Monthly Archives: January 2022

Apart from his bad luck in being struck twice by the need to go into isolation from Covid, the leader of the opposition, Sir Keir Starmer has a huge, indeed historic, weight on his shoulders. To put it bluntly: this government is so appalling that if, as it hopes, it is re-elected either this year or next, many of us will be seriously tempted to emigrate.

The sleaze that finally overturned one of the safest Tory seats in the land, namely North Shropshire, brought to mind a line in Imperium, a novel by my old friend Robert Harris: Cicero (for it is the fictional he) describes a dodgy politician as giving corruption a bad name.

The reaction to the Johnson government in the polls, and in voluminous acres of the hitherto supine Tory press, may be heartening to Starmer, but only up to a point.

What we are witnessing and, goodness, it has taken time is the eternal wisdom of that great observation attributed to Abraham Lincoln: You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

It is reassuring to those of us who are unrepentant Remainers that the wider public appears to be waking up to the economically and socially damaging impact of Brexit. This development, along with the chaotic sleaze of Johnsons government, is giving rise to open rebellion within the Tory ranks, and speculation about who will succeed him.

The problem is that the candidates are all of the same mould: in horseracing terms, they are sired by Brexit, and their dam is Austerity.

The point about Brexit, as emphasised in Lord Frosts resignation letter from his post as chief negotiator, is that it was a neoliberal coup to make this country a lightly regulated, low-tax, entrepreneurial economy, at the cutting edge of modern science and economic change.

No matter that Frost, before the referendum, was on record as acknowledging that we were better off within the EU; no matter that all that stuff about being at the cutting edge is so much cant; the main point is that in attempting, in Lord Lawsons notorious words, to finish the Thatcher revolution with Brexit, the Brexiters were opposing the social-democratic, interventionist nature of the EU in favour of giving free rein to market forces and English nationalism. But they were abandoning a market that really mattered: the single market, an enlightened intergovernmental creation championed by Thatcher.

What Starmer needs to do is stop trying to pacify red wall former Labour voters and get across to them that Brexit was essentially a war against them, and against the socially compassionate nature of the founding principles of the EU, principles that have been made a mockery of by the long squeeze on the NHS and social services generally.

In his magnum opus The Betrayal of Liberal Economics, Prof Amos Witztum laments the way that, because collectivism or state provision is associated with the political tyranny of communist regimes, there has been, since the collapse of the USSR, another form of unnoticed oppression: the tyranny of markets. He suggests: Instead of subjugating all public provision to the scrutiny of markets, we should subjugate markets to the scrutiny of socially constructed criteria.

Now, I have noticed that there have been many references recently to the debt we owe to Clement Attlee, Labour prime minister from 1945 to 51, by whose beneficent administration the NHS was founded. Starmer for one, has been singing his praises.

Attlee, like Franklin Roosevelt before him in the US, sought the right balance between private and public provision. The ideological Brexiters do not. One of the reasons Frost adduces for his resignation is that Johnson is going in the wrong direction by planning to raise taxes and increase public provision, even though this is the forced consequence of the costs of dealing with Covid. Chancellor Sunak has made it plain he wants to cut taxes before the next election. Johnson is actually unpopular among many of his colleagues for being a big spender.

The thrust of the policies of such potential successors to Johnson as Sunak, or the one and only Liz Truss, would be the Brexit doctrine of low taxes and concomitant austerity. What they do not appear to take into account is that by knocking 4% off GDP with Brexit (the OBRs estimate), they have damaged prospective tax revenues so badly that their tax-cutting plans have horrifying implications for public services. Or perhaps that does not worry them.

Attlee must be turning in his grave. I am sure Starmer and his advisers are aware of the implications of all this. They should be championing the EU, and not be embarrassed by their association with the Remain campaign. Let us hope they can bring home the electoral bacon. I really do not wish to have to emigrate.

Read more:

Neoliberal Brexiters are no friends of the red wall - The Guardian

It was the first anniversary of the Jan. 6attack on the Capitol. Songwriter and playwrightLin-Manuel Miranda had joinedthe cast of his hit musical "Hamilton" to virtually performthe song "Dear Theodosia" at a congressional event. At a different time on thatsame day, President Biden delivered a historic speechin which he observed that Donald Trump and his supporters had placed "a dagger at the throat of democracy."

Both moments were powerful reminders of a terrible day in both American history and the larger story of democracy. Yet both alsomissed an opportunity to use both the day and their platform to remindAmericans about one of this country's most important founding documents. Well into the 20th century, it was routinely read by schoolchildren across the land, who were expected to be familiar with its contents.

That document is George Washington's Farewell Address, whichwas actually the inspiration for the song "One Last Time," from"Hamilton."Its lessons have never been more relevant than since Jan. 6, 2021 and that can be seen simply by contrasting its languagewith Biden's.

The common nameof Washington's "address"is misleading.Although the ideas were certainly his, Washingtonessentially co-authored the textwith Alexander Hamilton and James Madisonover the course of his presidency. He never read it aloud in public, and it was published in a newspaper on Sept. 19, 1796, six months before the end of his presidency.But in another sense the title is entirely fitting, since the Farewell Address became a central part of the first president'slegacy.

RELATED:George Washington predicted Donald Trump: Why doesn't everyone know this?

As Washingtonwritesin the introduction, he knew that Americans were concerned about whether democracy would keep on working after he left office. He had served for two terms with a national consensus behind him, but now he was choosing to retire. This meant there would be two tests for American democracy: Washington would have to step down peacefully(which he did), and voters would face the nation's first seriously contested presidential election between thetwo men who wanted to succeedWashington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

Washington's message toucheson a number of subjects, and there's no use pretending that all of it fits with contemporary liberal or progressive politics. He firmly believed that religion was essential to public morality, for instance, and that it was crucial to balancethefederal budget. (Of course, modern-day "conservatives" only pretend to believe in that one.) Other sections ofthe address are prescient but not specifically relevant to Jan. 6 and its aftermath: Washington'swarning that America could become an empire if itgets entangled in overseas military adventuresmight have changed historyif Cold War policymakers had heeded it. There's also a passage on the dangers of regionalism that, though arguably pertinent today, was clearly composed with issues like slavery and 18th-century economic policy in mind.

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

But there are also portions of the farewell address that speak clearly to the present moment, in the wake of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 attack.Take this key passage, in which Washington reflectson the political violence that marked the early days of the American republic. Before this, he discusseshow America's original government, as established by the Articles of Confederation, had been too weak. Many peopledisliked the new Constitution for creating a more centralized state, and that led to serious friction andthreats of political violence. Washington understood that democratic governments needed to be accountable, but that didn't mean people could resort to violence over every grievance. He writes:

The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.

That's a more eloquent expression of the same thought JoeBiden articulatedwhen he said, much to CNN pundit Chris Cillizza's delight, that "you can't love your country only when you win." He added, "You can't obey the law only when it's convenient. You can't be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies." Those words also echo Washington's from 1796:

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency.

Washington then transitionsto a discourse on partisanship, fretting that factions led by "a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community" might lead a party to take over the nation through manipulative leaders and the support of a zealous minority. That's inconsistent with the true spirit of republican democracy, he argues, which is "the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests." Anti-democratic violence, on the other hand, serves as a potentengine "by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

This brings us back to Biden, who observed that the Capitol attackers"didn't come here out of patriotism or principle. They came here in rage. Not in service of America, rather in service of one man. Those who incited the mob, the real plotters who were desperate to deny the certification of this election, to defy the will of the voters." He went on to praise those who heroically stood up for democracy, and especially those wholost their lives fighting the right-wingmob.

