Monthly Archives: April 2021

John Szweds magisterial 1997 biography of Sun Ra Space Is The Place opened the floodgates of books and articles about Ra and his Arkestra. Every element of Ras music and philosophy has since been explored and examined, but William Sites has managed to find another avenue to wander down, which leads to some interesting investigations about Ras time in Chicago from 1945 to 1961.

Sitess book is certainly academic he is the associate professor in the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago and the 228-page text comes with a further 62 pages of notes, or more accurately, a reading list to fill a lifetime. But his book is also highly readable, accurately siting Ra in the racial politics and unorthodox religious and cultural activism of Chicagos black-dominated South Side.

Along with business partner Alton Abraham, Ra issued a series of polemical broadsheets from their secret society, Thmei Research, devoted to the study of the origins and identity of black Americans. They did so jostling for attention alongside the Nation of Islam and others sects, all seeking a black utopia among the segregated communities of Chicago. Sites treats these broadsheets respectfully, even though their message is often hard to divine, and points out that such activism preceded the foundation of El Saturn Records and Ras slow attempt to find his musical path. Only after the philosophy did the music properly come.

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What Sites is good at is the detail of the period, notably about the territory bands Ra encountered when he lived in Birmingham, Alabama, where he was born and which forms the introductory chapter to this book. He is good, too, on the economics of segregation, the racial divisions of the American working class, and the role of the black establishment the churches, schools, voluntary societies, masonic clubs, and more that held black society together. He is also good about the divisions within black society, the urban adjustment problems of rural migrants now living in crowded cities. But best of all, especially to musicians and jazz fans, he is great about the musical life of Chicago, the Pershing and Du Sable venues, and the Jim Crow squalor of Calumet City, the sin suburb of Chicago.

Where this book really scores is in its investigation of the sheer otherness of Sun Ra. His arcane philosophies, his odd musical mixture of swing, Latin dance, doo-wop and jazz experimentation, his community involvement, all set him aside from the black mainstream of the day, although links to the later AACM and other groups are evident. For Ra was involved in building a new black utopia, a modernist vision built on a wayward reading of black African history that allowed him to see the possibilities of urban life in new ways.

Ra is now associated with Afrofuturism, although that term was unknown to him, as it was only coined in 1994. But he did bring ancient Africa and outer space to Chicago to give musical shape to this future world, thus Africanising outer space to stake a claim in a newly liberated zone. Ra might have been an errant and confusing traveller, but as the years roll on after his death, the importance of Ra continues to grow, thanks to books like this.

Sun Ras Chicago: Afrofuturism And The City by William Sites. University of Chicago Press, pb, 313 pp including illustrations, notes and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-226-73210-7

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Sun Ra's Chicago: Afrofuturism And The City - Jazz Journal

These are good times for the Offspring -- even if the California punk group's new album is called "Let the Bad Times Roll."

It's actually been nine years since the quartet's last studio album, albeit with an EP and some singles in between. "Bad Times," due out Friday, April 16, was recorded over the course of that interim with producer Bob Rock, and was previewed during 2015 with the single "Coming For You."

In addition to the album, the Offspring has launched a new video series, "How To: With the Offspring," which will share "a vast amount of useful knowledge -- starting with an episode in which frontman Bryan "Dexter" Holland and guitarist Kevin "Noodles" Wasserman teach viewers how to surf...

Despite the long gap between albums Noodles says the Offspring was never concerned about getting "Let the Bad Times Roll" finished and out. "We always knew we were gonna get to it eventually. It might seem like a saga from an outsider's standpoint, but it's really just something we've been working on when we're not touring, or when one of us (Holland) isn't working on his Ph. D. There's a lot of reasons why it took this long to get it done, but honestly the majority of this record, and I think some of the better parts of this record, came together in the last couple years. We just had a real creative time, and things started clicking."

The official music video for The Offsprings Let The Bad Times Roll.

Get the new song and pre-save the upcoming album LET THE BAD TIMES ROLL now at https://found.ee/OffspringBadTimesRoll

While "Bad Times" is not a concept record, Noodles says the title and title track, as well as songs such as "This is Not Utopia," were inspired by recent and current events. "It's kind of look at where we find ourselves in the world right now. Our country just went through four crazy years, politically and societally, and it's not over. We're still going through it. Then throw a pandemic on top of that. Things haven't changed that much in nice years since (the Offspring's last album). There's still plenty of (bad stuff) going on in the world that makes people go, 'Omigod!'"

"Bad Times" includes a stripped-down, acoustic version of the Offspring's 1997 single "Gone Away," an arrangement that's been part of the band's live set in recent years. "It really works live. We thought, 'Let's strip it down a little bit. Let's purify it, keep it to its simplest emotions.' It's really a dramatic moment in the show, and our fans really took to it. They've been asking, 'When can we get a studio version?' and eventually we thought, 'OK, we should try it. It's a great idea. Let's dee if we can pull it off,' and this is the result."

Noodles says the "How To" video series is "something that's just fun for us to do when we can't go out and play shows. We don't take it that seriously; It's like, 'Yeah, I know a little something about this...' Some of them are going to be more serious than others, but we want it short, sweet and easily digestible, but also something we know the fans are gonna dig."

With plans to tour the U.K. during November pending, the Offspring is using videos and interviews to promote "Bad Times'" release. Meanwhile the band is continuing to work on material with hopes that it won't take as long to release its next album. "There are some songs that we were working on that we can't put all the pieces together yet. You don't just trash 'em. We probably have four or five songs I want to say are done or close to done for the next record. Right now we're just focusing on getting this record out and touring some, but the next record is also in the back of our heads. We're definitely thinking about that."

