Daily Archives: June 2, 2021

Real Time with Bill Maherhas been on an unexpected hiatus following Bill Mahers COVID-19 diagnosis. Will the HBO late night show return tonight?

Prior to the May 14 episode ofReal Time, it was announced that Maher tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The comedian had been fully vaccinated and reported no symptoms. Still, that weeks episode was canceled as was the show on May 21. It ended Mahers impressive streak of never missing a show, dating back to hisPolitically Incorrectdays.

Thankfully, a new streak can start. There will be a brand new episode ofReal Time with Bill Mahertonight on HBO.

Expect Maher to recap his experience at the top of the show. Its then likely that Maher will want to move on and catch up on some of the stories he missed over the past two weeks. Topics like Marjorie Taylor Greenes controversial comments, states reopening, and more are on the table.

First up, Bill Maher will interview sports broadcaster Bob Costas. The journalist has covered everything from boxing and NASCAR to the NFL and the Olympics.

Hell be onReal Timeto promote his new showBack on the Record with Bob Costas.The HBO and HBO Max series will be driven by in-depth interviews with the biggest names in sports, entertainment, and popular culture.

Journalist and political commentator Nicholas Kristof will be on the panel. Hes aNew York Timescolumnist known for his coverage of human rights issues around the world. Kristofs most recent book isTightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, which looks at the challenges facing working-class Americans.

Political consultant and strategist James Carville will also join the panel. He currently co-hosts the podcast Politics War Room. Expect him to share his thoughts on the state of the Republican Party and discuss what Democrats need to do to retain power.

Real Time with Bill Maherairs tonight at 10:00 p.m. ET on HBO. You can also watch Real Time onHBO Max.

Are you excited for the return ofReal Time with Bill Maher? Let us know in the comment section below and be sure to check back with Last Night On for all the highlights.

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Is Real Time with Bill Maher new tonight, May 28? - Last Night On

So let's set the scene.

I was selected to take a pack of Cubs Scouts to summer camp many years ago.

My wife was the den mother, but she elected to stay home in the air conditioning (it gets hotter n' heck in July even in Ohio) and appointed me to lead a group of nine boys for a week. My older son was a part of the group.

We arrived on Sunday afternoon, and by Monday, well, things were not going well. Here's what I wrote in a postcard to my wife and younger son:

"I got sick after taking the swimming test (thank goodness I made it to a tree outside the pool before I threw up). I had to scare a bunch of raccoons out of my tent. They walk right in scavenging for food. And then I had to console a boy who was crying and homesick. He had been added to our campsite to give us an even 10.

"But today (Tuesday), things seem to be much better."

The whole camp experience reminded me of Allan Sherman's song from the '60s. It might be politically incorrect today, but it's hard to forget:

"Hello Muddah, hello Faddah

Here I am at Camp Grenada . . .

I went hiking with Joe Spivey

He developed poison ivy . . .

Take me home, oh Muddah, Faddah

Wait a minute, it's stopped hailing

Guys are swimming, guys are sailing . . .

Muddah, Faddah kindly disregard this letter."

Well, what's summer camp without a little drama. Whether it's summer dance camp, 4-H camp at Rock Eagle, Scout camp or a sports camp, it's all part of a learning experience.

Have fun this summer!

AGE IS JUST A NUMBER

My favorite tweets after 50-year-old Phil Mickelson won the PGA Championship this past Sunday at Kiawah Island to become the oldest player to win a major:

"Something strikes me: 50 is older than 46 . . . well done my friend." -- Jack Nicklaus, who won the Masters at age 46

"Chalk one up for the old boys." -- John Daly

"That's my quarterback." -- Tom Brady

LET THEM EAT

It was great to see that Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks said he's planning 100% capacity for Bulldogs' home opener this fall. That was expected.

What really caught my attention: Brooks told the UGA Athletic Board of Directors this week that the price of five concession items will be reduced by almost 50 percent.

The cost of the concessions -- at least for this season -- will be $2 for bottled water, $2.50 for bottled soft drinks, $2.50 for hot dogs, $2 for candy, and $2 for a small popcorn. A bucket of popcorn will still cost you $5.

That's the way fans should always be treated.

MOVIN' IN

You'll have to forgive me, because we have spent most of this week selling our house in South Carolina and getting everything packed and moved here.

Of course, we'd been living here in Milledgeville and helping my Dad before he passed away in February but had never sold our house.

So we'll soon be official Georgia residents again!

I'll do better next week.

