Monthly Archives: July 2021

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Californias next governor could be a retired homicide detective, a marijuana reform advocate, or an Olympic champion.

Or, a former Mayor of San Francisco who went on to win the Governor's office a few years ago.

The state on Saturday released a list of 41 people who filed the required paperwork to run in the Sept. 14 recall election that could remove Gov. Gavin Newsom. The lineup includes 21 Republicans, eight Democrats, one Libertarian, nine independents, and two Green Party members.

Voters may be familiar with several names on the list, including Caitlyn Jenner, the former Olympian turned reality TV personality; and John Cox, the Orange County businessman. Other, perhaps lesser-known candidates include Democrat Kevin Paffrath, 29, a YouTube financial advisor; Libertarian Jeff Hewitt, 68, a Riverside County supervisor, and Republican Sam Gallucci, 60, a former executive at the financial management firm PeopleSoft and current pastor at an Oxnard church.

See all 41 candidates: Whos Running In Newsom Recall? Politicians, Activists, Californians Of All Stripes

The number of candidates is smaller than some analysts expected; predictions at one point ran up to 100. That could be a setback for recall supporters who had hoped for a large, prominent field to attract voters for the first question of whether or not Newsom should be recalled.

If that question fails, the recall is over and Newsom remains in office, mooting the candidates on the second ballot.

A certified list the one voters will see will be released Wednesday and changes are possible.

What questions do you have about Southern California?

Originally posted here:

Here's Who's Running For CA Governor In The Upcoming Recall Election, So Far - LAist

By Rich Moniak

On Monday, oral arguments were heard on an election lawsuit ripe with irony. It seeks to invalidate Alaskas new voting law for statewide offices that narrowly passed last November. Proposition 2 created a nonpartisan primary that advances the top four vote-getters to a ranked-choice competition in the general election.

The plaintiffs are Kenneth Jacobus, a registered Republican and the attorney who filed the lawsuit; Scott Kohlhaas, a member of the Alaska Libertarian Party; The Alaskan Independence Party; and Bob Bird, AIPs chairman.

The complaint Jacobus submitted describes how the non-partisan primary stripped all three parties of their ability to control the selection of candidates in Alaskas elections. In doing so, he argues, Proposition 2 violates their rights to free political association and creates a system in which political parties are rendered irrelevant.

Now Im not a fan of our two-party duopoly, but the Alaskan Independence Party and Alaska Libertarian Party are already irrelevant. Combined, they account for only 4.3% of all registered voters in Alaska. In 2020, the two parties nominated a total of six candidates for 32 statewide offices. They all lost by huge margins. Their record for the prior decade is just as bad.

If their candidates cant do any better in a nonpartisan primary, then Proposition 2 does nothing more than reschedule their embarrassing showing from November to August.

Kohlhaas has personal experience in the art of political irrelevance. He lost two state House races by more than 40 points. And in his 2014 bid to be our U.S. senator, he finished third with just 14% of the vote in his partys primary. Its worth noting that the winner of that got under 4% in the general election.

Before that, Kohlhaas filed lawsuits against the state for refusing to certify two ballot initiatives he proposed. Both were about giving Alaskans the choice to secede from the union. Jacobus, who represented him both times, took his appeals to the state Supreme Court where they were unanimously rejected.

Their record as a team suggests this is just another a crank lawsuit. Which is probably why the GOP opted out. But because it serves the GOPs desire to limit who can appear on the general election ballot, its leadership is hoping Kohlhass and Jacobus prevail this time.

The irony here is thethe Alaskan Independence Party and Alaska Libertarian Party are to the political right of the GOP. So, if the court strikes down Proposition 2, general election candidates from both parties will continue syphon off a small percentage of conservative voters. Twice in the past 10 years, the loss of those votes resulted in a narrow defeat for Republican House candidates.

Because the top four vote-getters advance to the general election though, its unlikely theyll be spoilers in the primary. Indeed, as the plaintiffs argue, all four are likely to be Democrats or Republicans.

But with the GOP becoming little more than a cultish allegiance to former President Donald Trump, it doesnt want a principled Republican like Sen. Lisa Murkowski on the general election ballot.

Murkowski earned Trumps wrath a year ago for agreeing with the blistering criticism of him by his former Secretary of Defense. And again after she voted to convict him during his second impeachment trial.

Murkowski has got to go! Trump said last month when he endorsed Kelly Tshibaka for the Senate.