Washington, to be sure, did not compose the Farewell Address in responseto a specific, present-tense provocation. In his most famous passage heelaborates on a possibility that appears to have come true, 220-odd years later the pressure of extreme partisan division leading to tyranny and autocracy:

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

That seems an entirely reasonable descriptionofRepublican plans forthe 2024 election, which they clearly intend to win by fair means or foul, including literally overturning the result if their chosen "chief" loses again. Until then, Republicans are largely relying on political paralysis, not out of any genuine conviction but, in Washington's words,"to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration." Such a partisan faction, he writes, will use all kinds of underhanded tactics:

Itagitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.

Presumably Washingtonfeared that American politics at the dawn of the 19th century could be torn between pro-British and pro-French factions. But he was clearly also aware of the the darker possibility that the danger of tyranny could come from within.

More from Matthew Rozsa on the pathways and corridors of American history:

Read more:

Why George Washington's Farewell Address has never been more important - Salon

The blind optimism shown by government ministers in their plans for the future of Englands farms could result in many small and tenant farmers being forced out of business, a parliamentary report has warned.

In the wake of Brexit, farmers in England are set to see direct payments worth 1.8bn in 2019/20 under the EUs Common Agricultural Policy slashed by more than half by 2024/25 and removed entirely in 2027 as the government shifts to a new regime intended to boost productivity and improve stewardship of the countryside.

But a House of Commons committee report said that George Eustices Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has not yet done enough to gain farmers trust initsability to successfully deliver the programme.

And it said ministers were over-optimistic about the likelihood of making English farms more productive.

The end result of encouraging farmers to free up land for environmental purposes such as woodland is likely to be that England ends up importing more of its food, often from countries with worse environmental standards than Britain, said the report from the cross-party Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

This would not only force up prices in the shops, but also make Britain more reliant on food from abroad.

With the average farm making a net profit of just 22,800 a year without subsidies, the committee said it feared that many small and tenant farmers operating on wafer-thin margins could be forced out of business.

A dog looks out of a car window at the wintry conditions in Killeshin, Co. Laois

PA

People walk through frost and mist alongside a frozen lake during sunrise in Bushy Park, London

REUTERS

A skier jumps on the slopes at Allenheads in the Pennines to the north of Weardale in Northumberland

PA

Freshly-fallen snow covers houses in Corbridge, near Hexham in Northumberland

PA

Dean Morrison, 13, receives his Covid-19 vaccine from student nurse Anthony McLaughlin during a vaccination clinic at the Glasgow Central Mosque

PA

Konastantinos Tsimikas of Liverpool with Chelseas Mason Mount during the Premier League match at Stamfrod Bridge

Liverpool FC/Getty

New Years Eve Lasers, drones and fireworks illuminate the sky in front of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich shortly after midnight in London

EPA

Competitors in fancy dress run across the Pennine tops near Haworth, West Yorkshire, in the annual Auld Lang Syne Fell race which attracts hundreds of runners every year

PA

Sunrise at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland

PA

The Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, looks at Becket, a six month old red-billed chough as he visits Wildwood Wildlife Park in Kent on the anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket

PA

Troops of the Household Cavalry are seen reflected in a puddle during the changing of the Queens Life Guard, on Horse Guards Parade, in central London

PA

A pedestrian walks past a winter sale sign outside a John Lewis store on Oxford street in London

Getty

Riders take their bikes through the snow near Castleside, County Durham

PA

Patrick Corkery wears a santa hat and beard as waves crash over him at Forty Foot near Dublin during a Christmas Day dip

PA

People stand inside Kings Cross Station on Christmas Eve in London

Reuters

Christmas shoppers fill the car park at Fosse Shopping Park in Leicester

PA

The sun rises behind the stones as people gather for the winter solstice at Stonehenge.

Getty

People take part in a winter solstice swim at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to mark the solstice and to witness the dawn after the longest night of the year

PA

An auction employee displays poultry to buyers and sellers attending the Christmas Poultry Sale at York Auction Centre in Murton

PA

Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers looks on during the Premier League match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea at Molineux

Getty Images

Freight lorries queuing at the port of Dover in Kent

PA

Newly elected Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan, bursts 'Boris' bubble' held by colleague Tim Farron, as she celebrates following her victory in the North Shropshire by-election

PA

Brussels sprouts are harvested by workers as they prepare for the busy Christmas period near Boston in Lincolnshire

PA

Lewis Hamilton is made a Knight Bachelor by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle

PA

The Royal Liver Buildings surrounded by early morning fog in Liverpool

PA

People queue outside a walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre at St Thomas's Hospital in Westminster

Getty Images

People take part in the Big Leeds Santa Dash in Roundhay Park, Leeds

PA

People arrive at a Covid-19 vaccination centre at Elland Road in Leeds,

PA

Stella Moris speaks to the media after the US Government won its High Court bid to overturn a judges decision not to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

PA

Camels are lead around Salisbury Cathedral during a rehearsal for the Christmas Eve Service

PA

Margaret Keenan and Nurse May Parsons, a year after Margaret was the first person in the UK to receive the Pfizer vaccine

PA

Snowfall in Leadhills, South Lanarkshire as Storm Barra hits the UK with disruptive winds, heavy rain and snow

PA

A person tries to avoid sea spray on New Brighton promenade in Wallasey as the UK readies for the arrival of Storm Barra

Getty

People release balloons during a tribute to six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes outside Emma Tustin's former address in Solihull, West Midlands, where he was murdered by his stepmother

PA

People walk through a Christmas market in Trafalgar Square

Reuters

A pedestrian carries a dog as they dodge shoppers on Oxford Street in central London

AFP/Getty

Duchess of Cambridge inspects a Faberge egg at the Victoria and Albert Museum

Getty

Meerkats at London Zoo with an advent calendar

PA

Workers put the finishing touches to the Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree ahead of the lighting ceremony later in the week

PA

Home Secretary Priti Patel is greeted by a police dog at a special memorial service for Met Police Sergeant Matiu Ratana

Getty

Riyad Mahrez of Manchester City battles for possession with Aaron Cresswell of West Ham United during a match at the Etihad during snow

Manchester City/Getty

Residents clear branches from a fallen tree in Birkenhead, north west England as Storm Arwen triggered a rare red weather warning

AFP via Getty Images

An aerial picture shows a worker using a quad bike and trailer to transport freshly harvested trees at Pimms Christmas Tree farm in Matfield, southeast England

AFP via Getty

A shopper browses Christmas trees for sale at Pines and Needles in Dulwich, London

Reuters

A murmuration of hundreds of thousands of starlings fly over a field at dusk in Cumbria, close to the Scottish border

PA

A pedestrian carries a dog as they dodge shoppers on Oxford Street in central London

AFP/Getty

Migrants are helped ashore from a RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) lifeboat at a beach in Dungeness, on the south-east coast of England, on November 24, 2021, after being rescued while crossing the English Channel.

See the original post:

Governments post-Brexit farming plan will increase UKs reliance on food imports - The Independent

Unthinkable is the perfect title for this extraordinary book, because it describes a superhuman feat.

Jamie Raskin is a fine writer, a Democratic congressman, a constitutional scholar and a deeply loving father. When 2020 began, he had no inkling that just 12 months later his country and his family would face two impossible traumas.

On 31 December, his beautiful, brilliant, charismatic 25-year-old son, Tommy, took his own life. Six days later, a vicious mob invaded Raskins workplace, the cradle of democracy, leaving several dead and injuring 140 police officers.

Raskin suffered a violent and comprehensive shock to the foundations. Never had he felt so equidistant between the increasingly unrecognizable place called life and the suddenly intimate and expanding jurisdiction called death.

This is where the superhuman part came in. Instead of succumbing to unfathomable grief over the death of his son, Raskin seized a lifeline thrown by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and agreed to lead the effort to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the riot which might have derailed the peaceful transition of power.

He found salvation and sustenance a pathway back to the land of the living.

Im not going to lose my son at the end of 2020 and lose my country and my republic in 2021, he told CNN, less than three weeks after Tommys death.

