Monthly Archives: March 2022

Its not rocket science: how the worlds fastest parrot could be saved – The Guardian

Posted: March 2, 2022 at 11:56 pm

What if a critically endangered bird could be given a shot at survival by protecting 7% of Tasmanian native forests earmarked for logging?

And what if the forestry industry had for different reasons already argued that logging should be reduced by roughly that amount?

Thats the case made in a proposal that ecologists and environmentalists believe could halt the steep decline of the swift parrot, a migratory species that experts say could be extinct in 10 years if no action is taken.

Monitoring the worlds fastest parrot is challenging. It spends the winter in Victoria and New South Wales before nesting in different parts of Tasmania each summer, depending on where its main food source, the blue gum, is flowering.

But no one disputes that swift parrot numbers have slumped. A CSIRO-published birds guide released in December puts the population at about 750, down from 2,000 roughly a decade ago.

A new report released by BirdLife Australia, the Wilderness Society and the Tasmanian group the Tree Projects says the primary cause is the loss of large, hollow-bearing trees used for breeding.

It cites a peer-reviewed study that found nearly a quarter of Tasmanias southern old-growth forests were logged between 1997 and 2016 evidence, it says, of a systemic failure by the state government to act on repeated scientific advice that protecting parrot habitat was crucial for the species to survive.

Dr Jennifer Sanger, a forest ecologist with Tree Projects, says while the parrot faces other threats, including predation from sugar gliders and worsening bushfire risk due to the climate crisis, habitat loss from logging remains the number one issue.

Unfortunately what weve seen from the government is inadequate policies over the past decade that have been exacerbating the decline, she says. The habitat is still being logged.

The Tasmanian Liberal government says it has an answer. In late 2020 it released a policy, known as the public authority management agreement, under which it has promised to set aside 9,300 hectares of southern forests from logging.

The report, On the Edge of Extinction, argues this is misleading as 69% of the newly set aside area was already excluded from logging, either due to operational constraints or parts of it already being in reserves.

In reality, it says, the new policy would stop logging in only 2,900ha, and leave other areas with the mature trees the swift parrot relies on available to the forestry industry. Scientific advice to the government says all swift parrot foresting and nesting habitat on Tasmanian public land should be protected to give the species a chance.

This is not a new argument but the report includes what the groups say is a new calculation of what this would mean. It says a swift parrot protection plan would require the industry to give up just 7% of the forest area on state land available for logging. It would protect 40,000ha more mature forest and 20,000ha of regrowing forest that could provide future habitat.

It says this could be achieved by listening to the board of the state-owned forestry business, Sustainable Timber Tasmania, which in 2016 told the state government logging was not profitable if it had to meet a legislated quota of providing 137,000 cubic metres of sawlogs a year. It called for this to be cut to 96,000 cubic metres a 30% cut in timber supply.

The call by the industry body was rejected by the state resources minister, Guy Barnett. The Liberal state government was elected in 2014 on a platform of ending a Labor-Greens peace deal brokered between the industry and environmentalists after decades of conflict and expanding native forestry to support jobs in regional communities. Barnett says the existing sawlog quota could be met by selling timber for higher prices while looking for lower cost areas of forest to log.

The groups behind the report say the quota should be dropped entirely, but that reducing it to the level nominated by Sustainable Timber Tasmania could be enough to stabilise parrot numbers. Sanger says it would also help other species, and retain a significant amount of carbon stored in the states mature wet eucalyptus forests.

In a perfect world there would be no native forest logging, but to protect the parrot they really dont have to do much, she says. At the moment they are doing nothing, really.

Asked about the report last week, the Tasmanian environment minister, Roger Jaensch, said cutting the legislated sawlog quota was not part of our thinking. He said the government had committed $1m to implement priorities from a swift parrot recovery plan and he was getting advice from officials on how that money should be spent. Weve already made significant changes to harvesting arrangements in areas where there is swift parrot habitat, Jaensch said.

Suzette Weeding, a general manager with Sustainable Timber Tasmania, says the current policy is a significant step forward in swift parrot protection, the agency recognises its responsibility as a land manager and a management plan including additional measures is being developed. She suggests the industrys economic circumstances have changed since it called for the sawlog quota to be reduced in 2016.

Sustainable Timber Tasmanias annual reports show it has posted an operating profit for the past four years. The economist John Lawrence says it would have recorded losses if not for accounting measures and government grants.

