Monthly Archives: July 2021

CSRWire – Chipotle, Chobani, Even, Prudential Financial, Verizon, and Other Leading Companies Join Forces With PayPal and JUST Capital to Improve the…

Posted: July 16, 2021 at 1:09 pm

Published 21 hours ago

Submitted by PayPal

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 15, 2021 /CSRwire/- Chipotle, Chobani, Even, Prudential Financial, Verizon, and other leading companies have joinedPayPalandJUST Capitalin theWorker Financial Wellness Initiative, a coalition aimed at making workers' financial security and health a C-suite and investor priority.Research showsthat improving workers' financial wellness benefits not only workers themselves, but also business outcomes such as productivity, innovation, customer satisfaction, and employee turnover and engagement. The initiative elevates worker financial well-being as a top priority as business leaders consider solutions to shape an equitable and inclusive recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and take action for racial equity.

PayPalandJUST Capital, in collaboration withFinancial Health NetworkandGood Jobs Institute, launched the Worker Financial Wellness Initiative inOctober 2020. Companies joining the initiative commit to conducting a financial wellness assessment of their workforce to understand their financial vulnerability and identify opportunities to improve their resilience over the long-term. Specifically, these companies will complete at least one assessment within a 12-month period, such as an employer-provided benefits assessment, an employee survey, or a living wage assessment.

"At PayPal, our employees are the most important stakeholder we serve. To have any of our colleagues live with financial insecurity is unacceptable, and we have taken action to strengthen and sustain the financial wellness of our employee community," saidDan Schulman, president and CEO, PayPal. "I am thrilled to welcome more leading companies to our coalition and our shared mission. Together, at a critical time in the economic recovery, we will work to make significant progress on improving the financial health and resilience of workers across the nation."

PayPal conducted an assessment on the financial wellness of its hourly and entry-level workforce in 2018 and found that many employees were struggling to pay their bills each month despite market pay alignment. The findings propelled the company to institute several changes to improve its employees' financial well-being, including lowering the cost of healthcare benefits, making every employee a stockholder, raising wages where appropriate, and offering new financial coaching programs. Since implementing these changes, the company has helped raise the minimum PayPal-defined estimated net disposable income for hourly and entry-level workers in the U.S. to at least 18%, making significant progress to reaching its target of 20% for all employees globally.

"If we are going to deliver on the promise of stakeholder capitalism, we need to help more corporate leaders and investors understand that employees are a company's most valuable asset, and that investing in their well-being will drive long-term financial success," saidMartin Whittaker, CEO,JUST Capital."Through the Worker Financial Wellness Initiative, we'll continue to build the growing body of evidence demonstrating the connection between the financial security of a company's workforce and their overall business performance, and refute the anachronistic Wall Street narrative that raising wages destroys value."

Participants in the initiative will have access to quarterly webinars highlighting company best practices, resources on how to develop and deploy financial wellness assessments, and private roundtable conversations with C-suite leaders. Companies interested in more specialized tools and resources can receive tailored recommendations from initiative partners based on their assessment results, as well as enhanced peer learning workshops for HR teams who are executing assessments. The partner organizations will also continue to share case studies, business case analysis, and best practice insights to help educate, inform, and catalyze the wider business community. With the first cohort representing approximately 260,000 American workers across a range of industries, the program presents a unique opportunity to demonstrate what companies can accomplish when they come together with a shared goal of improving the financial health and resilience of workers across the nation.

Companies interested in joining the Worker Financial Wellness Initiative can visithttps://justcapital.com/reports/worker-financial-wellness-initiative/.

Statements from Cohort Companies Joining the Initiative

"At Chipotle, we believe in investing in the overall wellness of our employees by offering robust benefits that address physical, mental, and financial health," saidBrian Niccol, chairman & CEO, Chipotle. "Being a founding company in the Worker Financial Wellness Initiative demonstrates our commitment to being an industry leader and ensuring that we're truly assessing the comprehensive needs of our workforce. Joining forces with other leading organizations and using our collective voices will shed greater visibility on this important matter, impacting not only our individual companies, but potentially the economy as a whole."

"At Chobani, we've always put our people first, and that includes strengthening the financial health of our employees and their families," saidHamdi Ulukaya, founder and CEO, Chobani."We want to ensure no one is left behind as true financial wellness is more than just pay so we are taking steps to better understand our employees and their financial concerns. Chobani is proud to join the Worker Financial Wellness Initiative, providing the tools our employees need to navigate finances, improve their quality of life and achieve their dreams."

"It's no secret that it is getting harder to recruit and retain talent at all levels, and especially with hourly employees," saidJon Schlossberg, co-founder and executive chairman, Even. "During a time where keeping a productive and loyal workforce is crucial, Even provides employees with the tools they need to improve their financial health, and in return employers are rewarded with a more productive, engaged, and loyal workforce. We're proud to be part of this initiative and look forward to partnering with this coalition to raise the importance for all employers to play an active role in the financial health of their workforce."