Rick Millians, a 1970 Baldwin High graduate, worked at newspapers in Georgia, Ohio and South Carolina before retiring. Reach him at rdmillians@aol.com.

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MILLIANS: Braveheart goes to summer camp | Opinion | unionrecorder.com - The Union-Recorder

But you dont have a duty of moralising where you think they should and shouldnt invest. If theyve found an investment and its legal then that should be where it finishes.

He said if an investment was legal, prudent and makes money then its a good investment. But he declined to say how he and other Nationals MPs would vote on the legislation, noting hed been looking through the bill and how to decipher it.

We are looking for better comfort brought forward by the minister as to why this [power] cannot be exploited. Were very aware of the fact that when the time comes were not in government and someone else is we can hardly argue against something the other side does when you brought in the laws for them to do it, he said.

But if you start saying well I dont like coal, I dont like gas [and] fracking, I dont like the live cattle trade and all this as inevitably would [happen] because the Greens would put pressure on Labor ... then were in trouble, he said.

The legislation also faces a battle over its stapling measures, which attaches workers to their super accounts when they change jobs unless they choose to switch, as some MPs are concerned employees might be stuck to an underperforming fund. The legislation was introduced in last years budget in a bid to improve fund performance and reduce the number of unnecessary multiple funds eroding balances through excess fees.

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Superannuation Minister Jane Hume has previously said the additional powers provided to the Treasurer would be used when there are grey areas that leave the regulator unable to intervene. Labor superannuation spokesman Stephen Jones, who is supported by the super industry, has criticised the powers as an overreach and previously wrote to Colition MPs warning them of its potential use by future governments.

Mr Jones letter warned Mr Joyce the extra powers would unite miners and greenies in their concerns.

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Barnaby Joyce against Treasurers power to block superannuation investments - The Sydney Morning Herald

Sinad OConnor has been pretty much invisible for the past few years. Theres a good reason, though, she tells me with her usual disregard for social niceties. Ive spent most of the time in the nuthouse. Ive been practically living there for six years. She pauses, takes an intense drag on her fag, and warns me off being similarly politically incorrect. We alone get to call it the nuthouse the patients.

OConnor is a music great her 1990 version of Princes Nothing Compares 2 U is one of the most transcendent five minutes in pop history, the solitary tear falling from her eye in the accompanying video one of its most beautiful images. The single topped the charts worldwide, as did the album it was taken from, I Do Not Want What I Havent Got. Astonishingly, in the 31 years that have passed, she has never had another UK Top 10 hit single and only one Top 10 album. And yet she remains a household name.

Perhaps OConnor was always destined to be best known for simply being herself: the angelic skinhead who swore like a trooper and shocked the world with allegations of child sex abuse; a woman who played out her own mental health crises in public; who became a Catholic priest and then reverted to Islam; who had four children by four different men, when all these things were unheard of or taboo. Her albums have often been cussedly uncommercial traditional Irish songs on Sean-Ns Nua, roots reggae covers on Throw Down Your Arms. There have been gorgeous, relatively poppy albums, such as Universal Mother, but even that featured a spoken-word polemic on why the Irish famine was not actually a famine, and compared the country to an abused child. OConnor must be one of pops most reluctant stars. When she was told Nothing Compares 2 U was at No 1 she wept and not out of happiness.

Its not just her eagerness to stick two fingers up at convention that makes her endlessly fascinating. OConnor is an enormously empathic figure; hers is a vulnerability we can all relate to. And she is often proved right, long after the event. Last time we met, 11 years ago, OConnor was a Catholic priest (she had been ordained by a breakaway church in 1999) who had just been vindicated. In 1992, she had torn up a picture of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live as a protest at child sex abuse in the Catholic church. At the time many people dismissed her as a loopy self-publicist. Two weeks later she was booed off stage at a Bob Dylan tribute concert, and her records were publicly smashed. But in 2010 Pope Benedict XVI issued an apology to the victims of decades of sex abuse by Catholic priests in Ireland, expressing his shame and remorse for their sinful and criminal acts. (She viewed the apology as wholly inadequate, calling the Vatican a nest of devils and a haven for criminals.)

Now, OConnor is publishing her memoirs. The book, Rememberings, has been a long time in the making. For the first time, she has written about the childhood abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother. The book is a series of beautifully observed vignettes rather than a conventional autobiography: she takes us from the abuse to the kleptomania, reform school, pop stardom, pope-baiting, heresy, apostasy, breakups, breakdowns, kids, marriages and celebrity shags that have shaped her life. The writing, particularly when recounting her childhood, is lyrical, funny and anguished, and the revelations come thick and fast.