Dr Eric Woehler, an ecologist and the convenor of BirdLife Tasmania, says the government and agencys plans do not go far enough to halt the catastrophic decrease in parrot numbers, and the strength of the report is that it basically aligns with what the industry has asked for.

What it shows is that, with some strategic thinking and planning, we are in a position to ease the pressure on a critically endangered species, he says. Its not rocket science.

The only thing standing in the way, according to Woehler, is political unwillingness.

The problem is well-known, has been for decades, and weve seen a weakening of protection and a business-as-usual approach to land management in the state, he says. Its a recipe for the extinction of a species.

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Creative Time Organized a Forum for 8 Illustrious Thinkers to Imagine How Institutions Can Do Better. Heres What They Said – artnet News

Posted: at 11:56 pm

As an organization nearing 50 years of working with politically engaged artists, Creative Time is continually challenged to evolve to the political conditions we live in. Following decades of groundwork laid by artists and activists calling for systemic overhauls of our institutionsart and otherwiseand 2020s tipping point initiated by the pandemic and a resurgent uprising for racial justice and decolonization, we found ourselves questioning how to move past cycles of protest and reform and into long-term transformation.

Indeed, the extent to which nearly every issue we face today intersects with arts and cultural productionfrom gentrification and workers rights, to totalitarian violence and climate changeonly proves that siloing the arts from the rest of society is an illusion. Arts and culture should be not only illustrators or illuminators of justice or injustice, but necessary points of intervention.

This once-novel belief of the avant-garde has now broken through to the general public: a recent survey found 76 percent of U.S. respondents saying arts organizations have a responsibility to tackle social issues.And so, in 2021, we launched the Think Tank to ideate how transformation happens, and the role arts and culture can play in this change.

Following an open-call process, the final group included writer and scholar Che Gossett; choreographer and Indigenous rights organizer Emily Johnson; professor and writer Hentyle Yapp; professor and disability justice organizer Kevin Gotkin; curator La Tanya S. Autry; educator, curator, and director of the Critical Craft Theory program at Warren Wilson College Namita Wiggers; social practice programmer and cultural organizer Prerana Reddy; and poet and cultural organizer Sonia Guiansaca. Creative Time staffersDiya Vij and Alex Winters facilitated the sessions.

This week, we released the culmination of this labor, Invitations Toward Re-Worlding, in which we offer no easy answers or metrics for success, but instead a new framework for challenging the distinction between artistry and administration. Its our position that administrationthe processcan be just as creative, iterative, and generative as the art thats made. We refer to our framework asadministrative intervention. Here are a few examples of how this re-worlding might be approached.

We hear a lot about how institutions and organizations are in listening mode, paying attention to their audiences and the communities they impact, including their staffers. Question-asking and dialogue are critical, but must be approached, fundamentally, as a search for actionable answers; simply hearing is not the goal.

Autry, the cofounder of the #MuseumsAreNotNeutral movement, argues that liberation only happens when individuals understand each others meanings. To combat violent structural forces rooted in anti-Blackness, dialogue must move beyond simple conversation and toward collective action. As she says: Im stirring up energy for changing conditions, creating more of a true sense of us, leaning more into good trouble, to borrow that expression of the late Civil Rights activist John Lewis.

Similarly,Gotkin advocates for accessibility as an ecologynot just as a checklist or compliance act, but to benefit the whole of any space and its audience. This requires us to release the hypothetical. Instead of pursuing endless circles of abstraction about access design, we focus attempt to know more precisely who is involved. This requires us to speculate less about the needs of our communities, so that we actually discuss, adapt, and know their needs.

Reddy calls on organizations to re-evaluate how their budgets provide for the needs of artists and workers as people, and not only as producers. Can the institution provide healthcare, childcare, and housing? If thats not possible, how do budgets account for the time, flexibility, and resources needed to support the artist as a person? Does the budget allow for debrief and aftercare? Beyond budgets, what do overall salaries say about what and who you value?

This leads to changes beyond payments made for services rendered. InJohnsons Decolonization Rider, which outlines some necessary steps for organizational decolonization, she puts forward the idea of using a standard operating document that forces the contractor and contractee to come to terms around a shared understanding of values.