Raskins astonishing story of tragedy and redemption, of despair and survival, depended entirely on all the good and compassionate people like Tommy, the non-narcissists, the feisty, life-size human beings who hate bullying and fascism naturally people just the right size for a democracy where we are all created equal.

Tommy Raskin was the fourth generation in a great liberal family. His maternal great grandfather was the first Jew elected to the Minnesota legislature. His grandfather, Marcus Raskin, was one of the earliest opponents of the Vietnam war when he worked in the Kennedy White House. In 1968, Marcus Raskin was indicted with William Sloane Coffin, Dr Benjamin Spock and others for conspiracy to aid resistance to the draft. When Raskin was the only one acquitted, he famously demanded a retrial.

Jamie Raskin taught constitutional law then ran for the Maryland Senate, with Tommy, then 10, his first campaign aide. In the state legislature, Raskin helped outlaw the death penalty and legalize same-sex marriage.

Tommy was a second-year student at Harvard Law School when Covid began. Like so many others with clinical depression, the catastrophe deepened his symptoms. His father described his illness as a kind of relentless torture in the brain Despite very fine doctors and a loving family the pain became overwhelming and unyielding and unbearable at last.

This is also a political memoir, of the Capitol attack and the second impeachment. Driving to the Capitol, Raskin spotted Maga supporters heckling a young Black driver and a car with a bumper sticker reading: If Guns Are Outlawed, How Am I Going To Shoot Liberals?

He realizes these fascist bread crumbs throughout the city should have activated some kind of cultural alarm. More chillingly, he reports the decision of some Democrats to cross their chamber after Congress was invaded, because they thought a mass shooter who entered would be less likely to aim at the Republican side of the House.

But Raskin was never afraid: The very worst thing that could ever have happened to us has already happened and Tommy is with me somehow every step of the way. He is occupying my heart He is showing me the way to some kind of safety My wound has now become my shield of defense and my path to escape, and all I can think of is my son propelling me forward to fight.

The most powerful part of Raskins book, the heart-shattering part, is his love letter to Tommy, a dazzling, precious, brilliant moral visionary, a slam poet, an intellectual giant slayer, the king of Boggle, a natural-born comedian, a friend to all human beings but tyrants and bullies, a freedom fighter, a political essayist, a playwright, a jazz pianist, and a handsome, radical visitor from a distant future where war, mass hunger and the eating of animals are considered barbaric intolerable and absurd.

Raskin realized that for the last week of his life, his son had made an effort to impersonate someone in perfect mental health, so no one would intervene. These were his parting words: Please forgive me. My illness won today. Please look after each other, the animals and the global poor for me. All my love, Tommy.

Raskin takes some solace remembering the story of Abraham Lincolns son Willie, who died of typhoid fever at the age of 12 in 1862, plunging his parents into depression.

It had been a point of pride that Raskin responded to every constituent, but a deluge of condolences made that impossible. There was also a call from Joe Biden, three days after Tommy died. The president-elect promised the day would come when Tommys name would bring a smile to my lip before tears to my eyes.

Eventually Raskin was convinced to write one letter for everyone sending condolences, one for everyone who wrote about impeachment and a third for everyone who offered condolences and political solidarity. One actually wrote: I was looking for a condolence card for the loss of your son which also said and thanks for saving our country too, but Hallmark apparently doesnt make those.

Naturally, one of Raskins sons heroes was Wittgenstein, who believed the truth of ethical propositions is determined by the courage with which you act to make them real.

On this standard, Raskin writes, there have never been truer ethical claims than the ones made by Tommy Raskin, because he was all courage and engagement with his moral convictions.

May this book and Tommys example inspire us all to rescue our gravely beleaguered democracy.

Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy is published in the US by Harper

Read the original post:

Unthinkable review: Jamie Raskin, his lost son and defending democracy from Trump - The Guardian

It's a law that has been described as "almost unintelligible," "arcane" and "extremely complex."

It's also the law that determines who will be president.

The Electoral Count Act of 1887 has been derided by legal experts almost since it was first written, and this week, members of both parties in Congress opened the door to updating the legislation. As the first bit of voting-specific policy to even get a sniff of bipartisanship in recent years, it's a notable development.

But it's still far from a sure thing.

Here's a quick overview of what the law is and where things stand.

The Electoral Count Act came as a reaction to the presidential election of 1876, which saw Democrat Samuel Tilden win the popular vote but ultimately lose the presidency to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes because of contested election results coming from three Southern states under the control of Reconstruction governments: Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana.

The three states each sent in multiple competing electoral returns, and Congress had no rules in place to deal with such a scenario.

So, it created an ad hoc commission to decide the presidency, which ended up giving the states' returns, and with them the presidency, to Hayes.

Democrats at the time were furious over the decision and only accepted it in a deal known as the Compromise of 1877, which stipulated that Republicans agreed to end Reconstruction and withdraw federal troops from former Confederate states.

A decade later, Congress passed the Electoral Count Act into law to avoid similar situations in the future, but "the crafters of this law unfortunately did a terrible job," says Rebecca Green, the co-director of the Election Law Program at William & Mary Law School.

"Some of the processes just don't make sense in the modern world," she said.

The legislation is "extraordinarily complex" and "far from the model of statutory drafting," according to an analysis by the National Task Force on Election Crises (of which Green is a member), but the law does create a framework and timeline for when states need to have their election results finalized.

According to the law, the Electoral College is to meet in states across the country on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December to cast their votes.

Stay informed with WPR's email newsletter.

If a state has finalized its results six days before then, according to the ECA, then those results qualify for "safe harbor" status meaning Congress must treat them as the "conclusive" results, even if, for example, a state's legislature sends in a competing set of results.

But the law also allows members of Congress to easily object to results submitted by states and to prolong the counting process, even without legitimate concerns, and according to legal experts, it does not do a good enough job clarifying the vice president's role. Then-Vice President Mike Pence's role became the focus of efforts on Jan. 6, 2021, to overturn the last election.

"In our view, modernizing the ECA may well be the single most important step Congress can take to prevent a crisis in the next contested presidential election," writes the National Task Force on Election Crises in its list of recommendations for updating the law.

For years, and especially since last year's attack on the Capitol, Democrats have been clamoring for Republicans to defend what they see as the fragile guardrails of democracy with federal legislation.

And this week, it seems as if for the first time, Republicans may be willing to play ball with regards to the Electoral Count Act.

"It obviously has some flaws. And it is worth, I think, discussing," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in an interview with Politico on Wednesday.

Moderate Democrats Joe Manchin, D-W.Va, and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., also endorsed looking at the law, but a number of more liberal Democrats did not. Instead, they made it clear that they see Republican interest in reform of the counting process as a way for the party to avoid engaging with other structural protections of voting rights.

"Some scorekeeping matters little if the game is rigged," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

Election experts, however, are urging Democrats to engage in strengthening the elections process wherever there is a glimmer of bipartisanship.

"It doesn't address the larger problems with how our elections are run, but that said, it seems like a fairly straightforward place to start," said Green, of William & Mary. "It seems to be low-hanging fruit."

It's especially important to do it this year, said Ned Foley, an election law expert at The Ohio State University.

"The time to address [these problems] is now," Foley said. "Now is the maximum veil of ignorance: where the two political parties don't know exactly what the lay of the land is going to be in '24 and '25, and so there's a greater chance of bipartisan consensus on the clear procedures for governing the process."

View original post here:

Congress may change this arcane law to avoid another Jan. 6 - Wisconsin Public Radio News

By her own account, the 2016 movie "Hidden Figures" altered Colette Pierce Burnette's life.

"My husband and I saw that movie together, and I kept saying: 'That happened to me! That happened to me!'" the outgoing president of Huston-Tillotson University said about the lives of trailblazing Black women who toiled almost invisiblyin the fields of math and science.

