Monthly Archives: January 2021

Lets stick to the facts

Regarding The Denver Gazettes Dec. 24 report, Climate change, human activity, might risk ptarmigan population: What a misleading headline! I know you try to show both sides of an issue, but headlines should reflect what is in the article. The article says two things that the ptarmigan population has held steady since 1960, when first studied, and secondly that wildlife officials fear for the future because of human activity and global warming.

Wouldnt a better headline be, Ptarmigan population holds steady despite growing fears? Obviously, human activity has increased greatly since 1960, and despite decades of horrific predictions of climate catastrophe, our summer temps have held pretty steady. (Raw temperature data shows much higher temps in the 1930s and 1950s.) I know its politically correct to be alarmed by climate change, but lets stick to the facts and not some political agenda.

Stephen Tanberg

Denver

As the numbers continue to fall, and the post Thanksgiving surge did not happen, Governor Jared Polis extends the states emergency order over the Covid Pandemic. I struggle with the all of the contradictory information that is given to us about what we need to do and what is happening.

I listened to Dr. Anthony Fauci yesterday and he said frankly everything he and his peers propose as possibilities is guess work and how they need to be humble while presenting their predictions.

This being the case, if masks are so helpful then why do we have to socially distance ourselves? Because the masks we are being told to wear do not protect us. They only minimize exposure to others. How about we fund quality masks that do protect us and then just open everything up so people who need it the most can go back to work?

We have a vaccine, yet we continue to hear about doom and gloom and how yet another surge is coming. It is time to allow people to protect themselves, take personal responsibility as to how they want to expose themselves or not and move on with life.

John Pickard

Lakewood

When does electoral preference trump patients lives?

Is it mere coincidence, or evidence of election bias, that the AMA (American Medical Association) completely reversed its public opinion on usage of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) (a drug which demonstrably can arrest the progress of COVID-19 in patients if used early in their distress) mere hours after Mondays US Electoral College vote?

How is it that anything, which is touted as highly dangerous on one day, becomes innocuous overnight?

How is it now, that the cheap and long-respected drug which the AMA relentlessly pilloried before the Presidential Election, is now deemed OK to be taken at a patients discretion?

Given this charade, should we, the people of America, ever-again believe anything which issues from the so-called AMA?

Russell W. Haas

Golden

I was floored to read the article by Jon Talton about the growth of the tech industry in Austin. (Austin is winning recruits among the technology elite, Dec. 28) He clearly has never been to Austin and knows nothing about his conclusions about what is happening there.

The more you read, the more this just looks like a sour grapes tale from a Seattle writer who cannot understand why anyone would want to leave Seattle or Silicon Valley. The largest point here is that everything said in the second half of the article is a flat out lie. He has so many incorrect statements in there, I could not tell if he was trying to convince others from going there, or if he really was that dumb. That article truly was fake news.

Brad Bernero

Parker

Many of us are finding this political climate hard to digest. We have been living through a slow degradation of truth telling because it has become emotional. Its amazing that many Americans still really care about the truth and can see that it has become hidden and labeled politically incorrect.

I am so glad that our parents are not here to see the division rising in America because of the loss of integrity in so many areas of our republic. Our Freedom of the Press has been completely turned into a tool for divisiveness.

Most major television networks and newspapers do not allow reporters to inform Americans on the issues without a bias attached. Most Reporters have changed to political advocates.

Some very significant news items are being completely obliterated by these entities, which is the same as covering up the truth. News outlets on paper and on television and radio are being manipulated and used as advocacy for a narrow narrative. The result can be citizens with a narrow knowledge of the facts.

If we Americans (yes, even the senior citizens) do not stand up for truth, our beloved USA will cease to exist. Even now, the current example is so easy to see. Just test a few different news outlets: The New York Post, Newsmax.com, The Epoch Times or some local small town newspapers. These have owners that are not afraid of the six billionaires that own (literally and figuratively) most news outlets.

These few newspapers are empowering their reporters to tell the whole story.

I love my country despite all of its faults and have traveled the world to see others. If you have ever visited countries where the people were duped into believing a false narrative, they lost their freedom. Rogue governments slowly took away the citizens right to the truth and they took away the peoples power over their own destinies.

I ask you to search for the truth and share it with others despite the fact that you will be dealing with brainwashed citizens many of whom will refuse to hear you.

I pray that we will see courageous heroes arise that will help all of us see why this terrible anarchy and disrespect for our democratic institutions is happening so that we can stand for the truth too.

M.C. Hunter

Cherry Hills Village

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LETTERS: Let's stick to the facts; time to move on with life - Colorado Springs Gazette

Voat, a controversial Reddit clone that hosted politically incorrect content and conspiracy theories like QAnon, has been shut down by its owner due to a lack of funds.

An investor defaulted on the contract in March 2020, site co-founder Justin Chastain wrote in a post announcing its closure, and as such the site lost all of its funding.

Mr Chastain personally decided to keep Voat up until after the US election of 2020, and had been paying the costs out of pocket but now [was] out of money.

Some say life is worth it all if you can help just one single person. In this way I know Voat was worth it because you guys have changed thousands and thousands of peoples hearts and minds. Youve made so many people aware of the lies taught as truth and the truth taught as conspiracy. Its beautiful. What a great thing, Mr Chastain continued.

Voat launched in 2014 as an alternative Reddit platform dedicated to free speech, and as such allowed hate speech, racism, and other content that would be banned on more mainstream platforms.