Tshibaka thinks its time to replace Lisa with an Alaskan who is not a Washington, D.C., insider politico. And claims to have a fire in my heart to rebuild Alaska.

Those are amusing statements coming from a Harvard Law graduate who spent 17 years climbing the bureaucratic ladder in Washington, D.C., before returning to Alaska in 2019.

But rather than recruit a candidate with a real Alaskan resum, the GOP bowed to Trumps preference and grievances by endorsing her last week.

Tshibaka would probably beat Murkowski in a traditional primary because the voices of nonpartisan and nonaffiliated Alaskans are irrelevant. But they outnumber the combined registration of all three conservative parties 2-to-1. If the courts uphold Proposition 2, theyll help Murkowski finish in the top four.

And if she wins election, the GOP leaders who bet on Trump and Tshibaka will be free to associate with their party while finding a place alongside Kohlhaas in ranks of the politically irrelevant.

Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector. Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire. Have something to say? Heres how to submit a My Turn or letter.

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Opinion: The parties to political irrelevance - Juneau Empire

There is a type of all-natural Instagram influencer who, at first glance, appears to be all about living her best, healthy life. She is an avid proponent of meditation, clean eating, yoga, and a vague form of Asian spirituality. Her approach to life and health is holistic. And her social media feeds are a whiplash of content, ranging from the benefits of gua sha and ayurvedic diets to her skepticism about the effectiveness of masks and vaccines.

Over the past year of the pandemic, the wellness space a blanket term used to describe practitioners and promoters of noninstitutionalized Western medicine, from crystal healers to yoga teachers has grown rife with politically motivated misinformation on QAnon, Covid-19, the prevalence of child trafficking, and election integrity.

Media coverage has largely centered on these New Age-type influencers as peddlers of a libertarian, anti-science ideology that refuses masks, social distancing, and vaccines. Californias yoga, wellness and spirituality community has a QAnon problem, read a recent Los Angeles Times headline. Wellness influencers are spreading QAnon conspiracies about the coronavirus, declared Mother Jones. In March, the Washington Post wrote about QAnons unexpected roots in New Age spirituality.

These articles explore a concerning facet of American life, a phenomenon researchers call conspirituality, or how conspiracy theories have found a home in spiritual circles that are skeptical of Western medicine and established institutions. The observations stop short of implying that certain practices, like yoga, are a direct pathway to radicalization. Blame is generally assigned to the wellness communities where these fringe, anti-science ideas comfortably fester. Still, while most coverage identifies the prevalence of these dangerous, unfounded beliefs accurately, there is often little context on the wellness spaces relationship with Orientalism (or the Wests tendency to romanticize, stereotype, and flatten Asian cultures) and libertarian individualism.

For decades, many health and medicinal practices have been exported from Asia to the West, including yoga, ayurveda, reiki, and aspects of traditional Chinese medicine such as cupping, gua sha, and acupuncture. Such traditions are often categorized under the alternative medicine or New Age umbrella vague terms that conflate different philosophical and medical systems into a uniquely Western mishmash of ideas. The nuance and history of these traditions, however, dont exactly get first billing when they go viral.

Cultural exports are a complex, inevitable result of globalization, and cultural appropriation doesnt always carry negative effects. As Asian-inspired practices and treatments edge toward the mainstream, the problem isnt necessarily appropriation. Its what appropriation can produce: an Orientalist perspective toward non-Western practices that can be misrepresented to further a political agenda.

The process by which this happens is likely familiar to anyone with a passing knowledge of Gwyneth Paltrows Goop, although this type of appropriation predates the brand by decades. It usually begins with an influential (usually white) Westerner who encounters a practice with origins in East or South Asia. The person integrates the tradition into their lifestyle, publicly touts its benefits, and helps disseminate a version of the practice to their own community. (Such was the case for acupuncture in 1971, after a New York Times reporter wrote about the benefits of his treatment in China.)

Its New Age capitalism at work: A robust system of knowledge is taken apart piecemeal, divorced from any philosophical or religious roots, and transfigured into a commodity, something that can be bought and sold to improve consumers lives. For example, gua sha is a traditional Chinese treatment that has recently gone viral online. It is intended to be a scraping treatment for a persons back and body, rather than the face. Yet, the beauty industry markets gua sha stones and jade rollers, another Chinese-inspired facial tool, as beautifying gimmicks a way to contour ones jawline and mimic the results of a facelift instead of contextualizing their traditional use.