Seeing "Hidden Figures" helped spark a "fire in the belly" to make sure that higher education became more equitable. She came to Huston-Tillotson at a time whenhistorically Black collegesweresteppinginto the national spotlight and she could do something significant about those inequities, some of which she experienced personally.

Burnette, who conquered the fields of engineering, information technologyand higher education management, had many times been theonly woman and the only Black woman in the room. Early conclusions were ignored; her work was discounted.

More: Huston-Tillotson University president to retire in 2022

Burnette, who just turned 64, is no longer a hidden figure.

In fact, the Austin Chamber of Commerce has named Burnette its 2021 Austinite of the Year, not only for her work in accelerating and expanding the city's historically Black university, but also for her citywide civic leadership, including crucial service as co-chair for the Mayor's Task Force on Institutional Racism and Systemic Inequities.

"In every room I've been with her, she has encouraged courageousleadership," said Nikki Graham, the 2021 chairwoman of the Austin Chamber of Commerce. "She's collaborative. She wants people to work together. But she's not afraid to push the status quoand make people see things differently. She has played a key role in this important time in our city's history.

Laura Huffman, president and CEO of the Austin Chamber of Commerce, said the Austinite of the Year Award is givento people for making outsizecontributions to thecommunity. She said she feels Burnette helped turn longtime talk on issues such as social justice, economic opportunityand affordability into action, especially by making Huston-Tillotson a locus of that action.

"In every sense of the spirit of this award, she has madeextraordinary contributionsin a very short time," Huffman said. "Her impact was felt immediately and deeply on the most important issues our communityhas been struggling with, and on the opportunities we have to fix those problems. ... She's practical, but she's also aspirational. She truly believes that Austin's best days are ahead of us and I love that about her."

Burnette gets choked up when she thinks about the new honor she has earned many which is often given to leaders who have devoted lifetimes to improvingAustin.

"When I found out, I was speechless," Burnette said."It's big. But not for me I mean, not just for me. It's big for a lot of people. I may be the face of it, but I'm not it. I am a vessel. People say: 'How do you do it?How do keep up the stamina?How do you keep up the energy?' It's just not me. ... I have an army of people behind me."

Burnette was born in 1957 in Cleveland, Ohio, where she also grew up. Her father, who moved to the North from Mississippi during the Great Migration, was one of 18 kids. He finished the sixth grade. Her mother, a Cleveland native, graduated from high school.

"My mom and dad are the smartest people I know," Burnette said. "But they didn't have the opportunities."

Schooling, therefore, was paramount for the Pierce children.

"I thought college was the 13th grade," Burnette said. "I did not know that it was optionaluntil I got to Ohio State, and then I realized that people were there by choice. My dad knew that my sister and I were going to college."

A child of the 1960s "protected from but not protected from" the great swirl of social changes Burnette attended the still-new John F. Kennedy High School, a Black public school in Cleveland with high standards.

More: A generation of civil rights pioneers left Austin a better place

"Education truly is the great equalizer," Burnette said. "In my school, there was no mediocrity. It was all excellence.

"When I goback to my high school reunions, I have judges in my class, a college president myself doctors, very successful entrepreneurs. So even though wewere quote-unquote 'low income,' you don't know it until you look back on it."

Early on, the girl from a large, strong family was good at math.

"My grandmother used to get butcher paper from the local deli, which was owned by Italians there were very few stores that were owned by Black people in my community," Burnette recalled. "She'd paste the butcher paper up on the walls around the kitchen. WhileI waseating, I'd recite my times tables all the elements of math and my spelling words, etc."

At Ohio State University in the 1970s, she was the only Black engineering studentin hergraduating class, and also the first Black Ohio State student to intern at an engineering job.

"When I walked in my chemistry class, the only thing I recognized was the beakers and the Bunsenburners," Burnette said. "I was the only girl in that class and the only Black. But my upbringing made me know that I could do anything. I was a bit fearless."

More: 'God of aerospace engineering': Hans Mark, former UT chancellor who fled Nazis, dies at 92

Minnie M. McGee, an administrator who had attended a historically Black college in the South, had been hired to recruit and retainBlack students in Ohio State's engineering program.

"She built a cocoon where I could just be me," Burnette said. "Where someone was pouring into me and making me proud of who I amso my own gifts could come out, without me apologizing."

After earning a Bachelorof Science degree, she took a job asanengineer at Proctor and Gamble, running the computer labat a plant that made Tide and Crest.

Soon after, Burnette met and married now-retired Air ForceLt. Col. Daarel Burnette, who had attended Morehouse College, a historically Black college in Atlanta.

"I knew absolutelynothing about active-duty military life," she said. "I knew he was cute. He is from the South, and I am from the North. He is introverted, and I'm extroverted."

The couple raised two children, Daarel Burnette II, a journalist now working in Washington, D.C., and Daana Burnette, a producer in Los Angeles.

"We got married in July, and we got orders to movein August to Warner Robins, Georgia," Burnette said about a place not unlike the setting for "Hidden Figures." "I had to get 20 references for a job. I interviewed with an older white guy all of them wereGeorgia Tech graduates. ... They called me the 'sassy Negro.' ... But I come from bigfamily in Cleveland. That did not intimidate me."

She faced another hurdle when she went to pick up an application for the officer's club.

"She told me: 'There is criteria to join this club,'" Burnette said. "'Well, my husband is an officer, is that criteria?' She didn't believe me. My husband had to come back that afternoon to pick up the application."

While there, she earned her Master of Science degree in administrationfrom Georgia College, a public liberal arts schoolin Milledgeville

The Burnette family moved often, living across thecountry and abroad.

"My husband's career was good to me," Burnette said. "I would have stayed in Ohio for my whole life. I'm from Cleveland, went to schoolin Columbus, and took my first job in Cincinnati. I'd still be working for Proctor and Gamble."

Among other jobs, Burnette worked for The Washington Post as a systems analyst, and she ran her own computer consulting firm,CompuMent.

While her early adult career was spent in the corporate world, she moved over to education when her husband retired.

Burnette started by teaching community collegeand thenearned her Ed.D. in higher education administration from the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school. She isalso a graduate of the management development program at Harvard's Graduate School of Education.

Before coming to Austin, she held numerous administrative positions at universities across the country.

"We learn backwards to live forwards," Burnette said. "Everything in my life has prepared me for my journeyin Austin and for my presidency of Huston-Tillotson. I am praying and hopeful that my journey at Huston-Tillotsonwill now prepare me for my next chapter and I don't know what that is."

Burnette joined Huston-Tillotson as president and CEO on July 21, 2015, the first woman to hold that position since Huston and Tillotson colleges merged in 1952.

Many Austinites don't know that Huston-Tillotson was the first institution of higher learning in Austin, established in 1875, two years before St. Edward's Universityand eight years before the University of Texas.

The school's rich history though often hidden in the heart of the city attracted Burnette. So did the community that surrounded it.

"As I drove around East Austin and saw the remnants of it you'd see where there used to be a barbershop, but now there's just a sign ... or a school that is not in the best condition anymore," Burnette said. "It really reminded me of the community that I grew up in.I had the feeling that I was home in a very odd way in East Austin."

Although she did not attend ahistorically Black college herself, she had long been a proponent of the schools. Amember of Delta Sigma Theta, a historically Black sorority witha strong presence at Ohio State, she remains very engaged with the organization.

During the past couple of years, the general public has learned more about the reach of historically Black colleges and historically Black sororities and fraternities because ofinterest in Vice President Kamala Harris, a graduate of Howard University and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha.

"HBCs have been important since their inception," Burnette said. "The world is finally recognizing the beauty of these schools and how they built the middle class."

Huston-Tillotson, however, was financially fragile when she arrived.Enrollment was down. As president, she gave speeches about perseverance.

"Not using as an excuse that you came from a quote-unquote 'underprepared' high school," Burnette said. "Preparation is relative. Grit is a good part of preparation. It is sometimes even more so than the reading, writing and arithmetic part of it."