Voats web host, hosteurope.de, dropped support for the site in the same year after it received significant information that the content on [the] server includes political incorrect parts that are unacceptable for us.

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It also said that it had to take action due to the fact that we cannot keep bond of trust to you as our customer.

Since then, the website had reportedly been host to other antisemitic and racist content, and had apparently been approached by an unnamed US agency due to the large quantity of death threats made on the platform.

Parler describes itself as "unbiased social media focused on real user experiences and engagement" that allows "free expression without violence and no censorship. It is home to numerous far-right figures including Milo Yiannopoulos, Proud Boys creator Gavin McInnes, as well high-profile US republicans like Ted Cruz. Anti-Muslim far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer. Candace Owens and Katie Hopkins also use the platform.

Discussion of Voat on those platforms is currently scarce. There were no posts on Gab that were immediately visible when searching for Voat, while only 19 posts on Parler used the hashtag #voat at time of writing.

I just saw that #Voat is shutting down on Christmas. I tried Voat. It was by far the most frustrating userbase I've interacted with, one user wrote on Parler about the websites closure.

"I think it took a day for me to be called a 'n****** lover. I was so conditioned to SJWs [social justice warriors] calling me a racist I took it as a compliment."

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Voat shutdown: QAnon and anti-vaccination Reddit clone shut down on Christmas Day - The Independent

BRENDAN OCARROLL Says Mrs Browns Boys Will Never Be Cancelled, after complaints about political correctness

Brendan OCarroll the comic genius creator of the award-winning, hit BBC comedy show, Mrs Browns Boys, where he has dressed in drag as matriarch Agnes Brown, the shows leading character, since the 1990s, has told The Irish Sun that he believes his show will never get cancelled even after recent claims that the show was not politically correct, in the wake of other top comedy shows like Little Britain being pulled from the TV after being deemed politically incorrect for using blackface.

Brendan said, I dont think Mrs Brown will be affected, and I often question myself, is Mrs Brown, me, a man, dressing up as a woman to play Mrs Brown, the same as blackface? And I decided no its not, because Ive never played Mrs Brown as a man playing a woman like they do in films like Mrs Doubtfire. Agnes is a woman like Dame Edna. Overall, its very hard to draw the line in comedy. I suppose we all have a remote control, and the ability to buy or not buy a ticket.

He continued, I would never go out of my way to be racist or homophobic. Im not that worried myself because I only write what I think is funny, and you hope that enough of an audience agrees with you.

OCarroll had signed a new six-year deal with the BBC only days before Mrs Browns Boys returned with a new special on Christmas Day, but only 3.8 million viewers tuned in to watch, the lowest figure in 10 years.

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Thank you for taking the time to read this news article Brendan OCarroll Says Mrs Browns Boys Will Never Be Cancelled.

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Brendan OCarroll Says Mrs Browns Boys Will Never Be Cancelled - Euro Weekly News

My earliest memory of Flash was that it got me into trouble. I had heard about a website that hosted brutal games, including one particularly difficult shooter starring an audacious yellow alien. I soon discovered that this site, Newgrounds.com, brimmed with warped takes on American culture within minutes, I had battered Osama Bin Laden and chainsawed my way through a string of office colleagues. The next day, I visited the site at a friends house, and we massacred a school. In the evening, his mum rang mine to ask why her son had been undressing Britney Spears.

On December 31, Flash dies. Adobe will stop updates and recommend you uninstall it. This end has been a long time coming since June 2017, officially; unofficially, since April 2010, when Apples Steve Jobs announced that Flash would not run on the iPhone. Its legacy lives on in Adult Swim cartoons and zany mobile games. Toiling conservationists continue to convert and archive old Flash content before it is lost forever.

Flashs death is, in many ways, incidental there may even be an impulse to welcome it. For those of a certain age, the command please install Flash Player still provokes a tinge of irritation, as they remember how it came between them and that bopping badger video. But the softwares end is also a synecdoche of an aesthetic project years in the making. Its a reminder of how the web has been cleaned up; how it has been transformed from a messy and amateur space into a glossy and corporate one.

Flash animations could be crude and childish; they could be profane and pornographic. They were politically incorrect, an ideology that sometimes bled into real life the creator of Stick Assault is now a racist YouTuber. One member of Newgrounds posted two cartoons clown and target practice before shooting up his school.

But these are isolated examples among a generally harmless chaos. If there was a small share of depravity, its because Flash was so easy to use. What would have taken a studio of animators months to draw could be produced in just a few days, as Flash algorithmically generated the images between two keyframes. This led to its iconic lilting movement motion without cycles, in the technical jargon accompanied by the thick black outlines required to endure the poor resolutions of computer monitors.

The most memorable of these creations came from David Firth. Where Newgrounds was unquestionably American, Fat-Pie, Firths website, was intrinsically British. Salad Fingers, the creepy green humanoid with spinning digits, is his most famous character, but I watched every one of his night-terror creations, from eloquent locusts, to mass-murdering milkmen, to Burnt Face Man, the inept superhero who claimed that crime is a shit that needs cleaning up. His cartoons, often paired with music from Aphex Twin, obliquely reflected British society Chris Morriss satire without the politics. In the early 2000s, they looked how I felt.

The best animation, argues the film critic Richard Brody, captures the spontaneity, the free-flowing imagination, and the uninhibited sense of fun at the heart of the medium. Flash spread these instincts across the web. The worst Flash websites were a thing to behold remember restaurant sites with pumping muzak and flying food? There seemed no one framework back then.