The rest is here:

Offspring's first new album in nine years, 5 Things to Know - The Oakland Press

Michael Kors love of theater is a close second to his love of fashion.

He has been to hundreds, probably thousands, of live performances over the past 50-plus years, starting at age five, and has been deeply concerned about the shutdown of Broadway, which he calls the beating heart of New York, and how it has impacted some 87,000 jobs.

Our office is close to the Theater District so we feel part of the community, said Kors, who dedicated his 40th anniversary runway show to Broadway, including making a donation to nonprofit The Actors Fund. When people hear The Actors Fund they think actors, and its for them but also to support the entire army of talent behind the scenes that brings a show to light.We dont want this pool of talent to disappear.

While Kors has been trying to get his fix by streaming theater during quarantine, its not the same, he said. Recently, as New Yorks COVID-19 restrictions have eased, he was able to see Rufus Wainwright perform live as part of an audience of 40. I felt like someone had reconnected a body part that was missing, he said of the thrill, which he is sharing with viewers of his 40th collection film Tuesday, featuring Wainwright and appearances by a cavalcade of Broadway legends, including Chita Rivera and Billy Porter.

As a curtain raiser, WWD dished with the designer about his favorite opening nights, diva crushes, the show hed like to revive and design costumes for.

WWD: What was your first Broadway show?

Michael Kors: Ethel Merman in Annie Get Your Gun. Of course, I was five, so I had no way to know this was not the norm. My mom never took me to see the clunkers. To see Hair, she had to lie to my father and tell him we were going shopping. He thought it was not a good show for an 11-year-old.

WWD: Mine was Annie, and one of my classmates was an orphan, so we were all so jealous.

M.K.: Thats big.

WWD: Who are the divas youll always love? Besides Bette, because thats a given.

M.K.: When I was working at Lothars the hottest ticket was seeing Patti LuPone doing Evita, and you literally felt like you were blown out of your seat backward. Bernadette Peters Sunday in the Park With George, when the first act was finished, I had tears rolling down my face. Anyone who is in the creative world, that show knocks you out. And her voice broke my heart. Angela Lansbury in Sweeney Todd. How did Stephen Sondheim even conceptualize we were going to sit through a show about a mass murderer and find it entertaining? Watching Audra McDonald do Billie Holiday on the stage by herself in Lady Day at Emersons Bar & Grill, you are so riveted. Anything Goes is one of my favorites. When Sutton Foster finished the big tap number, and the audience is feeding off the energy on stage and each other, you cant recapture that on Zoom, streaming or film.

WWD:Did you see Starlight Express with the roller skaters? I loved that.

M.K.: [My husband] Lances first show was Starlight Express, it was Audra McDonalds first show, and Jane Krakowski was in Starlight Express. We were all at a dinner and they looked at me and said, You didnt go see it? I said No, roller skating was not meant to happen on Broadway.

WWD: What about Glenn Close in Sunset Boulevard? That was a moment.

M.K.: We saw it with Glenn, with Betty Buckley, then we saw it in London with Rita Moreno, and Rita let me go onto the stage and got them to press the hydraulic lift, so I got to experience walking down the staircase when it was moving.

Actress Glenn Close in Sunset Boulevard in New York, 2017.Greg Allen/Invision/AP

WWD: Thats big. Craziest experience in the seats?

M.K.: Opening night of revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, we sat down and the person in front of us was dressed all in white with an enormous picture hat on. Even though she was very fabulous from behind and I loved what she was wearing, I kept thinking she was going to ruin the show for me, so I leaned over to say something and realized it was Yoko Ono.

WWD: When I went to see Slave Play, they held the show 25 minutes because Rihanna was late.

M.K.: Did she get a standing ovation?

WWD: Oh no.

M.K.: At Lincoln Center for a celebration for Sondheims 80th birthday, we got there just as the lights were going down, and realized Sondheim was sitting directly across from us. I was knocked out being that close to him as he was experiencing all his work.

WWD: Soundtrack you listen to on repeat?

M.K.: A Chorus Line. I know every word, and I use some of the lyrics in life. All of them are taken from the recordings of the dancers, so they are often the perfect comeback or thought.

Lena Hall and Neil Patrick Harris on opening Night of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, 2014.McMullan/Sipa USA

WWD: Best song in A Chorus Line?

M.K.: I love the song, I Can Do That. In life, even if you think you cant, you figure it out. If you said to me, after 40 years what have you learned, its this: Know that things change thats the point and you have to say, I can do that. When I told them I didnt want to do Project Runway, then they said you are a critic at Parsons, you work with students at FIT, I said, I can do that.

WWD: And you did. Worst Broadway behavior youve witnessed? I remember seeing M Butterfly, and at the pivotal moment right before the characters identity is revealed, someone in front of me blurted it out.

M.K.: Thats terrible. We were in the theater the night Patti LuPone stopped the show because someone was using their cell phone. Watching her admonish that man was something. The night we saw Bruce Springsteen on Broadway, his fans were so rabid and started screaming Bruce, Bruce, Bruce and he very gentlemanly said, There will be a moment for that later. And later he let everyone take out their phones, cheer and take photos. The audience is not used to unplugging. Its the same with fashion shows, which people are now often watching through their phones. Backstage in the 80s, I didnt even have a monitor, I had a peep hole.

WWD: Do you remember the before times when you couldnt bring drinks and snacks to your theater seats? Are you team seat snacks or no?

M.K.: Never, ever. Intermission only. Give me a vodka on the rocks at the bar at Sardis during intermission and I run back in time for the second act.

