP activists have already lost one of their own to COVID complications: Former Kaufman County Republican Party chairman Bill Baker died in late June of a heart attack while hospitalized with the virus. He checked into the hospital just five days after attending his countys GOP convention, which drew a handful of people. Imagine if it had been the state convention, expected to draw thousands.

To its credit, the Texas GOP delayed its convention, originally slated for mid-May, over coronavirus concerns. More recently, though, Dickey has suggested that providing hand sanitizer, and encouraging social distancing and masks (though not requiring them), will do enough to keep delegates safe. Given Trumps dismissive attitude toward such measures, its hard to envision all of the party faithful will embrace them.

Some have suggested there is a double standard in calling for large gatherings to cease while Black Lives Matter protests have filled the streets. We see some important differences: The Black Lives Matter protests were spontaneous and urgent, a statement that masses of Americans could no longer tolerate the racism that colors policing. The protests were also outside, which experts say is less conducive to coronavirus spread than indoor arenas. Indeed, a recent study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found no evidence the protests led to a spike in cases. It's doubtful the same would be true of a massive indoor conference like the Texas GOP convention.

We recognize the Republican Party of Texas is loathe to cancel its in-person convention, particularly when part of the base believes the coronavirus threat has been overblown. But the worrisome spike in cases is real. The deaths of more than 2,400 Texans are real. The lasting damage this disease inflicts on some patients bodies is real.

No convention is worth this. The only option for a party that values peoples safety is to move the event online.

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Editorial: Holding Texas GOP convention now would be reckless - Austin American-Statesman

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An ambassador and trained facilitator under Eco Femme (a social enterprise working towards menstrual health in south India), Sanjina is also an active member of the MHM Collective- India and Menstrual Health Alliance- India. She has conducted Menstrual Health sessions in multiple government schools adopted by Rotary District 3240 as part of their WinS project in rural Bengal. She has also delivered training of trainers on SRHR, gender, sexuality and Menstruation for Tomorrows Foundation, Vikramshila Education Resource Society, Nirdhan trust and Micro Finance, Tollygunj Women In Need, Paint It Red in Kolkata.

Now as an MH Fellow with YKA, shes expanding her impressive scope of work further by launching a campaign to facilitate the process of ensuring better menstrual health and SRH services for women residing in correctional homes in West Bengal. The campaign will entail an independent study to take stalk of the present conditions of MHM in correctional homes across the state and use its findings to build public support and political will to take the necessary action.

Saurabh has been associated with YKA as a user and has consistently been writing on the issue MHM and its intersectionality with other issues in the society. Now as an MHM Fellow with YKA, hes launched the Right to Period campaign, which aims to ensure proper execution of MHM guidelines in Delhis schools.

The long-term aim of the campaign is to develop an open culture where menstruation is not treated as a taboo. The campaign also seeks to hold the schools accountable for their responsibilities as an important component in the implementation of MHM policies by making adequate sanitation infrastructure and knowledge of MHM available in school premises.

Read more about his campaign.

Harshita is a psychologist and works to support people with mental health issues, particularly adolescents who are survivors of violence. Associated with the Azadi Foundation in UP, Harshita became an MHM Fellow with YKA, with the aim of promoting better menstrual health.

Her campaign #MeriMarzi aims to promote menstrual health and wellness, hygiene and facilities for female sex workers in UP. She says, Knowledge about natural body processes is a very basic human right. And for individuals whose occupation is providing sexual services, it becomes even more important.

Meri Marzi aims to ensure sensitised, non-discriminatory health workers for the needs of female sex workers in the Suraksha Clinics under the UPSACS (Uttar Pradesh State AIDS Control Society) program by creating more dialogues and garnering public support for the cause of sex workers menstrual rights. The campaign will also ensure interventions with sex workers to clear misconceptions around overall hygiene management to ensure that results flow both ways.

Read more about her campaign.

MH Fellow Sabna comes with significant experience working with a range of development issues. A co-founder of Project Sakhi Saheli, which aims to combat period poverty and break menstrual taboos, Sabna has, in the past, worked on the issue of menstruation in urban slums of Delhi with women and adolescent girls. She and her team also released MenstraBook, with menstrastories and organised Menstra Tlk in the Delhi School of Social Work to create more conversations on menstruation.

With YKA MHM Fellow Vineet, Sabna launched Menstratalk, a campaign that aims to put an end to period poverty and smash menstrual taboos in society. As a start, the campaign aims to begin conversations on menstrual health with five hundred adolescents and youth in Delhi through offline platforms, and through this community mobilise support to create Period Friendly Institutions out of educational institutes in the city.

Read more about her campaign.

A student from Delhi School of Social work, Vineet is a part of Project Sakhi Saheli, an initiative by the students of Delhi school of Social Work to create awareness on Menstrual Health and combat Period Poverty. Along with MHM Action Fellow Sabna, Vineet launched Menstratalk, a campaign that aims to put an end to period poverty and smash menstrual taboos in society.

As a start, the campaign aims to begin conversations on menstrual health with five hundred adolescents and youth in Delhi through offline platforms, and through this community mobilise support to create Period Friendly Institutions out of educational institutes in the city.

Find out more about the campaign here.

A native of Bhagalpur district Bihar, Shalini Jha believes in equal rights for all genders and wants to work for a gender-equal and just society. In the past shes had a year-long association as a community leader with Haiyya: Organise for Actions Health Over Stigma campaign. Shes pursuing a Masters in Literature with Ambedkar University, Delhi and as an MHM Fellow with YKA, recently launched Project (Alharh).