Shes at home in Wicklow when we speak, decked out in grey grey jumper, grey hijab (she changed her off-stage name to Shuhada Sadaqat when she became a Muslim in 2018), grey cropped skinhead and grey fag ash. Shes 54 now, her cheeks more rounded but her eyes still bright. For three hours, she talks and talks eloquent, indiscreet, potty-mouthed, poignant, conspiratorial.

In Rememberings, she captures the way she saw the world when she was young. She describes her fear on the day her father left, and her mother moved her and her siblings into the garden hut and locked them out of the house. She was eight years old. I knelt on the ground in front of the gable wall and wailed up to the landing window to get her to let us into the house when it got dark. That is when I officially lost my mind and became afraid of the size of the sky. This particular incident shaped much of her life, she tells me. Thats why Im agoraphobic. I find it difficult being outside. I dont mind when it turns into black night, but once the hours of dusk come, I get very anxious.

OConnor grew up in Glenageary, County Dublin, the third of five children born to Marie and John. The family were middle-class, fairly well off, practising Catholics and dysfunctional. When her parents split up, she says, her father (a structural engineer turned barrister) became only the second man in Ireland awarded custody of his children and a campaigner for the right to divorce.

In the book, she recounts her mothers physical and sexual abuse, including the times she ordered OConnor to strip naked, lie on the floor with her arms and legs splayed open, then hit her repeatedly in her private parts. She is convinced her mother wanted to destroy her reproductive organs. She had a thing about wanting me to be a boy. She didnt want girls.

OConnor closely resembled her mother. Was she aware at the time of how alike they looked? Yes. Ive often thought she did all this to me because I was the child who reminded her most of herself. Did it worry her that she looked like her? Yeah. I think thats why I continue to shave my head, because if I have hair I look more like her and I dont like to see her in the mirror. Theres no picture of her in the book.

She says it was her mother who forced her into thieving as a little girl. They would collect money in charity boxes, then Marie would steal all the donations sometimes as much as 200 a night. My mother was a kleptomaniac. She would visit houses that were for sale just so she could steal shit out of them. She would take money out of the church plate. But her parents had plenty of money, didnt they? Exactly. My father was very well-off. When my mother died, we were living like she had no money, with no heat, no electricity, no hot water. The bitch dies and theres 250 grand in the bank!

OConnor says she never wanted to steal, but then she found she was addicted to it, like her mother. I became a kleptomaniac as well. My father took me on holiday with the rest of the kids when I was 13 or 14 and I stole a rug out of the hotel room. Id steal shit for the sake of stealing it. She would take things from shops to order for her schoolfriends. The young OConnor was a talented sprinter; shed put on the clothes she wanted to nick, walk to the exit, then run. At the age of 14, she got caught stealing a pair of gold shoes for a mate and was sent to a reform school run by nuns.

When OConnor was 18, her mother was killed in a car crash. In the past, she has said she loved her despite everything, and never recovered from her death. Today, she simply says she was relieved that she died. Does she think her mother was ill or just cruel? I think she was an evil person. But she doesnt believe it was her fault. When I look at photos of the woman she was before she got married, she was a joyful, gleaming, happy young woman, and I feel something possessed her. It was the devil in her.

OConnors worldview has always been one of gods and devils perhaps not surprisingly for somebody who was brought up to believe the incontestable truth of the scriptures. Of her 20-odd tattoos, all but one are scriptural. On the back of her hand is printed The lion of Judah shall break every chain (My Rastafari fist), on the other Lumen Christi (light of Christ), and on her chest is a huge Jesus tattoo. On her neck is All things must pass, another biblical quote. The exception is a tattoo saying Vampire slayer which is what some friends called her after the Saturday Night Live incident.

She began writing her memoir in January 2015 when she was in a good place. But then she had a prolonged and catastrophic breakdown, brought on partly by one of her children becoming seriously ill; she also had a radical hysterectomy later that year. Everything went fucking pear-shaped. I went through what you call surgical menopause, which is like menopause multiplied by 10,000. Then I didnt write anything again for four years. The first half I wrote on a laptop at home, the second half I dictated from the nuthouse. The difference is obvious the early part of the book is economic, tonally assured, poetic, writerly; the latter pacy, gossipy and entertaining.