WWD: Last show you saw before the COVID-19 shutdown?

M.K.: David Byrnes American Utopia. If it had to be my last memory, it was a spectacular one. And I dont want to sound like a shallow fashion person but that show was so chic. Chic! Chic! Chic! Everything about it.

David Byrne on opening night of American Utopia in New York, 2020.Greg Allen/Invision/AP

WWD: Fashion-wise, any other shows that have echoed with you?

M.K.: I remember seeing Lauren Bacall in Applause when I was young. It was so big city glamorous. Sign me up for black sequins for days.

WWD:Have you done costumes for Broadway?

M.K.: Not Broadway, but when I was designing Celine in Paris, I got a call from costume designer Arianne Phillips, she was working on the play Up for Grabs in London. She said, well, Madonna is starring, she plays a very powerful art dealer, and I thought the clothes you showed for Celine would be perfect for her character, who is very successful but not the nicest person the world. So she wore a lot of Celine.

WWD: You should do a Broadway show.

M.K.: Id love to redo A Chorus Line.

WWD:What are you excited to see after Broadway reopens? Ahem, Game of Thrones?

M.K.: To be honest with you, we will be so excited well go to things we dont even care about. I will go to a musical version of Designing Women.

WWD: Thats a great idea, you should produce that.

Read more:

Michael Kors Fall 2021 Collection is a Broadway Smash

Michael Kors Will Light Up Broadway for his 40th Anniversary

A Chorus Line, 1987.AP Photo

Excerpt from:

Broadway Baby: Michael Kors on 50 Years of Opening Nights, Diva Crushes and a Dream Revival - WWD

Grunge. Wu-Tang Clan. Radiohead. Wonderwall. The music of the 90s was as exciting as it was diverse. But what does it say about the eraand why does it still matter? On our new show, 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, Ringer music writer and 90s survivor Rob Harvilla embarks on a quest to answer those questions, one track at a time. Follow and listen for free exclusively on Spotify. Below is an excerpt from Episode 25, which explores Bjrks Hyperballad with help from Rumaan Alam.

Bjrk Guomundsdttir was born in Reykjavk, Iceland, in 1965. Technically she recorded her first album as an 11-year-old; she sings the Beatles The Fool on the Hill in Icelandic. A decade or so later, she joined the Sugarcubes, Icelands premiere art-rock band. They sounded like Twilight Zone Roxette. The first and best Sugarcubes record, Lifes Too Goodits got Motorcrash on itcame out in 1988, the year they played Saturday Night Live. Matthew Broderick was the host.

The Sugarcubes put out two more records and had a beguiling junk-drawer chemistry to them, but anytime Bjrks voice pulled into anything past second gear, it was obvious where she was headedor, lets say it was obvious that only she knew where she was headed. And thus, in 1993, did her real first solo album arrive. She called it Debut. In her first music video as a solo artist, for her first single, Human Behavior, she is eaten by a bear. Beavis and Butt-head reacted accordingly.

High praise.

A quick word on genre, if I may. On the show, Im gonna talk about a bunch of other artists whose Venn diagrams overlapped with Bjrks, starting here in the early 90s, in terms of vibe, in terms of fearless experimentation, in terms of a cutting-edge collision of the organic and the synthetic, in terms of a mellow but slippery ominousness. All of that sounds vague, I realize, but can we agree that trip-hop is the dumbest name for a musical genre that emerged in the 1990s? Can you imagine yourself saying the words trip-hop to the face of an artist you associate with trip-hop? Not even Bjrk can redeem the words trip-hop. Debut has some legit house-music jams, some bangers. One of which is called Violently Happy. Its got avant-garde jazz. Its got 23rd-century synth pop. Its got a harp ballad called Like Someone in Love that makes it sound like nobody had ever written about being in love before. Sometimes the things I do astound me.

Debuts genre, if you gotta assign a genre to it, is Bjrk. Bjrk makes Bjrk music. Theres a needle to thread here though, as her star ascends in 1993, and as we gird ourselves for the decades of Bjrk excellence and flamboyance to come. A quick summary of the last 25, 30 years of Bjrk. The truly extraordinary run of mind-bending music videos. Bachelorette especially, shout-out Michele Gondry. The increasingly avant-garde album covers. Utopia especially. The titanic avant-pop influence of the albums themselves, Post and 1997s Homeogenic especially. The Timbaland album. The beatboxing album. The phone-app album. The starring role in Dancer in the Dark. (Terrible movie. Terrible movie. That movie does Bjrk dirty in every conceivable respect. Do not talk to me about Dancer in the Dark.) The Oscars swan dress. The coffee-table book. The other book. The other other book. Like 400 box sets and compilations and so forth. Lotta box sets. The MOMA exhibit nobody liked. The multimedia magical-realist universe that revolves around her. The needle to thread here, the challenge to accept here, is to marvel at the inimitable Bjrk-ness of Bjrk without infantilizing her or merely caricaturing her. Theres a tendency to reduce her to a woodland-fairy-type late-night-comedy routine. Remember when Winona Ryder did a Bjrk impression on Saturday Night Live, in a Celebrity Jeopardy! skit, in 2002? Thats the exact moment the 90s truly ended, just FYI.