She says, Bihar is ranked the lowest in Indias SDG Index 2019 for India. Hygienic and comfortable menstruation is a basic human right and sustainable development cannot be ensured if menstruators are deprived of their basic rights. Project (Alharh) aims to create a robust sensitised community in Bhagalpur to collectively spread awareness, break the taboo, debunk myths and initiate fearless conversations around menstruation. The campaign aims to reach at least 6000 adolescent girls from government and private schools in Baghalpur district in 2020.

Read more about the campaign here.

A psychologist and co-founder of a mental health NGO called Customize Cognition, Ritika forayed into the space of menstrual health and hygiene, sexual and reproductive healthcare and rights and gender equality as an MHM Fellow with YKA. She says, The experience of working on MHM/SRHR and gender equality has been an enriching and eye-opening experience. I have learned whats beneath the surface of the issue, be it awareness, lack of resources or disregard for trans men, who also menstruate.

The Transmen-ses campaign aims to tackle the issue of silence and disregard for trans mens menstruation needs, by mobilising gender sensitive health professionals and gender neutral restrooms in Lucknow.

Read more about the campaign here.

A Computer Science engineer by education, Nitisha started her career in the corporate sector, before realising she wanted to work in the development and social justice space. Since then, she has worked with Teach For India and Care India and is from the founding batch of Indian School of Development Management (ISDM), a one of its kind organisation creating leaders for the development sector through its experiential learning post graduate program.

As a Youth Ki Awaaz Menstrual Health Fellow, Nitisha has started Lets Talk Period, a campaign to mobilise young people to switch to sustainable period products. She says, 80 lakh women in Delhi use non-biodegradable sanitary products, generate 3000 tonnes of menstrual waste, that takes 500-800 years to decompose; which in turn contributes to the health issues of all menstruators, increased burden of waste management on the city and harmful living environment for all citizens.

Lets Talk Period aims to change this by

Find out more about her campaign here.

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A former Assistant Secretary with the Ministry of Women and Child Development in West Bengal for three months, Lakshmi Bhavya has been championing the cause of menstrual hygiene in her district. By associating herself with the Lalana Campaign, a holistic menstrual hygiene awareness campaign which is conducted by the Anahat NGO, Lakshmi has been slowly breaking taboos when it comes to periods and menstrual hygiene.

A Gender Rights Activist working with the tribal and marginalized communities in india, Srilekha is a PhD scholar working on understanding body and sexuality among tribal girls, to fill the gaps in research around indigenous women and their stories. Srilekha has worked extensively at the grassroots level with community based organisations, through several advocacy initiatives around Gender, Mental Health, Menstrual Hygiene and Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) for the indigenous in Jharkhand, over the last 6 years.

Srilekha has also contributed to sustainable livelihood projects and legal aid programs for survivors of sex trafficking. She has been conducting research based programs on maternal health, mental health, gender based violence, sex and sexuality. Her interest lies in conducting workshops for young people on life skills, feminism, gender and sexuality, trauma, resilience and interpersonal relationships.

A Guwahati-based college student pursuing her Masters in Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Bidisha started the #BleedwithDignity campaign on the technology platform Change.org, demanding that the Government of Assam installbiodegradable sanitary pad vending machines in all government schools across the state. Her petition on Change.org has already gathered support from over 90000 people and continues to grow.

Bidisha was selected in Change.orgs flagship program She Creates Change having run successful online advocacycampaigns, which were widely recognised. Through the #BleedwithDignity campaign; she organised and celebrated World Menstrual Hygiene Day, 2019 in Guwahati, Assam by hosting a wall mural by collaborating with local organisations. The initiative was widely covered by national and local media, and the mural was later inaugurated by the events chief guest Commissioner of Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) Debeswar Malakar, IAS.

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Opinion: As A Muslim, I Believe Onus Is On Us To Develop With The Nation - Youth Ki Awaaz

Sacha Baron Cohens career is built upon the art of trolling, from posing as a Kazakh journalist in Borat to getting Paula Abdul to sit on Mexican chair-people in Brno and, finally, the overall madness of his politically incorrect Showtime series Who Is America? And on Saturday, Cohen reportedly infiltrated a far-right rally in Olympia, Washington, posing onstage as a sponsor of the event and performing a song with racially charged lyrics to get the crowd to sing along. Watch the video below.

Disguised as a PAC out of Southern California, paid for the stage setup and musical entertainment. Came on stage disguised as the lead singer of the last band, singing a bunch of racist, hateful, disgusting shit, Yelm City Councilman James Connor Blair wrote on Facebook following the event. His security blocked event organizers from getting him off the stage or pulling power from the generator. After the crowd realized what he was saying, and turned on him, his security then rushed the stage and evacuated them to a waiting private ambulance that was contracted to be their escape transport.

The event was a downtown March for Our Rights 3 rally organized by the Washington Three Percenters, a far-right militia group known for its gun advocacy. The name of the group is a reference to the belief that only three percent of American colonists fought against the British.

Dressed in overalls and a fake beard, Cohen sang about everything from injecting kids with the Wuhan flu to references to Dr. Fauci, Obama, and chopping up any person wearing a mask like the Saudis do. While some speculate that the stunt was another elaborately staged exercise for a possible second season of Who Is America?, the political activist and comedian has repeatedly said that its never happening.

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Sacha Baron Cohen Crashes Far-Right Rally and Dupes Attendees with Racist Singalong - IndieWire

Common sense

Thank you California for not wanting to send any sporting events for schools because of our laws preventing transgender of men becoming women and being denied to participate in womens sports. You politically incorrect politicians from California are driving people to Idaho and I hope this slows the flow down a little.