To a wider point, Johnson pushes for true budgetary accounting for the violence of settler colonialism through land-use fees or taxes to support local Indigenous land back or land preservation efforts.

Yapp suggests we reach beyond existing liberal paradigms that position the individual as the ideal subject for resistance and change. The art world, in particular, is steeped in the myth of singular greatness, though anyone working within it knows the legions of staff, studio assistants, and production and installation crews that accomplish any individual work.

Rather than dismantling this white supremacist myth of individual genius, a rare few exceptional individuals get identified as representatives of the well-beings of entire groups or communities. This allows institutions to continue perpetuating exclusionary, harmful, and demeaning systems under the pretense of progress and change.

Instead, we should work against rewarding exceptionalism at the expense of collective efforts, especially in long-marginalized communities, and instead promote holistic repairs with communities that have been excluded or under-valued.

Since concluding the Think Tank at the end of 2021, weve been working to develop and evolve our practices to better serve the artists we work with, and the communities were a part of.

Some of this takes the form of concrete plans: our commitments include (but are not limited to): staff cultural competency training; workshops with Indigenous and accomplice leaders; strategies to add Indigenous representation to Creative Times board, advisory councils, staff, and programming; continued prioritization of community-led safety and de-escalation services in place of the police; and working to implement a land-use fees or a land tax to fund local Indigenous and/or Black-led rematriation and reparation efforts.

Transformation demands continual and scalable action, so with the release of the Think Tanks study, the work is just beginning. This is why the Think Tank cohort has named its recommendations programming scores: a score may be planned, but only in practice is it performed. Every performance will differ.

What you will see at Creative Time in the next year and beyond is a move toward transforming our most elemental practices to bring us in better relations with the communities we encompass and work in. Yet the Think Tank didnt make Invitations Toward Re-Worlding for Creative Time, but for all of us. We are asking you to perform these scores with us, as a concrete step toward collective transformation.

Natasha L. Logan is the deputy director at Creative Time;Justine Ludwig is the executive director.

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Why Three Republicans Voted Against House Resolution Standing With Ukraine – Newsweek

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Speculation surrounds a trio of Republican lawmakers who were the only House members to vote against a resolution to support Ukraine's sovereignty.

The final tally on Wednesday was a near-unanimous vote of 426-3, with the House passing the resolution despite three "no" votes from Representatives Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). The trio have not released official statements on their votes, however, heavy criticism was quickly aimed at all three, with some politicians chastising them for voting against a resolution that received nearly complete bipartisan support.

Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), one of the most outspoken critics of the current state of his party, tweeted that the trio of no votes was "unreal," adding that "the bright side is over 400 voted yes."

"Dear Gosar, Rosendale, and Massie, you are not anti-war," Kinzinger said in a follow-up tweet.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) tweeted a response to the resolution, calling the no votes from the Republican congressmen "truly despicable behavior."

"Last night, the president spoke of America standing with the wall of strength that is the Ukrainian people," the DCCC said. "Just now, three House Republicans voted NO on a resolution in support of Ukraine."

Amidst the continuing criticism from both sides of the aisle, Massie and Rosendale do not appear to have released any responses to their votes. However, Gosar did reply to Kinzinger's tweet following the vote, saying: "Talk to me when our border is secure."

As the news of the vote made the rounds on social media, some accused the trio of congressmen of aligning with Russia, with one account calling them "pro-Putin MAGA traitors."

In particular, eyes shifted toward Massie and his past sentiments regarding foreign policy and the invasion of Ukraine. This includes his expected Democratic opponent in the upcoming midterms, Matthew Lehman, who tweeted that Massie was "an anarchist hellbent on dismantling a secure and prosperous world order" after he signed a letter urging President Joe Biden to seek congressional approval before engaging in military action.

"Your childish stunts endanger millions of Ukrainians and free people around the world," Lehman added.

Others on social media pointed toward Massie's alleged ties with Russia. In particular, a 2019 article from liberal think tank Think Progress said: "Massie's recent votes in Congress...see the congressman consistently siding with Russia's interests."

The article added that "Massie attended a lavish February 2017 dinner alongside Maria Butina, the Russian agent who...is potentially facing years in prison for serving as an unregistered foreign agent."

Massie has denied having any connections or ties to Russia, and his votes in Congress have been cited as being a result of his libertarian viewpoint.