After the hysterectomy, her mental health took a dive. Nobody had explained to me or my family that shes going to be a crazy bitch because we took her ovaries for no reason. So the children were terrified of me. How was she terrifying? Angry. Raging. I was furious. I was completely gone. I was suicidal. She says she scared everybody off. Nobody could deal with me. I was very isolated and alone. Id be looking at them, thinking, what the hell are they all frightened of?

She admitted herself as an inpatient to the psychiatric hospital St Patricks in Dublin in 2016. OConnor assumed the staff wouldnt be able to cope with her either. She says she was hard work when she arrived on the locked ward. You test them. You show them your ugly side and youre like: I bet you throw me out now. After about three years I realised they werent going anywhere. In fact they loved me very much indeed.

Rememberings is partly dedicated to St Patricks. She calls the hospital her second home. Thank God I spent a lot of the last six years there, because otherwise I wouldnt be alive. Most of the time, she was on an open ward, learning about her mental health. Im 10% bipolar, apparently, 40% complex traumatic stress and the rest is borderline personality disorder. Did she try to kill herself in hospital? No. Never. I went there all the time because I was suicidal. I would take myself there. In the past I have made several suicide attempts. I would take the pills and say to God: OK its up to you, you decide and then of course I would wake up three or four days later. Clearly God thinks Im such a pain in the arse that he doesnt want me either. She grins. Im a strong little fucker. I wasnt meant to die.

It was the times when she signed herself out of their care that the disasters happened. In 2017, she convinced herself everybody in Ireland and Britain had given up on her, so she headed for America to see friends. In fact, she ended up living alone in a motel in not-so-quiet desperation. That was when she put a video on Facebook in tears to tell the world she was in urgent need of help: My entire life is revolving around not dying, and thats not living. It was terrifying for her and for her fans. She managed to get back to Ireland, and readmitted herself to hospital. Today, she says she wasnt only mentally ill at the time, she was in physical agony with gallstones. Social media has often brought the worst out of her. Twitter is really for lonesome people, isnt it? she says. And I was desperately, desperately lonely.

In one way or another, OConnor says, she has always had issues with self-esteem. In the book she writes about how her sister imear tried to boost her. She made me look in the mirror when I was 23 or 24 and say, I am loving, I am lovable, I love and accept myself exactly as I am and shed make me give myself a kiss. And did she believe it? I probably only started believing in January of this year. Has she kept on doing it? Sometimes I still do it. If Ive managed to achieve something; if Ive managed to have a shower or Ive managed to clean the house, Ill say to myself: Youve achieved a lot today, that was great. But I dont do it looking in the mirror. She pauses. Now and again Ill give myself a kiss in the mirror or say, you fucking rock!

Her last stint at St Patricks was her longest eight months. And it was this January that she and the hospital agreed she was fit to leave. Theyd been threading this thing together in me for six years. Both you and your team know when youre ready. How did she feel different? I didnt feel sad any more, I didnt feel depressed, I didnt spend all day terrified, I was able to go out, I was able to have fun, I was able to spend a day not beating the shit out of myself for my flaws. She is cutting back on her work hours to focus on the essentials paying bills, keeping the house clean and not being overwhelmed.

She puts out yet another cigarette, prepares to light the next, then stops. Can I just take a piss? A minute later she returns. Wonderful piss, she says. I ask whether she learned anything about herself from writing the book. I learned how very, very lucky I was. Coming from where I did, and then to walk around the world having this fantastic adventure. Sometimes I would ring my father, saying something bad had happened to me, and hed always say thats part of the adventure, thats part of life. You know the Harrison Ford movies, hes always being chased by a boulder or in a pit of snakes, but its all part of the adventure? Its scary, but its fun.

Towards the end of her stay in hospital, she started to appreciate her talent for the first time. When she was planning to tour (before it got cancelled by the pandemic), she worried that she may have forgotten the lyrics to her songs. So I went on YouTube to remind myself. I had never done that before and I thought, holy shit, thats me; thats quite good! Is she thinking of any particular songs? A lot was about the live performance, like on Jools Holland I did two songs called Fire On Babylon and Famine. I was a skinny young lady and I thought, where did that voice come from?

Did she think she was beautiful? When I look back, I think, yeah, thats a pretty girl. Not any more. And at the time? That was never something in my mind. Im Irish and I grew up in the 70s when to be a good Catholic you had to think you were shit; you werent allowed to boast, you werent allowed to be proud of yourself. You would never declare: I am loving and lovable!