"Our company's purpose is to make lives better by solving financial challenges including those facing our employees," saysRob Falzon, vice chair of Prudential Financial. "For over a decade we have surveyed our employees to better understand their financial health and inform our strategy for advancing their financial resiliency. The Workers Financial Wellness Initiative offers us the opportunity to share our insights with like-minded business leaders who are investing in talent to sustain their competitiveness, improving the financial condition of their workforces, and helping to build the financial resiliency of millions of American workers."

"Employees are the cornerstone of any growth business," saidHans Vestberg, chairman & CEO, Verizon. "As one of our four key stakeholders, investing in our V Team and their financial well-being is critical to our future."

Statements from Initiative Support Organizations

"Organizations spend millions on employee benefits, but most are not yet measuring the financial health impact of those offerings and programs on employees' financial lives," saidJennifer Tescher, president and CEO, Financial Health Network."What gets measured, gets managed so we're thrilled that Chipotle, Chobani, Even, Prudential Financial, and Verizon have committed to collecting the data that will help them truly understand and improve the financial health of their workforce."

"In my research, I found that achieving operational excellence requires having a stable, capable and motivated workforce,"saidZeynep Ton, president of Good Jobs Institute and Professor of Practice atMIT Sloan School of Management."Companies can't get there without offering financial security. Employees can't focus on the job and be productive when they are constantly thinking about making ends meet. Companies can't attract and retain talent when pay is too low. We are excited to be part of this initiative to build a community of practice around worker financial health."

About PayPal

PayPal has remained at the forefront of the digital payment revolution for more than 20 years. By leveraging technology to make financial services and commerce more convenient, affordable, and secure, the PayPal platform is empowering more than 375 million consumer and merchant accounts in more than 200 markets to join and thrive in the global economy. For more information, visitpaypal.com.

About JUST Capital

The mission of JUST Capital, an independent nonprofit, is to build an economy that works for all Americans by helping companies improve how they serve all their stakeholders workers, customers, communities, the environment, and shareholders. We believe that business and markets can and must be a greater force for good, and by shifting the resources of the$19 trillionprivate sector, we can address systemic issues at scale, including income inequality and lack of opportunity. Guided by the priorities of the public, our research, rankings, indexes, and data-driven tools help measure and improve corporate performance in the stakeholder economy. To learn more about how data-driven insights are creating a more just future for capitalism, visitwww.JUSTCapital.com.

About the Financial Health Network

The Financial Health Network is the leading authority on financial health. We are a trusted resource for business leaders, policymakers and innovators united in a mission to improve the financial health of their customers, employees and communities. Through research, advisory services, measurement tools, and opportunities for cross-sector collaboration, we advance awareness, understanding, and proven best practices in support of improved financial health for all. For more on the Financial Health Network, go towww.finhealthnetwork.org.

About Good Jobs Institute

The mission of the nonprofit Good Jobs Institute is to help companies thrive by creating good jobs and to redefine what it means to run a successful business. Millions of Americans are stuck in bad jobs with poverty-level wages, unpredictable schedules, and few opportunities for growth, meaning, or dignity. By making better operational choices and investing in their employees, a system outlined in GJI PresidentZeynep Ton'sbook The Good Jobs Strategy, companies can create good jobs that can build stronger companies and communities. The Good Jobs Institute builds partnerships with companies looking to implement a Good Jobs system and creates tools and resources to inspire and guide any organization that wants to offer good jobs. To learn more about the Good Jobs Strategy and access free tools and resources, visitwww.goodjobsinstitute.org.

Media ContactsTiffany PengTipeng@paypal.com

Michelle Mullineauxmmullineaux@justcapital.com

SOURCE PayPal Holdings, Inc.

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In My Opinion: Reward consumers to improve recycling – Plastics Recycling Update

Posted: at 1:09 pm

The author makes the case that user incentives must be a part of wider strategies to boost plastics recovery. | Thomas Bethge / Shutterstock

My stomping grounds of Miami-Dade County boasted a whole 1% recycling rate for PET in 2019. Saying that there is work to be done in the Sunshine State would be a gross underrepresentation of the scale of the problem and the solutions needed to solve it.

The answer does not lie in one silver bullet or in pointing fingers at manufacturers when their bottles and cans wash up on our beaches. We are all in this together.

While it may be evident that a lack of a strong secondary market in the past couple of years is the primary reason for such a low PET recycling rate, I would add that a key part of the issue lies in legislative mechanisms that allow this type of problem to exist. As in with any industry, it is important to set the benchmark and to look where things have been done right.

Anwar Khan

The most beautiful part of the United States of America is that each state in the union acts as its own sovereign policy experiment (under certain guidelines, of course). According to the 2021 report 50 States of Recycling, which was produced by consulting firm Eunomia on behalf of Ball Corporation, eight of the 10 states with the best recycling performance have deposit return systems (DRS) also known as bottle bills for beverage containers.

Maine won the race with a 78% PET recycling rate and 85% aluminum can recycling rate in 2018. Reason being? High consumer incentives, coupled with the ubiquity of redemption centers.