Common sense in California has been removed from the people living there, and breathing the smog and smoke that is so often present. For a state that is always speaking about the environment they do a poor job.

Imagine Bruce Jenner, now Kaitlin Jenner, a winner of the mens Olympic Decathlon coming up to Idaho and competing as a female. That is what the Political whackos from California want to see happen.

Just because Kaitlin doesnt wear a jockstrap anymore, doesnt change her athletic ability.

What is the old saying, A leopard doesnt change their spots

Dave Silva, Boise

Rules

JEERS to the Idaho Freedom Foundation for leading a "legislative session" without a quorum! I value my representative government and I want it to run by the rules and include my elected representative!

Karleen Davis, Boise

Thank you

I would like to take this opportunity to express our sincerest gratitude to Mayor Garret Nancolas, the Caldwell City Council and the people of Caldwell for their unprecedented support of The College of Idaho and our Yotes. The lights at two City owned facilities, Simplot Stadium and Wolfe Field, were the undertaking of the City and Graye Wolfe, with support from the College. The partnership between the City and the College is imperative for the continued success of our students, faculty and staff. Lights in these outstanding athletic facilities will create new opportunities for events and tournaments that will bring visitors to our community and boost economic activity. We are appreciative for the continued and essential partnership with the City of Caldwell. Their commitment to the College is evident by all they have done during the 129-year history of the College and we are excited to continue on our path of success with the City in the future. We also want to thank all of you who support our Yotes and have helped us to have one of the highest attendance numbers in the nation for NAIA athletic events.

Reagan Rossi, Caldwell

Goals

We can find great irony in the sad, but logical conclusion that non-mask wearing, non-social distancing people are a significant cause of the spread of COVID and the delay of returning to normal life. They may say they want to reopen and get back to normal, yet their actions and choices speak loudly otherwise and are counterproductive to the very goal they espouse.

Becci Carmack, Meridian

Political hypocrisy

My heart was buoyed to see Ms. Ferro's most recent screed lamenting 11,000 deaths that will purportedly result as a result of a changed policy on mercury restrictions by the EPA. One has to wonder if she espouses the same magnitude of concern when faced with 627,000 (2016) abortions in the US. Seems as though concern over "unborn babies and young children" ought to transcend political hypocrisy, unless one is more intent on speaking to their political base.

Steve Sweet, Boise

Sick at heart

Mayor Dave Bieter loves the new Pierce Park Elementary School. It is all steel and concrete. A STARBUCK's drive-thru will be added soon. It looks like an office building for accountants and dentists. Every California transplant will want their 1 child to attend.

What happened to the charming little neighborhood school that Jake Plummer attended? It has been paved over and destroyed. Not even its ghost exists. Could we have replaced the furnace and redone the classrooms? No. We had to spend millions for progress.

I am sick at heart every time I drive past the construction site.

"From where the sun now stands, I will vote for Boise School Bonds no more forever."

Pete Peterson, Boise

BLM

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I support BLM without reservation,but at some point the marching and signs need to be replaced with action by the citizens themselves to install BLM organizers to work with mayors, council members, churches and social services to initiate guidelines and regulations to achieve equitiy for all men and women to achieve desired goals, whichinclude actively PROMOTING AND ASSISTING IN VOTER REGISTRATION AND VOTING.

The only way these changes can be made is if the people who want them register and vote to make these changes happen.

Right now BLM has overhwelming support, but protesting must turn into postive action or the momentum that BLM has will fade.

Claudia Harvey, Nampa

Unreadable

I could not be more disappointed in my new subscription to the Idaho Press. I was (mis)lead into believing it was Idaho's political fairest media print source. Three weeks of reading it has proven that completely inaccurate. After forfeiting all print media in California as unreadable, I had hoped a more conservative state like Idaho would, at least, present some parity of opinions in the newspaper. Three weeks of near completely one-sided articles and op-eds pushing forth the progressive (not even liberal) agendas. I had hoped to do my part to help a near-dying industry (print media), but the paper is nearly unreadable due to it's bias, and I found myself simply tolerating it because I enjoyed doing crossword puzzles again. Today (June 24), even the crossword puzzle was a repeat from last week. That's the proverbial "writing on the wall" for this guy; with nearly no representation in the paper for those that share my politics or my faith, and an inability to even present a new crossword puzzle each day, I'm afraid I'll have to bring this newspaper experiment to an end.

Martin Dale, Eagle

History

John Lodal perfectly described the election cycles of 2008 and 2012. He also included a potential failure for a peaceful transfer of power. He perfectly describes the Democratic response to a Trump win. Sure wish he could get his facts straight.

As for Jim Jones, for a supposedly educated man he sure is ignorant of our nations history. Regardless, our military bases are named after people who have had a strong influence on our history and were in fact, great military strategists. Just an FYI Jim, the original reason for the Civil War was taxation, just like the Revolutionary War. The matter of slavery came on the shirt tails.

Do not forget or eliminate our history. It is said that those who forget their history are bound to repeat it. I for one do not want these things happening again in our country. Why do you?

David Wilson, Nampa

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Letters to the editor, July 1, 2020 - Idaho Press-Tribune

As calls for a University of North Carolina Wilmington professor whose tweets the school deemed "vile" grew louder, the university announced he had decided to retire.

Mike Adams, a sociology and criminology professor, has come under fire for previous tweets and publications, and recent tweets regarding racial justice protestors, coronavirus and other topics have sparked renewed pushback on social media.

On May 29, Adams tweeted: This evening I ate pizza and drank beer with six guys at a six seat table top. I almost felt like a free man who was not living in a slave state of North Carolina. Massa Cooper, let my people go. He was referring to Gov. Roy Cooper's measures put in place to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Massa is a dialect term that is often used in a mocking way to mimic what users imagine was the pronunciation that enslaved people used for master.