In this sense, Flash was a bridge between generations. Its creator, Jonathan Gay, explained that the web could have settled on a filmic experience, based on movies and television, rather than the textual, Twittersphere we accept now. Flash facilitated the personalisation associated with Web 1.0 relics like Geocities, with users encouraged to manually code, design and manage their website, in the words of the architecture critic Kate Wagner, a state of affairs replaced by the corporate, professionally designed web that we cannot customise but must experience. This new professional web is glossy, uniform and minimalist, typified by app stores, smartphones and Facebook. Participatory portal culture, which websites like Newgrounds kicked off, is supercharged, but personalisation is destroyed.

Some of this change was positive, argued Anastasia Satler, who co-authored the best book on Flashs history. A new respect for accessibility has flourished. But a lot of it boils down to what Wagner calls Website Eugenics, where the democratic, anyone-can-edit ethos of the web is handcuffed by Big Tech. You can push the whole subversion of media narrative too far (Flash was still controlled by a corporate giant; users were still mainly crafting scatological gags influenced by South Park) but Flash provided a striking amount of freedom.

Flash certainly was never perfect, but for a proprietary platform, Flash at its height offered us unprecedented tools for the production and distribution of an open interactive web, writes Satler. Its interface invited in amateurs who could play around with drawing tools; its programming environment was largely self-contained, and its content-neutral approach invited experimentation and controversial work.

Apple claimed that Flash didnt work: that it was a sluggish battery drain, ripe for hacking. Whether this was true or not, the move still amounted to a power grab by a man who hated the webs amateurism. The mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards all areas where Flash falls short, wrote Jobs. Its true the Flash era web fell short in many areas where the modern web excels, not least in monetising addiction and surveillance. The webs messiness represented a kind of amateur autonomy. Flash never stood a chance.

Will Bedingfield is a staff writer for WIRED. He tweets from @WillBedingfield

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Flash is finally dead. This is why we should all mourn its passing - Wired.co.uk

Books by the Foots creations have also popped up in a variety of TV shows and movies, many of them politics-adjacent. Madam Secretary, Veep, The Blacklist, House of Cards, as well as the 2017 movie Chappaquiddick, for example, have all outfitted their sets with Books by the Foot curations. Some of the most high-profile projects the team works on, however, arent revealed to them until after the fact: Bowman has had the distinctly surreal experience of watching a movie for the first time and recognizing her work onscreen. (Thats how it works, she said, with pretty much anything Marvel.)

Although TV shows set in Washington underwent a change in tone when Trump was elected (as did much of Washington itself), D.C. residents appetites for well-stocked bookshelves, whether as functional libraries or as vanity props, seems to have survived. Or at least, thats what the demand for Books by the Foots services would indicate: The orders Roberts and his staff handled in the Trump years werent all that different from the orders they fielded in prior administrations.

To Roberts, though, the unchanging demand is a good thing. One of the positives for a business like his, he wrote in an email, is that familiar types of people, who work in similar fields and likely share similar aspirations, are constantly moving in and out of the area: Military, [employees of the] State Department and embassies, political folks are always either settling in or leaving. The imminent changeover to the Biden administration will likely bring precisely the type of new business Books by the Foot has depended on for years.

In 2020, of course, everything changed for Books by the Foot around the same time everything changed for everyone else. For most of the year, the coronavirus pandemic switched up the proportion of Books by the Foots commercial to residential projects: In July, Roberts said residential orders, which had previously accounted for 20 percent of business, now accounted for 40 percent. That was partly due to the closures of offices and hotels, Roberts notedbut a few other things were afoot, too.

For one, more people were ordering books with the apparent intent to read them. Were seeing an uptick in books by subject, which are usually for personal use, Roberts said over the summer. Because many people suddenly had extra time at home but hardly anyone was able to shop in brick-and-mortar stores, orders for, say, 10 feet of mysteries, or 3 feet of art books, rose in popularity.

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Washingtons Secret to the Perfect Zoom Bookshelf? Buy It Wholesale. - POLITICO

Even though the Grade 3, $100,000 Sham Stakes at Santa Anita is only a five-horse field, this is an interesting group that could showcase a future star or two in the making. This stop on the trail is a one-mile event on Saturday for 3-year-olds.

The public will flock towards Life Is Good based on the ease of his maiden score and trainer Bob Baffert. However, his win is not a guarantee given the longer distance. Instead, bettors might want to give one of the two John Shirreffs entries a chance.

The Sham Stakes is carded as Race 8 with a post time of 4 p.m. PT.

1. Medina Spirit, 5-1 (Protonico Bob Baffert/Abel Cedillo 1: 1-0-0 - $25,200) --The other Baffert entry broke his maiden at Los Alamitos at first asking by three lengths on Dec. 11. TimeformUS only gave him a 99 figure for the win, well below Life Is Goods high of 113 or Parnellis 111. Also, he won at 5 furlongs and now stretches out to a two-turn mile. For what it is worth, the third dam Holy Niner is a half-sister to High Yield, who won the 2000 Fountain of Youth Stakes (G1) and Blue Grass Stakes (G1).

Also, seeing names such as Dynaformer and Unbridled on the dam side is comforting when assessing his route chances. This is a colt who could develop into a nice router. Then again, Life Is Good already smoked this colt twice in the mornings, once on Nov. 9 and the other time on Nov. 16. The replays of those works are available on XBTV. Medina Spirit is a pass on top, but exacta players might want to consider him on the bottom for some value. Use underneath.