You gotta hold in your head two conflicting ideas here: Bjrk is not of this earth, and yet Bjrk is very much of this earth. Very few people in history are more of this earth than she is. Takes a while to wrap your head around this. I lived in Bjrks neighborhood, in Brooklyn, for many years, but I never wouldve put it that way at the time: I wouldve insisted that Bjrk lived on the moon, or on the rings of Saturn. But this does her a disservice; this denies her humanity. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of her art. Theres a difference between respecting her as an outlandish visionary and dismissing her as some sort of baffling space alien. Thats the needle to thread. As a generator of madcap ideas and highfalutin concepts, shes superhuman, but as a singer of songs, as a fount of emotions, she is profoundly human. She sings the words Im a fountain of blood because thats literally what she is. A fountain of blood is literally what you are, while were at it. No one delivers words quite the same way Bjrk delivers words, but the intent, the sentiment of those words, quite often, couldnt be plainer. This is the miracle of Bjrk, but shes not a miracle. Shes just a girl, vamping in the showroom of a tire store, spinning amidst a sea of twirling umbrellas, dancing with a mailbox, and ascending on a crane until shes dominating the frame of Spike Jonzes camera with her finger to her lips, standing in front of you, asking you to love her.

To hear the full episode click here, and be sure to follow on Spotify and check back every Wednesday for new episodes on the most important songs of the decade. This excerpt has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Read the original:

'60 Songs That Explain the '90s': How Bjrk Became a Genre Unto Herself - The Ringer

No, they were not all talking at the same time. Screenshots from Tuesdays meeting (clockwise from top left): First District Supervisor Rex Bohn, Second District Supervisor Michelle Bushnell, Fourth District Supervisor Virginia Bass, Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson, Humboldt County Health Officer Dr. Ian Hoffman and Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone.

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The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday had some major money-management decisions to make, including how best to spend the latest influx of Measure Z revenues, and also which strategies are needed to address exploding pension liabilities.

And, of course, there was more talk about the pandemic.

Dr. Ian Hoffman, Humboldt Countys health officer, struck a tone of cautious optimism with emphasis on the caution during his latest update on local conditions surrounding COVID-19.

Reading from prepared remarks, Hoffman said that while theres a lot to rejoice for in this wonderful season of spring and rebirth, local case counts have begun to rise again, more than doubling from a rate of just two per 100,000 residents last week to four-and-a-half per 100,000 this week.

Most of the new cases are popping up in young people, and Hoffman theorized that precautionary measures that have been established in schools and on playing fields arent necessarily being followed once kids are on their own.

He also spent a good deal of time encouraging people to get vaccinated.

Vaccine opens up opportunity, Hoffman said, though he reminded people that youre not considered fully vaccinated until two weeks after the last dose in your series (meaning the second dose of either Pfizer or Moderna or the one-and-only shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine).

Fully vaccinated people should continue to wear facial coverings and social distance in public, but theyre free to travel without getting tested or quarantining afterwards, he said. And fully vaccinated people can safely visit among themselves indoors, no masks or distancing required.

However, Hoffman added, even if youre vaccinated, you should avoid medium- to large-size gatherings, and you should continue to mask and distance in public and at work.

Regarding last weeks announcement that 10 local residents have tested positive despite being fully vaccinated, Hoffman noted that this was fully expected, and they represent a tiny fraction just 0.03 percent of the 30,000-plus local residents whove been fully vaccinated. All 10 were either asymptomatic or extremely mild cases, he added.

Hoffman took a few moments to paint a picture of the joyous experiences awaiting the fully vaccinated:

So imagine: crisp Humboldt evening, Crabs Stadium on the night that all those in attendance show proof of vaccination. You could be at full capacity within that vaccinated section, cheering alongside your friends and neighbors without having to sit six feet apart.

A fully vaccinated section of Van Duzer Auditorium in Arcata or [the] Fortuna High School gymnasium could increase the capacity to 50 percent in the orange tier and 75 percent in the yellow tier again, allowing you to sit in close proximity with your neighbors and friends whove been distanced from for the past year.

This means seeing your favorite bands, theater, comedy, high school drama, middle school bands, youth sports with your family, friends and neighbors sitting alongside.

Its all possible with the vaccine.

How does one reach this utopia? Well, if youre not already vaccinated, you should be keeping your eye on two websites, Hoffman said. One is MyTurn, a state-run website that Humboldt County Public Health recently started using to book its mass-vaccination clinics. Those clinics have administered more than 6,300 vaccine doses. Thats more than 5 percent of the eligible population of the county vaccinated at our mass vaccine site in the past two weeks alone, Huffman said.

The other website to use is the federal governments VaccineFinder, which connects patients to local pharmacies and clinics receiving their vaccine supply through federal COVID programs.

Hoffman noted that some people have experienced glitches with the MyTurn site, and he encouraged folks to list their location as simply Humboldt County, rather that entering a specific zip code, to get a full list of available clinics.

Humboldt County Public Health is starting up a mobilization unit to get out to our homebound or hard-to-reach rural areas, Hoffman said. Open Door and United Indian Health Services have also been doing mobile outreach to the homebound, homeless and hard-to-reach populations over the past few weeks and will continue to expand in the coming weeks .

Meanwhile, society continues to reopen, with more and more businesses resuming or expanding operations and local residents planning weddings, conferences, sporting events, graduations and morewith increasingly detailed guidance from the state.

In the meantime, we must remember that COVID-19 is still out there, Hoffman warned. Variants of concern are spreading, and most of our population is still not protected with the vaccine. Case counts could continue to climb if people dont follow safety precautions, and such trends could jeopardize the statewide goal of removing the Blueprint framework of tiered restrictions come June 15.

Wear a mask, distance in public and get vaccinated as soon as you can get an appointment, Hoffman urged. If you are vaccinated, encourage [your] family, friends, neighbors and coworkers to do the same thing so you can join together.