"When I tell covid 19 jokes people seem to get them right off the bat," Adams had tweeted earlier in the month.

After protesters took to the streets following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, Adams shared: "Rioters dont care about social issues. They are thugs looking for an opportunity to break the law with impunity."

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And another May tweet from Adams read: "Don't shut down the universities. Shut down the non essential majors. Like Women's Studies."

As more people began to publicly criticize Adams, he responded: "When you write the university asking them to fire me dont forget to leave a mailing address so I can send you a box of panty liners."

A statement from the university earlier this month called Adams' tweets "vile" and said "the university's constitutional obligations and support of free expression do not lessen our disgust when those viewpoints offend or otherwise upset those who read these comments."

On Monday, a statement from Chancellor Jose V. Sartarelli said, "Over the past several weeks, many of you have inquired about the status of a UNCW faculty member, Dr. Mike Adams, in light of the public attention generated by comments he made on his personal social media channels."

"We can now share the update that after a discussion with Chancellor Sartarelli, Dr. Adams has decided to retire from UNCW, effective August 1, 2020," the statement said.

Two separate Change.org petitions calling for Adams' removal from his position had garnered about 90,000 signatures, and a Facebook group called "Justice And Equality For UNCW: Soaring to Stop Hate #CancelMikeAdams" has nearly 8,000 members.

Adams is the author of the book "Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts 'Womyn' on Campus."

He also faced backlash after publishing an article titled "A 'Queer Muslim' Jihad?" questioning a student activist at the University of North Carolina Wilmington who identified as both queer and Muslim.

Adams was awarded $50,000 in backpay and a $9,000 raise in a settlement with the university after he sued claiming that school had denied him a promotion because he expressed his views, violating his First Amendment rights, according to Wilmington's StarNews.

Elisha Fieldstadt is a breaking news reporter for NBC News.

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University of North Carolina Wilmington professor behind 'vile' racist and sexist tweets to retire - NBC News

Netflix original movie Desperados spends the majority of its 105 minutes daring us not to call it the English translation of its title. The comedy from first-time feature director LP stars ex-SNLer Nasim Pedrad as a woman unlucky in, well, everything, rendering her the etymological derivation of the English translation of its title. Will her attempt to change her fortunes be funny or just, well, you know, insert the etymological derivation of the English translation of its title here?

The Gist: We meet Wesley (Pedrad) as shes being interviewed by a nun for a guidance counselor job at a Catholic school. She rambles tangentially, on and on, headlong into a lighthearted pro-masturbation treatise. Wesley, I mean, not the nun. Perhaps it goes without saying that she doesnt get the gig. This is her life in microcosm: she cant seem to succeed by being her own slightly offbeat self. Shes got no job and no romantic interests, and her adorable little apartment is cluttered with dead plants, bills with PAST DUE notifications on the envelopes, a collection of bridesmaid glasses and egg-freezing brochures from fertility clinics. While visiting her best friends Brooke (Anna Camp) and Kaylie (Sarah Burns), a mighty wind kicks up and knocks a beam on her car her life is so cruddy right now, even her Toyota gets some pole, and she cant.

A friend sets her up on a blind date with Sean (Lamorne Morris), who ends it after about 10 seconds, because she chatters mindlessly through the topics of weddings and children. She huffs out to the sidewalk, stumbles and concusses herself, and wakes up to a bleary image of dreamboat sports agent Jared (Robbie Amell). A heavyset bearded gentleman who identifies himself as a first responder but isnt nearly as conventionally handsome as Jared suggests she go to the hospital, but no, shed rather accept Jareds invitation to go home with him. Good thing he isnt a creep, because shes already head over heels for the guy, literally, what with the ice pack on her head and all.

Wesley and Jared enjoy a month of bliss, coalescing with their first night spent doing the horizontal hi-there on a bed of rose petals. But five days pass and Wesley hasnt heard a peep, so she, Brooke and Kaylie drink several glasses of wine and compose a nasty email insulting him for the size of his eggplant emoji and his dead father. And wouldnt you know it, as soon as they hit the SEND button, Jared calls: hes been in a coma for five days after a car accident in Mexico. Total whoopsies. So Wesley talks her two besties into doing what anyone else would do in this situation, take a trip to Mexico, where shell commandeer Jareds laptop and delete the email before he sees it, a plan that absolutely will go off without a single incident of dolphin-humping, any accusations of pedophilia or an insanely coincidental run-in with Sean, right? NEVER, I say, NEVER.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This is a straight-up Girls Trip rip-off, a Bridesmaids break-and-enter, a Bad Moms burgle.

Performance Worth Watching: Morris is surprisingly strong in a movie that doesnt deserve the effort. It probably helps that the screenplay saddles him with the least amount of excruciating, mortifying scenes.

Memorable Dialogue: Lets play a game of Decontextualize an Embarrassing Movie Quote via a line spoken by a Mexican resort employee: And I assure you, your dildo will not be let in!

Sex and Skin: When Wesley is forced to wander the resort in an accidental state of total undress, the movie strategically places props in the foreground so we cant see her bits, an ancient visual-comedy chestnut that deserves to be tossed on an open fire.