2. Waspirant, 15-1 (Union Rags John Shirreffs/Umberto Rispoli 3: 1-0-0 - $54,300) --The son of the brilliant Life Is Sweet broke his maiden in a slow manner on Aug. 29 at Del Mar, and then was an uninspiring fourth in the American Pharoah Stakes (G1), losing by 10 lengths. For those who do not remember the dam Life Is Sweet, she took the 2009 Breeders Cup Distaff and won $1.8 million in her career under Shirreffs.

Given Waspirants stamina-loaded pedigree of Union Rags over Life is Sweet, this ones future success might lie in races at nine furlongs or longer. Toss.

3. Parnelli, 5/2 (Quality Road John Shirreffs/Drayden Van Dyke 4: 1-3-0 - $67,600) --On TimeformUS, this Shirreffs-trained colt is not far behind Life Is Good. Two starts ago, Parnelli ran a 111 TimeformUS Speed Figure when runner-up to Spielberg in a Nov. 1 maiden race at Del Mar. That is only two points less than Life Is Goods 113 in his maiden romp. Parnelli then broke his maiden on Nov. 28 by 5 lengths with only a 103, but the lower figure is forgivable given he competed against lesser competition and did not need his best.

Both races came at one mile, giving him the route experience edge over Life Is Good. Spielberg was a disappointment in the Bob Hope Stakes (G3), but then fired back with a win in the Los Alamitos Futurity (G2). The feeling is that Parnelli met the good version of Spielberg at Del Mar in their stretch duel and deserves heavy consideration off that effort against a proven graded stakes horse. He has been developing along nicely and figures to peak. The pick.

4. Uncle Boogie, 15-1 (Ride On Curlin Andrew Lerner/Flavien Prat 3: 1-2-0 - $39,650) --After finishing second in a starter optional claimer, Uncle Boogie ran second in the Bob Hope Stakes (G3), 7 lengths behind Red Flag. While Uncle Boogie did beat Spielberg in fourth, Spielberg likely did not fire his best shot. Also, Red Flag missed the trifecta in the Los Alamitos Futurity (G2) in his next start. If Uncle Boogie upsets this field, there is no point to class handicapping in the future. Toss.

5. Life Is Good, 3/5 (Into Mischief Bob Baffert/Mike Smith 1: 1-0-0 - $34,200) --The heavy favorite broke his maiden by 9 lengths at Del Mar with a 113 TimeformUS Speed Figure under a hand ride. For a 2-year-old colt in November, that is a great number. But the question of whether he can stretch out to one mile remains a concern at short odds. Remember the lesson of Red Flag in the Los Alamitos Futurity (G2) earlier this month?

If the favorite tries something new, whether a different surface or distance, then it is logical to play against him. With that said, he could also handle the one-mile distance and develop into another top Kentucky Derby contender sired by Into Mischief. Life Is Good is usable in multi-race tickets, but there is no point to vertical wagers keying him given his extremely low odds. Win contender.

Conclusion:

In terms of a Win or Place bet, Parnelli is the right horse. He shows a solid speed figure that is competitive with Life Is Good and owns successful route experience. If the public puts six figures on Life Is Good to Show in a bridgejumping situation (which is rare these days), then consider a Show bet on Parnelli or Medina Spirit.

For multi-race wager purposes, both Parnelli and Life is Good deserve a spot.

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Sham Stakes 2021: Odds and analysis - Horse Racing Nation

Here is our list of the 10 books of fiction that stood out in 2020, arranged in no particular order.

Novels that hit out at the establishment, stories that wore their sexual identity on their sleeve, tales that took on age-old hatreds headlong our list of the 10 books of fiction that stood out in 2020, arranged in no particular order

(Stay up to date on new book releases, reviews, and more with The Hindu On Books newsletter.Subscribe here.)

by Colum McCann (Bloomsbury)

When all political negotiations have failed, can the friendship of two men shine a light of hope on the Israel-Palestine conflict? Colum McCanns hybrid novel, straddling fiction and non-fiction, is a touching plea for peace based on the real-life friendship between Israeli graphic designer Rami Elhanan and Palestinian terrorist Bassam Aramin. They find common ground in grief both have lost their daughters to the violence and bond to the point where they become preoccupied with each others perspectives as they campaign for peace. Their stories are interwoven with a host of others over the course of 1,001 chapters of lyrical prose, spanning vast expanses of time and space, myth and reality, in a latter-day version of One Thousand and One Nights. Read review here.

by Douglas Stuart (Picador)

Douglas Stuart joins a potent chorus of contemporary Scottish working-class writers with his Booker Prize-winning debut. Shuggie Bain is a stark critique of Thatcherism, depicting the poverty and squalor of life in the tenements of 1980s Glasgow. The eponymous Shuggie is shaped by these circumstances; by a big, dysfunctional family that includes his philandering father and alcoholic mother; and by his queerness, which makes him an outsider. But its Shuggies love for his damaged mother that gives the book its heart and beauty. A novel with vintage flavour. Read review here.

by Megha Majumdar (Penguin Hamish Hamilton)

A Muslim girl, Jivan, is arrested for allegedly planting a bomb on a train. As she fights her present circumstances, we learn about her past, populated by characters like PT Sir and Lovely, the hijra. Jivan thought of them as her friends, but when misfortune strikes, they desert her in pursuit of their ambitions. Megha Majumdars debut is an emotionally resonant tale of prejudice, human weakness and betrayal. It has the raciness of the thriller and the moral depth of a philosophical novel. Read review here.

by Tanuj Solanki (Macmillan)