Social media has, for better or worse, popularized these once-niche practices to a broader American audience. And the pandemic has facilitated this consumer interest. Stuck at home in the event of a novel disease, millions of people took to fretting over their health and well-being as the American health care system buckled. People turned to yoga, meditation, and essential oils, in addition to spiritual practices such as astrology, reiki-inspired crystal healing, and manifestation. Amid this social upheaval, some gravitated toward the alternative and sought out unorthodox theories to explain their uncertain reality.

The thing about the spiritual East or the Orient is that theres a history of Westerners cherry-picking customs, traditions, and practices to serve their needs, that they can tie to a particular political agenda, said Shreena Gandhi, an assistant professor of religion at Michigan State University who researches yoga and its history of appropriation. There are multiple aspects of Orientalism at play here. Theres the romantic approach to Eastern wellness and alternative therapies, and its hysterical counterpart, which is fearful or distrustful of traditional beliefs.

Nazi leaders, for one, were proponents of yoga and its spiritual philosophy; they were obsessed with purifying and elevating an individuals body as a microcosm of the nation-state. Modern-day wellness communities appear much more focused on the individual (without mentioning the state), but according to Matthew Remski, journalist and co-host of the Conspirituality podcast, there are lingering fascist undertones in New Age beliefs.

New-Agers are not secretly Nazis, Remski wrote in a four-part blog on yoga and conspirituality. Its more like: fascist ideas of the perfected body and earth [have] generated enduring cultural memes for holism, embodied spirituality, and health. Those memes, sanitized of their explicit politics, carry jagged edges of perfectionism and paranoia about impurity. And that double message your body is divine but it is also under attack has become standard in the commodification of yoga and wellness.

Its common for believers of conspirituality to reference South or East Asian religions and teachings. It lends to the appearance of gravitas, history, and authority, Remski told me. Its a positive Orientalism that has nothing to do with the actual practice or history involved.

In February, for example, a holistic facialist in Miami Beach made an Instagram post suggesting that wearing a mask blocks the flow of Lung Qi, borrowing language from traditional Chinese medicine on qi, or energy, that flows through the human body. This claim, while false, relies on a Western tendency to approach Eastern medicine erroneously, from a universal perspective. Its a type of medical Orientalism that exoticizes non-Western practices and caters to New Age notions of mystical, natural healing.

The onset of the coronavirus in Asia has polarized perceptions of Eastern medicine and alternative therapies, hardening a sense of scientific dualism in Asia and abroad that people, particularly its practitioners, are either pro- or anti-science. (Government officials in India, for example, have received backlash for encouraging the treatment of Covid-19 primarily with traditional medicine.) At the same time, souring US-China relations have fomented sinophobic distrust and paranoia toward Asian Americans, regardless of their citizenship status and ethnic heritage. Some believed these attitudes were fueled by Asias, specifically Chinas, initial association with the coronavirus outbreak.

It becomes political. Its easy to associate anyone who promotes or practices Chinese medicine as a mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party, said Michael Stanley-Baker, a historian of Chinese medicine at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. My opinion is that biomedicine and scientific research is good and authoritative. That shouldnt discredit other knowledge systems. Chinese medicine is a systematic, robust form of knowledge that isnt static. Its not anything goes, and it certainly isnt random.

The professionalization of certain fields of alternative medicine, like acupuncture and ayurveda, has standardized such practices in the West to an extent. But these treatments have plenty of skeptics, and are often dismissed as useless at best and harmful at worst. At the same time, this standardization process in the US has marginalized and even led to arrests of Asian American practitioners, argued Tyler Phan, a lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh, in his doctoral thesis on American Chinese medicine.

Meanwhile, todays wellness industry attracts a demographic of predominantly white, middle-class adherents. According to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey, roughly six in 10 American adults, regardless of their religious affiliations, believe in at least one New Age belief, such as psychics, astrology, and spiritual energy in objects.

This tendency toward the spiritual, according to Remski, is perhaps a replacement for community. He attributes it to a cultural emptiness at the heart of alternative spirituality and modern-day yoga, which coincides with the breakdown of community and health care in the US. As a result, the modern yoga studio and by extension, the greater wellness world became devoid of politics. Its siloed outlook focused on an individuals religious potential and spiritual well-being at the expense of the collective. What appears to be countercultural then becomes quite similar to libertarianism, Remski said. That spiritually libertarian attitude has permeated yoga culture through its boom cycle.