She credits her predecessor, Huston-Tillotson President Larry L. Earvin, withsetting the stage.

"When I arrived, I read something in the Statesman about the college not facing outward," she said. "I only knew about facing outward. ... If Cleveland had had a historically Black college with such rich history in the middle of my community, how wonderful that would have been."

More: 'We should honor all parts of who we are': Nichole Prescott on reviving indigenous cultures

Injured at the airport early inher tenure, Burnette took Uber back and forth to Huston-Tillotson. She always chatted with the drivers.

"Eight or maybe nine of the first 10 didn't even know the university existed," Burnette said. "I could not understand that in a city like Austin with a university in the heart of the city and people didn't know it was there."

That has changed substantially during the past seven years.

"Colette has transformed Huston-Tillotson," said Graham, formerly with Bank of America, now the head of Hector and Gloria Lopez Foundation, which supports students who identify as Latino, low-incomeand first-generation in their pursuit of higher education."She has increased HT's endowment, made it a centralfocus of the community, and made clear the needs ofcollege attainment for young men of color in order to build the highly skilled, talented workforce weneed in Austin. She has put a finer point on the needs of HBCs in keeping with a trend we see nationwide.

Huffman goes even further in her assessment.

"I believe that Dr. Burnette has made the students and the institution of HT part of the economic success of Austin," she said. "I do think part of growing the university is making sure that economic opportunitiesare availableto the students, to the teachers, to thestaff and that they are helping drive the success of the community.I think she's done that."

"Austin is such a magical city," Burnette said. "There is so much opportunity here. There are so many things my students have been able to do, and be a part of, and to be able to blossom. We have a long way to go as an institution, but we are at that stage."

Although here for just seven years, Burnette has put down deep rootsand has served on numerous citywide boards and committees, despite holding down a daunting day job.

"I am a self-proclaimed lifetime member of the Austin community," she said. "Nobody can take that away from me. ... You are not going to get rid of me."

As Austin looked once again for answers about social justice and equity in light ofthe Black Lives Matter movement, Burnette discoveredmany others in Austin who shared her passions.

"I've always been a social justice warrior," Burnette said. "I met people who really leaned into wanting Austin be a beloved communityas Dr. King defined it."

More: Texas History: Notable Texans recall growing up in the Lone Star State

As Mayor Steve Adler put together theMayor's Task Force on Institutional Racism and Systemic Inequities, he sensed that Burnette fit the job of co-chair of the task force, along with Paul Cruz, then chief of Austin schools.

"I am not a token," she said. "I am unapologeticallya Black female. I was hesitant to do it, because my job was so complicated."

Improving Austin's effectiveness at social equity helped her day job. She discovered that she could not recruit effectively for a historically Black college if the city's reputation was not inclusive. Also, she could draft local leaders in her efforts to build up Huston-Tillotson.

"It put me in a position to meet more people and share the gifts of the institution in a more public way," Burnette said. "I met the movers and shakers and thought leaders in the city."

As a result, enrollment is upand Huston-Tillotson is no longer fiscally fragile.So why leave her position at the college?

"I have stood in my purposeaspresident of the university,'" Burnette said. "And my purpose in the community. A mentor once told me,'You always leave the party when you're having fun.' The university is in a really good place right now."

She hasbut one regret regarding her Huston-Tillotson tenure: She did not build more buildings.

"We have the land. We need a new academic building, and we need a new residence hall. Our gym is not air-conditioned.We don't have a student union," she said. "I kept looking for a private-public partnership. ... That's not going to happen by June 30. But the next person is going to get that done. You rarely get to see the tree from the seeds you plant. I want to come back for the ribbon cutting, and I hope I just get to touch the scissors."

In the near future, Burnette will continue to teach a course in social justice in higher educationleadership at the University of Texas. She has thought about running a nonprofit that has social justice and higher education as part of its mission.

"Look, Colette has the energy, the intellect and the influence to make sure Austin achieves its fullest potential," Huffman said. "She's also someone whose enthusiasm is contagious. You find yourself wanting to work with her."

"She has a background in business and a unique set of skills that help her relate to elected officials, business peopleand academics alike.She's a unifier," Graham said. "She brings all people to the table at HTwhile shining a light on the needs of the surrounding community.

"She's transformed our community for the better."

Michael Barnes writes about the people, places, culture and history of Austin and Texas. He can be reached at mbarnes@statesman.com.

Continued here:

EXCLUSIVE: Colette Pierce Burnette, president of Huston-Tillotson University, named Austinite of the Year - Austin American-Statesman

Submitted by Jim Wozniak

GREENEVILLE Tusculum University faculty members and students are inviting residents of the Horse Creek community to share their stories as part of an update to a 1980s research project on that section of Greene County.

The research team is scheduled to begin the new interviews in February. The oral histories, which will pay special attention to the subjects of land, community and sustainability, will supplement interviews the last academic group compiled 35 year ago and will be part of public presentation at Tusculum and Rural Resources at the conclusion of the research teams work.

We are thrilled to enter this next phase of researching this wonderful community and learn from those who intimately know Horse Creek, said Dr. Katherine Everhart, an assistant professor of sociology at Tusculum, who serves as the initiatives principal investigator. Horse Creek has a fascinating history, and we welcome the opportunity to hear firsthand accounts from those who live there.

Horse Creek residents who are interested in being interviewed can contact Everhart at keverhart@tusculum.edu or 423-636-7472. To see a list of those who were interviewed in the 1980s, visit https://bit.ly/3q642Jd.

In addition to Everhart, todays research team consists of Dr. Peter Noll, associate professor of public history and museum studies, who is serving as the projects archivist, and Wayne Thomas, dean of the College of Civic and Liberal Arts. Everhart and Noll also picked two students to assist with this project: Samantha Nelson, a sophomore history major, and Maggie Vickers, a junior, who is pursuing bachelors degrees in history and English.

This will be Nelsons second research project in Greene County. As a member of the 2021 class of Ledford Scholars, a prestigious program of the Appalachian College Association, she studied burley tobaccos impact on the countys economy and identity.

I like learning new things, so I feel like there is a lot to explore in the Horse Creek project that I wasnt previously exposed to, Nelson said. Like always, my goal with this project is to look for new perspectives and learn something new. I look forward to participating further as we discover more about the Horse Creek community.

One element of the project is particularly appealing to Vickers church history. She said she has learned about the pre-Civil War and Reconstruction eras of church history and found that enjoyable. She is excited to now examine history in more recent times.

Im really interested in church history right now, she said. Its a broader scope of religious history in America that I am focusing on. I just wrote a paper about church history in East Tennessee, and Im going deeper into it. This project is just another piece to that. Horse Creeks church history is really interesting because its unique, and its unique in the way that they built their community around the churches.

The Horse Creek project, formally called Horse Creek Then and Now: Comparative Oral Histories from Rural Appalachia, became possible through a $10,000 Humanities for the Public Good grant Tusculum received in the spring from the Council of Independent Colleges. The initiative is generously supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with supplemental funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The research group met weekly during the fall semester and participated in multiple workshops, including one about Appalachia led by Dr. Angela Keaton, professor of history at Tusculum. They also mapped important places in Horse Creek, such as churches and schools.

The team also digitized the archive and transcribed some of the 30 oral histories conducted during the 1980s research. Those earlier interviews covered the way of life for community members from Horse Creeks inception in the late 1700s to a more commercially driven and manufacturing economy after World War II. Nelson and Vickers will finish the transcriptions during the spring semester.

A national grant funded the earlier two-year project, which Dr. Donal Sexton, professor emeritus of history at Tusculum, directed with assistance from students. Wess duBrisk, associate professor emeritus of communications, served as the photographer, and Clem Allison, professor emeritus of art, led exhibit design and construction.