OConnor says she was terrified of reading Rememberings: she thought she would find the chapters on her childhood triggering. There came a point when she couldnt avoid it any longer, because she had to read the audio book. Did she find it tough? No, the only bit that fucked me up was the Prince chapter. When I read it, I was like, holy fuck, that was a really scary night.

She was in America in 1991, soon after Nothing Compares 2 U had topped the charts. Although Prince had written the song for his side project, the Family, hed had nothing to do with her recording. One day she got a call saying hed like to meet her. A chauffeur-driven car arrived to take her to his house. From the off, she says, Prince acted strangely. He told her he didnt like the language she used on TV and made it clear he was unhappy she was not his protege. Things soon got tense. She says the evening ended up with him locking her in his house, insisting they have a pillow fight, then hitting her with a hard object hidden inside the pillowcase. OConnor says she managed to get away and he chased her in his car. Eventually she escaped. She has talked about this night before now, but previously she seemed to laugh it off. Not this time.

What does she think would have happened if Prince had caught her? I think he would have beat the shit out of me. Even talking about it after all these years, she looks shaken. What was the scariest moment? When he was sitting on a chair by the front door and he wouldnt let me out. His irises dissolved and his eyes just went white. It was the scariest thing Ive seen in my life. If he had still been alive, does she think there would have been a #MeToo moment about Prince? There still might be, she says. Im interested to see if that does happen because I know one woman he put in hospital for months. And she didnt make a complaint. I think he was a walking devil. He wasnt called Prince for nothing. Did they ever meet after that? No, I wouldnt go fucking near him, no way. And he never attempted to meet me. I could have gone to the police and made a report, but I didnt. I was just so glad to be out of it.

As well as the traumatic stuff, Rememberings is hilarious at times. Every minute she is falling in love with someone new invariably a priest or yet another man called John. She describes gleefully how she had never fitted the Catholic template: Four children by four different men, only one of whom I married, and I married three other men, none of whom are the fathers of my children. In 2011 she made a call-out on social media for a sweet sex-starved man. After a few unsatisfactory responses, Mr Right offered his services, and this resulted in her brief fourth marriage.

She describes the man who took her virginity at 14 as her deflorist. She admits she stole the term from her brother, the celebrated novelist Joseph OConnor. Is she surprised theres been so much sex in her life? No, because I was a horndog. I was like every other girl in a band. We all fucked our way around America.

She stops, and says she has a confession. To be honest, I exaggerated how slutty I was. I had a couple of affairs on tour with crew members, but I didnt do my slutty years till I was 49. Then I went on a load of dating sites. I never did any one-night stands before, and then I did the entire slutty college years in six months. Did she enjoy it? Oh yeah, I loved it. But it was time for it to stop.

There are also honourable or dishonourable mentions of celebrity boyfriends. She writes that Peter Gabriel, who was divorced from his first wife when they dated in the early 90s, regarded her as his weekend pussy. Did that upset her? Yes, I was really hurt because he had chased me for about a year as if he was madly in love with me. He was the type of dude who youd be away with and hed put a note under the door to tell you hes just about to go out on a date with another girl. And hed get you down for the weekend and then say, you know this isnt going to go any further. She says, Because of Peter, Ive always drilled it into my sons that you must never tell a woman you love her to get her into bed. She says she doesnt want to give the wrong impression of Gabriel, though. To be fair, he also has a great tenderness about him.

Anyway, this is all the past, she insists; the hysterectomy has done for her libido. I dont even look at policemens arses any more, she says sorrowfully. I used to look at them a lot; especially motorcycle cops. Id completely objectify them. A little smile plays across her face. There has been quite a hot electrician around my house for the last while. See, I say, theres still hope. Well, its six years since I either had sex or went out with anybody, and now Ive had six years on my own, I love it. The thought of having to shave your legs, pluck your eyebrows, hold in your stomach, stick out your arse, always stress, stress.

While were on sex, shes got a joke for me. I went to the doctor. He told me to stop wanking. I said, Why? and he said, Because Im trying to examine you. She laughs. I love that joke.

I ask OConnor why she thinks she has has had so few hit records. Simple, she says its never been a priority. For her, music has always been a form of therapy. When she did Top Of The Pops, she just regarded it as an opportunity to get this shit I have to get off my chest. The only reason to make an album is because youll go crazy if you dont. If you make it because you want to be famous or impress the fella down the road or to make money, its not going to be a good record.