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Next, the Board looked at the latest set of funding recommendations from the Citizens Advisory Committee on Measure Z Expenditures. Measure Z, as you no doubt recall, is the half-percent countywide sales tax measure passed by voters in 2014 as a means of boosting funding for public safety and other essential services.

Generally speaking, there has been less money available to be doled out each year as more and more of the revenue is absorbed by ongoing expenditures mostly staff costs tied to previously approved projects. For the upcoming 2021-22 fiscal year there was a bit more than $12.5 million in revenue available for allocation, though $8 million of that is already spoken for, as explained above.

That left about $4.5 million to be disbursed not nearly enough to cover the $7,308,985 in requests that came via 30 applications from various county departments and outside agencies. And so, over the course of five public meetings, the Citizens Advisory Committee developed a ranked list of funding recommendations, which it delivered to the board via a letter, which you can read by clicking here.

Glenn Ziemer, the chair of the committee, said public interaction was way lower this year than in the past, a phenomenon he blamed on meetings being held via Zoom thanks to COVID. Nicholas Kohl, the Fourth District representative on the committee, echoed that sentiment, saying,I was very concerned that [the public is] starting to miss part of the process and were not getting a full view of what our citizens want to prioritize.

But the committee still managed to come up with its ranked list, with the top-ranked suggestion being nearly $2 million to the Humboldt County Fire ChiefsAssociation and Southern Trinity VolunteerFire Department to cover equipment, dispatchservices, insurance costs and more.

Second on the list was $440,565.91 to the Kima:w Medical Center for rural ambulance and emergency services, followed by $390,000 to the Eureka Police Department for various public safety and homeless service initiatives.

Other agencies slated to receive Measure Z funds next fiscal year include the Humboldt County Sheriffs Office, the police departments from Arcata, Fortuna and Rio Dell, the countys public works department and the Eureka Broadcasting Company. (Read the letter linked above for details.)

After some discussion, including the observation that Measure Z funds are insufficient to even put a dent in the countys road-maintenance needs, Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson made a motion to direct staff to take the recommendations of the Measure Z Citizens Advisory Committee forward in the budgeting process. First District Supervisor Rex Bohn seconded the motion, and it passed unanimously.

The countys 2021-22 budget will be finalized at a future meeting, though these approved expenditures will likely remain in place.

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Lastly, in the snooze-inducing conclusion to the morning session, the board received a lengthy presentation on pension funding policy. While the topic may be boring as you delve into the details, Deputy County Administrative Officer Sean Quincey explained at the outset how big the stakes are.

Over the last 20 years, the countys annual contributions towards pension costs have grown exponentially, and without a strategy going forward these costs will threaten the countys ability to provide many vital local services, Quincey said.

Indeed, the county currently has more than $330 million in unfunded pension liability. Over the past 11 years, the countys required pension expenditures have ballooned from 18 percent of total payroll costs to nearly a third of payroll costs.

Quincey noted that the board has taken various steps in recent years to curb this exponential growth, and today the board was asked to approve a policy allowing employee salary deductions to beplaced in a pension account. The board was also asked whether the county should pursue a short- or long-term funding strategy for a federally authorized post-retirement account called the Section 115 Pension Trust.

A trio of public investment professionals delivered presentations explaining how this public sector debt has grown in recent years think the dot-com crash at the turn of the century, the Great Recession, increased life expectancy and lower-than-expected investment returns. They also delved into what the county is doing about it while looking toward the future.

Dan Matusiewicz, from a consulting firm called Government Resource Group, said there has been a shortfall due to underperforming investments, and the discussion of the year, in the government realm, is whether or not to take on more risk.

After Matusiewiczs presentation, First District Supervisor Rex Bohn commented, Were not in great shape, but were not in bad shape. Would that be a good way to Cliff Note it?

Matusiewicz allowed that Bohns summary was apt.

The board members all agreed that adopting a long-term funding strategy is the right move, and in a unanimous vote they directed staff to adopt the pension funding policy in question.

Thrilling stuff.

See original here:

TODAY in SUPES: Cautious Optimism on Local COVID Conditions, Plus the Latest Measure Z Awards and a Bracing Dose of Pension Funding Policy Talk - Lost...

New York City mayoral candidate and UBI proponent Andrew Yang. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty ... [+] Images)

Andrew Yang, when he ran for the Democratic Partys presidential nomination last year, pushed the idea of a universal basic income (UBI). The scheme to give every American a government stipend regardless of need went nowhere (as did Yangs candidacy) despite considerable UBI boosting from a number of journalists and prominent tech barons.Now Yang is campaigning for the Democratic nomination for New York Citys mayor.Though his platform has a lot of worthy elements and his candidacy has appeal on several levels, he continues to push a form of UBI, which remains a bad idea on several levels. It is the same for new UBI experiments in upstate New York as well as in Stockton, California and that states wildly affluent Marin County a universally bad idea.

Candidate Yang has certainly toned down his UBI ambitions. As a presidential candidate, he wanted to give $12,000 a year to everyone in the country for an estimated annual cost of $2.8 trillion. For New York City, he wants $2,000 a year for citizens in extreme poverty, a lower price tag than last years proposal certainly but perhaps less manageable for New York City than the trillions would have been for the federal government. Candidate Yang says that he knows where he can get the money by ending the tax-exemptions enjoyed by operations such as Madison Square Garden. Even if there are enough such entities to raise the required funds, there are many better ways for the city to spend the money than on UBI, by improving the subways, perhaps or cleaning the streets, filling potholes and fulfilling many more of the citys primary obligations better than presently.