Our Take: This insufferably dumb, horrifically annoying movie is an interminable display of Human People Do Not Act Like This. Desperados is jam-packed with contrived, wacky bullshit including, but not limited to: Wesley getting belted in the face with an erect porpoise penis, in slow motion. Wesley getting electrocuted. Wesley getting tossed in Mexican jail. Wesleys battery-operated wand o intimacy (wink nudge) being the object of public scrutiny. Wesley repeatedly being accused of trying to seduce a 12-year-old boy. Wesley continually insisting that Kaylies cat looks like Hitler. Ive asserted many times before that floating animated visual representations of texts and emails are a sign of a terrible movie, but I hereby add all of the aforementioned to the list.

Every joke here hits like a Gong Show hammer swung with extreme prejudice. Its directed with the technical veracity of a Happy Madison production. It appears to have been edited with a melon baller. It has the shameless chutzpah to render ow my balls a punchline. It blends Sex and the City filthy-femme talk, incessant slapstick and listless stabs at satire (e.g., a Heather Graham cameo as a Goop wannabe new age guru) without the slightest hint of originality or inspiration. The cast does what it can with an awful script spiked with floundering attempts at politically incorrect comedy, but its like trying to start a car without any keys, or a steering column, or an engine. I commend Lamorne Morris for trying to bring this thing back to Earth with some pragmatic charm, but the poor guy is dangling from a blimp headed straight into the sun.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Desperados is a bad bad bad bad bad bad movie. Bad.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Desperados on Netflix

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Stream It Or Skip It: Desperados on Netflix, a Hapless Rom-Com with an All-Too-Appropriate Title - Decider

The cancellation of the Lovecraft World Fantasy Award statuette prefigured todays culture battles

In 2014, a storm arose over whether winners of the annual World Fantasy Award should continue to receive a bust of H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937), designed by Gahan Wilson, in recognition of their achievements, or whether a more politically acceptable figure should be the emblem of the revered program.

The World Fantasy Awards have long been some of the most coveted prizes for authors who write stories and novels in the weird, horror, fantasy, and slipstream genres. The tradition of bestowing these awards began in 1975, at the annual World Fantasy Convention, and in the years since, luminaries such as Robert Bloch, Jorge Luis Borges, Michael Moorcock, Karl Edward Wagner, Richard Matheson, T.E.D. Klein, Andre Norton, Ursula K. Le Guin, Steve Rasnic Tem, and Peter Straub, to name just a few, have won the illustrious prizes.

Though few dispute that Lovecraft had an incalculable influence on horror, fantasy, and speculative fiction, and that the weird field as it exists today is pretty much unimaginable without that influence, the man wrote candidly in letters to friends about his hostility toward dark-skinned immigrants and his longing for a more stable and homogenous polity. Lovecraft was as politically incorrect as they come. His detractors deny that we should continue to recognize and venerate such a figure through the bestowing of his likeness.

Lets not lie. H.P. Lovecraft unquestionably held ugly and ignorant views about Africans and Asians, and at times used abusive language in reference to them in the many thousands of letters he wrote to friends, colleagues, and admirers during his forty-six years. Reading these letters is a litmus test for anyone today who considers himself or herself enlightened and tolerant.

It would be silly to deny Lovecrafts interest in racial controversies or his role as a forecaster of the tensions that would strain the political process as racial firestorms erupted and race came to dominate public discussion. As anyone who has dipped his or her toes into critical commentary on Lovecraft knows, theres a school of Lovecraft criticism that emphasizes the social meaning of his work.

According to this school of thought, the basic scenario facinga typical Lovecraft protagonist, where the familiar world is under attack by ghastly, unutterable forces from another dimension, is plainly a metaphor for what Lovecraft thought of as the situation of the conservative white Anglo-Saxon male in an America of the 1920s subject to transformation through an influx of foreigners from wildly different backgrounds.

One Lovecraft story cited often in this connection is The Horror at Red Hook (1927), where cosmic horror rears its head in a Brooklyn neighborhood that was in the 1920s, as it is today, on the fringes of white middle-class areas. In this passage Lovecraft is describing Red Hook: The population is a hopeless tangle and enigma; Syrian, Spanish, Italian, and negro elements impinging upon one another.

From the 1928 short story Cool Air, also set in New York: It is a mistake to fancy that horror is associated inextricably with darkness, silence, and solitude. I found it in the glare of mid-afternoon, in the clangour of a metropolis, and in the teeming midst of a shabby and commonplace rooming-house with a prosaic landlady. The rooming-house in question is a real place. You can find it today on 14thStreet between Eight and Ninth Avenues in Manhattan.

The anti-immigrant and anti-refugee subtext in Lovecrafts stories is worth examining in depth. As unpleasant as some of Lovecrafts views are, it is eerie how directly certain of his tales point to contemporary concerns over the potential consequences of letting the wrong people into Western countries.

Lovecrafts tale Pickmans Model (1927) is about an artist in Boston who fills canvases with images of horrifying monsters and demons wreaking havoc on terrified citizens. The paintings are wild and disturbing, and readers dont have the simple defense mechanism of consigning them to the realm of fantasy. We learn at the end of the story that the images in Pickmans paintings arent just from the artists imagination. Rather, Pickman has actually observed these shocking spectres.

Here, the narrator of the story praises Pickmans talents while describing one of the horrifying demon attacks that the artist has rendered: Gad, how that man could paint! There was a study called Subway Accident, in which a flock of the vile things were clambering up from some unknown catacomb through a crack in the floor of the Boylston Street subway and attacking a crowd of people on the platform.

Boylston Street, scene of the attack by demons in Pickmans Model, was the scene of a very real atrocity of a quite different nature on April 15, 2013, the Boston Marathon bombing. Two Chechen immigrants, representatives of the forces of cosmic horror alluded to so often through metaphorical language in Lovecrafts tales, carried out a cowardly, shocking, vile attack on unsuspecting victims.

