Monthly Archives: July 2020

Coronavirus and the Culture Wars – PopMatters

Posted: July 8, 2020 at 3:44 am

Science fiction as adverb, instead of genre shorthand for our uncanny present-day reality. A run to the grocery, a moonwalk down the block, quick errands in N95 masks and latex gloves, maintaining six-foot intervals. Our daily existence is a communal narrative in a Crichton-esque thriller. Tourist attractions are bereft of tourists, metropolis ghost towns. The commute to send a package to one of the few FedEx stores still open becomes an exercise in urban exploration evoking scenes from Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002) or Ken Hannam's Day of the Triffids (1981) or a Timothy Morton essay. A cyclist bikes the center lane of a highway. Billionaires advance on the frontiers of space in privatized rockets leaving burning American streetslittered with shattered glass and flaming wreckagein their wake.

It makes sense. The pandemic of our sociological imagination, something I have spent over a decade contemplating (read: obsessing over) was formed more by the science fiction and horror fringes of literature. For every meditation by a Boccaccio, Defoe, Camus, or Garca Mrquez there are hordes of B movie zombiesfast and slowtransmitting the metaphors of contagion. A recent salon-style conversation of pandemic authors Lawrence Wright, Geraldine Brooks, and Tom Perrotta noted that for its ubiquity today there are not a lot of mainstream literary treatments of the subject in the canon. "I think plague fiction is marked by its scarcity," Lawrence Wright observes.

"There are some wonderful booksbut what is really distinctive about pandemics and horrible disease outbreaks in the past is how little was made out of them. How little remarked they are in human consciousness. This was true even in the plague years. Chaucer just has a sketchy mention of it...People that actually lived in those times. And after 1918, for instance, a disease that killed more Americans, 675,000 it is estimated, than all the wars in the 20th century and yet that was completely purged from consciousness." As if an amnesiac pact of collective denial was made to erase the pain.

Photo by on Unsplash

Megan O'Grady writing for the New York Times takes up a similar thread in her essay What Can We Learn from the Art of Pandemics Past? states: "A marked silence surrounds illness in our culture, and yet it was always there, buried in our cultural consciousness, long before the advent of photography, in concepts that illustrate our sense of death's inevitability motifs that act almost as woodcuts of the mind, such as the Danse Macabre, or the Grim Reaper, connecting us across time with the living and the dead."

A societal fugue state serves as a metaphor in the post-apocalyptic feminist drama Into the Forest (2015) written and directed by Patricia Rozema based on a novel by Jean Hegland. Psychologically, the term refers to a dissociative state where an amnesiac loses details of their personal identity assuming another life in its stead imprinting over the first. Rozema uses this set up to say that civilization itself is a false identity that supplants our original state. As civilization collapses the internet abandoned, gas stations emptied, grocery stores overrun, food supplies dwindledthe characters turn to forging in the woods. Nell (Ellen Page) says to sister Eva (Rachel Wood) as they identify plants: "This was here the whole time."

O'Grady observes that works of art from pandemics past serve as a scar tissue transmitting knowledge of the disease even after the events fade from memory. In short stories of Poe, nursery games like ring-around-the-rosy, the painting of Edvard Munch, Gustav Klimt, and Egon Schielethe latter two artists who died of the 1918 Flu pandemicand other artifacts our impressions of disease echoes between pandemics. This was here the whole time.

Marcus Aurelius who ruled the Roman Empire for 15 years of a plague that claimed five million lives mentions it only once in his Meditations. Chaucer grew up under the specter of Black Death, lost his wife to an outbreak, yet scarcely mentions it in his poetry. Shakespeare saw the Globe closed as part of a stay-at-home order and lost his son to an epidemic, yet makes only allusions in his work. Over the centuries, pandemic narratives are unmoored from their context or pushed underground, where society always goes to exorcise collective demons.

In mid-March of this year, during the early weeks of the (inter)national emergency, I took an unusual assignment unusual even in this uncanny reality. I run a boutique social change communication consultancy that specializes in storytelling. My assignment was to develop public education messaging to navigate conspiracy theories and promote CDC health guidelines. The messaging, for populations distrustful of government, used health communication techniques designed to introduce health positive habits (exercise, diet) to populations facing personal, social, and structural behavioral barriers. As I turned my attention toward collecting and countering myth and misinformation in these early days of the pandemic, we had to create a whole new behavioral health strategy, bringing together community voices, health professionals, and communication experts.

This is a different frontwhat the WHO dubbed an "infodemic" where the struggle to provide accurate, reliable, trustworthy information in the storm of confusion, contradiction, and conspiracy takes on life-threatening urgency. In an interview I produced for a public health webcast, Amy Laurent, an epidemiologist with the Seattle King County Public Health Department, depicted the earliest days of the outbreak as the first case on American soil touched down in her backyard. Information was flying all over the place at the tail end of a long, harsh, flu season that it was like trying to drink from the firehoses at the same time. If this is true of an educated public health professional with over 20 years in the field, it is dizzyingly mind-numbing for the rest of us.

Meanwhile, a New York Times survey, found roughly 36,000 media workers in the United States have been laid off, furloughed, or seen their pay reduced as businesses slashed advertising budgets in response to COVID. Sylvie Briand, the architect of WHO's strategy to counter the infodemic risk, told The Lancet, "We know that every outbreak will be accompanied by a kind of tsunami of information, but also within this information you always have misinformation, rumours, etc."

Image by Michael Knoll from Pixabay

This phenomenon has existed as far back as we have a recorded history of outbreaks. During the 2nd Century Plague of Galen, a ruthless outbreak of measles or smallpox or both (depending on which historian you consult) that lasted 15 years was similarly plagued by misinformation and rumor. As Galen, physician, and namesake of the epidemic, traveled to Asia Minor for two years to observe and document in an act of proto-epidemiology, competing distorted reports reined on Rome like Apollo's arrows in a verse from the Iliad. The death toll climbed to 2,000 a day. Chaldean sorcerers, who booby-trapped an abandoned Temple of Apollo with a supernatural pestilence in a golden chest were to blame. Or, Apollo himselfGod of Medicinefiring diseased arrows on an ailing Rome as punishment for his defiled tomb. Or, dozens of other arguments for profit or political gain.

Author Donald Robertson writes of invented religions that arose in the tumult. Alexander of Abonoteichus, a con-artist who created a human-headed snake-god named Glycon, built a shrine where his followers would puppeteer the deity for paying visitors. Robertson notes, "Alexander became very wealthy and powerful as a result of receiving payment for his prophecies and magical charms. Coins were even cast in honor of the god "Glycon" and statuettes made of him. During the height of the plague, Alexander was claiming to heal the sick with incantations. A crude verse from his oracle was used on amulets and inscribed over the doors of houses as a protection against the plague."

In the Middle Ages, the Biblical God presiding over the Bubonic Plague was no less punishing -- to Kaffa or Sicily or Venice or Marseille or London or any other infected city across Europe, Asia, and North Africa -- than Apollo was in punishing Rome. Plague was carried by demons. It was scapegoated onto Jewish communities, who were perceived to be getting sick less frequently than their Christian neighbors, which was taken as evidence they were contaminating wells, rivers, and springs. Witches in league with the Devil were burnt alive. Xenophobia and racism were chased up and down the Silk Road to Asian cities where the plague was believed to have originated.

Cholera outbreaks of the 19th and 20th centuries were believed to be caused by toxic air and class-based conspiracies against reigning monarchies. In Russia and the UK, they led to riots in the streets. In France, a cholera outbreak in 1832 spread rapidly through the country leaving over 100,000 dead, a rate disproportionately outpacing their European neighbors. Tensions erupted in Parisian slums as the rich blamed the poor for the spread of the disease, while the poor insisted that the rich were attempting to poison them. King Louis-Philippe's mismanagement of the cholera crisis led directly to the revolutionary/ counter-revolutionary eventsclashing fringe right and left-wing forcesdepicted in Victor Hugo's epic novel, Les Misrables.

Braind continues in her interview with The Lancet, "the difference now with social media is that this phenomenon is amplified, it goes faster and further, like the viruses that travel with people and go faster and further. So it is a new challenge, and the challenge is the [timing] because you need to be faster if you want to fill the voidWhat is at stake during an outbreak is making sure people will do the right thing to control the disease or to mitigate its impact. So it is not only information to make sure people are informed; it is also making sure people are informed to act appropriately."

In the weeks that followed, after we adapted our behavioral mapping to messaging for the pandemic, other conversations were had. We talked to public health departments and organizations across the country about applying this strategy to navigate conspiracy theories for other populationsSyrian refugees, gang-involved youth, homeless encampments, Latin-X immigrants, libertarians in Washington statebefore the lockdown protests, George Floyd's murder, international outcry, protests, and political uprising. The exercise became seismology of semiotics. Exploring fault lines beneath the Fractured States in America, trembling.

From the cover of The Leftovers, by Tom Perrotta

Tom Perrotta chose an unexplainable event, a rapture-like disappearance of two percent of the population, as the backdrop of his brilliant novel The Leftovers and equally brilliant HBO series by the same name (2014-2017) to explore "the emotional and psychological cost of a collective trauma", but coronavirus has shown that this literary device seems unnecessary in the real world.

Or, as the case may be, narratives plural, activating those fault lines of the culture war and amplifying splinters, fractures, and fissures. In the WBUR salon, Geraldine Brooks, author of the Bubonic Plague novel, Year of Wonders takes up the thread from Perrotta observing, "My book was set at a time where science and superstition were still fighting it outI would have thought that we had moved on from there but unfortunately all this crackpot superstitious, anti-vaxxer, deep state is coming for our liberties craziness makes me think that we haven't really moved on at all."