Having said that, she did earn a fortune from music. I made 10 million quid on the second album [I Do Not Want What I Havent Got] . I probably should have made more. I gave away half of it. Why? A priest told me: when you grow up and get a job, pay back the money you stole. So as soon as I got the money, I doled it out in various ways to different charities and people. Thats not in the book, I say. She looks embarrassed. No. Because youre not supposed to say when youve done a good deed.

Shes probably still most famous for ripping up the picture of John Paul II. Has that defined her career? Yes, in a beautiful fucking way. There was no doubt about who this bitch is. There was no more mistaking this woman for a pop star. But it was not derailing; people say, Oh, you fucked up your career but theyre talking about the career they had in mind for me. I fucked up the house in Antigua that the record company dudes wanted to buy. I fucked up their career, not mine. It meant I had to make my living playing live, and I am born for live performance.

Despite everything that has happened to her the abuse, the breakdowns, the betrayals and fallouts she has never lost her faith. Yes, she has been hypercritical of formalised religion, particularly the Catholicism she was born into, but thats different. Religions are simply platforms for faith, she says, and she decided Catholicism was a lousy platform, so she chose Islam. I guess I was born with a huge faith and it never left and nothing would shake it, she says.

Why did she become a Muslim? What I like about Islam is that it is anti-religious. In the same way that Jesus was a militantly anti-religious figure, Allah is saying that people are not to worship anything but God. The worst thing that happened to God is religion. She means weve spent too long worshipping priests rather than God. Islam is the most maligned religion on Earth because it has the truths that would make you not worship money, make you not steal, make you be good to your brothers and sisters, make you gentle.

Weve been chatting for hours, so we call it a night. But over the following days she calls and texts with corrections and additional information. There are new stories about her mother, some horrific, some funny (One evening some friends of hers called round she gave them dog food on toast and told them it was pat). There are reminders of how much she adores her father, her children and two of her ex-husbands. (My first husband, John Reynolds [who was also her producer], is still my best friend.) And, most importantly, there are pleas not to misrepresent her. Dont make it all misery, she commands. Just remember, my storys not Angelas fucking Ashes.

Last time we met it was a period of relative stability in her life. At the end of that interview I asked if she thought her state of calm could be permanent, and she bridled. People always say to me, Do you think your happiness is going to last? as if Im teetering on some edge, she said, before telling me it was bollocks.

Now she feels differently. She knows things are going well at the moment she is happy living alone, shes got a good relationship with her children but she knows nothing is permanent. I think Im good now. But Im not stupid enough to think I wont have relapses. Im not stupid enough to think I wont end up in hospital again. Im a recovering abuse survivor and its a lifes work. Its not like you get reborn or something. She lifts her hijab slightly, showing more of her cropped hair, and she smiles again. For a moment, she looks just like the angelic skinhead of old. So yeah, Im always going to be a bit of a crazy bitch, but thats OK.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org.

Rememberings, by Sinad OConnor, is published by Penguin on 1 June at 20. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

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Sinad O'Connor: 'I'll always be a bit crazy, but that's OK' - The Guardian

I set up my Twitter account way back in 2008. Sounds almost primitive now.

When I joined Twitter, it felt like a multi-theme cultural festival. There were people discussing music, cinema, food, costumes, poetry, creativity, philosophy, science, et cetera and sometimes politics, too. Sounds primitive.

But what really attracted me was the uncensored humour. A typical day on Twitter would start with motivation, discussions on headlines, some satirical trolling, food, fashion, movies in the evening, and, after a few drinks, a typical Twitter day would end with a satirical trend where everyone participated.

#DrunkTweets would often flash up in trending topics. People from all spectrums interacted freely. Also, the limit was only 140 characters. An idea, when restricted to fewer words, becomes sharper.

Every tweet, in 140 characters, was the essence of a central idea on which people elaborated. Blocking or muting was a rare phenomenon.

Of course, this was typical first world behaviour. Exactly like when the Jaipur Literature Festival used to be an elitist event.

Twitter then attracted the elite of Lutyens. Wherever elites go, media follows. Soon, media started reporting from Twitter. Not the news but the creative tweets.

The media would quote tweets of famous, but anonymous, trolls which summed up a major debating topic, in novel satire.

There was an informal competition between Twitterati as to who would write better to be quoted by the media.

Of course, there were opinions but the opinions didnt concern the common man: the common man wasnt concerned about Twitter. It was the test-marketing of the attention economy.