How remarkable that Lovecrafts story, part of a corpus of work that uses cosmic horror as a code to express concerns about immigration and demographic change, should name the very location of an actual attack, decades later, representingin this interpretationone terrible consequence of failing to vet foreigners entering the United States.

To be sure, most immigrants and refugees are not criminals or terrorists, but, to use the nomenclature of Lovecraft, there are some demons in their midst. Lovecrafts prescience is nothing short of astonishing.

The subtext is there. We can ignore it, and read Lovecrafts work literally as a corpus of tales about New England protagonists facing sorcerers, Pickmans monsters, Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, and other assorted baddies, or we can recognize the subtext, but its there all right. We know how repugnant some of Lovecrafts views were, but his work is of historical interest for this reason alone, like that of any number of writers of past decades whose biases or conclusions we today would probably reject.

One wishes that Lovecraft had adopted a more tolerant, respectful, and understanding attitude toward people from different countries and cultures. Bigotry is never pretty. But should Lovecrafts unpleasant views overshadow his importance as a weird fiction writer?

The controversy is unresolved. On one side of the rift are writers such as Daniel Jos Older, who wrote the petition circulated back in 2014 arguing that Lovecrafts views are too offensive for his likeness to be synonymous with the World Fantasy Award, and that a bust of a more suitable figure should replace Lovecrafts. (Older ultimately got his wish. WFA winners today receive a bust of Octavia Butler.)

At the other end is S.T. Joshi, widely recognized as the most erudite and authoritative Lovecraft scholar around. Joshi is a brilliant scholar with an incomparable list of publications in the field of Lovecraftian, weird fiction, and crime fiction studies to his credit, including critical studies of Lovecrafts life, thought, and tales, as well as authoritative versions of Lovecraft texts. His biography of Lovecraft, I Am Providence, is a 1,200-page masterpiece with few parallels in American letters. Joshi has offered many counterarguments to Older in his blog.

One of Joshis points is that numerous authors who are widely read and admired today held views on certain subjects that would be offensive to contemporary sensibilities, but that is hardly a reason to cease reading them or valuing their contributions to literature. Joshi asks, who are we to judge? We, today, cannot say with certainty that people in the future will look back on us and approve of all of our views and attitudes.

Moreover, whatever his political and social views, Lovecraft was a kind, courteous, and generous person, as well as a master of weird fiction. Lovecrafts endearing personal attributes come out again and again in his correspondence with Robert E. Howard (the creative force behind the Conan mythos), Alfred Galpin, Clark Ashton Smith, Frank Belknap Long, Reinhart Kleiner, Maurice W. Moe, Robert Bloch, and others. He guided and mentored younger writers and shared thoughts and insights on topics as diverse as politics, economics, astronomy, poetry, and the history, culture, topography, and architecture of places of antiquarian interest like Quebec City and Lovecrafts hometown of Providence, Rhode Island.

Carefully considering Lovecrafts thought, and looking at Lovecrafts work story by story, Joshi concludes that the question of Lovecrafts racism isnt central or even really relevant to an appreciation of the writers work. In the final analysis, racial topics and overt racism crop up in only a few Lovecraft stories. To quote from Joshis blog entry of September 13, 2014: Lovecraft was a supremely gifted writer whose work was carefully crafted to convey the exact effects its author intended. And no, racism wasnotat the heart of his fiction, nor of his life or thought.

Joshi has been reading and studying Lovecraft longer than Ive been alive, and I couldnt have put it better. Lovecraft fully deserves his stature as the most important and influential writer of weird fiction since Poe, a figure who has had an incalculable influence on the weird, slipstream, horror, and fantasy fields and who has inspired writers and directors as diverse as Jorge Luis Borges; Ramsey Campbell, the greatest living writer of weird fiction; Stuart Gordon, the late director who brought Lovecraft to millions of screens in Re-Animator, Dagon, and Castle Freak (a loose adaptation of Lovecrafts short story The Outsider); and Richard Stanley, who brought us the well-received and visually stunning 2019 Nicholas Cage vehicle, Color Out of Space.

If Lovecraft were alive today, he probably wouldnt share the stage with the organizers of an MLA conference or with any of the self-important radicals who fancy themselves superior on every level to people in earlier eras of American history.

Instead, lets adopt the lingo of another idiosyncratic genius, Edgar Allan Poe. As Poe would say, those who think that Lovecrafts political incorrectness is a reason not to read him, or to destroy his likeness, are dunderheads.

Visit link:
Memories of the Lovecraft Wars - Book and Film Globe

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Political ideas are too abstract. They are not enough to make people emotional about identity. Swiss identity has a cultural element.

Almost all countries face the question of whether multiple ethnic groups and different identities can co-exist peacefully under the same umbrella of a single government. Switzerlands four ethnic groupsGerman, French, Italian, and Romanschhave done so for hundreds of years. Is there a Swiss success formula we should pay attention to?

Dr. Oliver Strijbis, a Swiss-born professor at the University of Zurich in the Institute for Political Science, has been studying this topic for more than a decade.

At a caf in Zurich where light filtered through grand windows, Dr. Strijbis and I sat down with cappuccinos in hand. Next to us, hairline cracks in a tawny leather couch exuded a sensible wealth, the kind that sits unnoticed, and intentionally so. Croissants filled red baskets at every table.

In your 2011 paper The Swiss, a political nation?, you argued that Switzerland is not just a political union of four different ethnic groups.

Political ideas are too abstract. They are not enough to make people emotional about identity. Swiss identity has a cultural element. [The problem is that cultural divides such as those found within Canada] can threaten the unity of a country. In Switzerland, that does not exist. The French-speaking minority, the Italian-speaking minority, have almost the same levels of identification as the German-speaking majority.