In preparation for the next phase of the research on Horse Creek, Everhart, Noll, Nelson and Vickers visited the community on Dec. 16.

Our project is tremendously exciting and is enhanced greatly by the rich archival material we have from the 1980s research, Noll said.

We welcome the opportunity to build on that excellent work and examine the new developments in Horse Creek in the 35 years since. All of this will produce a comprehensive history of this community and provide insight into what makes Horse Creek so special.

View post:

Horse Creek residents invited to share their stories with Tusculum team - Johnson City Press (subscription)

Hanya Yanagiharas debut novel taught her not to give up her day job as a travel writer and editor. The People in the Trees was the story of a scientist jailed for sexually abusing children he adopted during his Nobel-winning research on a Pacific island. It impressed reviewers with its exhaustive inventiveness and its refusal to offer redemption or solace, but sold only a few thousand copies when it was published in 2013.

Two years later, the Manhattan-based writer released a novel that was twice as long and even less forgiving. It was about the fallout, among four college friends, from the appalling childhood sexual abuse of one of their group, and it hit the jackpot, becoming one of those vanishingly rare literary break-outs. Victoria Beckham and Dua Lipa declared themselves fans, while an equally passionate group of readers condemned it as gratuitous, even evil. A Little Life sold a quarter of a million print copies in the UK alone, where it was shortlisted for the Booker and the Womens prize for fiction. But far from giving up her day job, Yanagihara took on a bigger one, as editor-in-chief of T, the New York Times style magazine.

When we meet up, at an upmarket London hotel in October, she is combining a whistlestop publicity trip for her third novel, To Paradise, with two weeks of European fashion shows that have left her with a mysterious illness which, she hastens to add, is definitely not Covid. The jaunt is a twice-yearly ritual: menswear and furniture shows the spring and summer, then womens ready-to-wear in the autumn. I do New York, Milan and Paris, and I always end up getting sick. Usually its a cold or flu, so this is a new one for me, she says, brandishing hands flushed with tiny red spots.

She is determined not to let her mystery ailment get in the way of a promotional campaign that began six months earlier when news of To Paradise was teased to the book trade. Do you remember where you were when you finished A Little Life? And where were you when you heard that Hanya Yanagiharas new novel arrives next year? Right here, tweeted Waterstones at the time an enthusiasm rewarded by Yanagihara in proof copies of To Paradise, with a personal note of thanks to all the booksellers who had pressed her work into readers hands.

Like its predecessor, To Paradise is a brick of a book that checks in at well over 700 pages and is set largely in New York. But there the similarity ends. This is a very different city, which is seen in three different iterations in a trio of time zones. Theres perhaps another motive behind Yanagiharas note to the booksellers: until you get the hang of it, which takes the length of an ordinary-sized novel, its all a bit disorientating, not least because for reasons to do with its preoccupation with inherited privilege the protagonists in all three timezones are all named David, Edward and Charles/Charlie Bingham.

It is, however, most definitely worth hanging on in. Its a mature masterpiece, which makes A Little Life look overcaffeinated, says veteran novelist Edmund White, who emerged as an early champion with a Facebook post that To Paradise was as good as War and Peace.

In the first section were in 1893, at the heart of fin-de-sicle society with clear Jamesian resonances (it centres on a big family house in Washington Square), except that this New York is a breakaway republic where same-sex marriage is the norm. Id always wanted to write a marriage story, but marriage stories are about money, and I wondered, if you wrote one that wasnt about gender norms, and gender rules, what would that marriage story be? And beyond that, what would that history be? says Yanagihara.

In the second section we move to 1993, where an unnamed plague is laying waste to the complacency of the next generation of Davids, Charleses and Edwards. In the third section were in a dystopian 2093 where the personal and social freedoms of David, Charles and his granddaughter Charlie have been sacrificed to the demands of controlling wave upon wave of pandemics. Its all scarily plausible: a what if? novel combined with a what when? one, I suggest. And what is, says Yanagihara.

What it is not, though, is a response to Covid. She had the idea of the novel in 2016 and started researching it in earnest shortly after the election of Donald Trump, at a point when history suddenly started to move very quickly, raising questions about whether we were who we had always thought we were. She cant explain why she started interviewing scientists about the probability and likely consequences of the next pandemic. But I can say that it didnt arise from any special oracular powers, she wrote in her note to booksellers. By the time New York was locked down, the novels structure, characters and themes were in place, the first part was finished and the other two were partly written.

Of course, it would occasionally strike me as strange that I was writing about this pandemic in the midst of one, but not terribly, she says. And listen, theres no way to say this without sounding completely heartless, but Covid really gave me a lot of time. It was not an anxious period for me, because I was extremely lucky to have a job that I knew was secure. I had health insurance, I had savings. I had a place to live that was safe. And suddenly, as someone who needs eight or nine hours sleep a night, I had time.

After the taxonomical precision of The People in the Trees, where scientific identification and naming is central, and the introversion of A Little Life in which external history is airbrushed out, leaving no distraction from the agonies and ecstasies of Jude, JB, Willem and Malcolm, over three decades the bleaching out of identity associated with names in To Paradise is particularly striking.

One of the Davids is actually a descendant of Hawaiian royalty, the reluctant centre of a running argument about sovereignty and the appropriation of people and objects. Nor is this anonymity limited to the novels characters: in the world of the 19th-century Binghams, there is no word for gay, while the diseases that sweep through the later sections are never named. Its a bold formal move for a writer whose breakout readership is likely to be expecting another agonised circle of friends.

For Yanagihara this play with naming represents one of many negotiations with Americas idea of itself. Were often renaming things in the United States, either to eradicate a bad memory or to try to dissociate it from a person who history has not treated kindly or who deserves to be treated with more respect. Theres this idea that naming something changes the fundamental nature of it, but does naming who we are make us more real to others? Or is it simply a way of making ourselves more real to ourselves?

Above all, To Paradise offers a profound challenge to the idea of democratic society. The very concept of paradise, she says, is that it is not for everyone but for the chosen few. The idea of sacrifice for a kind of freedom, the idea of personal freedom, as opposed to social freedom, the idea of a freedom for some, but not for all these are questions that are integral to the founding, and continuation, of America.

The current disarray around management of wave after wave of Covid pandemic bears out her point, giving the novel a shadow that seems to have warped and elongated even in the two months since I first read it. This is particularly true of its chilling representation of a young woman whose independence, and capacity to make adult relationships, have been sacrificed by her doctor grandfather to the task of keeping her alive.

Did Yanagihara have any qualms about being seen as playing to the anti-vax gallery? I didnt think about it that way, she says firmly. My fathers an oncologist. He doesnt treat children, but there are certain forms of treatment, as I understand it, that save children while really hurting them and causing long-term complications: I was thinking about the sacrifice that Grandfather, and unwittingly Charlie, end up making for her life. He has a much colder and more clinical idea of meaningful life until she gets sick.

For all this books differences from Yanagiharas previous novels, all three have one striking thing in common: they barely touch on the consciousness of women. Rendered infertile and perpetually childlike by the antidote to the virus, Charlie has little agency. Why such an absence? You know, says Yanagihara, after youve written your third book, certain patterns and motifs begin to announce themselves that youre not conscious of. Sometimes they have to do with your biography, but sometimes they dont. I dont know why theres a grandparent in each one of these books, because I wasnt close to my grandparents. There are no mothers in any of my books, and Im not sure why, because I have a perfectly fine relationship with my mother. There are very few women and again Im not really sure why, but theres always disease and the body falling apart. The short answer is Im not sure why Charlie is the only woman.

If one were to go down the psychoanalytical route, one could cite the many interviews in which she has spoken extensively of the influence of her father, who when she displayed an interest in art at the age of 10 took her to a pathologists lab so that she could draw a cadaver. I was always interested in the disease, not the human, she told one interviewer.