The Atlantic identified two kinds of conspiracy theories to have emerged in response to the coronavirus. The first doubts the severity of the virus, even as states reopen only to close again in the face of spikes in the number of cases. The second considers coronavirus as a bioweapon that has been released on an unsuspecting public. These theories overlap and interconnect in some places. They come in a range of variations and expressions. Many predate the outbreak of the virus, conspiracy classics, and alt-right greatest hits, remixed with a COVID-19 focus. As Paul Farmer, physician and anthropologist, once noted: "Blame was, after all, a calling card of all transnational epidemics."

Zignal Labs, a media insights company, tracked the spread of coronavirus misinformation online for a week in early May and identified the five most widespread misinformation topics on COVID-19. They are a microcosmic snapshot of broader myths expressed throughout this infodemic timeline and throughout the entire timeline of infodemics past. Echoes of earlier searches for answers crashing into this present-day search. Chaldean sorcerers become Wuhan scientists. Biomedical labs and biological warfare stand-in for ancient curses. New age hucksters hawking their Glycon-esque shrines and political agendas are grafted onto the fear, ignorance, and powerlessness experienced at this moment.

That George Soros, a conspiracy strawman favorite for the American right over the past 15 years, any week before or since. Or, it was Democrat-funded or China or Russia or the World Health Organization itself as a deep state effort to seize liberties or an outside agitator destroying the US economy or more.

Claims of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment were the second most popular measured by Zignal that same week with 88,166 mentions. Only the most recent topic on treatments trending in the lineage of snake-headed Gods and snake oil salesman even that week. That disinfectants like bleach as a cure for the virus, a concept that spurned a cult in Florida and caught the President's attention, received 85,240 mentions in that same span.

Meanwhile, QAnon enthusiasts glommed onto the 5G cellphone upgrade as the cause of the outbreak, accounted for 87,776 mentions, which led to the more zealous of enthusiasts to damage cell towers in Europe. The "Plandemic" theory, a kind of conspiracy mash-up, got 28,607 mentions that week and a half-hour documentary that received over a million views online before Facebook removed it. The "Plan" is an Illuminati-esque cabal, including Gates and others, to dominate and control the public using the pandemic and the measures put in place to contain it. Incorporating elements of the anti-vaxxer movement and adopted as part of the Lockdown Protests, the Plandemic is a pastiche of grassroots anti-government arguments aimed at appealing to a populist base.

There are some elements of truth, often class-based, that run through many conspiracy theories. Whitney Phillips, assistant professor of communication and rhetorical studies at Syracuse University, argues that conspiracy often operates along our "deep mimetic frames"a theoretical fusion of sociologist Arlie Hochschild, "deep stories", George Lakoff's metaphorical "frame" constructs, and Ryan Milner's "mimetic logics"that encompass "what we believe in our bones to be true about the world."

As a disillusioned former QAnon devotee called "Sam" tells Kevin Roose on his podcast Rabbit Hole, "I know the financial system is rigged against us. I've watched it. I lived it." The entire Rabbit Hole series is a meditation on the ways our "deep mimetic frames" operate accelerated by social media algorithms.

After Hurricane Irma struck Florida, the former QAnon devotee was unemployed, living with a friend, spending most of her time viewing YouTube videos. She describes the clicks it took to move video after video from Elizabeth Warren's economic analysis to QAnon conspiracy theories. The conspiracies appealed to her because it explained her experience and the economic reality she was living.

When Delaney Hall, an editor for the podcast 99% Invisible set out to determine if the coronavirus pandemicthe first pandemic in the era of widespread vaccinationswas shifting anti-vaxxer sentiment she found the reverse was often true. Those who held hardcore, politically motivated anti-vax arguments doubled down, but a second groupreferred to as "vaccine-hesitant"held conflicting beliefs in their head about the issue. They wanted what was best for their children, but were swayed by arguments on both sides. This group could be persuaded.

Photo by Massimo Virgilio on Unsplash

An actual earthquake occurs when the energy generated by the friction of jagged-edged fault plates is released. The racial health disparities ignored for decades African Americans have higher rates of diabetes, higher rates of chronic illness in general, higher rates of cancer, higher rates of anxiety and depression revealed by the pandemic is one such jagged edge. A novel virus, scarcely understood. Overwhelmed hospitals. Mass unemployment. One in four US workers claiming jobless benefits. A shuddered economy. Jagged edges, all.

Inequities of the American health system. Jagged edge. Inequities of the American justice system. Jagged edge. The disproportionate rates by which communities of color are impacted by the disease. Jagged edge. Systemic structural racism implicit in the systems designed to treat, to heal, to cure, to serve, to protect, revealed. Jagged edges. Released energy radiates out in all directions, like ripples on a pond, shaking the earth's surface violently.

I have been spending a lot of time going down rabbit holes these past few monthsalways tethered to a mission, always seeking to message for the equivalent of Delaney Hall's "vaccine-hesitant" audiences in these discoursesconsuming the fringier elements of these conversations. I have been reading a lot of chatter about a Second Civil War from the latest incarnation of the Patriot Movement-turned-Tea Party-turned-alt-right driving the Lockdown Protests.

The most postmodern of extremist groups, the Boogaloo Bois, named for Sam Firstenberg's breakdancing film, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo (1984) originally emerged from racist posts in the early 2010s, now exist as walking memes with an iconography composed of inside jokes and weird wordplay. A loose confederation in the way the alt-right brought together a broad range of disenfranchised whitesmilitiamen and neo-fascists alongside land rights activists and libertarians trading Michigan Militia camo for Hawaiian shirts because boogaloo sounds vaguely like a big luau. They have been staples on the periphery of lockdown protests and some Black Lives Matter demos alike, arguing that they are for protecting liberties, not white supremacy.

Absurdist characters from a Pynchon novel, that might be more ridiculous than frightening, if it weren't for the success in shutting down the Michigan capital and the number of cities where Boogaloo Bois were arrested with weapons at Black Lives Matter protests. Though Pynchon would probably have a Hawaiian shirt designer, a competitor of Tommy Bahama, as the villainous puppet master of a Civil War that was a publicity stunt to kick-off an advertising campaign.

The aftermath of a Second Civil War is a stalwart of science fiction. Margaret Atwood's 1985 dystopian novel, The Handmaid's Tale, and the subsequent Hulu series that kicked off in 2017 envision the aftermath of an American Civil War won by religious fundamentalists. Phillip K. Dick wrote a quintessentially Phillip K. Dick novel, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974) set in a police state following the Second Civil War with a pop-singer half-consumed by an identity stealing parasite. The video games Mass Effect (2007) and Shattered Union (2005) the second season of TV show Jericho, and at least one live action role-playing game that plays out scenarios nationwide, involves a Second American Civil War.

In 2017's American War by Omar El Akkad, a former conflict journalist turned novelist, it is simply called "the second". Set a half-century in the future the novel follows Sarat, a young woman trying to navigate life in a refugee camp in Tennessee while being radicalized and recruited by the resistance. The conflict is over a ban on fossil fuels at a time where climate change is raging out of control. The country splits North and South along these new political divides and goes to war after the President is assassinated. The novel has an eerie pacing that reads like dispatches from the future. There is a strange and threatening familiarity with his depiction.

El Akkad refers to it as "dislocative" fiction rather than a strict speculative work. "I take things that happen over there and I make them happen over here," he said in an interview. "Over there" being his beat as a Foreign Correspondent covering the war in Afghanistan and the Arab Spring, but El Akkad also covered protests in Ferguson, Missouri, and the effects of climate change in the south that informed the main thrust of the novel. He followed these issuesthe police brutality, the uprising in response to Michael Brown's murder, the creeping spread of climate change, the devastating loss of an estimated football field worth of wetland disappearing every hour along the Gulf Coast of Louisianaand the arguments against them in his research and he played them out into the future. In short, it may not be as dislocative as we would like to believe.

There is an odd detachment in places. Sarat is a young woman of color in America, but these aspects of her identity are never explored or even considered, which makes for a slightly uncomfortable read in some places for all the wrong reasons. Some of the artefacts that drive the narrative are repurposed missives from El Akkad's time as a journalist and read as such. Overall, this detachment has its benefits, because paradoxically, unlike the right-wing fever dreams of wannabe warriors play acting in life or online, unlike the video games or the TV shows or the comic books, certainly unlike Phillip K. Dick's head trippy work, or even Offred's allegorical adventures, the reverse Hero Journey undertaken by Sarat has unsettling plausibility. It is a rebuke to Sinclair Lewis; it can happen here.

Edvard Munch Self-Portrait with the Spanish Flu, 1919 (Public Domain / Wikipedia)

Throughout Europe, The Plague by Albert Camus has been selling out. The existential novel about an epidemic that ravages the quarantined city in Oran, Algeria served as an allegory for fascism for decades. Today, sales skyrocket as the search for meaning in a time of outbreak has made it a must-read. "Almost as though this novel were a vaccine not just a novel that can help us think about what we're experiencing, but something that can help heal us," explains Alice Kaplan, a French Literature Professor at Yale, in an interview with NPR. I have been thinking about the "scarcity of plague fiction" that Lawrence Wright observed; the scarcity of pandemic artifacts in general. And, what our world might look like if that were not the case.

There is an image that I keep coming back to in my mind. It is an imagined scene. Edvard Munch, dragging out his paints and easel. His movements slowed by aching joints and fever. He is sick with flu. This lethal flu that claimed his contemporaries Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and his wife, Edith, their child, alongside some 675,000 Americans and a total of 50 to 100 million people. Munch feels like death. With his featuresgaunt cheeks, sallow skin, weary-eyedhe looks like death. Yet, he moves from the bed to the chair, covering his lap in a thick blanket to ward the chills, as he takes up a brush to paint himself. He has spent his entire existence obsessing about his own death "Illness, insanity, and deathkept watch over my cradle," the artist once said, "and accompanied me all my life." and here he looks it directly in the eyes to capture the image, his own reflection.