Do you identify yourself as Swiss-German?

No. I think there are very few people that identify as Swiss-German. The interesting thing is that Swiss-Germans are the most proud of the four languages. This is the main thing of [Swiss] diversity. But, this is not a melting-pot for all-over-the-world diversity.

[Is there] a limited diversity of four ethnicities?

Yes. It is something everyone can agree with from the Right to the Left. The Left can like this because it is part of diversityidentification with Switzerland as a diverse country. For the Right, it is also a diversity they can agree with because it does not include immigration. Everyone can agree with direct democracy, our federalism, and the four languages. That [is] Swiss identity. When Swiss travel abroad, they often talk [proudly] about the four languages of Switzerland. If you ask people from India travelling abroad, about India, they will not tell you they have [780] languages and be proud of it. But, for the Swiss, this is very [important].

Could one argue that Switzerland is a multicultural country that rejects multiculturalism?

I think people would not call it multiculturalism, to show it is not for immigration. There is not a catchy word for this.

Is there wisdom that Switzerland could impart to other countries?

The specific mix of cultures can become a part of the national identity. You cannot say that multiculturalism is part of Spanish identity, but you can say there are three main languages: Basque, Catalan and SpanishLa Espaaplural. People could be proud of this plurality. It is less than diversity but more than unitarianism.

Is there a territorial component to ethnicity in Switzerland? Swiss-Germans having one territory, while Swiss-French have another?

No. The territorial boundaries of the Cantons do not follow the languages. In the east and west, you do have linguistically homogeneous Cantons. But, at the borders, the Cantons are all bilingual. They always have a large minority within the Canton. Valais has two-thirds French, and one-third German speakers. Fribourg is about the same: two-thirds French, one-third German.

In the former Czechoslovakia, there was the sense that one group [Slovaks] felt they were being usurped by the other [Czechs]. Would you say that in Switzerland there seems to be an understanding that everyone is fairly represented through Switzerlands unique democratic institution of direct democracy, so there is no threat of one group trying to dominate the others?

Yes, it is true although complicated. For example, when the French-speaking part was more in favor of European integration than the German-speaking part, direct democracy was rather divisive. And, historically, direct democracy had the effect that all major political groups of the country would form little cartels because they were always threatened by direct democracybecause decisions could be overruled by the citizens. So we have a system where minorities are always included in government, and I think this is what actually makes the French-speaking Swiss not [feel] threatened. This is what we see all over the world. Where minorities are better integrated into decision-making, you have less threat of separatism. This is the Swiss story. It is not about giving autonomy to the language groups because, in fact, the boundaries of the Cantons cut across the language divisions. Also, religion was historically much more conflictive in Switzerland than language.

As a political scientist, what are your thoughts on the United States at the moment?

For a moderate like Biden, it is going to be difficult to create enthusiasm. He would have to win with only anti-Trump preferences. Just being against the other candidate, it is difficult to energize your followers.

Your 2017 paper Assimilation or social mobility? explaining ethnic boundary crossing between the Ecuadorian 2001 and 2010 census examined the malleability of a persons ethnicity. Do you think this is an under-appreciated phenomenon: that a persons identity is malleable?

Im in the middle. In theory, it is possible. But, in practice, it is in-between. Mostly it happens over generations. So when you switch identities, you have more mixed categories; in Ecuador, [this is] from indigenous to mestizo. But it is not that they change five times in their life! What I find interesting is that in Ecuador, there are territorially concentrated ethnic groups. They move a lot. [So the question is] do they change identities within their country when they move? I found they switch between mixed categories. But they dont switch between hard categoriesnot from white to black, indigenous to white, or indigenous to black. [Instead,] there are large mixed categories. It probably explains why it doesnt happen in the U.S., but it does happen much more in Brazil where you have the category of brown. This is a big difference between countries.

What are your thoughts on the way they define identity?

I find it very interesting: this issue of whether Antonio Banderas is a person of color or not. In the U.S., they didnt want to make the mistake of categorizing him in a politically incorrect way. Some said he was a person of color, while in some Spanish-speaking countries, people said that it is racist to say he is not white. There was a complete misunderstanding across cultures because of different typologies of ethnic categorization.

It is interesting, no? The schemes for ethnic categorization are still national, while categorization of famous people is a global phenomenon. It does not match. Globally, famous people are being categorized into different ethnic groups in different countries. With globalization of media, there is a mismatch.

For us in Switzerland, using the term race is completely unheard of. It is one of the biggest political taboos. You cannot use the term race. If you talk about race, you are [considered] fascist. Yet, we are confronted ever more with this division in the U.S. about racial identities. And it creates a complete cognitive dissonance for us.

Eric Kaufmann, in his book Whiteshift, argues that global migration is redefining the perception of what constitutes white.

There is a growing literature of what is perceived as white. Puerto Ricans, for example, have been categorized as being whiter and whiter over time. The white category gets broader. I think it is a universal phenomenon.

In your new book with Pieter deWilde, Ruud Koopmans, Wolfgang Merkel and Michael Zrn, The Struggle Over Borders: Cosmopolitanism and Communitarianism, you tackle the larger issue of globalization.

It is about the divide between people that are positive about globalization and those that are negative about globalization [and] the conflict between these two camps.

[After the analysis was completed,] I thought it interesting [that] there is not a big divide between elites, this being less than I expected. The masses are more divided.

How do you explain that?