Whether at a city or a national level, UBI could not, as some more libertarian boosters claim, substitute for other entitlements programs. Certainly, Yangs proposed $2,000 a year, even concentrated at the most needy, would fail to cover the needs of New York Citys disadvantaged. An enlarged stipend would still fail to acknowledge other important facts of life. Substituting a UBI for welfare or, as some have suggested, using a broad UBI to substitute for Social Security at the national level, would certainly encounter political resistance. A broad UBI as a substitute for Social Security and Medicare would constitute a partial transfer from the old to the young, and using it as a substitute for disability insurance would constitute a partial transfer from the disabled to the able bodied. Such considerations, once widely understood, might well dissolve any public support for UBI, except perhaps among undergraduates who would simply see in it more beer.

The vulnerabilities of the disadvantaged would also thwart the feasibility of using UBI even as Yang now proposes in New York, much less as a substitute for family support. Many of these people have trouble managing their finances. The predominance of payday loan operations in poor neighborhoods, along with furniture leasing outlets and the like, speaks not only to the cash-short nature of residents, but also to their susceptibility to hucksters. Noteworthy in this regard are Census Bureau statistics that estimate how 11 million American adults barely have basic literacy skills and some 30 million have difficulty completing basic financial forms. Without the guidance and strictures of present welfare arrangements, many less fortunate recipients of these stipends would find themselves either bilked out of them or would spend them too quickly. Surely, a Mayor Yang would balk at telling financial incompetents who have spent their allowance too fast to tighten their collective belts and await the next check.

If these considerations were not sufficient reason to question the wisdom of a UBI scheme, the evidence from various trials is not especially encouraging. A Bureau of Labor Statistics study of people on unemployment discovered, for instance, that they spent more time in front of the television and sleeping than upgrading their working skills, as some UBI proponents say it would do. A similar study on disability recipients revealed similar patterns. Statistics from earlier federal pilot programs on negative income tax, a variant of UBI, are equally discouraging. Between 1968 and 1980, Washington made four controlled trials of negative income tax, involving thousands of people across six states. Hours of work desired by all recipients fell some 9% below to those not in the program. They fell some 20% for married women and 25% among single women heads of household.Desired work among single men fell some 43% below non-recipients. If those receiving the negative income tax lost their job, the spell of unemployment lasted two months longer on average than with non-recipients and 12 months longer for married women.

There is an additional consideration, less quantifiable but perhaps more significant than any of these others. Even in a scarcity-free utopia, where a UBI would presumably be easy to grant, the transfer would do people harm.Simply giving people the means to acquire necessities and the material pleasures of life would effectively make every citizen a ward of the state or whatever entity does the giving. That is fine for children. It binds them to dutiful parents. But it would undermine the independence of adults and in so doing steal the sense of responsibility for themselves that undergirds self-respect. It would create a nation (or city) of sheep and do people and the society considerable harm, perhaps even destroy them.

Originally posted here:

A New Try With UBI: As Wrongheaded As Before - Forbes

It is a surprising 28 years since Groundhog Day passed into common English usage as shorthand for an apparently endless repetition of events with no escape though it seems like only yesterday.

I got the same feeling on reading last weeks UK and EU statements about their latest talks on the Northern Ireland Protocol, referring to difficult outstanding issues and the need to intensify efforts in coming weeks. To complete the sense of dj vu, we are again a matter of days away from an already postponed end-of-April deadline for the European Parliaments ratification of the wider Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which it has made contingent on the Protocol being made to work.

We are, in addition, still grappling with new EU export health certificate requirements entering into force this week, not to mention preparing for the delayed introduction of UK border controls later this year. My point is that we are still a long way from any semblance of normality to borrow a term from the Covid recovery lexicon when it comes to trading with our nearest and biggest partners.

While headline export figures for February do appear to show a significant bounce back from January (a rise of 46.6% compared with an earlier fall of 42%) simple arithmetic tells us this still only 85% of where we were. But most of this rebound was in sectors like machinery, cars and chemicals, none of which face the extra costs, delays and complexities of SPS checks and controls, or their knock-on effects on transport rates. Dairy, meat and fish in particular are nowhere near pre-Brexit levels, evenif you allow for the drop-offs from other factors such as the closure of hospitality.

In short, inconsistency and uncertainty have become the hallmarks of moving goods to market, undermining the predictability vital to any business operation. But the missing word for everyone is margin. Getting volumes and values back up may prove to be the easier part of the challenge.

Trade is also a two-way street. For every new export opportunity outside the EU, someone will be seeking reciprocal access to our market. It is not yet clear where that balance of advantage is going to lie for UK food and farming.

One other fictional title that has passed into everyday speech is Utopia. We are still a long way off that, too.

Here is the original post:

Brexit uncertainty and inconsistency means UK-EU food trade is still in limbo - The Grocer

21/04/2021 Blog / By ZAM Reporter

This group show investigates everyday objects and aspects of our daily lives that inspire the emergence of creativity as well as the unexpected mediums that serve as canvases.

Including artworks that are derived from, or stand in place of, everyday utilitarian objects, the exhibition includes such unlikely mediums as walking-sticks, motorbikes, ceramic tableware, and unique couture.

Featuring Nyambo MasaMara, Laylaa Jacobs, Kevin Collins, Razia Myers, Hanna Noor Mohamed, Jeanius Exchange, Petrus Sekele, Petra Vonk, Ziyanda Majozi, and Coast and Koi.

The artists perpetually upend the distinction between an aesthetic and a utilitarian decision. Challenging the viewer to examine gender identities, dystopian and fictional realities, as well as everyday innuendos in a whole new way.