That is one of the few artefacts that existed from the Flu of 1918. It is one of the few artifacts that that exists from our long history of pandemics, period. Pandemics hold up a mirror to our society, to our culture, showing us the best and worst all at once. We often look away. When the threat has passed, we forget. We wrest art from its context and forget. Delany Hall in her exploration of the anti-vaxxer movement sat down with Dr. Bernice Hausman in the Department of Humanities at Penn State College of Medicine, who observed:

Hall concludes the science is easy, the people are hard.

Cory Doctorow, author and activist, writes of pandemic and political divisions in his 2019 novella Masque of the Red Death. A reboot of the Edgar Allen Poe story with the same name, Masque follows a finance bro prepper who has built a super bunker that he populates with a hand chosen team of equally obnoxious figures. The characters are essentially their own unmaking, so paranoid that social collapse equals certain death. I don't know if a story first written in 1842 warrants a spoiler, but if so, head's up. Even at the cost of the characters own lives, they fail to participate in the messy rebuilding that is going on around them. Opting out of community and even actively avoiding assistance when it is offered.

Doctorow often explores themes of solidarity vs. selfishness, survivalism vs. community. In an essay titled Don't Look for the Helpers on Joseph Fink's Our Plague Year podcast, Doctorow admits that he is often branded a dystopian, but considers himself a realist at worst"Engineers that design systems on the assumption that nothing could possibly go wrong with them are not utopians. They are dangerous idiots and they kill people."and thematically reads more like an optimist, really. Humanity finds a way. Community organizes under the worst circumstances. Crisis can draw us together.

"The tales we tell ourselves about what we can expect in a crisis informs our intuition about what we should do come that crisisI have been telling stories about humanity rising to the challenge of crisis for decades. Now I am telling them to myself. I hope that you will keep that story in mind today as plutocrats seek to weaponize narratives to turn our crisis into their self-serving catastrophe."

In determining what kind of world, we want next, we have to be willing to look. We have to see what is being revealed and develop new stories to change it. If we want to defund police and fund science-based medicine and equitable health care for allwe need new stories. If we want to address climate change and social justice and keep fault lines from being activatedwe need to look in the mirror and see.

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Works Cited

Bauman, Anna Anna and Chakrabarti, Meghna. "What We Learn From Pandemic Lit". WBUR. 14 May 2020.

Block, Melissa. "'A Matter of Common Decency': What Literature Can Teach Us About Epidemics". NPR / WBEZ. 1 April 2020.

Doctorow, Cory. "Don't Look for the Helpers". PMPress. 16 March 2020.

Doezema, Marie. "For Omar El Akkad, journalism and fiction are 'interlocking muscles'". Columbia Journalism Review. 31 October 2018.

El Akkad, Omar. American War. Alfred A. Knopf. April 2017.

Fink, Joseph. Our Plague Year. Podcast.

Gryniewicz, Josh. "Metaphor in a Time of Ebola". PopMatters. 28 January 2015.

Hegland, Jean, Director. Into the Forest. Elevation Pictures. 12 September 2015.

Mars, Roman. "The Natural Experiment". 99PercentInvisible.org. 5 May 2020.

O'Grady, Megan. "What Can We Learn From the Art of Pandemics Past?" The New York Times. 8 April 2020.

Perrotta, Tom. The Leftovers. St. Martin's Press. August 2011.

Phillips, Whitney. "Please, Please, Please Don't Mock Conspiracy Theories". Wired. 27 February 2020.

Robertson, Donald. "Stoicism in the Time of Plague". Medium. 11 March 2020.

Roose, Kevin. "Welcome to the 'Rabbit Hole'". The New York Times. 16 April 2020.

Uscinski, Joseph E. and Enders, Adam M. "The Coronavirus Conspiracy Boom". The Atlantic. 30 April 2020.

Zarocostas, John. "How to fight an infodemic". The Lancet. 29 February 2020.

Coronavirus and the Culture Wars - PopMatters

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The Rose | by Ben Lerner – The New York Review of Books

Posted: at 3:44 am

At some point I realized the questions were the same questions. Im studying implicit race bias in toddlers. Im tracking the advent of the credit economy. The implication for folk music of the fact that stars dont twinklethe apparent perturbation of stars is just a fluctuation in the mediumis something we want to understand. We want to understand the way it changes our memories of bedtime, for instance. A green flash. Twinkle twinkle. Thats funny, a man in the atrium says, Im studying the same question. In different terms. Im living out that question as kindly as possible; in fact, thats why Im here today volunteering. You have to admit, the staff is doing an excellent job. Then he sips his tea in a paper cup. Then he describes an experience of defibrillation. The other day I went to see the realignment of a permanent collection; abstraction had been demoted. I had complicated thoughts about it, which I carried into the winter sun, where I realized: thats the same question, pressing my face into her inner thigh. Calling a friend in agony. For folk music, the implications are profound. Rhythm shapes feeling. That way abstraction can rise again, rinsed of dominance, a blue rinse for the tradition, little star. Only then is it possible to pose the question, cup the question, blow on it gently. Is recumbency necessary to facilitate analytic revelry. Is your mom really capable of hearing you, given her level of anxiety. To use an example from my own life, I sleep with my head under the pillow. I think its pretty common for men my age. But do we have a sufficient account of those rhythms of behavior as they spread out across a generation. Now a purpose for the arts comes into focus, leaving a bright halo around the body. The way psychoanalysis lacks an account of nut milks. How the term labor plays about the lips of humanists. I develop predictive technologies for complex scenarios. I slow down popular songs and play them over footage of sunflowers tracking east. Thats funny, a man says. When I was a kid I thought all the skyscrapers were department stores, imagined the top floors were devoted to toys, and when the towers came down I kept imagining large stuffed animals in a panic, a few leaping to their deaths. The moon is not the sun at night. How I wonder what you are. Many stones contain small amounts of poison and the nectarine is no exception. These are things Ive never said out loud before, how much his personality depends upon holding a hot drink, a small continuous exhibition of care that contrasts with the viciousness of his speech. Wool has more body than rayon. Or does the tape say viscousness, syntax behaving like a solid, providing light and ventilation. As a blue flame spreads across a shallow liquid spill, Im trying to imagine a lullaby that scales. I was taught this printing method in a dream. It contains a hidden countermelody. All I remember from your course, she told me, is that the rose is obsolete. Wed run into each other on the Queens-bound G, and I couldnt figure out if I should ask her about the bruising on her neck and face. We emerged out of the tunnel into winter sun and around her body a bright halo formed. Can I ask you a personal question. Have you ever felt like your speech is being dictated by phonological associations to such a degree that evenor maybe especiallyin your most intimate relationships, the content of your utterances is driven by the demands of acoustical shape. This troubles inwardness. This opens onto the problems of consent. Auditory memory traces are subject to rapid decay, like a diamond in the sky. Rose was my maternal grandmothers name. Her parents had a small grocery store in Brooklyn. They hired a driver for deliveries who came highly recommended. Butas they learned only after he struck and killed a pedestrianhe had no license. They were sued and lost everything. My great-grandfather went more or less insane. He also suffered from boils. My great-grandmother died from tuberculosis in a sanitorium with concrete floors. Neither spoke English. Rose had to raise her younger brother John in poverty, more or less alone. Many years later, Johnwho by this point was a pioneering anthologist of folk musicwas hit and killed by a Hasidic Jew hurrying home for the Sabbath. Late in Roses life, these two car accidents became confused in her mind. Her father had hired a Hasidic Jew who struck and killed her baby brother. But thats not why Im telling you this story, she said. When Rose was in an assisted living home in Cambridge, she became convinced that the staff were sneaking into her room and subtly altering her paintings. Taking the canvases out of the frames, adding another outline around the apples and pears, restoring the paintings to their places. My cousin would always argue with her: Are you crazy, who would do such a thing, nobody is touching your paintings. This went on for around a year. Until one day my dadwe were all in town for her ninetieth birthdaygot up from his chair, walked to the wall, removed his glasses, inspected the artworks carefully, and said: Well, Rose, you are the one who really knows these paintings. Youve had them for sixty years. So if you say they are being manipulated, Im sure youre right. But you have to admit, the staff is doing an excellent job. How carefully theyre reinserting the paper into the frame. No smudges on the glass. Rose thought for a moment. Youre right, she said, they are doing an excellent job. And she never complained about the staff again. I think this offers us a model of the art critic, if not an itinerary for art criticism, during a crisis in long-term care. Have you noticed how many stories about the power of art are really about the power of institutions, showrooms of the spirit. Here you are, a traveler in the dark. Its most prominent feature is a retractable shell. I prefer the corrosion of metals to the fading of dyes, less the end of an era than its bedtime. Someday it will have to be told how anti-Stalinism, which started out more or less as Trotskyism, turned into art for arts sake, and thereby cleared the way, heroically, for what was to come: nuisance animals climbing honeycomb structures. Fentanyl overdose vids. Im studying how glare light scatters in the eye. Im tracking how expressions of dissatisfaction with the given world can be recuperated by sonic patterning. The bruised idealism of the nectarine. Before a physical confrontation, the girls at my high school used to remove their rings. A ceremony of great solemnity and tenderness. Like one of those childrens singing games thats also an artifact of pagan survivalism. Eccentric circles, clapping, buffoonery. Or like a candle visualization relaxation technique designed to counter the gender panic threatening meaningful interdisciplinarity. Sample sentences, pop-up affects. We were walking on the beach at sunset, hoping to see a green flash. My cousin was explaining a difficulty in his marriage, which he kept referring to as a sticking point. I feel less like Im living my life, he said, than displaying my lifes elements. That he didnt attempt to kill the mosquito that had landed on his arm struck me as an indication of the depth of his depression. It was then that I began to ask: What do the things we spare reveal. Now I ask that at the end of every session. It was then I noticed a gunmetal drone hovering a few feet above us. The atmosphere bends the sunlight, separating the light into its colors, much like a prism bends and splits sunlight into rainbows. That way abstraction can rise again. I told him: I think youre confusing two accidents, those of birth and those of glass. Any long-term relationship is going to involve weeping, crizzling, spalling. If conservators had their way, nothing would ever be exhibited in the atrium. Every minute near sunset, brightness changes by a factor of two, so an error of sixty seconds can do permanent damage. He nodded absently, the fentanyl having its effect. At cloud tops, over distant mountains, beneath very strong thermal inversions at high latitudes: little star. I can feel it getting away from me. A sense of ripe conditions, but not for anything. A sense of oceans and old trees. Then a powerful institution approached a friend of mine about curating an exhibition based on their permanent collection. You can have, they said, free rein. Over the course of a year, she drew up plans for a show organized around the halo. How do depictions of the halo change as pictorial space grows complex. When are halos only light and when do they possess implied mass. Are some figures aware of their halos or are they always extradiegetic. She wouldnt really talk about anything else, even as her partners condition worsened. But increasingly there were problems with the institution; shipping, for instance, was a sticking point. The radiant discs have to be continuously irrigated. Sterile ice has to be packed into the cavities. You have to come up with a fair scoring system for pediatric candidates. Finally, we were having our monthly lunch, and she was complaining, as ever, about the staff, when I just kind of blurted out: Emma, its never going to happen. Olivia, its never going to happen. Mia, theres just no way. All of the most popular baby names end in a. As in sparkling ros. Wild fennel pollen. Stone fruit tossed with salt, bay leaf, and coriander seeds. Think of the head as the lid of a pot, holding the flavor of the shrimp inside its body. Isla, Olivia, Aurora, Cora, Ada, Amara, I said, as she started to cry. The water in our glasses trembled as the G train passed beneath us, little perturbations in the medium. Someday it will have to be told how spider monkeys, who started out more or less as woolly monkeys, evolved a distinct system of locomotion, and thereby cleared the way, heroically, for what was to come: anonymity networks. Among my friends, at least my guy friends, a return to traditional prosody. But of course we never talk about me; we talk about whether youre going to get shit on Twitter for folding in the aureola. Is it better to be sponsored by the diocese or Big Tobacco. Can we secure a couple of big names for the catalog. Bring me up to speed about your volunteer work at the hospital, you say, when the espressos arrive. Meanwhile your partner is sinking deeper into her memory foam, texting you the latest article about microdosing. Maybe this will help, sad emoji. The self-absorption is staggering. The orator aims to bend the spirit by his speech. Rhythm shapes feeling. I pushed my chair back, a gesture totally unlike me, and threw a couple of twenties on the table. Then I found myself on Fulton Street, dazed in winter sun, more than a little drunk. Only when I dug my hands into my pockets and touched the unfamiliar gloves did I realize Id taken someone elses black wool coat. But I couldnt just go back into the restaurant after the scene Id made. I headed toward Fort Greene Park and sat on one of the benches near DeKalb. I felt around the pockets of the coat and found a pack of Vogue cigarettes, the slim British ones marketed to women. While I smoked, I looked through the wallet, which Id located in the inside pocket. Cash, cards, dry-cleaning ticket, etc. There was also a piece of brown paper that I unfolded, revealing the following handwritten note in purple ink: I know weve had a difficult year, but I want you to know that I love you. I will always love you. What happened in Denver will never happen again. If anything, it has only clarified for me how important you are to me. I think the way things started was confusingyour being my teacher. And then when my career took off the dynamic was suddenly reversed. The change was hard for both of us, especially with all the travel. I also see now how it stirred up a lot of stuff from childhood. I just started questioning everything. Im sure this happens in any long-term relationship, but maybe its worse now, for our generation, because of climate change. Anyway, Im not trying to excuse what I did. I just want you to know that I believe in you and I believe in us and Im looking forward to the adventures the new year will bring. I looked up from the note with tears in my eyes. A siren receded in the distance. The sun seemed suddenly lower in the sky. A large white dog on a leash brushed against my legs as it passed. All of my anger was gone. The message, I felt, was meant for me; folk music is for all of us.