With Connecticut lawmakers revamping the 41-year-old bottle bill, the Constitution State is one of the first DRS states to recognize that a 5-cent incentive is simply not enough. I have confidence that doubling the bottle deposit, in conjunction with an increase in the hauling fee, will no doubt compensate for the states recent slight decline in recycling rates. This win in recycling legislation need not act alone.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act is a federal bill that presents EPR as a mechanism to enable the private sectors involvement financially to ensure their packagings recyclability. The bill includes a 10-cent federal bottle deposit for beverage containers.

But while its encouraging to see that legislated deposit systems are in a period of evolution, the industry should remember that there is a role for entrepreneurs in the wider push to collect more containers.

Bottle deposit schemes work due to consumer incentives (a cash redemption). At Cycle, the company I co-founded, we dont believe in waiting for legislators to make up their mind. Cycle is a digital recycling platform that utilizes reverse vending machines (RVMs) to reward consumers for recycling their beverage containers at universities, stadiums, and events.

In essence, we create privatized deposit return systems. We implement deposits at the point of sale and split the value of the deposit between the venue, Cycle and the consumer.

My co-founders and I embarked on this concept during our freshman year at the University of Miami. We started with a simple thought: Somebody should pay people to recycle their water bottles.

After organizing student pitch competitions, developing a mobile application, and custom-tailoring our first RVM, we finally had our shot. At the University of Miami Herbert Business School, we had the opportunity to pilot our technology in the wild.

While our college campus demographic loved that they had the ability to donate the value of their bottle or can to a charity of their choosing, it soon became evident that we needed to implement higher and variable rewards. We saw increases of 31% in bottle return rates and 219% in app downloads when we offered product giveaways or consumer experiences in Miami (for example, free tickets to a nightclub).

We built our software focusing on the consumer. We are focused on creating stickiness and providing a high social and financial incentive that leads the consumer from the trigger, to action, to receiving a highly valued reward. Some of the most successful consumer platforms that we see in our everyday lives follow this same mantra of getting a user hooked on a feed or social belonging. My team and I want to hook users on an action that is rewarding and ecologically impactful. After throwing ideas at the whiteboard, we decided we needed to bring our thesis to the spotlight and reach the largest population possible.

The target market we landed on: sports fans. We viewed stadiums as the trojan horse to bring effective recycling practices to center stage. Our RVM-powered, profile-based, privatized bottle deposit system gamifies sustainability in stadiums by providing consumers with lottery-based rewards for their recycling.

We view sports and arenas as the hallmark of modern American popular culture and a means by which we can capture an audience that is needed to make this circular economy a reality. We stand to believe that great ideas create markets, and that private-sector innovation tends to bring to light the most behavioral-shifting solutions.

With major brands such as Coca-Cola subscribing to pledges of collecting one bottle for every bottle they sell by 2030, it would be a triumphant victory for U.S. environmental policy to see the American citizen be the catalyst in establishing a true circular economy.

However, without focusing on the consumers wants, needs and desires, we will never reach full potential. America was built from the hands of the people who wanted nothing more than to dream big. Let us not underestimate the human potential to bring recycling to the forefront of innovation and growth.

Power (and recycling incentives) to the people.

Anwar Khan is the co-founder and CEO of Cycle Technology, Inc. He can be contacted at [emailprotected]

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not imply endorsement by Resource Recycling, Inc. If you have a subject you wish to cover in an op-ed, please send a short proposal to [emailprotected] for consideration.

A version of this story appeared in Resource Recycling on July 12.

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What links organised crime with the radical right? – Open Democracy

Posted: at 1:09 pm

Why would the radical right, particularly its most extreme elements, get involved with organised crime? There are, of course, a number of reasons, one of which involves something Ive mentioned several times already: arms trafficking.

Radical right extremists who want to arm themselves cant easily do so through any legitimate means. Even in countries with lax gun laws like the US, radical right extremists generally cant just buy up military-grade weapons and hardware without garnering unwanted attention from the authorities.

With a huge market for smuggled weapons around the world sources for these weapons include places like the former Yugoslavia and Ukraine and the involvement of a number of organised crime groups in this smuggling, its no surprise that radical right extremists would find themselves part of the game. Its also no surprise, then, that in the wake of radical right terror attacks in recent years, authorities appear to be paying increasing attention.

Another reason for radical right involvement with organised crime is financing. How radical right groups get their money and their funding is, as has been noted by journalists covering the radical right (myself included), an issue that itself requires much more attention.

Not all radical right extremists require some significant form of financing, nefarious or otherwise; it doesnt necessarily cost much money to write, draw and post hateful propaganda on Telegram for instance. But for radical right extremists with ambition, the costs can add up. For example, well-designed websites with professional-grade video, replete with flashy logos and almost-corporate branding, arent things one can buy up with a few pennies lying around.

In countries with weak rule of law, the tentacles of organised crime can weave their way into the fabric of the state. The phenomenon of state capture a form of corruption where private actors, from politicians and businesspeople to criminals, influence a states decision-making processes to their own advantage has been documented in places like Serbia, Turkey and other countries.

When radical right extremists join the game and themselves become part of the phenomenon of state capture something seen in Ukraine, for example, where much of the radical right is alleged to have the patronage of the countrys powerful interior ministry they give themselves a means of being protected from prosecution, an opportunity to act with greater impunity and, above all, a pathway to increase their status and influence.