And so long as conspiracy theories persist, the redpilling will continue on Instagram, in yoga studios, and in other wellness-related spaces. Yet, according to MSUs Gandhi, there is some hysteria surrounding the stereotype of a wealthy, yoga-practicing mother who refuses to vaccinate her kids. Its not only wellness and yoga practitioners who believe in this ideology, she said. Its more than just yoga classes. QAnon is an explicitly political conspiracy rooted in white supremacy.

This hysteria, Gandhi added, is reminiscent of the attitudes that fueled the yellow peril of decades past. This sentiment isnt entirely explicit, but the fixation toward flawed, New Age-y notions of wellness often lumps together alternative, Eastern therapies and practitioners into one broad group. As a result, these practices become collectively vilified and politicized for indoctrinating vulnerable Americans.

This conflation is not only unhelpful, but also dismissive of the work and history of non-Western knowledge systems that are valuable and complex in their own right. It also makes it harder for authoritative figures to debunk false information. There should be a nuanced middle ground, Stanley-Baker argued, where various types of medicinal practices can coexist and supplement one another.

There needs to be a conversation as to what constitutes robust knowledge in Eastern and Chinese medicine, he concluded. We need to differentiate the Orientalists and the Goop wellness influencers and enthusiasts from serious and respectful practitioners.

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The yoga and wellness worlds have a conspiracy problem - Vox.com

More than 100,000 people rallied across France on Saturday to protest President Emmanuel Macrons plans torequire a Covid-19 health pass to access public places such as cafs and cinemas starting next week. In addition to traditional concerns about curtailed civil liberties, conspiracy theories have fuelled the opposition to making proof of vaccination obligatory.

Starting July 21, a health pass (pass sanitaire) will be needed to access any of Frances leisure and cultural venues serving more than 50 people, including cinemas and museums. From the beginning of August, the pass will be required on any long-distance public transport, in shopping centres or at cafs and restaurants including on Frances famed outdoor terraces.

The pass must either include the QR code that proves someone has been fully vaccinated in France or results from a negative PCR or antigen test taken in the previous 48 hours.

Frances Covid-19 infection rate has reboundedalarmingly as the more contagious Delta variant has spread, with the average number of new cases confirmed per day soaring to nearly 11,000 from fewer than 2,000 in late June. The uptick prompted Macron to announce the health pass restrictions on July 12.

Too far

Butthe movehas provoked furious opposition among manyin France: some137 rallies took place across the country on Saturday, gathering nearly 114,000 demonstrators(including 18,000 in Paris), according to the interior ministry.

Many appeared to have taken to the streets out of alibertarianbelief that obliging people to be vaccinated if they want to accesspublic venues and activitiesis aninfringementon their basic rights.In no way does a president have the right to decide on my individual health, one Paris protester, who gave her name as Chrystelle, told Reuters.

Lucien, a young shop manager demonstrating in Paris, told AP he was by no means ananti-vaxxerbut that the state should not effectively coerce people to getinoculated.The government is going toofar, he said.

Some mainstream politicians have echoedthese arguments. Franois-Xavier Bellamy, a prominent young MEP for the conservativeLes Rpublicainsparty, and Loc Herv, vice-president of the SenatesCentristesbloc, penned a joint opinion piece in Le Figaro this week in which they laid out their reasons for opposing the measure.

Opposing the health pass does not make someone an anti-vaxxer, they wrote. The essential problem with the pass is that, for the first time in our history, people will have to present a document in order to do the most simple, ordinary things.

Extremes on both sides

But most of the political opposition to the health pass has come from extremes on both sides of the political spectrum. Macrons plans mark a backward step for personal freedoms,said leader of the far-rightNational Rally (Rassemblement Nationalor RN) party,Marine Le Pen,earlier this week. The health pass is an abuse of power,thunderedJean-Luc-Mlenchon, leader of the extreme-leftFrance Unbowed (La France Insoumiseor LFI).

LFI firebrand Franois Ruffin went further on Friday as he urged people to rally, characterisingthe health pass as a means of humiliation coming from an absolute monarchy in the form of Macrons government. Florian Philippot, Le Pens former right-hand man and leader of the right-wing populistLes Patriotesparty,declaredahead of Saturdays protests that they woulddemonstrate the power of the people in the face of a disgrace.