VICE – Armed Man Who Allegedly Stormed Justin Trudeau’s Residence Appears to Have Posted QAnon Content – VICE

Posted: at 3:44 am

Photos via Grindhouse Fine Foods Instagram and THE CANADIAN PRESS/ADRIAN WYLD

Update: This post has been updated to include the charges against Corey Hurren and comment from Marc-Andr Argentino.

Less than an hour before Corey Hurren allegedly drove his pickup truck through the gates of Rideau Hall, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lives, a social media account for his business posted a meme that blames the global elite for COVID-19.

At 6:05 AM, the Instagram account for Grindhouse Fine Foods, the company Hurren operates, posted a meme relating to Event 201a pandemic training event put on in part by the Bill Gates Foundation. At 6:40 AM, RCMP said Hurren rammed his truck, which contained multiple firearms, through the gates hard enough to set his airbags off. He left the truck on foot with a rifle in his hand and was intercepted by RCMP officers who, after hours of negotiation, were able to take him into custody without incident just before 8:30 A.M.

On Friday afternoon, RCMP announced a slew of firearms charges against Hurren, a member of the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve. They include: four counts of careless use of a firearm, four counts of illegally transporting of a firearm, four counts of possession of a weapon for a dangerous reason, one count of possession of of a prohibited devices, four counts of possession of a restricted firearm with ammunition, and one count of uttering threats. Hurren attended a bail hearing Friday afternoon but it was pushed back until July 17. He will remain in police custody till then.

RCMP Deputy Commissioner Mike Duheme said there was never any danger to Trudeau or Governor General Julie Payette as they werent at their homes at the time of the incident. While the RCMP says the man had several weapons on him they did not elaborate about the specifics of the weapons.

Citing anonymous sources, several media outlets have reported that Hurren was armed with several rifles and a shotgun, at least one of which was on him at the time of his arrest. Hurren also allegedly had a note on him that he wished to deliver to Trudeau.

According to LinkedIn, Hurren has operated Grindhouse Fine Foods, a meat company, since 2014. The companys Instagram account features posts that are related to the business, such as images of sausages, and others that are personal in nature, such as photos of Hurren.

Hurren in a Instagram post from Decemeber 2019. Photo via Grindhouse Fine Foods Instagram.

On March 27, Grindhouse Fine Foods posted a QAnon meme. It features a white rabbit (the mascot for the conspiracy) at the wheel of a car. The Instagram caption says: Has anyone else been following 'Q' and the 'White Rabbit' down the rabbit hole and how this all relates to the coronavirus/COVID-19 situation? Lots of coincidences in all these 'Q' posts if this turns out to be a 'Nothingburger'." He then lists a plethora of conspiracies in the hashtags which include the killing of Seth Rich, adrenochrome, pizzagate, pedogate, and several related to sex offender Jeffery Epstein. The account also posted several hashtags linked to QAnon like WWG1WGA, a storm is coming, and the deep state.

QAnon is a wide-ranging conspiracy in the United States that focuses on Donald Trumps battles with deep state enemies.

Marc-Andr Argentino, a PhD candidate at Concordia University who studies QAnon and similar movements, flagged Hurren's post to VICE. Argentino said Hurren's posts indicate that he's not a die-hard QAnon adherent, but may have gotten into the movement during the pandemic because of economic and political stress. However, Argentino stressed that we still dont have the full picture of what Hurren believes at the moment.

He's consumed enough of the content to know the very specific hashtags to use, said Argentino.

The meme Grindhouse posted shortly before Hurren allegedly rammed the gates at Rideau Hall was also posted to the account in May. It refers to Event 201, an international training exercise put on by Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the World Economic Forum in October 2019. The exercise was to test the readiness of the world in the event of a global pandemic. Many conspiracy theorists believe it indicates that Bill Gates, alongside other elites, orchestrated the pandemic. The Event 201 post was first reported on by the Toronto Star.

Hurren is from Bowsman, Manitoba, one of the northernmost farming communities in the province. In Grindhouses social media posts, Hurren frequently refers to the fact hes a veteran who recently rejoined the military as a Canadian Rangers member. The Rangers are a part of the national reserve that serve in remote regions.

A robot with the bomb squad recovered a collection of military rations in Hurren's vehicle following the arrest.

The instagram post referring to QAnon. Photo via Grindhouse Fine Foods Instagram.

In one of Grindhouses Instagram posts, Hurren said he had to temporarily shut down his business because of COVID-19.

"As some of you may already know, things have been on hold with my GrindHouse meat products due to the logistics of the COVID-19 situation," he wrote. "I am not sure what will be left of our economy, industries, and businesses when this all ends."

For most of the year, the posts focused on his company (his Ring of Fire sausage, in particular,) his time with the Rangers, and survivalism. That changed in March when COVID-19 hit, and the posts became far more focused on the pandemic and began to reference conspiracies.

The day before Hurren allegedly rammed the gates, an anti-Trudeau rally took place in Ottawa. While the rally was about a variety of subjects, including pushing back on COVID-19 safety measures, many of the attendees were adherents of the conspiracy. Footage of the gathering, which drew hundreds of people, was amplified by Q, the central figure of the QAnon conspiracy. Photos of the event show many attendees holding signs relating to Q. The group chanted where we go one we go all, the main slogan of the conspiracy.