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An offshore wind heavyweight, UK squares up to ‘tough’ 40-GW target – S&P Global

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Having pioneered offshore wind for more than two decades, installing more than 10 GW in its waters to date, the U.K. now finds itself at a pivotal moment as it shoots audaciously for an almost fourfold increase in capacity by 2030.

Getting to 40 GW will require critical reforms in policy, permitting and transmission, industry observers told S&P Global Market Intelligence, as well as a significant manufacturing and construction effort at a time when other countries globally are ramping up their offshore wind activities and competing for resources.

But in the U.K.'s favor are fortunate market fundamentals that helped it grow to become the world leader in the technology.

"We have the best resource and probably one of the best geographies for offshore wind in the world," Barnaby Wharton, director of future electricity systems at trade group RenewableUK, said in an interview. "We're very lucky that we have the North Sea, which is shallow and has great wind speeds."

A long journey

In the early days of offshore wind, the U.K.'s main challenges were about proving it works and bringing its costs down.

The technology is now proven: Offshore wind is already the U.K.'s leading source of renewable generation. And grid operator National Grid Electricity System Operator Ltd.'s latest "Future Energy Scenarios" report sees the sector growing rapidly to become "the backbone of [the U.K.'s] electricity supply in 2050," at anywhere between 70 GW and 113 GW, depending on the level of consumer and system change.

Cost is also no longer a roadblock: In the government's latest renewables auction in 2019, offshore wind projects were awarded contracts at prices significantly below the market rate for electricity.

But quadrupling capacity in less than a decade brings with it new hurdles. "It will come down to whether we can get enough volume through the planning regime, and enough grid connections in time," Alon Carmel, managing director at FTI Consulting, said in an interview.

Offshore wind projects, deemed nationally significant infrastructure, require approval from the national government. On average, it takes about a decade to bring projects from conception to operation, Wharton said.

Grid connections are increasingly becoming limiting factors in permitting projects. Vattenfall AB, the Swedish state-owned utility, saw its approval quashed for its Norfolk Vanguard wind farm in February because of the impact its transmission infrastructure would have onshore. A decision on its sister project, Norfolk Boreas, which would use the same onshore connection point as Vanguard, was delayed until late 2021.

The U.K.'s approach to offshore transmission to date has seen generators build individual cables to connect their wind farms, but the government is examining a more coordinated system to hook up multiple projects to one single onshore landing point.

"Unfortunately, the end [power] user is not out at sea, so you've got to find cost-effective ways to share connections between the next wave of mega-projects," Steve Read, managing director of Bridge Wind Management, an asset management company, said in an interview.

Lacking visibility

To some, a more pressing issue than permitting is policy reform, with critics arguing that the U.K. lacks a long-term vision for supporting new renewables capacity.

The U.K. runs contract for difference, or CfD, auctions where renewables developers submit fixed-price bids for their electricity. The government either tops up, or claws back, revenue from generators, depending on whether the wholesale power price is lower or higher than a project's CfD price.

The CfD and earlier U.K. government support programs for renewables have been critical to the success of offshore wind, attracting well-capitalized utilities like Iberdrola SA, rsted A/S, RWE AG, SSE PLC and Vattenfall which between them own nearly 8 GW of net wind capacity in U.K. waters, according to Market Intelligence data and a range of low-cost-of-capital investors and banks.

"Without government intervention, we wouldn't be where we are now," said Gary Bills, regional director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at consultancy K2 Management.

The third and most recent CfD auction took place in fall 2019; the next is slated to open later this year and will be the largest yet, at 12 GW. As it stands, there is no auction roadmap beyond that.

That means a significant number of projects in the U.K.'s offshore wind pipeline, which stands at more than 23 GW, do not know when they will be able to bid for contracts. About 5 GW of projects have secured CfDs but are yet to begin construction, according to RenewableUK.

"We need to make sure we have enough projects coming through in the CfD [auction]. The government goes from one CfD to the next without any real visibility," RenewableUK's Wharton said. Government officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Seabed lease auctions for the next wave of offshore wind projects are also "not quick enough and not big enough," Bills said.

The Crown Estate, which manages the seabed in England and Wales, ran its first seabed lease sale in a decade earlier this year, but the capacity on offer was four times smaller than the last round, when industry interest was only a fraction of what it is today.

The latest round fetched sky-high prices and saw market newcomers outbid incumbent utilities. Oil giant BP PLC, in a joint venture with EnBW Energie Baden-Wrttemberg AG, won two 1.5-GW lease areas and committed to paying a total of 1.85 billion in option fees across four years until a final investment decision. The companies think they can bring the projects through planning and into operation within seven years.

Manufacturing crunch

Beyond planning and policy, the capabilities and capacity of the U.K.'s offshore wind supply chain may be issues.

With offshore wind development ramping up globally, and projects being built in new markets like the U.S. and in Asia, wind-turbine manufacturers like Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy SA, Vestas Wind Systems A/S and GE Renewable Energy could quickly become stretched.

Some manufacturers are opening new facilities in the U.K. to cope with the expected rise in demand for turbines. Still, developers could hit a crunch point before the end of the decade.