Various populistshave argued against the health pass on civil libertarian grounds, avoiding anti-vax statements. But many of Saturdays protesters thought differently.

Tellingly, when Philippot was addressing the Paris rally and introduced a man called Benjamin onto the stage, saying, Hegot vaccinated, but that was hischoice,there was an awkward moment of hesitation in the crowd,Le Figaro reported. It then erupted into cheers when Philippotsaid, But hes against the health pass! asBenjamin ripped up his vaccination certificate.

Embedded in the crowd, LeFigarosreporterrepeatedly overheardconspiracytheories such as that the pandemic wasorchestrated in advance and its all to make money for the laboratories. When Richard Boutry a former France Tlvisionsjournalist who now tours the country propagatingconspiracy and anti-vax ideas arrived on the scene, many demonstratorschantedhis nickname: Ricardo! Ricardo!

Were members of the Resistance; youve only just go to look at what happened under Vichy one minute different people have different rights, the next a demonstrator told Le Figaros reporter one of several comparisons he heard to the Nazi Occupation.

On Friday night, a vaccination centre in rural southeastern France was broken into and vandalised with the Cross of Lorraine (a symbol of the French Resistance) and graffiti saying Vaccination = genocide and 1940,presumably a reference to the year theVichy regime was founded.

I feel there were likely fewer avowed and strident civilian libertarians than there were conspiracists at these demonstrations, said Andrew Smith, a professor of French politics at the University of Chichester.

French anti-vaxxers likening themselves to the Resistanceconstitutes a worrying manipulation of history,he continued.

It also shows something very specifically French about the anti-vax movement in the country.That language aboutdefeat, collaboration and Nazism its a big difference from what you see in Anglo world, where Nazis are, of course, often the bad guys many people evoke but its much more abstract.

Rise of QAnon

Polling data shows thatFrench anti-vax sentimenthaswanedas thevaccinationrollout proceeded in the first half of the year. Nevertheless, anOpinionWaysurvey published in May found that 20 percent of French adults would turn down a jabwhile13 percent are undecided.

The French Academy of Medicine has said the country needs 90 percent of its adult population to be fully vaccinated toreceive herd immunity and defeatCovid-19.

The popularity ofFrenchpseudo-documentaryHold-Upshows that Covid disinformation has a big audience inthis country.Endorsing anarrayof debunked claims, the online film got more than 2.5 million views after its release in November, with several famous faces including iconic actress Sophie Marceau sharing the video.

It is in this context that the QAnon conspiracist phenomenon which weaves falsehoods about the coronavirus into a broader tapestryof fantasy, including warning of a worldwide cannibalistic cabal of paedophiles hasgrownin France over the past year, boosted byFrench-languagemisinformation websites such as DQodeurs and FranceSoir (a renowned broadsheet in the years after theWorld War II,which closed in 2012 before re-emerging two years ago as a conspiracist Internet publication).

READ MORE:'Stakes are high as QAnon conspiracy phenomenon emerges in France

A boon for Macron?

Nevertheless, conspiracy theories remain a marginal force in French society. Most people in France see that hard work and sensible policies are the route out of the pandemic, not conspiracies, Andrew Smith said.

It seems most Frenchcitizenssee Macrons plan as one such sensible policy: An Ipsos-Storia Sterna poll published on Friday showed that 60 percent of French people favour the health pass and the accompanying plan to oblige all health workersto be vaccinated.

And the pass may well prove to have beena politically expedient move for Macron ahead of the presidentialelectionnext April. When Macron made his announcement on Monday, plenty of people saw it as partly a public health measure but also a campaign message for the presidential elections, observed Paul Smith, a professor of French politics at Nottingham University.

Macrons health passcould beespecially effective at winning over moderate voters who see him charting France a path out of the Covid nightmare and see themselvesas part ofa silent majoritystanding against both the far left and the far right, said Andrew Smith:This policy changes the terrain of the battleground. The traditional right- and left-wing partiesLes Rpublicainsand theParti Socialistewill not and cannot challenge Macron on taking a measured, sensible approach to the pandemic.

You dont win the presidency through 117,000 people spread across the streets of France, Andrew Smith observed.You win through sensible, evidence-based policy to end the pandemic and restart the economy.

Read more:

Conspiracy theories fuel French opposition to Covid-19 health pass - FRANCE 24 English