'Beyond Borders' by Nyambo MasaMara, an acclaimed fashion designer, who debuted as a visual artist last year, is inspired by his solo migration at age 13 from Rwanda as a refugee to South Africa. With his Pan-African futurist vision his photos and sculptures conjure up images of a profoundly spiritual and tenacious journey. Laylaa Jacobs body of work, entitled 'The taste of the fruit' is a metaphor on ethnic and cultural assimilation. Her vibrant prayer mats are a personal anecdote about sexuality, religion, and belonging as a Muslim woman in Western society.

Kevin Collins ceramic plates, are fashioned into a whimsical portrait, composed of metaphors, symbols, and inflections. Hanna Noor Mohamed employs reanimated objects and media to emphasize both global and subjective lived experience, history, and reality. Her work, which grapples with the psyche, physicality, and metaphysics surrounding these encounters, aims to illustrate them through satire and the construction of relationships between object and meaning-making. She borrows from pervasive television and film culture, transforming still images into witty abstract vignettes. Razia Myers also plays with popular culture. 'Utopia', draws from her observation of fashion runway performances and is invigorating in its vibrancy and exuberance. Nature, vitality, sensuality, fantasy, and an outlook on a future of hope and optimism are at the core for Myers.

Petrus Sekele's carved figurative walking sticks continue in the footsteps of his woodcarving heritage. Sekele, incorporates satirical contemporary iconography in vividly painted compositions. For mosaicist Ziyanda Majozi, her chosen medium is a fighting and talking tool. She focuses on issues that affect women and LGBTQI+ communities. Petra Vonk,Coast and Koi and Jeanius Exchange use unapologetic maximalism, but also gender-inclusive ethos at the intersections of fashion and art. As Oscar Wilde stated, "one should either be a work of art or wear a work of art".

Artists have always pushed the boundaries and challenged our preconceptions. Over time, the purpose of art has been represented as expressing feelings or emotions, reinforcing a sense of splendor, designating experience, or exploring new ideas for their own sake.

The Covid-19 pandemic altered our engagement with art and how we interact with it in our daily lives. Digitization and augmented reality have provided us with new cultural experiences. When our normal escapes or utopias were cut off, our ordinary possessions magnified. Homes were converted into art studios, libraries, restaurants, and classrooms.

OPENING: Satuday 17 April @ 11AM - 2PMLOCATION: Jaffer Modern Art Gallery, Vib Hotel, 7th Floor, 181 Main Road, Green Point, Cape Town, South Africa

See the original post:

17.04.2129.05.21, Cape Town | Art of Everyday Things - ZAM - ZAM Magazine

After downsizing and going digital in 2020, Earth Day events remain small and digital this year due to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic.

But events ranging from beach cleanups to book discussions are planned locally for the internationally-recognized day Thursday, as well as into the weekend of what has become known as Earth Day Week.

In order to ensure groups remain small, registration is required for in-person events hosted by Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group and the Port of Anacortes.

Heres the event lineup:

PORT OF ANACORTES BEACH CLEANUPS

The Port of Anacortes is organizing cleanups Thursday at three local beaches. They will be held 1 to 3 p.m. at Railroad Avenue, N Avenue and Ship Harbor beaches.

We are expanding our efforts to three locations to ensure social distancing and maximum benefit to the beaches, the event announcement states. We will follow current pandemic guidelines.

Masks are required. The port will provide gloves, trash bags and trash pickers for volunteers, as well as a thank you gift at the conclusion of the event.

LA CONNER BOOK DISCUSSION

Seaport Books in La Conner will host an outdoor meet-the-authors event featuring Jack Hartt and Maribeth Crandell.

The duo will share the stories behind their works, including Hartts Exploring Deception Pass and Two Hands and a Shovel, Crandells Flip Flop on the Appalachian Trail, and their collaborative book Hiking Close to Home that features Fidalgo, Whidbey and Guemes island trails.

The bookstore offers meet the author events each month. This months event will begin at 4:30 p.m. Thursday outside the bookstore at Gilkey Square along the La Conner waterfront.

The Skagit Fisheries Enhancement Group, in partnership with Samish Island Camp and the Samish Indian Nation, is inviting volunteers to help free the trees at Scotts Point from invasive English ivy.

English ivy climbs the native trees and eventually causes them to die, removing important coastal erosion buffers, the event notice states. By removing the ivy well give these trees a new lease on life!

Registration is required in order to manage group size. Two shifts are being offered, from 9 to 11:30 a.m. and from 12:30 to 3 p.m. Each shift will be limited to 25 people, who will work in groups of five.

Masks are required and it is recommended volunteers bring gardening gloves. Additional gloves and tools will be provided on site.

The Skagit Land Trust owns and manages hundreds of acres of conservation lands throughout Skagit County, and this Earth Day is launching an effort to encourage more visits to those properties.

At 5:30 p.m. Thursday, the land trust will host an online event over Zoom to introduce community members to iNaturalist, a free-to-use website and mobile app.

This year instead of gathering together on the land, we are inviting you to visit our properties and make some discoveries! the event announcement states.

Your observations will help create an ecological survey for each Skagit Land Trust property, the event notice states. These surveys will help guide stewardship and management efforts throughout Skagit County.

The land trust recommends visiting the Barr Creek, Cumberland Creek, Day Creek, Guemes Mountain, Hurn Field, Tope Ryan or Utopia conservation areas.

See the article here:

Local events planned in honor of Earth Day - goskagit.com

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Absolutely frivolous, thats how the Supreme Court termed Waseem Rizvispetitionto remove26versesoftheQuran. While dismissing the petition,the Court also imposed a fineof Rs50,000 on the petitioner.Rizvi had alleged that these verses promoted enmity and violence against non-Muslims.