"It's a completely arbitrary date but everyone says they want to start construction in 2027. If there are going to be bottlenecks, that's where it will be," Bills said.

The same could apply to shipping vessels and wind-turbine components. But observers say the issue of supply chain capacity could be partially solved by introducing regular CfD auctions, allowing companies to know exactly what projects are coming down the pipeline and when.

Without that visibility, the 40-GW target might be at risk. Only two of National Grid's four Future Energy Scenarios foresee the U.K. achieving its goal by the end of the decade. The remaining two get there by 2031 and 2035.

"The 2030 target is tough to hit," FTI's Carmel said. "It's definitely achievable, but there are some big obstacles."

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Outrage over critical race theory only serves to justify it | Opinion – Commercial Appeal

Posted: at 1:09 pm

J. Lawrence Turner| Guest Columnist

It says a lot about recent virulent objections to critical race theory (CRT) that Ruby Bridges is now part of the mix.

Bridges, who is Black, was a 6-year-old child when she walked a gauntlet of white rage in 1960 to enter a New Orleans school and become the first student to integrate the citys school system. During her entire first-grade year, she sat in a classroom alone, separated from her white classmates. Her image was memorialized in Norman Rockwells famous painting from the civil rights era, The Problem We All Face, rendering her a poignant symbol of racial injustice in the person of an innocent little girl wearing her Sunday-School best.

Today, Bridges is again walking a gauntlet of rage. White parents of children in the public school system of Williamson County, Tennessee, are up in arms about Bridges childrens book, "Ruby Bridges Goes to School," which she wrote expressly to teach elementary school students about overcoming racism. They claim the book, published in 2009 with a smiling 6-year-old Ruby on the cover, is one among several that is dangerous to their children.

COUNTERPOINT: Why we must stop critical race theory from entering American classrooms | Marsha Blackburn

They argue it describes too harshly the white mob that threatened her. They believe teachers should not introduce young students to words like "injustice," "unequal," "inequality," "protest," "marching" and "segregation." They are part of the national hysteria charging that books like "Ruby Bridges Goes to School" are a slippery slope at the bottom of which is the takeover of school curriculums by the dreaded critical race theory, a radical-left plot to demoralize white children and make them ashamed of the color of their skin.

In Memphis: City Council asks Lee to veto bill banning teaching of critical race theory

This preposterous logic not only accounts for critical race theorys existence, it completely validates the need for critical race theory.

Politicians and other opportunists who have made a bogeyman of CRT are acting on the same self-serving impulses that drove them during the civil rights era to fuel (or refuse to temper) white fear that race-mixing was dangerous to white women and children. Back then, Black and brown bodies were the threat. Today, Black and brown ideas are the threat. Those whose outrage is running amok arent affronted by a theory. They are affronted by the idea that the experiences and perspectives of those in the minority especially if they have endured oppression due to their minority status belong in the same curriculum and classrooms as the experiences and perspectives of those in the majority.

Marsha Blackburn: Why we must stop critical race theory from entering American classrooms | Opinion

Tonyaa Weathersbee: Bans on teaching racism's impact means Juneteenth is now about resistance and revelry

Instead, they demand a segregated and sanitized curriculum. They may have to put up with Black and brown bodies in their schools, as the law requires, but they will not put up with their stories, they will not tolerate their historical perspectives, and they will not acknowledge their experiences.

Back when Bridges and other Black children on the vanguard of integration were forced to walk to school under armed guard, white parents took to the streets. Today, they successfully lobby school boards and statehouses. The net result is that 22 state legislatures have introduced laws banning critical race theory; five, including Tennessees, have passed them. The net impact is that parents, such as those in Williamson County, feel free to define critical race theory as anything that makes them uncomfortable and demand the law squelch the source of their discomfort. Meanwhile, modern-day George Wallaces in public office and other positions of leadership cravenly stoke their fear, effectively bleating, Segregation of ideas now, tomorrow, and forever!

Critical race theory is the decades-old academic premise that racism still permeates much of American life and American systems legal, criminal justice, health, and education among them. Sadly, todays uninformed furor is proving the premise true. CRT also posits the name it, claim it, dump it approach to resolving the problem. If we acknowledge it exists, so the theory goes, we can do something about it. We can heal and more closely hue to the great truth we hold to be self-evident: that all of us are created equal and, by extension, that the perspectives of those who have not historically received a hearing are equal, too.

CRT controversy: Memphis lawmaker tells CNN that Tennessee legislature is trying to 'whitewash' history

Tennessee schools chief: State committed to keeping 'propaganda like critical race theory' from classroom

Ironically, few have done more over the years to further the process of healing and hearing than Bridges. She established the Ruby Bridges Foundation in 1999 to promote respect and equal treatment to all races or all differences. She has spent decades speaking to school children about her experiences as a child. In the process, she has taught them that we can learn from the mistakes of the past to do better in the present. She has educated, not by shaming any one group, but by showing all groups that mutual respect and love is preferable and possible.