This created Twitter celebs or influencers. Racism, sexism, casteism, genderism and almost all kinds of bigotry, misogyny, insults and politically incorrect expressions were freely flowing, disguised as jokes. Whoever questioned them was labelled downmarket.

This is when a celebrated, has-been journalist coined the label Internet Hindoo for such downmarket people. This wasnt Hinduphobia. It was an elitist way of reminding Hindus that they were slaves.

Story continues

I had not heard the term Hinduphobic on Twitter till 2014. Instead of the Left or the Right wings, there was only the Who-Gets-More-Validation wing.

Shashi Tharoor was an undisputed star of Twitter as he could write well in English, flirt openly with famous lady journalists in India as well as in Pakistan. Since Aman ki Asha was a favourite theme on Twitter, he was kind of their brand ambassador.

But all complex English comes with an expiry date. One day, some conscientious journalist reported his most infamous tweet where he disparagingly referred to economy class as cattle class.

It became the first official political outrage where Sonia Gandhi had to intervene and he was forced to resign as a minister. This also marked the first instance of loss of power and destruction of credibility. By one tweet.

The media had tasted blood. They learnt two things: the power of Twitter in influencing domestic politics and that they could save money on grounds reporting by taking feed directly from Twitter.

Almost all media followed, including the regional media. Wherever the media goes, politicians follow. And vice versa.

Arvind Kejriwal used both very successfully to fulfil his political ambition in disguise of a social revolution against corruption.

The Congress became sceptic of Twitter as they had burnt their hands with Shashi Tharoors adventures with Twitter and saw Twitter a one of their opponents.

But social media visionary Narendra Modi, who was victimised by the media, saw it as a big opportunity. He understood that Twitter is nothing but a broadcaster of ideas. He used it to his advantage. Rest is history.

The platform not only empowered nationalistic leaders like Modi but also played a decisive role in Brexit vote and Donald Trumps victory. These victories empowered political slums -

the silent majority of small town, vernacular, middle class people, especially the young.

To be able to directly speak to a Shah Rukh Khan or a Cabinet minister or your favourite journalist or even criticise, troll or abuse them in full public display is a powerful experience. With the political slum questioning the political skyscrapers, elites of Twitter started getting rattled.

The accentuated left-liberal world was now shown a mirror by the vernacular right. Thus began a war. A real war where people started losing their reputations, jobs, fame, status. And political power.

Twitter power became political currency.

On the Twitter of 2008, strangers used to become friends; but in todays Twitter, friends are becoming enemies. In the pre-2014 world, there used to be tweet-ups, a social gathering of strangers who met on Twitter. I have been to many tweet-ups in many cities. Now even thinking about it is a nightmare.

A well-structured, systematic division was in place. The hunger for winning this war of words, insults, trolling and destruction of credibility, became the staple diet. Political narratives were dictated on Twitter. Everyone took their feed here. News channels started running debates on Twitter trends.

Today, there is no exchange of ideas, no dialogue, no appreciation. Only narratives. Political wars are won by narratives. Narratives are created by ecosystems. Its a war of ecosystems. Twitter loves this war. History has revealed that Wars only help the powerful. In this case, the Big Tech. Let me explain.

In a globalised world, governments dont create ecosystems. Ecosystems control governments. The United States is the best example. In a digital world, whoever controls the algorithm, controls power. Algorithms give them the power to influence minds, politics and policies. And hence, commerce.

In a globalised world, Big Tech is fighting for global control. This is evident in their vision for the future. At the World Economic Forum last year in Davos, Switzerland, the agenda was focussed on The Big Reset.

What is this Big Reset? Its nothing but to give more control and power to globalisation against local, nationalistic interests who want to preserve and protect their national culture and economy from global invasion.

The Big Reset wants to reform capitalism because the current form of capitalism is broken as its not sustainable, it creates inequality and requires infinite growth with finite resources.

It is believed that the market and local governments cannot be trusted to behave in order to make this world a better place. If the world does not move towards global rights (as dictated by Big Tech) and global control of useful ideas, it will lead to a catastrophe. Therefore, the world should be controlled by uniform vision and policies, even at the cost of local concerns, aspirations and visions.

The Big Reset wants to control the way we think and behave, for a larger good. Which means it must be allowed to dictate policies of nations for the global good. Globalisation does not anymore mean the interconnected nature of the world economy, it simply means more centralised global thinking and decision-making.

We are moving towards a world where The Big Reset shareholders will control how a nation should grow food, distribute and consume it. How their resources should be used for global good. They want uniform consumer behaviour. For which consumers have to discard their current beliefs, tastes and choices.