The motion, H. Res 956, was titled "Supporting the people of Ukraine" and was sponsored by Representative Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. H. Res 956 stressed that "it is the right of all countries to decide their own future, foreign policy, and security arrangements free from outside interference or coercion."

"The House of Representatives demands an immediate cease-fire and the full withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukrainian territory," the resolution said, adding that the U.S. "supports, unequivocally, Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity."

"[The House] states unambiguously that it will never recognize or support any illegitimate Russian-controlled leader or government installed through the use of force, and that only the people of Ukraine can choose their leadership through free and fair democratic elections without foreign interference, intervention, or coercion," the resolution continued. "[The House] stands steadfastly, staunchly, proudly, and fervently behind the Ukrainian people in their fight against the authoritarian Putin regime."

Newsweek has reached out to Massie, Gosar and Rosendale for comment.

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Opinion: SWIFT kick aimed at Russia, but it also will hit the US dollar | Thomas L. Knapp – Reno Gazette Journal

Posted: at 11:54 pm

Thomas L. Knapp| Reno Gazette Journal

This opinion column was submitted by Thomas L. Knapp,director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism.

As part of the Westernresponse to Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, several regimes acted on Feb.26 to exclude certain Russian banks from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT)network. As of March 1, Reuters reports, SWIFT says it's awaiting a list of the sanctioned banks so that it can cut them off.

SWIFT is a messaging service that connects banks worldwide. It's not a bank itself. It's not even, strictly speaking, a payment network. It carries instructions for transfers, but the transfers take place via other networks. It's just one moving part in the world's complex finance and trade system.

As with most such measures, giving Russian banks the boot from SWIFTis certain to hurt the sanctioners along with the sanctioned. In this case, the potential victims with the most to lose arethe issuers and holders of U.S. dollars.

The dollar isn'tthe only currency that gets moved using SWIFT, but it's the de facto "global reserve currency" and thus the most affected by such moves. Nearly everyone accepts the dollar. Nearly everyone wants to have a fat stack of dollars on hand. In particular, global trade in oil has been powered by the "petrodollar" for nearly 50 years.

More: Could sanctions against Russia boomerang back on Americans?

If you want to buy a barrel of Brent crude from most sellers, you need to be able to plunk down (as I write this) 105.46 U.S. dollars. Not 395.72 Saudi riyals. Not 7,983.35 Indian rupees. Not 665.78 Chinese yuan. It's $105.46 or no sale.

What happens when one of the world's largest oil producers is 1) cut off from SWIFT; 2) doesn't want U.S. dollars as much as it used to because other sanctions make those dollarsdifficult to spend; and 3) has trading partners who are watching these sanctions and fear they could be the next victims? Well, this:

A "rupee-rouble trade arrangement may get a push now that Russia is out of SWIFT," reportsThe Times of India.China will presumably likewise increase its yuan-ruble trade with Russia.

The Times of India article reveals that this isn't a sudden development: "India had entered into a rupee-rouble trade arrangement with Russia earlier to shield the two nations from unilateral sanctions from the United States."

What makes the dollar valuable? The same thing that makes anything valuable: People wanting it. Between China and India, more than a quarter of the world's population are in the process of wanting the dollar less than they used to. That, in turn, makes every dollar in your pocket worth less than it once was.

In the short term, the SWIFT kick and other sanctions may hurt Russia more than they hurt you. But the uncontested reign of the U.S. dollar among global currencies seems to be nearing its end, in part because the U.S. government is driving the world away from it with the constant threat of sanctions.

The smart move for Americans? Hold as few dollars as you can get by on. Trade your dollars for gold, silverand cryptocurrency while they're still worth something, to someone, somewhere.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism. He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Edward Snowden Sends Out First Tweet Since Russia’s Ukraine Invasion Says This Is Why He Has Been Silent – Benzinga

Posted: at 11:54 pm

Former U.S intelligence consultant Edward Snowden,on Sunday, laid out the cause of his silence over Russias invasion of Ukraine.

What Happened: Snowden said he has lost confidence that sharing his thinking on this particular topic continues to be useful because he "called it wrong."

Snowden also took aim at people he described as "concern-trolling ghouls" in his tweet.

Why It Matters: On Feb. 19, Snowden had tweeted that the possibility of an attack on Kyiv was difficult for him to contemplate. Snowdens comments were made in response to President Joe Biden saying that an attack on the Ukrainian capital was days away.