That her lived experience, adapted specifically for young ears and imaginations, is being twisted into propaganda is a travesty. Again, she has become a symbol of the bulk of the current critique being leveled at a theory most of its detractors have no interest in understanding only vilifying. This is the real shame. The Problem We All Face is still alive and festering. We can all solve it. But first, we have to acknowledge its as real as the gauntlet Bridges walked as a child and that her story walks today.

The Rev. J. Lawrence Turner is senior pastor of Mississippi Blvd. Christian Church in Memphis.

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‘Milestone’ iGB Live! demand as registrations rise to 109% of 2019 figure – iGaming Business

Posted: at 1:09 pm

The data, which covers the period up to Friday, 9 July (some 11 weeks ahead of the doors opening at the RAI, Amsterdam), also provides an insight into the makeup of the audience with more than a third (34%) classified as C-Level. 35.5% of those who have registered are affiliates and just over 27% of the total will be attending iGB Live! and iGB Affiliate Amsterdam for the first time.

Naomi Barton, portfolio director responsible for delivering what will be the first in-person event for the entire industry since ICE and iGB Affiliate London took place in February 2020, believes the data reflects the appetite that exists for the return of in-person as well as the desire to be a part of what promises to be a milestone event.

Our key objectives are to deliver both a safe and a memorable return for the industry, she said. The team continues to work at full speed alongside our hosts at the RAI to do exactly this. Visitors will have access to new show features and content including the iGB Slots activation, the iGB eSports Streamer Cube and the Match!/VIP Programme. In addition, we are very proud to have major brands such as Evolution, Greentube and 888 selecting iGB Live! as the event at which to host their customers for the first time in 19 months.We are receiving enquiries and interest from across the spectrum of gaming verticals with a significant spike from visitors expressing an interest in casino and slot games. I think this demonstrates the breadth of interest that exists and confirms the importance of iGB Live! and iGB Affiliate Amsterdam to everyone who is involved in gaming.

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I’ve shed my teenage atheism and can see the appeal of Catholicism but not of the Catholic Church – New Statesman

Posted: at 1:07 pm

There are certain events whose horror is of such a magnitude that the vocabulary of apology and contrition seem entirely inappropriate, even intolerable. The philosopher Hannah Arendt writes that radical evil is neither punishable nor forgivable, its scale rendering the idea of retributive justice unthinkable. These crimes can defy response on account of their sheer size, as with genocide. But they can also be crimes that on the surface are more ordinary with established social protocols, however imperfect, to deal with them and underneath it are charged by decades of historical injustice and violence, such as the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.

In the aftermath of Floyds murder, which led to Black Lives Matter protests globally, the apparently unanswerable evil of racist violence left many white people (including myself) paralysed by confusion about how to respond. There was the question of whether to respond publicly and vocally at all if doing so was inevitably self-serving, an attempt to disown any perceived responsibility for the persistence of racism. There were suggestions to donate silently to relevant funds, and then opposing suggestions that acting invisibly was inadequate. For me, the crucial question became not only about whether one should express sorrow in public but also about the notion and limits of apology. Should you extend an apology for an injustice that you did not personally carry out, but in which you feel yourself to be to some degree complicit? Or is the abstraction of such an apology an insult to the idea of meaningful reconciliation?

[See also:In my new single life, music, TV, films and books have become a ghost train of lurking frights]

Those questions have arisen for me again in recent weeks as I have been reading about the Catholic Churchs failure to apologise for an unfathomable horror. In Canada the remains of 215 indigenous children were unearthed in May and 751 further unmarked graves were discovered in late June, both on the sites of former residential schools operated by Catholic clergy.

This is not the first time that the Church has faced a scandal of this kind. It recalls the case of the Tuam mother and baby home in County Galway, where, the historian Catherine Corlesss research revealed in the early 2010s, hundreds of children and infants had been buried without ceremony. The Bon Secours sisters, the order of nuns who ran the home at the time of the deaths, between 1925 and 1961, eventually issued a formal apology a number of years after the revelations, but only when extensive investigations had left the truth beyond any reasonable doubt. That is to say, an apology was not offered until there was no obvious alternative response.

Corless welcomed the apology but stressed that the order should allow the grave to be exhumed, and that other institutions should follow suit. Pope Francis has expressed sorrow for the discovery of the indigenous childrens bodies in Canada, but has not extended an apology. I expect that he will eventually, as Justin Trudeau and other leaders continue to express dismay at his withholding one, but what will it mean then? How convincing can an apology truly be when it is forced from a reluctant subject?

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela writes about apology in her book A Human Being Died That Night (2003), based on her interviews with Eugene de Kock, the police colonel turned death squad leader in apartheid-era South Africa. She asks: How do we know that the signs of alleged contrition are not simply signs of the perpetrators having been caught, or of changes within the society that have destroyed his power base and support structures and have left him vulnerable?

[See also:I am relieved that the pursuit of love no longer dominates my life, yet loneliness frightens me]

In the Catholic Church, there seems to me little evidence of a willing effort to reconcile past evils with its contemporary iteration, and admissions of guilt and expressions of regret are only offered when they are unavoidable.