I always say that my father came from the last generation of quasi-intellectual men who were completely open and saying that they expected one thing from their daughter, and another thing from their wife, she says now. I didnt want to be a wife and a mother, and was probably very dismissive of the lessons my mother had to teach me, which I regret. And so I deliberately never learned how to do certain things like cook or clean. And as a teenager everything seems like such a binary: you would either be at home cooking and cleaning, or you would be out doing what you wanted, and I wanted to be out doing what I wanted.

Yanagihara was born in Los Angeles, one of two children, to a family that had lived in Hawaii for three generations but were not of Hawaiian blood. Her childhood was itinerant, following her fathers jobs across the US, though she spent three high-school years at the private school in Honolulu that Barack Obama had attended a decade earlier. Punahou School was founded on land given to an American missionary called Bingham, whose grandson, an explorer turned US senator, is listed among its famous alumni (all the surnames in the novel, it turns out, are from prominent 19th-century missionary families in Hawaii).

Does she feel American? Yes, 100%, she says, though she has Japanese ancestry and considers Japan to be the country of my heart. Travelling abroad, she admits, disarmingly, is a process of constant humiliation. I feel very gauche most of the time. This ugly American behaviour which I can see in myself is kind of what people expect. Especially if you are a non-white American, you will never feel more American than that when you go back to the country of your ancestry, as I do to Japan.

In Hawaii, she grew up at the height of the sovereignty movement with parents who were classic liberal boomers and favoured the less radical state-within-a-state solution. In the second section of To Paradise, a range of hopelessly naive separatist movements lay claim to the islands. I hope the book offers no moral judgment about a craving to return to this era in which things seemed simpler and more noble and respectful. It only says something about how hard it is to try to go back, when history is always in the way, she says. The Bingham house is stuffed with Hawaii artefacts, which become part of a larger conversation about the ethics of protectiveness: or, as she puts it, who gets to decide whats best for people and for cultures.

Theres an unflinchingness in Yanagiharas writing that can seem gratuitously punishing a reminder of the little girl who was more interested in disease than people. By the third section of To Paradise, Hawaii has been destroyed. In A Little Life, she pushed the torture and self-flagellation of lawyer Jude so far that some readers recoiled while others hung on in horrified fascination. This book and its champions seem bound to each other by their mutual disgust and discomfort, wrote Daniel Mendelsohn in the New York Review. Its rare to encounter literary discussion of such dissonant zeal, such enthralled distress, observed the Australian critic Beejay Silcox, in an essay summarising the Little Life phenomenon.

How did Yanagihara herself feel about inspiring such strong feelings? I dont read anything about my books and Im not on Twitter, which is, as I understand it, where the majority of these conversations tend to get slugged out, she says. She is particularly impatient with the #ownvoice movement, which might question her right, as a woman, to tell the stories of gay men. Its very dangerous. I have the right to write about whatever I want. The only thing a reader can judge is whether I have done so well or not.

While A Little Life was a dark adolescent fairy story of a group of friends who attempt to hold historical institutional evil at bay by making their own family, To Paradise takes a more history-hardened view of relationships. People always ultimately choose their family over friends, asserts one of the Charleses. Though Yanagihara says that she disagrees with that position, I wonder how much as someone who is resolutely single and lives alone her own idea of friendship has altered during the pandemic.

I think if people did live with someone, whether it was their partner, their family, or so on, they almost always prioritised those people over their friends, she says. Does that mean she personally lost friends? It led to some meaningful conversations, she replies, and then there were friends who I became much closer to. She is wearing a chunky gold necklace featuring her star sign, Virgo, given to her by a friend who is the artistic director of a leading couture house.

I dont have family, she says, correcting herself a beat later to: I do, but theyre in Hawaii and theyre fine. (She spent two Covid summers there, watching the wildlife return to tourist-bare beaches and disappear again as the industry returned.) Her point, she clarifies, is I think people divided according to grades of fear, and who they had to protect.

Its hard to imagine how the 47-year-old author manages to combine such a high-profile, jet-setting job with writing such big books, but she says that being the boss has its advantages, as everything works around you. Im not the smartest or hardest-working or most educated person, but I am the best at time management, she says. Its a skill that Ive worked hard to develop, which is not to say that Im disciplined. Im not really that disciplined. But once I set aside time for myself, I know how to sit down and use it.

And besides, she adds, journalism has made a valuable contribution to her writing: It teaches you to be respectful of grammar and spelling, which sounds like a small thing, but really isnt. It teaches you structure, which I think is an underrated skill. It teaches you how to turn things in on time. And it teaches you that at a certain point, you have to let it go.

After three novels, her project is becoming clear: as Edmund White puts it, she is chronicling her country just as panoramically as Tolstoy did his, with a similar confidence that the story is interesting. Ive really thought about how young America is as a nation, says Yanagihara. Despite the frustration and despair even in countries like France, which pretend they dont care about it there is such an admiration for America. Its our vitality, our childlike qualities, you know our optimism and generosity, but also our spoiltness, our tantrum-throwing, our inwardness, our myopia. I really do think of it as a precocious and quite bratty child, heading into adolescence: every quality that you would admire in that child and every quality that will frustrate you exists within America as well.

The issues to which America is now applying this adolescent brattiness are undeniably global. The arguments were having about vaccine mandates; the ones were having about the kinds of sacrifices we might make to effect greater global change and deal with the climate crisis; the ones that involve a reframing of history, especially when it comes to race and immigration. Those questions feel more urgent now because the threat is much more intense, especially when it comes to climate change and disease, says Yanagihara. They are questions that fiction needs to address, because there are no easy answers in fact.

Read the original:

Hanya Yanagihara: I have the right to write about whatever I want - The Guardian

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a grand development plan adopted in 2013 by the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). It involves over a thousand projects investing in several international organisations and countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe. The main activity is to develop infrastructure for transportation by land and sea from China to various regions of the world. The BRI was designed to promote connectivity and trade between different continents, as well as to create new jobs and stimulate economic growth.

This paper seeks to identify the causes and consequences of the Belt and Road Initiative while taking into consideration that it is a relatively new and on-going strategy; hence some implications may not be precisely predictable yet. It will firstly focus on the economic and political factors that favoured the implementation of this plan, including what could be perceived as the main objectives the Chinese government seeks to achieve. This essay will later analyse the political and economic impact of the BRI in China and the other countries involved, including current risks and obstacles that may arise. In this section of the paper, consequences will be differentiated into two categories: the first subsection will focus on the effects, while the second will identify and examine the challenges that may be encountered.

The decision to adopt the Belt and Road Initiative was influenced by several factors that are subject to interpretation according to diverse views of the world. For instance, a western perspective would explain the objectives of the BRI as merely political and strategic, with the main aim of increasing Chinas influence around the globe. On the contrary, the Chinese government claims it was principally designed to address issues facing the national economy and to improve connectivity among different regions of the world. The potential reasons behind the implementation of the BRI can thus be explained in both economic and political terms.

The first factor to highlight is the economic slowdown in China since 2012, which could justify the need for a grand strategy to recover and boost the economy. The government especially needed to deal with the countrys industrial overcapacity and stagnating exports. The low domestic demand was inadequate to deal with the high level of production, and therefore China needed to improve connectivity with developing economies to conquer new markets around the globe. The Belt and Road Initiative was thus conceived to improve trade and cooperation between different regions and continents of the world. According to the World Bank, the BRI will succeed to increase foreign investment and improve living conditions in the participating countries. A further benefit is the removal of the obstacles to commerce, such as trade barriers, which would benefit all governments involved. In fact, the reductions in transport costs and trade liberalisation attributed to this plan are estimated to generate large GDP benefits for countries along the BRI corridor.