A global reengineering project is in place. This is possible by creating doubt and stimulating fear and anger towards everything local with the help of algorithms controlled by Big Tech.

Twitter holds this power of influencing minds. Its algorithms are designed in such a way that they subvert all the goodness and greatness that exists in societies and trend any flaw to prove that the local system is rotten and must be torn down. (some references taken from @gummibear737)

Ideology, culture and consumer behaviour are also a matter of habit. The algorithms are created to change such habits and get more people to get addicted to their global agenda and, eventually, become true believers of their manifesto.

Anyone who doesnt subscribe must be shadow banned or suspended. If you think this is a fantasy, please listen to a 3-hour, 25-minute-long Joe Rogan podcast with Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Twitter, Vijaya Gadde, global lead for legal, policy, trust and safety at Twitter, along with an independent free-speech activist and independent journalist Tim Pool.

Here you can hear Jack confessing that Twitter is indeed tilted towards the left-liberal ideology and Vijaya Gadde informing that they do not have any clear-cut mechanism of censoring posts. She says that only a few hundred people screen millions of reports for Twitter abuse every day: an impossible task.

According to her, to understand what is abusive in a local society, they hire a team of local experts. All these local experts are only from one spectrum of political ideology the left-liberals. I wont be surprised if these so-called local experts are disguised as fact checkers and free speech activists.

Free speech is being weaponised and used against the opponents of this Big Reset.

The current clash between the Government of India and Twitter is the manifestation of the same politics. For the GoI to ask social media platforms to comply with regulations is how things should be done in the age of cyber/info and a possible bio-warfare. Its common sense.

But Twitter is trying to convert a legal issue into a political battle which is nothing but a reflection of the current political reality. The fight is about who is going to have more control.

Instead of compliance, Twitter is trying to use its algorithms to propagate this as an 'attack on free speech' and flag contrarian views as manipulated media. This strategy had worked successfully in influencing American presidential elections. Trump lost. Both the presidency as well as his Twitter account, forever.

Twitter thought that this would work in India too. Twitter assumes that by manipulating public outrage in their favour they can corner the Modi government which is firefighting its fast plummeting ratings amidst the COVID crisis.

Obviously, when Modis image is at its lowest, an attack on free speech narrative would sink it further.

But India is not the USA and Modi is not Trump. For India is not a believer of objective truth like the Christian world. India is a profounder of subjective reality.

This is manifested beautifully in a 70s classic movie Deewar. In this Amitabh Bachchan movie, written by the genius duo of Salim-Javed, Amitabh Bachchan, playing a smuggler asks his younger brother, Shashi Kapoor, a police inspector, Who is listening to me a brother or a police inspector? To which Shashi Kapoor replies: As long as a brother is speaking, a brother is listening. When a thief speaks, a police officer will listen.

So far, the government of India used to behave like a forgiving elder brother. For the first time, by issuing a befitting public reply to Twitters falsehood, in the same Twitterati language, the Government of India has shown spine and has taken Twitter on. For a change, like the Deewar scene, its clear who is a cop and who a thief.

If you want to understand who is the thief here, please ponder upon why Twitter algorithms promoted Capitol Hill siege as an act of domestic terrorism, but when exactly the same kind of siege took place at the Red Fort on Republic Day, it was promoted as a 'democratic dissent'.

Every other opinion is flagged as manipulated media. Because the manipulated media has the power to flag everything else as manipulated media which is not part of The Big Reset.

Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri is a national award winner filmmaker, bestselling author and a public intellectual.

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Twitter politics and The Big Reset: Its all about gaining global control - Yahoo Canada Finance

A.J. Foyt is still here, 86 years young, still crusty, still interesting, still armed with strong and sometimes politically incorrect views on racing and life. I found him where he can be found every May, in Garage A-1 in Gasoline Alley at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Nearby, there is the cacophony of noise from work being done on A.J. Foyt Racings four 500 entries, including a replica of the livery from his first-ever Indianapolis 500 victory in 1961, which will be driven by J.R. Hildebrand from the 22nd starting spot. Joining Hildebrand on the grid are A.J.s drivers Sebastien Bourdais, starting 27th, and Dalton Kellett, starting 30th (veteran Charlie Kimball did not qualify).

Hard to believe, he said with a laugh. When I first started driving here (in 1958), I was sleeping in my car. Then I rented a basement in Speedway for $10 a week.

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