At the time, he pointed out that Kyiv is bigger than Sarajevo, Grozny and Fallujah all cities that have experienced war in the preceding years.

President Vladimir Putin of Russia announced a Special Military Operation in Ukraine on Feb. 23, shortly after which explosions were heard in Kyiv.

Some commentators on Twitter called out Snowden for misreading the situationbut he receive word of support from the Libertarian Party of Tennessee.

Despite the relative silence of some like Snowdenon the Russia-Ukraine war, companies like Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL), Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: FB), and Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) have been responding to Russias aggression against its neighbor.

Several Russian-born personalities like Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) co-creator Vitalik Buterin and Chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov have also voiced their opposition against the ongoing conflict.

Read Next: As Ukraine's Wealthy Scrambled To Buy Crypto Ahead Of Russian Invasion, Tether Became More Valuable Than Dollar

Photo: Courtesy of Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia

2022 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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A Micronation by Zaha Hadid Architects Is Forming in the Metaverse – Surface Magazine

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In 2015, the libertarian Czech politician Vt Jedlicka founded the Free Republic of Liberland on three square miles of uninhabited and disputed land between Croatia and Serbia. The micronation lacks infrastructure, diplomatic recognition, and entry from its neighboring countries, but is quickly taking shape in the metaverse thanks to a dramatic virtual scheme by Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) principal Patrik Schumacher. In his eyes, the would-be country is a futuristic oasis sporting a buzzy NFT trading room and sweeping office towers, all rendered in Hadids trademark style of parametricism. It was time to turn ideas into something more concrete, Jedlicka tells Quartz. Its important to show to the world that were serious about starting development in Liberland.

Jedlicka and Schumacher both intend for Liberlands ambitious virtual architecture to become a template for the micronations eventual physical presence. It will also serve as a testing ground for ZHAs ongoing exploration of parametricism, uninhibited by budgets, physics, or safety codes. For this reason, Schumacher insists that architecture firmsespecially younger onesshould take the metaverse seriously in its nascent stages. (The firm recently presented NFTism, a virtual gallery during Art Basel Miami Beach that explored social interaction and architecture in the metaverse.) Speculated to be a multitrillion-dollar opportunity and one of the biggest disruptions to humanity, the network of virtual worlds has been criticized as overhyped and a nightmare to regulate.

Regardless, Liberlands promise of a digital paradise seems to be catching onmore than 7,000 e-citizens have signed up on the platform Mytaverse with 780,000 applications in the backlog. While the end goal of achieving international recognition from most of the UNs member states still seems far off, Jedlika recently cut a deal with Haiti and was recognized by Somaliland a few years ago.

Surface Says: Micronations have been a trivial curiosity since they first emerged in the 1970s. Will the virtual version finally gain real traction? Were not sure what Liberlands prospects are for the future, but recreating it in the physical world with Zaha Hadid Architects seems like a pipe dreamnot unlike the widely mocked Cryptoland cartoon that portrayed a private Fijian island as a crypto-utopia. (Though its definitely worth a hate watch!)

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Abolition newspaper revived for nation grappling with racism – The Miami Times

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Americas first newspaper dedicated to ending slavery is being resurrected and reimagined more than two centuries later as the nation continues to grapple with its legacy of racism.

The revived version of The Emancipator is a joint effort by Boston Universitys Center for Antiracist Research and The Boston Globes Opinion team thats expected to launch in the coming months.

Deborah Douglas and Amber Payne, co-editors-in-chief of the new online publication, say it will feature written and video opinion pieces, multimedia series, virtual talks and other content by respected scholars and seasoned journalists. The goal, they say, is to reframe the national conversation around racial injustice.

Deborah Douglas, Co-editor of The Emancipator

I like to say its anti-racism, every day, on purpose, said Douglas, who joined the project after working as a journalism professor at DePauw University in Indiana. We are targeting anyone who wants to be a part of the solution to creating an anti-racist society because we think that leads us to our true north, which is democracy.

The original Emancipator was founded in 1820 in Jonesborough, Tenn., by iron manufacturer Elihu Embree, with the stated purpose to advocate the abolition of slavery and to be a repository of tracts on that interesting and important subject, according to a digital collection of the monthly newsletter at the University of Tennessee library.