There is no evidence directly linking Hurren to the rally. Duchene said at the press conference that as far as he knew, the suspect was not in Ottawa for another reason but declined to go into any details relating to his travel or activities in Ottawa prior to breaking through the gates of Rideau Hall armed.

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VICE - Armed Man Who Allegedly Stormed Justin Trudeau's Residence Appears to Have Posted QAnon Content - VICE

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Cryonics, brain preservation and the weird science of cheating death – CNET

Posted: July 6, 2020 at 5:53 pm

Linda Chamberlain works just down the hallway from her husband. She walks past him every day. Occasionally she'll stop by to check in on him and say hello.

The only problem is, Fred Chamberlain has been dead for eight years. Shortly after he was pronounced legally dead from prostate cancer, Fred was cryopreserved -- his body was filled with a medical-grade antifreeze, cooled to minus 196 degrees Celsius and carefully lowered into a giant vat of liquid nitrogen.

So when Linda visits Fred, she talks to him through the insulated, stainless-steel wall of a 10-foot-tall preservation chamber. And he's not alone in there. Eight people reside in that massive cylinder along with him, and more than 170 are preserved in similar chambers in the same room. All of them elected to have their bodies stored in subzero temperatures, to await a future when they could be brought back to life. Cryonically preserved in the middle of the Arizona desert.

This story is part of Hacking the Apocalypse, CNET's documentary series on the tech saving us from the end of the world.

Linda Chamberlain is cheerful as she shows me her husband's perhaps-not-final resting place. She places her hand on the cool steel and gives it a loving pat. Being in a room with 170 dead people isn't morbid to her.

"It makes me feel happy," she says. "Because I know that they have the potential to be restored to life and health. And I have the potential of being with them again."

Alcor proclaims itself a world leader in cryonics, offering customers the chance to preserve their bodies indefinitely, until they can be restored to full health and function through medical discoveries that have yet to be made. For the low price of $220,000, Alcor is selling the chance to live a second life.

It's a slim chance.

Critics say cryonics is a pipe dream, no different from age-old chimeras like the fountain of youth. Scientists say there's no way to adequately preserve a human body or brain, and that the promise of bringing a dead brain back to life is thousands of years away.

But Alcor is still selling that chance. And ever since Linda and Fred Chamberlain founded the Alcor Life Extension Foundation back in 1972, Linda has watched Alcor's membership swell with more people wanting to take that chance. More than 1,300 people have now signed up to have their bodies sent to Alcor instead of the graveyard.

And when her time is up, Linda Chamberlain plans to join them.

Photographs of "patients" line the walls of Alcor's offices.

From the outside, Alcor's facilities don't look like the kind of place you'd come to live forever.

When I arrived at the company's headquarters, a nondescript office block in Scottsdale, Arizona, a short drive out of Phoenix, I expected something grander. After all, this is a place that's attempting to answer the question at the heart of human existence: Can we cheat death?

I've come here to find out why someone would choose cryonics. What drives someone to reject the natural order of life and death, and embrace an end that's seen by many, scientists and lay people alike, as the stuff of science fiction?

But after a short time at Alcor, I realize the true believers here don't see cryonics as a way to cheat death. They don't even see death as the end.

"Legal death only really means that your heart and your lungs have stopped functioning without intervention," Linda Chamberlain tells me. "It doesn't mean your cells are dead, it doesn't mean even your organs are dead."

Alcor refers to the people preserved in its facilities as "patients" for that very reason -- it doesn't consider them to be dead.

In Chamberlain's view, the idea of death as an "on-off switch" is outdated. People that died 100 years ago could well have been saved by modern medical interventions that we take for granted in the 21st century. So what about 100 years from now? Alcor hopes that by pressing pause on life, its patients might be revived when medical technology has improved.

"Our best estimates are that within 50 to 100 years, we will have the medical technologies needed to restore our patients to health and function," says Chamberlain.

We're killing people who could potentially be preserved. We're just throwing them in the ground so they can be eaten by worms and bacteria.

Alcor CEO Max More

Alcor CEO Max More agrees. In his view, cryonics is about giving people who die today a second chance. And he says our current views about death and burial are robbing people of a potential future.

"We're killing people who could potentially be preserved," More says. "We're just throwing them in the ground so they can be eaten by worms and bacteria, or we're burning them up. And to me, that's kind of crazy when we could give them a chance if they want it.

"If you think about life insurance, it's actually death insurance -- it pays out on death. This really is life insurance. It's a backup plan."

An early copy of Cryonics magazine sits in Alcor's offices, showing the inside of one of its preservation chambers.

Alcor hasn't exactly mapped out how its patients will be brought back to full function and health, or what revival technologies the future will bring. Its website speaks about the possibility of molecular nanotechnology -- that is, using microscopic nano-robots to "replace old damaged chromosomes with new ones in every cell."

But that level of cellular regeneration isn't something Alcor is working on. The company is in the business of selling preservation, but it's not developing the technologies for restoration. In fact, no one currently working at Alcor is likely to be responsible for reviving patients. That responsibility will be handed on to the next generation (and potentially many more generations after that) -- scientists of some undetermined time in the future, who will have developed the technology necessary to reverse the work that Alcor is doing now. It seems like a convenient gap for cryonics: Sell the promise in the present without the burden of proving the end result.

Our goal is to have reversible suspended animation, just like in the movies. We want it to be that perfect.

Alcor founder Linda Chamberlain

Chamberlain herself admits the future is ultimately unclear and that they "don't know how powerful the revival technologies are going to be." But she does know the end result Alcor is aiming for.

"Our goal is to have reversible suspended animation, just like in the movies," she says. "We want it to be that perfect. We're not there yet, but we're always working on improving our techniques."

The science behind cryonics is unproven. The procedures are highly experimental. No human -- specifically, no human brain -- has been brought back from death or from a state of postmortem preservation. Alcor points to research in worms and the organs of small mammals that it says indicates the potential for cryonics. There are famous names associated with the movement (Alcor admits famed baseballer Ted Williams is a patient), but there aren't exactly any human success stories who've awoken from cryonic preservation to hit the motivational speaking circuit.

James Bedford, the first man to enter cryonic suspension, according to Alcor. Bedford was preserved in a "cryocapsule" in 1967 (five years before Alcor was founded), before being transferred into Alcor's facilities in 1991.

Even More isn't making any promises. He acknowledges that the company may not even exist when it comes time for its patients to wake up.

"There are no guarantees," he says. "We're not promising to bring you back on May 27th, 2082, or whatever. We don't know officially this will work. We don't know for sure that the organization [Alcor] will survive... We don't know if an asteroid will land on us. There's no guarantees. But it's a shot. It's an opportunity. And it just seems to be better than the alternative."

The way the Alcor team sees it, you have a better chance of waking up from here than you do if you're sent to the crematorium.

One of the central questions of cryonics is how you preserve a dead body if you hope to revive it.

Even if they don't know exactly when or how patients will be brought back, the team at Alcor knows one thing is vital: They need to preserve as much of the brain and body as perfectly as possible.

While they may be clinically dead when they arrive in the operating room, Alcor's "patients" are intubated and kept on ice while a mechanical thumper (shown here on a dummy) keeps blood flowing around the body, all in a bid to preserve the body as thoroughly as possible.

That life-saving mortuary practice takes place inside Alcor's operating room -- a sort of hospital-meets-morgue where the organization prepares bodies for "long-term care."

When patients come through the doors at Alcor, they've already been pronounced legally dead. Ideally, they haven't had to travel far to get here and they've had their body put on ice as soon as possible after clinical death. According to Chamberlain, that hypothermia is vital for "slowing down the dying process." I didn't think I'd hear someone say that about a dead person.

During the first stages of cryonic preservation, bodies are "perfused" with a medical-grade antifreeze, all in a bid to prevent ice crystals forming. From here, the body vitrifies, rather than freezing.

(I also didn't expect to see a dead person in the operating room. At least, that's what I thought when I saw a human dummy waiting in the ice bath by the door. One of Alcor's employees picked up the dummy's hand to wave at me and I genuinely think that moment shortened my life span by two years.)

The ice bath is the first step in the preservation process, and it's here where the patient is placed in a kind of post-death life support. Drugs are administered to slow down metabolic processes, the body is intubated to maintain oxygen levels, and a mechanical thumper pumps the heart to ensure blood keeps flowing around the body.

The team then prepares the body to be cooled down to its permanent storage temperature. The blood is replaced with cryoprotectant (think of it like medical-grade antifreeze), which is pumped through the veins, all in a bid to (surprisingly) prevent the body freezing.

Freezing might sound like the natural end goal of cryopreservation, but it's actually incredibly damaging. Our bodies are made up of about 50 to 60% water, and when this water starts to freeze, it forms ice crystals which damage the body's organs and veins.

But if that water is replaced with cryoprotectant, Alcor says it can slowly reduce temperatures so the body vitrifies -- turning into a kind of glass-like state, rather than freezing. From here, the body is placed in a giant stainless steel chamber, known as a dewar. And Alcor says a cryopreserved body can be stored in this "long-term care" for decades.

I missed something when I first walked into the operating room. At the back, behind the ice bath and medical instruments (including surgical scissors and, chillingly, unexplained saws), there's a clear box, about the size of a milk crate, with a circular metal ring clamped inside.

It's a box for human heads.

This is designed for patients who've elected to preserve their head only, removed from the body from the collarbone up. These preserved heads are referred to as "neuro patients."

This small perspex box in the Alcor operating room is used to clamp human heads in place for cryopreservation.

If putting my whole body on ice was a bridge too far, then cutting off and preserving my head is beyond anything I can fathom. But it's a choice some of Alcor's patients make. The neuro patients are stored in small, barrel-sized vats while they wait for long-term care. The moment I lifted the lid on one of these vats -- nitrogen gas billowing out, human head obscured just inches below -- will stay with me forever.