Furthermore, the BRI reaches regions of the world that were marginalized from globalisation, and it does this by developing transport networks and thus facilitating trades with those countries. For instance, the project of the China-Pakistan corridor attempts to reduce the distance between the PRC and the Middle East: from the current 12.900 kilometres by sea, the distance would be shortened to 3000 kilometres by land. This point brings us to another factor to consider, which is Chinas need to mitigate its energy security concerns, as the countrys demand has been rising and almost 60% of the oil reserves are located in the Middle East. Hence, the PRC sees the Belt and Road Initiative also as an opportunity to obtain regular energy supplies in the fastest and most secure way.

The Chinese government aims to use economic cooperation also to address challenges in both domestic and foreign policy, such as the political tensions with neighbouring countries, especially those in Central Asia. The BRI could serve as a means to connect Xinjiang with its central Asian neighbours and Europe, while also mitigating perceived threats of terrorism and separatism originating from this region.

It could be also argued that while the US were choosing a rather isolationist approach, China saw the opportunity to achieve global governance and become the new model to follow. Osnos suggested that as Donald Trump surrenders Americas global commitments, Xi Jinping is learning to pick up the pieces, implying the Chinese government has a great opportunity to gain global leadership, whereas the US are slowly retreating. This is plausible since one of the main drivers of the BRI is considered to be Chinas desire to create a new silk road: a new Sino-centric network of economic, political, and security relations, that would promote Chinas vision of global governance. As a result, this strategy could effectively enhance its political power and influence over other countries, hence improving the national image and soft power.

Indeed, Summers argues that it could be compared with the US Marshall Plan for Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War: in the same way as USA gained geopolitical influence over Western Europe with this initiative, the BRI could allow China to gain influence over several countries in Europe, Africa and Asia.

Another element to include is the so called String of Pearls theory, which represents Chinas potential intentions in the Indian Ocean. The Belt and Road Initiative will allow the country to establish ports in maritime routes to increase influence in the Indian Ocean, especially since Indias aggressive maritime strategy may contrast with Chinas objectives. An important location that affects Chinas affairs and influence over the ocean is the Malacca Strait, which is controlled by Singapore and protected by the US military. This poses a dilemma to the Chinese government, and the BRI seeks to solve this problem by building the Karat Canal in Thailand. In this way, the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea will be successfully connected, and China would reduce its dependence on the Strait of Malacca.

As previously introduced, it is complicated to effectively determine the consequences, given that many BRI projects are on-going or have not started yet. However, it is possible to identify the immediate and estimated effects concerning China and the other countries involved. In addition, we can detect the risks, including the repercussions that may arise in years to come if the challenges are not adequately addressed.

An immediate consequence is the economic growth in both China and the countries along the BRI corridor, as well as the creation of new employment: it is estimated that almost 300 thousand jobs were created since the start of the project. In addition, a report published by the World Bank calculated that the BRI-related investments could drastically reduce the rates of global extreme and moderate poverty. Contributions to the Chinese plan are thus estimated to increase, especially the overseas direct investments (ODI). However, some scholars argue that, rather than improving economic conditions in foreign countries, the increase of ODI will mainly enhance Chinas soft power over the countries involved in the initiative.

Another projected and expected result is the improvement of the relations between China and the EU, which will allow the increase of trade and investments between these two regions of the world, hence also improving the economic stability of the old continent. Therefore, the EU could benefit from the Belt and Road Initiative, as well as have the opportunity to enhance its global influence.

One can argue the immediate effects of this plan are beneficial to all the governments involved, but it is also true that the majority of the projects are assigned to Chinese companies, rather than foreign ones. Freymann also argues that many Chinese corporations are exploiting the Belt and Road Initiative brand as a shortcut to get funds from Chinese state banks. Labour and manpower are also mainly Chinese, and therefore the BRI might not create much employment in foreign countries. In addition, the standards we are accustomed to, such as workers rights, may not be the same under Chinese supervision: in fact, many African countries are starting to put up resistance against certain projects because of low wages and poor working conditions.

Along with the economic and political consequences, there are also risks and obstacles to take into account. The most imminent threat originates from the outbreak of Coronavirus, which affected more than half of the BRI projects. The Chinese government has announced that the initiative will adapt to this circumstance: more resources will be put on public health, environmental sustainability, and technology, in order to facilitate its progress and attract more partners. However, it is complicated to establish how these strategies will be implemented, and what will be the long-term impacts of the Covid-19 crisis.

A crucial challenge is the environmental impact, as the large-scale construction of several infrastructure could have negative effects on biodiversity, such as increased wildlife mortality and restrictions of animal movement. In addition, transport is estimated to increase carbon dioxide emissions by up to 7 percent in the countries where production will expand. The various projects could also create pollution of various sources, such as noise, chemicals, and light, which would seriously affect the ecosystem in the areas involved. This aspect should thus be getting more attention from policymakers and the BRI management, in order to successfully mitigate the several environmental risks before the situation deteriorates.

An additional aspect to consider is the debt accumulated by borrower countries. Since 2013, China has made several loans to many governments, and there is the risk that it would use that debt to exert political and economic influence on those nations. According to a policy paper published by the Center for Global Development, eight countries are estimated to be pushed into a debt crisis because of BRI-related loans. Hence, the PRC could make use of a strategy commonly referred to as dept-trap diplomacy. An example is the case of Sri Lanka, which could not repay its debts and had to hand over an important port to a Chinese state company for the duration of 99 years.

Moreover, in a very costly and global plan such as the BRI, corruption is another factor that requires a deep focus. According to the World Bank, bribery in transport projects can account for 5 percent to 20 percent of transaction costs. Therefore, corruption is one of the main risks that the Chinese government should manage in order to guarantee transparency in the BRI projects. Such concern is often associated with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which could support the Belt and Road Initiative undermining good norms of governance.

The last aspect we should focus on involves perceived threats to human security. Security-related challenges are crucial to address, and particularly in this case. Some BRI corridors are located in countries affected by ongoing conflicts, extremism, and terrorism. Therefore, the level of risk in these areas is very high, especially if we consider that the Chinese government is often accused of discrimination towards ethnic and religious minorities. It is also believed that the PRC may not have sufficient military power to deal with this issue, hence failing to protect building sites and infrastructure, such as roads and railways along the route.

Despite the Belt and Road Initiative being in constant development, we can already infer it will have serious economic and geopolitical implications. Two diverse visions of the world interpret the purpose of the BRI differently, and both perspectives are based on valid arguments. China will most probably see a rise in its economic influence and will gain strategic dominance across three continents. It will use the BRI for its own benefit and recovery, but it will also improve relations and cooperation with many countries, as well as create employment and reduce poverty. The Chinese government will create a new Silk Road to invest in regions of the world that were left out of globalisation and trade, while also enhancing its national image and exerting political influence in order to secure Chinese goals. While Trump-led USA turned towards protectionism, China has opened its market with the rest of the world and has taken advantage of the situation. The BRI could effectively allow the Chinese government to take control of most of the maritime and land routes across Africa, Asia, and Europe.

However, it is still early to determine whether the BRI will be successful or not, as it will also depend on its impact in the countries involved. After the Coronavirus outbreak, some countries may not decide to invest in projects that were seriously affected by the Covid-19 crisis, which could lead to further complications in the following months. Foreign governments could choose a different approach towards the legitimacy of the Belt and Road Initiative, especially if we consider the ambiguity in some aspects of the Chinese plan. For instance, the US led by Biden have adopted a different approach towards Chinas global initiative, as opposed to Donald Trump. In addition, there are environmental and security challenges to address, that could drastically affect the progress of the BRI.

Nevertheless, it is premature to state that these obstacles are being overshadowed by the PRC for mere political agenda because the Chinese government may decide to take further measures and find valuable solutions in the years to come. As a result, future events and developments will be helpful to better understand and evaluate the implications of this grand strategy, as well as Chinas position in the global political and economic landscape.

Related

Go here to read the rest:

The levels and axes of the Chinese vision in practice to deal with Washington - Modern Diplomacy