Waseem Rizvi should have taken his case to where it belonged the Islamic scholars, both traditional and modern,not the Supreme Court of India for a reinterpretation, not deletion of the verses.A review of Islamic theology and shaping of a new mode of religious thinking is long overdue among Muslims.

TheQuranneeds a new meaning, and a new interpretive classicism, to carry forward the achievements of modernity and enlightenment, not a rehashing of antiquated commentaries.

But Waseem Rizvi has been a man in such hurry for political celebrity as not to pauseanddraft a legally sustainable and intellectually tenable case. So riddled has been his petition with such elementary mistakes as quoting chapters and versesthatdont even exist in theQuran, and building a case on the basis of pedestrian canards, sectarian stereotypes and motivated gossips that it had been really liberal of the Supreme Court to admit it.

That such a petition could be admitted has been a cause of consternation since the Supreme Court adjudicates matters pertaining to the Constitution, not scriptures. If one were to draw on Stephan Jay Goulds schema of science and religion asNon-OverlappingMagisteria, the Constitution and theQuran one being a rational human document and another a result of mystical inspiration exist in their separate domains without impinging on the other.

Also read: Waseem Rizvi: Meet the most anti-Muslim Muslim man in India

Scriptures dont change. Their readers do. With changing times and values, new insights are brought into the reading of scriptures, and ever new meanings are discovered in them. Islams doctor maximus,Ibn al-Arabi(d. 1240), insisted that every time a Muslim recited a verse from theQuran, it should mean something different tothem.

Scriptural interpretation doesnt seek to revive a mythical utopia.It reinventsthe scripture to make it speak to our contemporary predicaments.

All religious scriptureshave mattersthatdont accord with modern sensibilities. Violence, misogyny and xenophobia are rife in them, yet they are considered sources of numinous elevation and consolation.

Most religious scriptures have once been a source of law. But their communities no longer regard them as such. Scriptures bring them intimations of the transcendent, not the legislation for the contemporary society.

Readers of other religions have stopped deriving law from scripturesand given it an interpretationthataccordswith contemporary sensibilities by reading down the offensive parts. Similarly,Muslims can read modern values into Islam too.

Muslims, however, continue to regard theQuranas the supreme source of law.So,a conflict is created between the laws of the secularState and the idealised Shariah, which gets accentuated on issuessuchas the treatment of minorities, gender justice and the commitment to democracy and secularism.

Insofar as other communities dont derive laws from their respective scriptures, dont claim to be inspired by them in their worldly affairs, and dont try to restore their utopian past, the anachronistic verses of their religious books are not dug out to make a case against them.

TheQuranuses many self-descriptors for itself such as the Recitation, the Book, the Reminder, the Warner, and the Bearer of Glad Tidings, but nowhere does it use an epithetthatcould remotely be considered an equivalent of law.

TheQuran, in its own words, is free from discrepancies (4:82, 39:23). But the reductionism involved in extracting laws for everyday life was bound to throw up myriad contradictions given the multitudinous diversity of human affairs.

Also read: Islams crisis doesnt need Reformation. It calls for relocation

The Fuqaha (Islamic jurists) were not equal to the spiritual and mystical dimensions of theQuran. Instead of reconciling these contradictions in the spirit of Coincidentia Oppositorum(the unity of opposites),they took an easy recourse to voiding those versesthatdidnt fit in their juristic model. This methodology is known asNaskh(Abrogation), wherein one verse overrides another, effectively rendering it juristically and normatively redundant without actually expunging it.

Asunnat, anhadees, or theijma(consensus of Islamic jurists) is also employed forreading downversesthatdont cohere with their jurisprudence. The famous jurist and exegete, Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1201), named no less than 247 abrogated verses. On the lower side of the scale, Shah Waliullah of Delhi (d. 1762) kept the number to a meagre five.Naskhis the domain of Islamic theologians and jurists. The court of law of a secularState such as the Supreme Court of India is not the right forum for it.

Another hermeneutic and methodological tool of Islamic jurisprudence, theology and Quranic commentary is the concept ofSabab Nazul the occasion or the context of the revelation of a particular verse. Besides shedding light on the historicity of a verse, it also weighs the rationale for its trans-contextual extrapolation. Thus, if a particular verse,such as theSword Verse (9:5),could be understood only in its immediate context of revelation, its relevance would be purely historical and academic, not prescriptive and emulative.

Also read: Indian madrasas are thought-influencers. Their funding, modernisation should be priority

TheQuranis a book of some bulk consisting of as many as 6,236 verses. A few of them are taken out of their historical and textual context in isolation from the preceding and succeeding verses to impute malice to it. The blame for this disingenuous method, however, has to be placed on the shoulders of the conventional interpretive stylethathas been thriving on random quotation of a verse, or a part of it, to clinch an argument. Such has been the validity of this tradition that the ideological superstructure of the political Islam has been built without this methodology being brought into question with no more than 10-15 verses culled arbitrarily from here and there. So much so that the phrase,aqeem us-salat, whose standard translation is, be constant in prayers,was interpreted to mean a mandate for the establishment ofanIslamic state. Such instrumental use of theQuranmakes it vulnerable to a similar misuse by its detractors.

Till the time violence and obscurantism keep deriving legitimacy from theQuranand its classical interpretations, Islam will remain exposed to calumny.Mainstreaming a modern mode of Islamic thinking, an advance over the modern principles of liberty and justice, is an ineluctable exigency.

Najmul Hoda is an IPS officer. Views are personal.

(Edited by Neera Majumdar)

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Qurans verses need to be reviewed. But by Islamic scholars, not Supreme Court of India - ThePrint