The danger of artificial overintelligence has long been a popular theme in fiction. But Tanuj Solanki does not fall into the killer robot routine; rather, he takes an Orwellian-Kafkaesque turn to make a villain out of a faceless institution. In The Machine is Learning, it is capitalism exemplified in a life insurance corporation that is deploying big data through AI to control lives. Our protagonist is an employee caught between ambition and accountability. His journey to consciousness is the heart of the story. Although he and the other characters are representatives of different world views, Solanki makes sure each is a living, breathing, individuated persona. Read review here.

by Samit Basu (Simon & Schuster India)

Its 10 years into the future and Delhi is still choking in smog, but todays anxieties have become concrete realities in Chosen Spirits. JNU has been demolished to make way for a giant mall; social media is an augmented-reality chimera called The Flow. Bijoyini Joey Roy works as an Associate Reality Controller for The Flow, managing the channels of a Flowstar. She and her childhood friend, Rudra, are drawn into a world of corporate intrigue. This is desi cyberpunk, with dark takes on very Indian cultural maladies. Samit Basu excels at world-building, creating a future at once familiar and bizarre. Read review here.

by S. Hareesh, translated by Jayasree Kalathil (Harper Perennial India)

Legends are created by a facial appendage in S. Hareeshs breakout novel, which won him the JCB Prize 2020. When a Dalit youth, Vavachan, dons a moustache for a policemans part in a play, it stays with him, transforming him into a larger-than-life figure. Power dynamics of caste are reversed as the man with the tash becomes a byword for terror. Its a grand novel of history, caste and Dalit assertion in early-mid 20th-century Kerala, combining realism with fantasy. Hareeshs stunning descriptions make Kuttanad, with its snaking waterways and colourful characters, come to life. Read review here.

by Hari Kunzru (Scribner UK)

A Brooklyn author with a writers block goes to a literary retreat in Berlin hoping to unblock his creative mind. He spirals downwards instead. The centres policy of ultra-transparency and the incitement of a fellow resident leave him disconcerted. In this shattered mental state, he turns to an alt-right media propagandist and comes to believe that the only way out of the confusion is the red pill the revelatory dose of reality which will get him out of the swamp of moral darkness.

Hari Kunzrus novel, with its forensic analysis of the post-truth netherworld, has been called the prototype for Trump-era novels to come and the Gen X Midlife-Crisis Novel in its purest form. His pointed prose is as chilling as it is thrilling. Read review here.

by Nisha Susan (Context)

A musician finding love in a chat room; three dancers arranging their sex life over email; troll wars unhinging a writer; a daughters cellphone chats making a cook uncomfortable such stories from Internet-era India make up Nisha Susans dazzling debut collection. The heroines of these stories are gloriously messy, damaged, politically incorrect, and you find yourselves in them. The girls stick to each other through thick and thin. Men, when they make that rare appearance, are pallid in comparison to the robustly drawn women. Susan, the co-founder of the feminist website The Ladies Finger and of the 2009 Pink Chaddi campaign, makes the personal the political. Read review here.

by Kevin Kwan (Penguin Random House)

To get over the lockdown blues, do you want to fly away to sun-kissed Capri, attend a lavish wedding, ogle at delectable men and do puppy yoga to blow off steam, all the while sitting in your couch? Start reading Sex and Vanity, which, in inimitable Kevin Kwan style, is brimful of bling and the snobs guide to high living. Described as a homage to E.M. Forsters A Room with a View, Sex and Vanity is about the poor little rich girl, Lucie Barclay Churchill, daughter of an American-born Chinese mother and a true-blue New Yorker father. She has always suppressed the Asian side of herself till she meets George Zao. Does Lucies hatred of Zao conceal helpless love? Will she be able to move beyond her WASP upbringing to follow Zao? More Barabara Cartland than Forster, Sex and Vanity is the perfect antidote to pandemic pains. Read review here.

by Karuna Ezara Parikh (Picador India)

The debut novel of poet, former television anchor, and model, Karuna Ezara Parikh, The Heart Asks Pleasure First is an exquisite love story of a young Indian ballet student and a young Muslim lawyer from Pakistan. They meet accidentally at a park in Wales on a sunny day and the inevitable happens. But the forces of history are out to get them: as 9/11 and the attack on Parliament take place, religious prejudices rear their head even in small-town Wales, and the two must fight for their beliefs. Is it possible to find a personal truth which is untouched by the great forces of history, politics and old hatreds? Like Anna and Vronsky, Helen and Paris before them, Parikhs lovers too discover that the world never forgives transgressions. A notable debut that bravely tackles some tough, niggling questions of love and faith. Read review here.

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Top 10 fiction books of 2020 - The Hindu

The coronavirus will simply go away

Predicted by Donald Trump many, many times

March 6: Itll go away.March 10: Just stay calm. It will go away.March 12: Its going to go away.March 30: It will go away. You know it you know it is going away, and it will go away, and were going to have a great victory.March 31: Its going to go away, hopefully at the end of the month. And, if not, hopefully it will be soon after that.April 3: It is going to go away Its going I didnt say a date. I said its going away, and it is going away.April 7: It did go it will go away.May 15: Itll go away at some point, itll go away.June 15: At some point, this stuff goes away. And it's going away.July 19: I will be right eventually. You know, I said, It's going to disappear. I'll say it again.Aug. 5: This thing's going away. It will go away like things go away.Aug. 31: It's going to go away.Sept. 15: It is going away. And it's probably going to go away now a lot faster because of the vaccines.Oct. 10: It's going to disappear; it is disappearing.Oct. 24: It is going away; its rounding the turn.