Each preservation chamber can hold four bodies (positioned with the head at the bottom, to keep the brain as cool as possible) and five "neuro patients" stacked down the center.

It's cheaper if you elect to preserve just your head. Alcor charges only $80,000 for the head, compared with $220,000 for the full body. But there are also pragmatic reasons for choosing this more selective form of cryonic preservation.

When Alcor cryopreserves a body, the main priority is to preserve the brain and cause as little damage as possible. After all, the brain is not only the center of cognitive function, but also long-term memory. Essentially everything that makes you who you are.

You might be attached to your body now (both figuratively and literally), but many people at Alcor believe that, by the time medical science has advanced enough to bring a person back to life, their full body won't be needed. Whether you're regenerating a human body from DNA found in the head or uploading a person's consciousness to a new physical body, if we reach a point where cryonic preservation can be reversed, potentially hundreds of years in the future, your 20th or 21st century body will be outdated hardware.

That's certainly a view Linda Chamberlain takes. When she goes, only her head will stay.

"There's a lot of DNA in all that tissue and material," she says of the human head. "A new body can be grown for you from your own DNA. It's just a new, beautiful body that hasn't aged and hasn't had damage from disease."

In fact, when Chamberlain thinks of her future body, she doesn't want to limit herself to the kind of human form she has now.

"I hope that I won't have a biological body, but I'll have a body made out of nanobots," she tells me. "I can be as beautiful as I want to be. I won't be old anymore."

I hope that I won't have a biological body, but I'll have a body made out of nanobots.

Alcor founder Linda Chamberlain

I tell her she's already beautiful. She laughs.

"But if you have a nanobot swarm, it can reconfigure itself any way you want!" she replies, completely serious. "If I want to go swimming in the ocean, I have to worry about sharks. But after I have my nanobots body, if I want to go swimming in the ocean, I can just reconfigure myself to be like an orca, a killer whale. And then the sharks have to look out for me."

Waking up 100 years from now as a fully reconfigurable, shark-hunting nanobot orca sounds like fun.

But this kind of future is possible only if the process of going into cryonic preservation doesn't damage your brain. The brain is a staggeringly complex organ, and storing it at subzero temperatures for decades at a time has the potential to cause serious cellular damage.

And according to some scientists, that's the main issue with cryonics. Before you even get to the issue of reanimation, they say, cryonics doesn't come close to delivering on the promise of preservation.

Surgical instruments in Alcor's operating room.

Neuroscientist Ken Hayworth is one expert who's highly skeptical. Hayworth isn't opposed to preservation -- he was a member of Alcor before he left to found the Brain Preservation Foundation with the goal of building dialogue between cryonicists and the broader scientific community. He wants brain preservation to be a respected field of scientific study. And in 2010, he laid down a challenge to help build that credibility.

"[We] put out a very concrete challenge that said, 'Hey, cryonics community, prove to us that you can at least preserve those structures of the brain that neuroscience knows are critical to long-term memory, meaning the synaptic connectivity of the brain," he says.

"The cryonics community, unfortunately, has not met the bare minimum requirements of that prize."

Hayworth says he's seen examples of animal brains preserved using techniques very similar to what cryonics companies say they use, but the samples showed a significant number of dead cells.

"I take that to mean that there was probably a lot of damage to those structures that encode memory," he says. "It was like, 'We're looking at something that doesn't look right at all.'"

We're looking at something that doesn't look right at all.

Ken Hayworth

However, Hayworth has seen a technique that successfully preserved a brain so well that it was awarded the Brain Preservation Prizeby his foundation. This prize recognized a team of researchers for preserving synapses across the whole brain of a pig. But the technique, known as "aldehyde stabilized cryopreservation," has two limitations that differ from the promise of cryonics. Firstly, it requires the brain to be filled with gluteraldehyde, a kind of embalming fluid, which means the brain can never be revived. And secondly? It's a lethal process that needs to be conducted while a mammal is living.

"It almost instantly glues together all the proteins in the brain," says Hayworth. "Now you're as dead as a rock at that point. You ain't coming back. But the advantage of that is it glues all of them in position, it doesn't destroy information."

Retaining that information is vital because, according to Hayworth, it could allow you to re-create a person's mind in the future. Forget transplanting your head onto a new body. Hayworth says the information from a preserved brain could potentially be scanned and uploaded into another space, such as a computer, allowing you to live on as a simulation.

You might not be a walking, talking human like you once were. But, in Hayworth's view, that's not the only way to live again.

"I think there's plenty of reason to suspect that future technologies will be able to bring somebody back -- future technologies like brain scanning, and mind uploading and brain simulation."

Being preserved long enough (and well enough) that you can live on as a simulation may be one of the end goals that cryonicists hope to achieve.

But there are plenty of critics who say we won't reach that point anytime soon. They say there's no way to know whether cryonics adequately preserves the brain, because we don't fully understand how the mind works, let alone how to physically preserve its complexity.

Ken Miller is a professor of neuroscience and co-director of the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience at Columbia University in New York. He's spent his life trying to understand the complexity of the human brain.

"Some people say [the brain] is the most complicated thing in the universe," says Miller.

"The most basic answer to how the brain works is, we don't know. We know how a lot of pieces work ... but we're very far from understanding the system."

It's at least thousands of years before we would know and really understand how the brain works.

Ken Miller

According to Miller, while we know a lot about parts of the brain -- how the neurons function, how electrical signals travel to the brain -- the complete picture is still a mystery.

"In my opinion, it's at least thousands of years before we would know and really understand how the brain works to the point where you could take all the pieces ... and put it back together and make a mind out of it," says Miller.

"It's just the complexity. Levels and levels and levels and levels -- it's beyond the imagination."

And what if we reach that point? What if, a thousand years from now, science was capable of restoring my cryonically preserved brain and uploading it to some kind of simulator -- would I still be me?

Sitting in his office, I put the question to Miller. And in the kind of meta way that I've realized is normal when speaking to a professor of theoretical neuroscience, I see the cogs of his mind working. His brain, thinking about another brain, living on as a simulated brain. My brain is melting.

"I think so, but it's a funny question," he says. "Because of course, if it was all information that you got up into a computer... making something feel like Claire, we could have a million of them on a million different machines. And each of them would feel like Claire.

"But immediately, just like twins -- immediately, identical twins start having divergent experiences and becoming different people. And so all the different Claires would immediately start having different experiences and becoming different Claires."

Back in Arizona, with the vision of a million computerized versions of myself enslaving the human race far from my mind, the promise of cryonics still feels like a dream.

I'm walking through the long-term care room as waterfalls of fog cascade from the cryonic chambers. These dewars need to be regularly refilled with liquid nitrogen to make sure patients stay at the perfect temperature, and today's the day they're getting topped up.

As I slowly step through the fog, stainless steel chambers loom large around me. Visibility drops, so I can barely see my outstretched hand in front of my face. For just the tiniest moment, as my feet disappear beneath me and I'm surrounded by reflections on reflections of white vapor, I lose my bearings. I feel like I'm having an out-of-body experience.

Walking through Alcor's long-term preservation room is a surreal experience.

It lasts an instant and, just like that, I'm back in the room. Surrounded by 170 dead people.

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Cryonics, brain preservation and the weird science of cheating death - CNET

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Nano One update: progress on battery technology – The Armchair Trader

Posted: at 5:53 pm

There is a lot of excitement around Nano One (TSX-V:NNO / NDQ:NNOMF) at the moment, thanks in large part to its recent announcement that the proprietary battery materials it is working on are demonstrating far more durability, when tested under laboratory conditions, than competitor solutions. Here we revisit some of Nano Ones core technologies in the light of recent developments at the company.

We would encourage readers to revisit our initial note which covers off the basics of Nano One which we wrote last December. This article is supplementary in that it revisits some of the core technology in light of developments in the last six months, since that note was written.

Nano Ones technology for making high nickel cathode materials is a one pot process, radically different in its chemistry, in that everything is added into a single pot, including nickel, manganese and lithium to produce one product: each individual crystal has its own coating, granting greater durability than uncoated material. It translates into better cycle life and less degradation.

The one pot process also has the advantage of not requiring a lot of different firing steps, which adds to expense. The process yields a more stable structure. The coating is also not damaged as it is the individual nano crystals which are coated. This translates into life extension as born out by recent results from the company which compared uncoated material with coated material. After a number of cycles, it degraded 4% and the uncoated material degraded 17%. This is based on lab results, but Nano One says it is scaling up the process and we could see this translating into much more durability for batteries.

Nano One is a play across a number of different battery materials, based on filed patents, including LFP (lithium iron phosphate) and high nickel NMC (lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide) battery technologies. CEO Dan Blondal says the company is also pursuing research into high voltage spinels, using a manganese-based battery that runs at very high voltage. Nano One is not a one tech play by any means and the research team is working to develop technology with more immediate commercial outputs while other projects could take more time to bear fruit.

Each one of them has pros and cons, says Blondal. Each one of them has properties which are beneficial to certain applications. There isnt going to be a winner, there is going to be a continuum of these materials. I think its important that were positioning our technology to be able to do any one of these things. The fact that we can use lithium carbonate as feedstock for high nickel materials is very unique.

LFP, he reckons, will soon have the capacity to power batteries that can sustain electric cars for 500-600km rather than 150km. That, he argues, is going to be a serious game changer. It actually starts to address the long range luxury vehicle market as well, he says.

The battery materials technology that is employed today requires hydroxide, but there is a way to eliminate the need for hydroxide. High nickel requires short firing processes to produce the battery crystals. If the crystals are fired at too high a heat or for too long, the battery performance is impinged, as the nickel and lithium change places.