I am Catholic, both technically and in some residual, sore, longing part of myself, but I struggle to understand how Catholics who maintain an active relationship with the Church can stand to do so in these circumstances. I understand the power of community and shared faith, and frequently find myself yearning after both the prayer and the physical spaces of Catholicism when in despair. Stuck in London away from my family during a lockdown Christmas, I surprised myself by firmly wanting to go to Mass.

I think I hesitate to voice my disgust and bewilderment at the Catholic Church because I dont want the antipathy to be construed as being directed towards Catholic people. I, like many of my generation, am also retrospectively embarrassed about an overeager Richard Dawkins phase in my teens, in which I disdained all things religious in an unbearably jejune way. Im not like that now.

I dont wonder at how or why people are religious or can live with uncertainty and inconsistency. I dont even call myself an atheist these days. But I think that shift and a desire to be tolerant of others choices and faiths have perhaps led to a kind of overcorrection of my adolescent dogmatism, where I have nodded along too easily as people tell me its possible to be a leftist and a feminist and a practising Catholic all at once.

The impossibility of endorsing, even tacitly, an institution like the Catholic Church as it currently exists rears its head occasionally, as it has with the discovery of the bodies of indigenous children, left in lonely, unmarked graves. Likewise, you can consider yourself Catholic and in favour of legalised abortion, but you live with the knowledge that your subjective position is at odds with what the Church says about who you are. This contradiction may be uncomfortable to discuss, but I dont think it can or should be ignored.

[See also:Suffering should unite us, so why does it divide?]

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I've shed my teenage atheism and can see the appeal of Catholicism but not of the Catholic Church - New Statesman

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People unconsciously stereotype atheists as more likely to be serial killers, yet pin them as open-minded, scientific, and fun at parties – PsyPost

Posted: at 1:07 pm

Research published in Social Psychological and Personality Science suggests that people can hold both positive and intensely negative stereotypes about a stigmatized group. The findings suggest that people stereotype atheists as immoral unconsciously believing a serial killer is more likely to be an atheist than a religious person while simultaneously stereotyping atheists as more open-minded, scientific, and fun at parties.

For some time, atheists have found themselves the subjects of numerous negative stereotypes. Importantly, these stereotypes seem to involve a distrust of non-religious people to the extent that they are unconsciously seen as dangerous. This may lead to discrimination in certain contexts for example, atheists may be denied employment in childcare positions under the assumption they lack morality.

A study led by Jordan W. Moon was motivated by the perspective that stereotyping is complex and that people can hold both negative and positive stereotypes about a group of people. Certain groups might be perceived as a threat in one context, but as an advantage in another. The researchers wanted to uncover whether people might hold both positive and negative stereotypes about atheists.

Past research on anti-atheist prejudice has shown so many negative stereotypes atheists are associated with immorality, narcissism, etc., explained Moon, a PhD student at Arizona State University. Even atheists tend to show some level of intuitive distrust toward atheists. Yet many people are open about their disbelief in public, and there are organizations that promote disbelief. My coauthors and I reasoned that, at least in some contexts, being an atheist must be viewed positively.

An initial experiment had a sample of participants read several vignettes that described people with certain positive or negative traits. These traits were open-minded/closed-minded, scientific/non-scientific, and fun/not fun. After reading each vignette, the participants were shown two statements and asked to choose which one was the most probable. In the atheist condition, two example responses were Henry is a teacher and Henry is a teacher and is an atheist. In the religious condition, two responses were Henry is a teacher and Henry is a teacher and believes in God. By asking the questions this way, the researchers were tapping into participants unconscious stereotypes without explicitly addressing them.

Moon and his colleagues found that participants tended to associate the positively valenced traits (open-minded, scientific, and fun) with atheists and to associate the negatively valenced traits (closed-minded, non-scientific, not fun) with religious people. Importantly, the effect more or less held whether the respondent was religious or not.

A second experiment using vignettes again found that atheists were associated with science and open-mindedness. The experiment additionally found that a vignette describing the gruesome actions of a serial killer was more likely to be associated with an atheist than a religious person. Notably, this suggested that subjects were harboring extremely negative stereotypes about atheists, while at the same time endorsing positive stereotypes about them.

In a final study, the researchers found evidence that there are contexts in which people positively discriminate toward atheists. Participants tended to choose an atheist over a religious person when asked whose party theyd prefer to attend, who they would prefer to discuss politics with, and who theyd prefer to have as a science tutor. Interestingly, while people low and average in religiosity showed a strong bias toward atheists for the three scenarios, those high in religiosity preferred religious people for science tutoring and discussing politics, and showed no bias toward either religious people or atheists for party hosts.

Even though there is prejudice toward atheists, and many negative stereotypes, it is not necessarily the case that atheists are viewed negatively in every way. Atheism might not necessarily boost perceptions of trustworthiness, but it might make people be viewed as more fun, open-minded, or scientific. In those contexts, people are probably more open to interacting with atheists, Moon told PsyPost.

Moon and his team take their study as evidence that people can simultaneously endorse positive and negative stereotypes toward targeted groups. Still, the researchers note a limitation to their study while being fun, open-minded, and scientific tend to be perceived as positive traits, it is possible that they represent negative traits in some contexts. For example, being fun might be associated with short-term mating and thus be interpreted as a negative trait by some religious people. It remains an open question whether these positive stereotypes are indeed in atheists favor.