Its the end of December, and though vaccines are starting to be distributed, there is no sign that the coronavirus is disappearing, despite the fervent wishes of the herd immunity crowd. Nationwide, the virus is in the middle of a third wave that dwarfs those earlier in the year. On July 17, the summertime coronavirus spike hit its apex in terms of daily new cases in the U.S.: 76,334. Today, that number would be the lowest daily total weve seen in more than two months. Weve marked more than 100,000 new cases every single day since Nov. 4, the number of fatalities from Covid has reached record highs, the 10 deadliest days since the start of the pandemic all happened this December, and the caseload is likely to increase in the coming weeks due to travel during the holidays.

Joe Biden speaks to supporters shortly after midnight on election night, when the race was still too close to call. | Win McNamee/Getty Images

Predicted by James Carville, Nov. 2

In the run-up to Election Day, a strain of thinking emerged that the polls showing a tightening race between Trump and Biden were actually undercounting Bidens support. Among those who embraced this thinking was James Carville, the famed Democratic strategist who helmed Bill Clintons 1992 campaign. Were gonna know the winner of this election by 10 oclock tomorrow night, Carville told MSNBCs Andrea Mitchell on November 2. What people are doing is just unnecessarily scaring people and making them nervous.

The count on election night proved inconclusive, with huge troves of uncounted mail-in ballots waiting to be tallied. It wasnt until 11:25 a.m. on the Saturday four days later that the AP declared Joe Biden the winner and other major media outlets followed suit.

Read more:
The Worst Predictions of 2020 - POLITICO

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This will be the last regular update for Sudan and South Sudan. The organized violence there has declined to the point where it no longer qualifies for regular updates. Instead, we will cover any major outbreaks of violence in our updates of neighboring countries or in a Potential Hotspot piece. Past updates for all wars remain available.

Since StrategyPage began in 1999 weve retired more wars than weve added. As we have noted frequently, the trend since the 1990s has been fewer wars. Those we have retired since 1999 include Haiti (2009), Nepal (2010), Sri Lanka (2010), Central Asia (2012), Ivory Coast (2012), Indonesia (2013), Chad (2013), Uganda (2013), Kurds (2013), Rwanda (2013), Balkans (2013), Ethiopia (2013), Congo Brazzaville (2013), Colombia (2017), Mexico (2017), Myanmar (2020), Algeria (2020), Sudan (2020) and Thailand (2020). Some of these former updates included nearby conflicts that also ended, like Micronesia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

December 29, 2020: The first regular Sudan update appeared in 1999. Thats 21 years of continual coverage of an area savaged by constant and complex warfare. StrategyPages February 26, 2003 Sudan update rates reviewing. The Front for the Liberation of Darfur (FLD), yet another Sudanese rebel group, took control of the capital of Jebel Marrah province. The capital is named Gulu, not to be confused with Gulu in north Uganda. Western reports said the FLD put at least 300 fighters into the fight for Gulu. For years the Sudanese government in Khartoum has armed the nomadic Arabized (and Muslim) tribes of Darfur. These militias have attacked the Zaghawa and Fur tribes in Darfur. Now the FLD is striking back, allegedly "on behalf of the minority tribes.

Interested readers can find the rest of this update in the 2003 archive. That particular update was one of the first reports on the internet analyzing what became known as the Darfur War and later the Darfur Genocide. Credit AFP with publishing a couple of brief wire reports about the initial attacks. One included the location (Gulu). The updates last three sentences, however, provided the historical, operational and demographic contexts. StrategyPage pegged Darfur as another cruel example of attacks by Sudanese government-sponsored tribes on politically incorrect tribes within Sudan. The updates last sentence explained why Darfuris fought back, under the banner of the FLD. The attacks continued; the rebels resisted. Darfurs warfare and slaughter ultimately led to the deployment of the hybrid United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur peacekeeping mission. The peacekeepers mandate is scheduled to end December 31, 2020. A residual operation, UNITAMS (UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan) will remain in Sudan. Its mission includes improving internal Sudanese security forces civilian protection capabilities, especially in the Darfur region. Its larger goal is to assisting Sudans transition to a civilian government. Sudanese officials know that UNITAMS also has a monitoring mission keeping an eye on the behavior of Sudanese security forces. Sudanese doubt the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) ability to reform. Many RSF militiamen served in the government-sponsored janjaweed militias that savaged Darfur.

Is Sudan now at peace? No. However, since April 2019 Sudan has made great strides towards achieving internal stability. Mass action by the Sudanese people led to the toppling former dictator and war criminal Omar al Bashir -- a truly major stride. War exhaustion was a factor. The majority of the population rejected incessant violence, poverty and authoritarian oppression. For decades Islamist radicals, some tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, dominated Sudans domestic and foreign policies. Islamist extremism was one reason the civil war with the Souths predominantly Christian (or animist) tribes erupted.

The current transitional government, led by prime minister Abdalla Hamdok, is a strange hybrid of military officers, economic technocrats, democratic idealists and intelligent but angry people -- angry for many reasons, but primarily angry that authoritarian rule has killed or starved to death hundreds of thousands of people and left Sudan a wreck. The ruling Sovereign National Council (SNC) is a military-civilian hybrid. The goal, however, is free elections and eventual civilian rule. Hamdok knows war is Sudans economic and political enemy. His government has made numerous peace agreements with rebel groups and has extended offers to the reluctant. Some of the rebels in these factions have been fighting Sudan since the 1970s. Thats right, on and off war against Sudan for 45 years. Hamdok knows external conflict and economic isolation are also enemies. After paying compensation for American victims of terror attacks connected to Bashirs dictatorship, Sudan is now off the U.S. State Sponsors of Terrorism (SST) list. SNC-governed Sudan no longer behaves like a quasi-Iranian ally. It is in the process of making peace with Israel.