By lowering the temperature, lithium carbonate ends up not decomposing or reacting. Lithium hydroxide addresses this. The Nano One process adds lithium carbonate into the one pot reactor, making it react in the reactor, not in the kiln. It is not carbonate when it enters the kiln.

Lithium hydroxide or lithium carbonate can therefore both be used as the product will end up being the same. Nano One can use either hydroxide or carbonate, giving it much more flexibility if lithium market prices change.

Fewer process steps also mean a higher yield and capex and opex will thus be lower. Significant amounts can be saved in the process costs. The material can be coated simultaneously, therefore avoiding subsequent steps to coat the material.

The elimination of a lot of the intermediate grinding steps typically used in battery material manufacturing also mean there will be fewer metallic impurities. The Nano One process does not require the removal of metallic impurities with magnets, again stripping out a more expensive part of the process.

By and large we are there on LFP, says Blondal. We completed a relatively detailed engineering report in mid-June. That maps out a plan that is very cost effective. We have identified sources of iron and phosphorous that actually help drive down the cost of the cathode materials. But the biggest step is that you have to provide this stuff first of all. Were well along the way with lithium ion phosphate.

The key for future profitability of Nano One is proving the materials outperform other types of coated materials. LFP, in Blondals view, brings a significant cost advantage, NMC brings the durability advantages with the option to sacrifice durability for performance if that is the manufacturers priority.

The company is also working within a high voltage spinel ecosystem to develop a next generation battery. Blondel does not see these various technologies competing against each other.

LFP batteries look the closest to achieving some level of commercialisation, largely because much of the process of turning the technology into something that can be manufactured can already be readily implemented. NMC looks further off but Blondal says it has the scope to speed up significantly.

NMC remains challenging to make. Some of these issues are fundamental to the technology, but Blondal believes more durability will deliver some distinct advantages. NMC does not replace LFP as an industrial material and LFP will see wider use in the future, he says. But we are starting to see a battery pack design which packs cells much closer together, while still leveraging LFP technology. Performance has never been an issue for LFP, it has been range.

We found Nano Ones recent durability results very encouraging indeed, as did the market. Nano One shares are currently trading at CAD 1.54 in Toronto, up substantially from where they were in early December. We have seen considerable progress in the last few days, with shares up from the CAD 1.35-1.36 level seen last week.

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Nano One update: progress on battery technology - The Armchair Trader

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Highland Copper Announces Further Extension of White Pine Closing – GlobeNewswire

Posted: at 5:53 pm

LONGUEUIL, Quebec, July 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Highland Copper Company Inc. (TSXV: HI, OTCQB: HDRSF) (the Company) announced today that the deadline to complete the acquisition of the White Pine North Project from Copper Range Company (CRC), a wholly owned subsidiary of First Quantum Minerals Ltd., was extended to December 31, 2020. The final closing of the acquisition is subject to a number of conditions, including, without limitation, a release of CRC from certain environmental obligations associated with the remediation and closure plan of the historical White Pine mine site and replacing the related environmental bond.

About Highland

Highland Copper Company Inc. is a Canadian company focused on exploring and developing copper projects in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, U.S.A. Its Copperwood Project is a development stage copper project fully permitted to move into the construction stage with a projected payable production of approximately 30,000 tonnes of copper per year during an estimated mine life of 11 years (see news release of June 15, 2018 and technical report filed on SEDAR on July 31, 2018). A preliminary economic assessment and mineral resource estimate for the White Pine North Project was completed in September 2019 presenting a projected payable production of approximately 40,000 tonnes of copper per year during an estimated mine life of 24 years (see news release of September 23, 2019 and technical report filed on SEDAR on November 7, 2019). A preliminary economic assessment is considered preliminary in nature and includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves and there is no certainty that the preliminary economic assessment will be realized. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

The Companys common shares are listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol HI and trade on the OTCQB Venture Market under symbol HDRSF. More information about the Company is available on the Companys website at http://www.highlandcopper.com and on SEDAR at http://www.sedar.com.

Cautionary Note

This press release contains certain forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. There can be no assurance that the Company will be able to meet the conditions to close the White Pine acquisition by December 31, 2020 or that the Company will, if required, be able to get a further extension from CRC. Risks, uncertainties and other factors which could have an impact includes the Companys financial condition, fluctuations of the price of copper, the effects of general economic conditions and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on potential transactions and on the Companys ability to raise funds, and other risks and uncertainties described in our most recently filed annual and interim financial statements and managements discussion and analysis, each of which are available at http://www.sedar.com. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to the Company as of the date hereof, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by law.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

For further information, please contact:Denis Miville-Deschnes, President & CEOTel: +1.450.677.2455Email: info@highlandcopper.com

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Highland Copper Announces Further Extension of White Pine Closing - GlobeNewswire

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Registry is an arm of the Court and an extension of its dignity, says SC – The Leaflet

Posted: at 5:53 pm

The Supreme Court of India on Monday dismissed a petition filed by Advocate Reepak Kansal seeking direction to the registry of the court not to give preference to the cases filed by influential lawyers/ petitioners, law firms, etc. A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and S Abdul Nazeer also imposed cost of Rs.100/on the petitioner as a token to remind his responsibility towards noble profession and that he ought not to have preferred such a petition.

The staff of this Court is working despite danger to their life and safety caused due to pandemic, and several of the Dealing Staff, as well as Officers, have suffered due to Covid19. During such a hard time, it was not expected of the petitioner who is an officer of this Court to file such a petition to demoralize the Registry of this Court instead of recognizing the task undertaken by them even during pandemic and lockdown period, the court said.

The court added that it has become a widespread practice to blame the Registry for no good reasons. It further said to err is human, as many petitions are filed with defects, and defects are not cured for years together.

A large number of such cases were listed in the recent past before the Court for removal of defects which were pending for years. In such situation, when the pandemic is going on, baseless and reckless allegations are made against the Registry of this Court, which is part and parcel of the judicial system, said Justices Arun Mishra and Abdul Nazeer.

The court also took judicial notice of the fact that such evil is also spreading in the various High Courts, and Registry is blamed unnecessarily for no good reasons. It is to be remembered by worthy lawyers that they are the part of the judicial system; they are officers of the Court and are a class apart in the society, the bench said.

The Registry, according to the court, is nothing but an arm of this Court and an extension of its dignity. The court went on to state that Bar is equally respected and responsible part of the integral system, Registry is part and parcel of the system, and the system has to work in tandem and mutual reverence.

We also expect from the Registry to work efficiently and effectively. At the same time, it is expected of the lawyers also to remove the defects effectively and not to unnecessarily cast aspersions on the system, the court lamented.

Petitioner had alleged that the petition filed by Arnab Goswami at 08:07 pm was without annexure. The Registry, however, had chosen not to point out any defects, and a special supplementary list was uploaded on the same day. He added that the category was not specified in the notification to be heard during a nationwide lockdown. No procedure was followed by the Registry for urgent hearing during the lockdown.

He also alleged that despite the letter of urgency, the Registry failed to register and list the writ petition filed by him.

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Registry is an arm of the Court and an extension of its dignity, says SC - The Leaflet

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Hacking the Apocalypse: Your new guide to surviving the end of the world – MSN Money

Posted: at 5:53 pm

Provided by CNET CNET's new video series looks at how to survive the end of the world. Rob Rodriguez/CNET

Can a missile bunker protect you from a nuclear blast? Can an escape pod save you from a megatsunami? Could we put our bodies into cryosleep to avoid the apocalypse altogether?

Hacking the Apocalypse host, Claire Reilly, outside the Survival Condo nuclear bunker in Kansas.

From July 6, CNET is bringing you Hacking the Apocalypse, a new six-part series looking at high-tech solutions to escape the end of the world.

In each episode, I take you to meet everyone from preppers to pandemic experts, and I'll road test some fascinating tech that could save the world. Plus, you can check out the accompanying stories, covering what you need to know about the end of the world.

The six-part series launches onCNET's YouTube Channelon Monday, July 6, with a new episode every day.

You can also watch the full series on CNET from July 6. Check out ourHacking the Apocalypselanding page to see all the episodes and take a deep dive into each ep with stories and behind-the-scenes galleries. And read on to see the full series rundown below.

You can also watch Hacking the Apocalypse on the CNET channel onPluto TV, channel 684.

When we first started filming Hacking the Apocalypse, long before the coronavirus pandemic, I asked one of the world's top health experts whether a "mutant bat influenza" could catch us off-guard. Little did we know how prophetic that moment would be. The experts warned us, and they were right. In 2020, we've faced a once-in-a-century pandemic and seen what happens when a global health emergency plays out in real time.

For our first episode in this series, we visit the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia to learn about the last major pandemic we faced (it wasn't pretty) and speak to the leading public health experts at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security about how we battle a pandemic in the 21st century.

But the big innovation? We speak to scientists in Tennessee who are researching human immunity to help us fight the coronavirus, and to a team of researchers finding life-saving drugs using the world's most powerful supercomputer.

Watch Hacking the Apocalypse: Pandemic on July 6.

How long would we survive if the whole planet went into a full-scale nuclear winter? We travel to Boulder, Colorado, to learn the science behind nuclear winter with an atmospheric scientist and nuclear expert, professor Brian Toon.

Then we head into the heartland of Kansas (we can't tell you where) to visit a real-life nuclear bunker, made for the world's richest preppers. Turns out avoiding nuclear winter doesn't mean sacrificing luxury.

Watch Hacking the Apocalypse: Nuclear Winter on July 6.

Droughts in California, catastrophic fires in Australia -- the impacts of climate change are only going to get worse. In this episode, we learn about the real threat of global drought, before visiting a lab in New York to learn how scientists could turn toxic waste into drinking water.