Its an open question whether these results apply to highly religious peopleour results were mixed for people who reported high levels of religiosity, Moon said. Perceptions of atheists are also almost certainly different outside the U.S., where it might be more or less normative to be nonreligious.

The study, Is There Anything Good About Atheists? Exploring Positive and Negative Stereotypes of the Religious and Nonreligious, was authored by Jordan W. Moon, Jaimie Krems, and Adam Cohen.

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People unconsciously stereotype atheists as more likely to be serial killers, yet pin them as open-minded, scientific, and fun at parties - PsyPost

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People think atheists are more likely to be serial killers, but also more open-minded and fun at parties – indy100

Posted: at 1:07 pm

Apparently, people subsconsciously stereotype atheists as serial killers yet also assume theyre more open-minded and fun at parties.

According to research published Social Psychological and Personality Science, Americans can simultaneously believe opposing stereotypes about one group of people, as proven by their varying assumptions about atheism.

The study, led by Arizona State Universitys Jordan W. Moon, explored said stereotypes of the religious and nonreligious, and found that while atheists are occasionally considered threats in certain circumstances, their non-religious principles were seen advantageously in others.

Past research on anti-atheist prejudice has shown so many negative stereotypes atheists are associated with immorality [and] narcissism, Moon, lead researcher, told PsyPost. Even atheists tend to show some level of intuitive distrust toward atheists. Yet many people are open about their disbelief in public, and there are organizations that promote disbelief. My coauthors and I reasoned that, at least in some contexts, being an atheist must be viewed positively.

For the study, participants read descriptions of people with certain positive and negative traits. These characteristics included open-minded viruses close-close-minded, scientific or non-scientific, and fun or not fun. Participants were then shown statements about the characters and asked to choose which was most likely. For example, one response was Henry is a teacher and Henry is a teacher and is an atheist.

Moon and his team concluded that participants often associated the positive traits open-minded, scientific and fun with atheists, while the negative traits close-minded, non-scientific, and not fun with more religious people.

The next experiment found that vignettes illustrating the disturbing behaviours of serial killers were far more commonly associated with atheists.

That said, when it came time to query participants as to whose party they would rather attend, those low and average in religiosity strongly preferred atheists. Participants also demonstrated a preference for the non-religious when it came to picking someone with whom to discuss politics, and to tutor them in science.

Even though there is prejudice toward atheists, and many negative stereotypes, it is not necessarily the case that atheists are viewed negatively in every way, Moon said. Atheism might not necessarily boost perceptions of trustworthiness, but it might make people be viewed as more fun, open-minded, or scientific. In those contexts, people are probably more open to interacting with atheists.

Originally posted here:
People think atheists are more likely to be serial killers, but also more open-minded and fun at parties - indy100

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The Peoples Republic of the Elderly? – The Times of India Blog

Posted: at 1:07 pm

China may have been blamed for the coronavirus crisis but it is also responsible for a much bigger crisis that has been decades in the making. In a nutshell, the number of babies being born in China is at an all-time low while the number of people growing old is at an all-time high. Ironically, the worlds most populous nation is running out of babies.

An economy highly dependent on labour-intensive industries like construction, manufacturing and mining cannot afford a labour shortage. A fall in birth rate threatens to halt Chinas historic rise and Beijing knows this.

Ordinarily, nations face population stagnation after their citizens have reached high levels of economic well-being (Germany, South Korea, Japan etc). Relative to these, China is a poor country. Around 200 million Chinese still earn less than 5 dollars a day. The reason the Chinese population is on the brink of collapse is not socio-economic. It is political.

Unlike other nations, it has not been caused by an increase in female literacy or access to contraception. Instead, the primary cause of Chinas unnaturally low population growth rate is the one-child policy. This has forced single children to take care of both their parents and in some cases even their grandparents. Not only does this divert money out of the economy and into elderly care, but it also puts immense strain on workers who are expected to take care of up to 4 dependent family members (excluding their spouses side). Adding children to the mix rightfully frightens many.

Pressure on future parents is further compounded by the prohibitively high cost of quality Chinese education, and the absurdly costly housing market in cities. Furthermore, the Chinese workforce follows a grueling 996 schedule, where they work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. 6 days a week. This leaves very little time for family life. Lastly, the trends of increasing urbanisation (initially forced by the government) and atheism further inhibit population growth in China.

But if there is one thing the world should expect from the CCP, it is the unexpected. The State is trying to increase government-run family care to reduce the burden on parents. Furthermore, even if the government reduces the economic disincentive to have children, the culture formed over three generations of having only one child shall remain.

However, the CCP has experience in modifying birth rates. A few decades ago, while the rest of the world was horrified by forced population control, the Chinese government was actively practicing it. In the western provinces, growth rates are still in free fall. There is no reason for the government to not wield its authoritarian powers to simply force population growth. In Xinjiang, it was 1984. In the rest of China it might be the Handmaids Tale soon.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

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The Peoples Republic of the Elderly? - The Times of India Blog

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