South Sudan is wretched. Years of civil war and episodic tribal wars have further impoverished people who were already poor despite the presence of enormous oil fields. Huge problems afflict South Sudan, where the senior leaders are corrupt and self-serving. Many of the worst leaders face individual U.S., EU and UN sanctions. Yet South Sudans people are also tired of war. Cattle raids and violent tribal clashes will continue, but the civil war is finally lapsing. South Sudan and Sudan have reached new oil production and pipeline shipment agreements. Both nations need the income. Hope they spend it on food, not weapons. (Austin Bay)

December 28, 2020: Earlier this month UN Security Council acknowledged that the complete withdrawal of peacekeepersl will not be completed by December 31. At the moment around 7,000 uniformed personnel (police and soldiers) and 900 civilian staff are deployed in Darfur. The delay is the result of logistical challenges. Darfur is an isolated regionit is hard to get to and hard to leave. Covid19 pandemic restrictions make the withdrawal more complex.

December 26, 2020: Sudan accused the Ethiopian Army of supporting attacks against Sudanese territory. Sudan has now reinforced Sudanese Army units in the Wad Aroud region, in eastern Sudan along the Ethiopian border. Both Sudan and Ethiopia acknowledge they have broken off the latest round of border negotiations. Meetings were being held in the Sudan capital.

December 25, 2020: Pope Francis sent Christmas greetings to South Sudans political leaders. He urged them to remember they are committed to implementing the peace agreement. South Sudan is a predominantly Christian area. The peace agreement the Pope referred to is the September 2018 peace process, now called the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS).

December 22, 2020: With the impending withdrawal of peacekeepers from Darfur, the UN reminded the Sudanese government that it is now responsible for protecting civilians in Darfur. UN officials point out that peacekeepers will help with training. UN police advisers and support personnel are already in Darfur to help Sudan improve its civilian protection capacities there.

December 21, 2020: Foreign observers accused Sudanese authorities of using excessive force on October 15, 2020 in the town of Kassala. In the incident seven protestors were killed by gunfire and some two-dozen wounded or injured. Personnel from three security organizations were involved: Central Reserve Police (CRP), the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and the Army.

December 20, 2020: Sudans energy ministry announced the country will have to rely on imported gasoline and diesel for two months (70 days) as the countrys main oil refinery undergoes maintenance.

December 19, 2020: Several thousand protesters demonstrated in the capital Khartoum and Omdurman (across the Nile from Khartoum). They demanded the government accelerate economic and political reforms. Several demonstrators demanded justice for those murdered by the dictatorship. Today marked the second anniversary of the mass uprising that eventually toppled dictator Omar al Bashir.

December 16, 2020: Foreign food aid officials warned that the food situation in South Sudan has deteriorated since December 1. Several areas are on the verge of famine. One official said western Pibor county has reached a crisis level. Recent flooding and another episode of ethnic violence have contributed to the famine conditions. The flooding killed both cattle and crops. Another report indicated in at least five counties (located in Jonglei, Warrap and Northern Bahr el Ghazal states) up to ten percent of the population faces starvation. Meanwhile, peacekeepers reported that the reunification of South Sudans security forces (mandated by the peace agreement) has stalled. There are also on-going disputes over the appointment of local commissioners. In some cases, these disputes have led to intercommunal violence. That noted, peacekeepers reported that overall violence in South Sudan has decreased.

December 15, 2020: Egypt held talks with South Sudan. One of the topics was Egypts dispute with Ethiopia over the division of Nile River water. Egypt hopes up river countries like South Sudan can influence Ethiopian operations of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). The GERD, however, is on the Blue Nile. The White Nile flows through South Sudan. South Sudan, however, borders Ethiopia. Ethiopia also supported the southern tribes who rebelled against Sudan.

December 14, 2020: Foreign observers accused the South Sudan government of failing to stop criminal behavior by South Sudans NSS (National Security Service). One report accused the NSS of torture.

December 11, 2020: In Sudan, civilian members of the SNC complained that they were blindsided by the governments decision to allow Russia to build a naval facility in Sudan. The civilians accused the military members of making the foreign policy move with consultation. A senior member of the pro-democracy Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) accused the military of hijacking foreign policy. The FFC supports the civilian members of the SNC. Another FFC member added that the decision to alter Sudans relationship with Israel was also made without consultation. Russia recently received a 25-year lease for a naval installation on the Red Sea.

December 7, 2020: Foreign observers are urging the UN to continue the arms embargo on South Sudan. One report cited attacks from June to April 2020 by South Sudanese government forces on civilians in Central Equatoria state. The report accused the government forces of destroying 110 homes and other structures.

December 5, 2020: UN refugee experts believe that Sudan cannot currently handle the influx of 43,000 Ethiopian refugees. Sudan needs immediate international assistance to care for the refugees.

December 4, 2020: In eastern South Sudan (Jonglei state) peacekeepers have been asked to halt the local violence there so that food aid can get to areas facing starvation.

December 2, 2020: UN observers believe that over 40,000 people have fled from Ethiopia to Sudan. The refugees are escaping the fighting in Ethiopias Tigray region. Refugee organizations fear that more will enter Sudan and estimate that another 150,000 could arrive in Sudan over the next six months.