The populist arguments among the Right and far-left are anti-elite arguments. Trump uses the term globalist in a negative way, saying elites are globalists. Elites are positive about globalization, [but] they are not representing the masses so well. This allows [populists] to win elections. It seems this anti-elite argument has some basis.

Over croissants we began to veer off, and I started explaining that my next interview would be with a woman whose father belonged to the Serbian Secret Police prior to the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. War and ethnic cleansing were something her family was perhaps both perpetrator to and victim of, to which Strijbis added some final thoughts.

Those born into families on the wrong side are interesting. You have to defend yourself for what your parents did. It is easier to be a child of someone who suffered. Then, you are always on the right side. It must be much harder to be a child of the ones on the wrong side.

This seems applicable to an entire nation such as Germany, doesnt it?

Of course. In Germany, as soon as you are somehow critical of the allies, you are very quickly on the fascist side, so people are not willing to talk about this. But I saw a new book about these German women who at the end of the war were abused by Russian and American soldiers. Maybe [a more complete] bit of history is being written.

Mark Hecht is a Canadian-British writer and academic. As a geography instructor, he received an award for Excellence in Teachingfrom Mount Royal University. He now writes for various publications.

Link:
Interview with Oliver Strijbis: Swiss Lessons on Identity and National Unity - Merion West

From Trumps Nazi-style propaganda to PePe memes, everywhere you look, youre being called to do something.

Most of these postings are ads, but theyre not far from propaganda. They use the same techniques, pulling at your emotions, appealing to your reason, and moral high-grounding.

However, you may observe propaganda more often than you may think.

Propaganda is any information presented in a way meant to sway you toward a particular opinion.Often, when we agree with the message, we will see it as truth rather than a rallying cry.

Much of the time, it intentionally misleads or contains misinformation.

Propaganda uses the same techniques as do advertisers. If theyre proven to work, why wouldnt they?

The above picture is a piece of propaganda from possibly the most disastrous enacted event in Americas history. Made to incite celebration across the country this poster for the Thirteenth Naval District, United States Navy, shows a snake representing Japan being bombed by an eagle.

Another piece of propaganda youll recognize is the I Want You For U.S. Army recruitment poster. This recruitment poster became a staple of Americana, lasting over a century.

With a message so simple, it just worked.

This piece plays on the American sense of patriotism and duty to country. If you dont join, youre no patriot (read not a man). By tugging at the manhood of America, James Montgomery Flaggs poster was printed over four million times.

Just as often as its used to inspire, propaganda stokes fear. Above are Nazi propaganda posters, the left demonizing Jews. By scapegoating the Jews for Germanys economic depression, Hitler was able to rally the people behind fear.

The Nazis were skilled at both kinds of sentiment stirring, however. The right poster shows a handsome, fit, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and smiling Hitler loving youth. By appealing to the Aryan sense of superiority, the poster essentially says this could be you.

While these posters werent common in our lifetimes, propaganda never went away. It has only taken new forms. In its present form, theyre memes, weaponized for an agenda. It should be noted that this happens on both ends of the political spectrum.

4chans Politically Incorrect board (/pol/) was instrumental in the 2016 Presidential Election. By weaponizing memes, which are used to spread humor, users in /pol/ made themselves heard and seen. While many can enjoy them in an ironic sense, right-wing trolls worked on several fronts.

Being that the SJW crowd is notoriously easy to offend, people who may not have even believed the message still shared the memes. Perhaps some of these people didnt realize what that would really do.

By being the most offensive memes, the Trump-supporting kind got the most shares from right-wingers and trolls alike. By appealing to fans of offensive comedy, ironic support turned unironic in many cases.

The campaigns by the left did not have the same effect. Being that the memes shared were all focused on Trump, he got the most coverage.

An important part to remember iswho exactly creates these pro-Trump memes. It was found in 2016 that Russia was behind a great deal of these. It was done in the same spirit as propaganda of old: prop up Trump and attack Hillary Clinton.

By pairing the strong sentiment America has for the troops with misleading information, you got a propaganda salad.

All agendas built on fear need an enemy to scapegoat. In recent years, immigrants and Muslims have carried the brunt of this. The Trump administration is trying to add Antifa to the terrorist organization list with a Nazi symbol.

Trump, himself, has engaged in quite a bit of propagandizing in his campaign. We all know he tends not to fact check himself before speaking, and speaks in generals.

His campaign platform of Make America Great Again harkens to that of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.In an interview with NPR, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said,

Intentionally or otherwise, using symbols that were once used by the Nazis is not a good look for someone running for the White House. It isnt difficult for one to criticize a political opponent without using Nazi-era imagery.

Trumps platform was built on anti-immigrant and xenophobic language. Even with his denouncement of them, he speaks their language.

He benefits from their support. With an emphasis on patriotism and returning to a better time, the slogan romanticizes Americas racist past.

This official t-shirt from the Trump campaign knew who they were appealing to. The resemblance is striking.

The left-wing attempt at propaganda was to spin, spin, spin. Anything bad about Trump shared on Facebook was taken as fact, while anything Hillary did wasnt that bad.

This only fueled the fires of right-wing trolls.

Being that we live in an age of misinformation, the truth can be hard to find. When you read a catchy headline online, ask yourself: what am I being made to feel? Is someone made out to be the enemy?

These articles get so many clicks because of our emotional investment. Were committed to the idea often before reading, let alone verifying. Weve all been guilty of this.

Its paramount to look at multiple sources. One way to do this is to paste the headline into Google and compare results. If there are several sources writing about it, there is a bit more credence to it, but not enough. The source is key itself.

Stay informed, stay objective, friends.

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Why Trump's Nazi-style propaganda is only the tip of the iceberg - Kulture Hub