Then it's off to New Jersey to visit Bowery Farming, a company that's created a space-age vertical farm, inside a warehouse, to grow food with 90% less water.

Watch Hacking the Apocalypse: Global Drought on July 7.

The coast off the Pacific Northwest is a hot zone for catastrophic earthquakes, so what better place to test out a tsunami survival pod? In this episode, we speak to one of the world's leading seismological experts to find out just what happens when the Earth shakes, before heading to Seattle to road test (or should that be water test?) a tiny escape pod that could save us from tsunami devastation.

Watch Hacking the Apocalypse: Tsunami on July 8.

If the end of the world is coming, could we cheat death by putting our bodies into stasis? To answer that question, we visit the facilities of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a company promising a second life in the future through the power of cryonics. Delving into the murky world of cryonics is fascinating (and a little haunting). While the hope of escaping death might sound promising, the scientific proof leaves a lot to be desired.

Watch Hacking the Apocalypse: Cryonics on July 9.

When life on Earth starts to feel particularly apocalyptic, it's tempting to imagine that humans may one day leave this planet and become an interplanetary species. But though SpaceX and NASA might want to put humans on Mars, what would life look like there long-term? One company has built its vision for the future of life on Mars, designing a habitat called Marsha. The egg-shaped design was created by New York-based architecture firm AI SpaceFactory, in response to NASA's 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge. The company built a one-third scale replica of the habitat here on Earth and took the top prize in NASA's challenge.

If the s--- really hits the fan, could we just bypass the apocalypse and escape the planet altogether? In our final episode of Hacking the Apocalypse, we visit NASA and learn about the space agency's bid to get humans back on the moon and on to Mars. And to get a sense of what life will look like once we've become a multi-planetary species, we talk to the team behind Marsha, a 3D-printed Mars habitat that could be our new home on the red planet.

Watch Hacking the Apocalypse: Escape the Planet on July 10.

UP NEXT

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Hacking the Apocalypse: Your new guide to surviving the end of the world - MSN Money

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How to get rid of fruit flies in your house | AgriLife Today – AgriLife Today

Posted: at 5:53 pm

Fruit flies can be a pesky pest, especially indoors. While they can be annoying, Mike Merchant, Ph.D., Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service urban entomologist, Dallas, said infestations of fruit flies and other flying pests are relatively easy to control.

Fruit flies are almost impossible to keep out of homes, Merchant said. They can fly in doors when we come and go, hitch rides home on ripe fruit, and are even small enough to enter through window screens. They are very good at smelling out food nearly anywhere in the house.

Removing the breeding site is the best way to get rid of fruit flies, Merchant said.

We all have an instinct to grab the Raid or a bug bomb, but were not going to get rid of them until we get rid of their breeding sites, he said.

Fruit flies just need a little moisture in their food to breed, Merchant said.

Larvae feed on decaying plant material, including fruits like strawberries and bananas, and vegetables like onions and potatoes, he said. They also are attracted to wine and beer, vinegar and other sugary beverages.

They are a major pest for bars and restaurants where they breed in any drink spillage, he said. In homes, they are more likely to breed in overripe fruit, rotting onions or spoiled potatoes. Knowing where to look is key.

The top spots Merchant recommends checking if no obvious breeding spot is located are pantries and the trash can.

Its good to check the pantry for those forgotten bags of potatoes, he said. Another top spot a lot of people dont think about is the bottom of the trash can. Any spilled liquids or syrups in the bottom of a trash receptacle are great breeding sites for fruit flies.

Merchant said removing potential breeding sites and proper sanitation cleaning and wiping up any spills on countertops or floors, especially cracks in flooring will reduce the likelihood of an infestation. Fruit flies have a life cycle of a week or less, so once the breeding sites are removed, flies will disappear relatively quickly.

They really bother people, but arent really hurting anything, he said. We get a lot of calls about them year-round. Theyre more prevalent in summer but can be a problem for indoor environments at any time.

Baited traps are a good way to help catch fruit flies while the breeding sites are being located, Merchant said.

Suitable attractants for traps includeapple cider vinegar, wine and bananas, he said.Traps can be as simple as a plastic bowl containing an attractant, like apple cider vinegar, and a few drops of soap to drown flies that attempt to land on the solution.

Commercial traps with funnels or small entry ports that make escape difficult are another option, he said.

Fruit flies and other flying pests like gnats are just one of lifes little annoyances, he said. Making sure they dont have a place to call home inside your home is the best first step to controlling them.

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How to get rid of fruit flies in your house | AgriLife Today - AgriLife Today

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‘Life in the old dog yet’: Hackney Law Centre thanks donors as it celebrates 40th anniversary – Hackney Citizen

Posted: at 5:53 pm

Staff at Hackney Community Law Centre, pictured last year. Photograph: HCLC

Hackney Community Law Centre (HCLC) has thanked those who have donated to keep its doors open, following decades of work supporting the boroughs resident on housing, benefits, debt and immigration problems.

It is a little over a year since the Citizen reported that HCLC could face closure, following swingeing cuts to its funding from by Hackney Council in a shake-up of how advice services are funded in the borough.

However, HCLC says it has been successful in securing funds to keep it going while maximising legal aid revenue, despite facing challenging circumstances to continue to provide aid to its clients through a justice system in lockdown.

Housing solicitor Nathaniel Mathews said: Weve had a very small team of people coming in and manning the place, with one person there on any given day.

Working from home presented quite a few challenges, as most people had very variable IT for people on private computers.

The hearings were happening by telephone or video conference, which is very strange. Its difficult doing hearings over the phone, as nobody knows who is to speak next. Dealing with benefit tribunals and court hearings is very, very difficult, referring people to documents.

Homelessness appeals have been happening, and those have been through Skype, which is much more human. Its still a bit weird, as its more difficult to read the room. You cant see the body language of the other lawyer, or your client if you manage to get them in the room.

Mathews added that informal settlements made at the doors of the court were also difficult, with the loss of people coming to a physical space together where things can be sorted out.

The housing solicitor was at the forefront of criticism of central government earlier this year over fears that, when possession hearings start again, the duty solicitor scheme, which he has described as a lifeline for people who cannot afford a lawyer, may remain suspended, leading to a likely increase in evictions.

This is due to the courts believing that in-person hearings will be unsafe due to the coronavirus, preferring to hold them remotely.

None of the Law Centres staff have been furloughed during lockdown, as they stare down a backlog of thousands of cases when the courts reopen, with the eviction ban also to be lifted on 23 August.

Speaking to theCitizen, Mathews described the challenges of working over the phone with clients to address issues which could see them evicted, in order that when the ban is lifted, the case could be resolved ahead of time.

With lockdown easing over the past couple of weeks, homes began to be made accessible for repair, with HCLC representing clients living in uninhabitable properties with mould, water penetration and worse, while frequently having to advise people living in such conditions during lockdown that it could be safer to stay put.

The Centre has also been dealing with illegal evictions, having applied for at least three injunctions against landlords for attempting to repossess tenants homes during lockdown, with Mathews having anecdotally heard of more.

One case described by Mathews saw a man thrown out of his home during lockdown and forced to sleep rough for weeks, before finding a room in a hostel where he developed symptoms of Covid; having to walk six miles to avoid infecting others on public transport, he lost his job and was finally denied a Universal Credit payment because they didnt want him to get into debt.

The Law Centre will now begin to try to see clients face-to-face again as lockdown is relaxed, with Mathews stressing the urgent need for further financial support for local authorities, with more resources necessary for homelessness prevention as the Town Hall works to prevent the rough sleepers housed under lockdown from returning to the streets.

A spokesperson for HCLC said: Hackney Community Law Centre will be around 40 years old this year and we have had what amounts to a continual struggle to survive throughout that time rather like so many of our clients.

We are grateful for the donations that have poured in to help us to keep going, to pay for those times when legal aid does not cover the legal work but nevertheless that work has to be done, to give that resident access to justice.

We continue to fight for a better deal for our clients supporting the fight for an extension to the no evictions rule, challenging discriminatory immigration and benefits rules, highlighting the injustice of the governments treatment of the Windrush families.

We might be getting to be middle aged but theres certainly a lot of life left yet in this legal old dog.

The coronavirus outbreak has meant that the Hackney Citizen has been unable to print a monthly newspaper for the last three months.

The need for quality news and reliable reporting is crucial - however, this is an increasingly challenging time for local journalism.

Our main source of income, print advertising revenue, fell suddenly - and so we are asking you, the readers, for your help.A one-off donation from anyone who can afford it will help our small team get our newspaper back in print and keep the website and social media feeds running through this unprecedented crisis.

Find out how you can donate.

Thanks in advance for your support, and stay safe.

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'Life in the old dog yet': Hackney Law Centre thanks donors as it celebrates 40th anniversary - Hackney Citizen

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Monthly Archives: July 2020

Coronavirus and the Culture Wars – PopMatters

The Rose | by Ben Lerner – The New York Review of Books

VICE – Armed Man Who Allegedly Stormed Justin Trudeau’s Residence Appears to Have Posted QAnon Content – VICE

Cryonics, brain preservation and the weird science of cheating death – CNET

Nano One update: progress on battery technology – The Armchair Trader

Highland Copper Announces Further Extension of White Pine Closing – GlobeNewswire

Registry is an arm of the Court and an extension of its dignity, says SC – The Leaflet

Hacking the Apocalypse: Your new guide to surviving the end of the world – MSN Money

How to get rid of fruit flies in your house | AgriLife Today – AgriLife Today

‘Life in the old dog yet’: Hackney Law Centre thanks donors as it celebrates 40th anniversary – Hackney Citizen

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