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Sudan: Sounds Of Silence In The Sudans - Strategy Page

But everything might not work out perfectly comes to Russias plan to bring China and Pakistan closer to India

Andrey Kortunov, the Director General of the prestigious Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), published what can be interpreted as Russias unofficial response to India as an Op-Ed for Chinas Global Times. The title of his article gets straight to the point by observing that Russia moves East, India West, straining ties. Unlike his two Indian counterparts, Observer Research Foundation expert Harsh V. Pant and former Indian Ambassador to Russia Kanwal Sibal, Mr. Kortunov is objective, mature, and respectful. Nothing that he wrote could reasonably be interpreted as offensive to the Indian side.

I analysed those two Indians unofficial responses to Russia in my recent articles for The Express Tribune about how Indias unofficial response to Russia might exacerbate growing distrust and asking Why are former Indian diplomats really unhappy with Russia? The first one even accurately concluded that Moscow will likely do all that it can to mitigate the consequences of Indias unofficial responses exacerbating growing distrust between them, as evidenced by Mr. Kortunovs article. Both pieces should be reviewed by the reader if theyre unfamiliar with them in order to better appreciate the style and substance of the Russian experts op-ed.

He starts off by sharing some unfortunate but undeniable facts about Russian-Indian relations. These include his observations that bilateral trade is negligible (especially in comparison to Russian-Chinese trade), the many complications and even setbacks in military-technical cooperation due to the growing Western presence in the Indian defense market and with the current Prime Minister Modis Make in India industrial strategy, and significant areas of disagreement between the two countries on many international matters including QUAD, Afghanistan, the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and others.

While praising their history of productive cooperation over the decades, Mr. Kortunov warns both sides against becoming complacent. He also points out that overall trends in global politics are just as responsible for provoking a thoughtful reassessment of the Russian-Indian partnership as red tape, bureaucratic inertia, communication failures, personal ambitions, or situational omissions are. Once again, these are objective facts that cannot be denied, nor should they cause any offence to the Indian side since some of New Delhis own experts have openly talked about their negative role before.

Mr. Kortunovs most important point, however, concerns his ominous prediction of their future relations. He fears that the two friendly countries might ultimately find themselves in the opposite geopolitical and economic blocks, and the Eurasian space will split into two pieces, if Moscow [continues] moving east, enhancing its ties with China while New Delhi [continues] moving west, building stronger links to the US. Ive consistently warned about this scenario for the past several years yet my words went unheeded by both expert communities, perhaps because this was too politically incorrect/sensitive to openly discuss at the time.

Nevertheless, the taboo has finally been broken by both sides after prominent experts from each one Mr. Pant and Ambassador Sibal from New Delhi and Mr. Kortunov from Moscow released what can be interpreted as their countries unofficial responses to the other after the sudden worsening of relations brought about by the publication of influential BJP ideologue Subramanian Swamys hateful anti-Russian article last month. While the Indian side blamed Russia for this unexpected downturn in relations and even insulted it by implying that Moscow was submitting to China, Mr. Kortunov is careful not to do the same to India vis-a-vis the US.

Instead, he wrote that The future of Eurasia at the end of the day depends largely on the future of the China-India relationship. No outside players, Russia including, can fix this relationship for Beijing and New Delhi. However, outside players, Russia included, can assist in turning this relationship around by offering positive incentives for both sides to work together in trilateral or other multilateral formats. This is true, but what remains unsaid is that outside players like the US can worsen this relationship, though he likely declined to write as much because he didnt want to deign to his Indian counterparts level by laying blame on third parties.

Mr. Kortunov also didnt want to offend India since Russian experts have a very proud tradition of being polite with others even during the tensest moments like when interacting with their American counterparts. No comparable tension exists in Russian-Indian relations, and Moscow will do its utmost to ensure that their disagreements never get to such a point either. Instead of aimlessly criticising India like the Indian experts did with Russia, he proposed the constructive solution of Russia offer[ing] India and Beijing new opportunities for trilateral development projects in the Arctic region, in Central Asia or even in the Russian Far East.

Just as importantly, he concluded his article by advising that decision-makers in Moscow should not regard China and India as two parallel foreign policy priorities that Russia has to choose between and/or keep separate from each other. This is partially a reaffirmation of what Russian diplomats in India said last week about how their countries ties with China and Pakistan are independent of their ones with India. Mr. Kortunov went a step further though by advising that Moscow should rather approach Beijing and New Delhi as partners, which will become more valuable for Russia if they find ways to work more actively with each other.

This is precisely the basis of Russias Eurasian balancing act whereby Moscow independently pursues relations with the dozens of countries across the supercontinent with the grand strategic intent of eventually bringing them all closer to one another through its Greater Eurasian Partnership. Just like Russia hopes that it can leverage its strategic relations with China and India in order to bridge the differences between them, so too might it one day hope of doing the same vis-a-vis its rapid rapprochement with Pakistan and historical relations with India.

Of course, as the saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, so everything might not work out perfectly in practice when it comes to Russias ultimate plan to bring China and Pakistan closer to India through its relations with all three. In any case, Russias unofficial response to India as manifested by Mr. Kortunovs op-ed for Chinas Global Times did everything right because he very clearly and calmly articulated his countrys stance from a position of authority considering the high regard in which hes held at home. It can only be hoped that his Indian counterparts will learn from his example and follow suit to defuse the situation.

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Russias unofficial response to India did everything right - The Express Tribune