Before Embrees untimely death from a fever ended its brief run later that year, The Emancipator reached a circulation of more than 2,000, with copies distributed throughout the South and in northern cities like Boston and Philadelphia that were centers of the abolition movement.

Douglas and Payne say drawing on the papers legacy is appropriate now because it was likely difficult for Americans to envision a country without slavery back then, just as many people today likely cant imagine a nation without racism. The new Emancipator was announced last March, nearly a year after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in May 2020 sparked social justice movements worldwide.

Those abolitionists were considered radical and extreme, Douglas said. But thats part of our job as journalists providing those tools, those perspectives that can help them imagine a different world.

Other projects have also recently come online taking the mantle of abolitionist newspapers, including The North Star, a media site launched in 2019 by civil rights activist Shaun King and journalist Benjamin Dixon thats billed as a revival of Frederick Douglass influential anti-slavery newspaper.

Douglas said The Emancipator, which is free to the public and primarily funded through philanthropic donations, will stand out because of its focus on incisive commentary and rigorous academic work. The publications staff, once its ramped up, will largely eschew the typical quick turnaround, breaking news coverage, she said.

This is really deep reporting, deep research and deep analysis thats scholarly driven but written at a level that everyone can understand, Douglas said. Everybody is invited to this conversation. We want it to be accessible, digestible and, hopefully, actionable.

Amber Payne, Co-editor of The Emancipator

The publication also hopes to serve as a bulwark against racist misinformation, with truth-telling explanatory videos and articles, she added. Itll take a critical look at popular culture, film, music and television and, as the pandemic eases, look to host live events around Boston.

Every time someone twists words, issues, situations or experiences, we want to be there like whack-a-mole, whacking it down with the facts and the context, Douglas said.

Another critical focus of the publication will be spotlighting solutions to some of the nations most intractable racial problems, added Payne, who joined the project after working as a managing editor at BET.com and an executive producer at Teen Vogue.

There are community groups, advocates and legislators who are really taking matters into their own hands so how do we amplify those solutions and get those stories told? she said. At the academic level, theres so much scholarly research that just doesnt fit into a neat, 800-word Washington Post op-ed. It requires more excavation. It requires maybe a multimedia series. Maybe it needs a video. So we think that we are really uniquely positioned.

The project has already posted a couple of representative pieces. To mark the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, The Emancipator published an interview with a Harvard social justice professor and commentary from a Boston College poetry professor.

It also posted on social media a video featuring Ibram X. Kendi, founding director of BUs anti-racism center and author of How to be an Antiracist, reflecting on white supremacy. Kendi co-founded the project with Bina Venkataraman, editor-at-large at The Boston Globe.

And while the new Emancipator is primarily focused on the Black community, Douglas and Payne stress it will also tackle issues facing other communities of color, such as the rise in anti-Asian hate during the global coronavirus pandemic.

They argue The Emancipators mission is all the more critical now as the debate over how racism is taught has made schools the latest political battleground.

Our country is so polarized that partisanship is trumping science and trumping historical records, Payne said. These ongoing crusades against affirmative action, against critical race theory are not going away. That drumbeat is continuing and so therefore our drumbeat needs to continue.

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Edelweiss by Above the Treeline Launches Employee Bookclub Aimed at Helping to Dismantle Systemic Inequities – Digital Journal

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Edelweiss by Above the Treeline Launches Employee Bookclub Aimed at Helping to Dismantle Systemic Inequities Through Discovery, Awareness, Commitment

ANN ARBOR, Mich. March 2, 2022 (Newswire.com)

Above the Treeline Edelweiss+, the online platform that serves as the primary hub for publishers to market, promote and sell their titles, announced the creation of the Legacy Book Club. The Legacy Book Club is designed for employees to engage in critical and reflective dialogue. This company-wide investment is part of an organizational commitmentto address systemic inequities both internally and externally.

John Rubin, CEO & President of Above the Treeline, states, Two enthusiastic employees came to us with the idea for this book club, and the organization has really rallied around it. We sit at the hub of an industry whose core is about understanding different perspectives and pushing folks to go beyond narrow views of the world. This book club is a great opportunity to live those values internally.

In January 2022, employees read Abolition. Feminism. Now. by leading scholar-activists Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, Erica R. Meiners, and Beth E. Richie. This newly released title is described as a celebration of freedom work, a movement genealogy, a call to action, and a challenge to those who think of abolition and feminism as separateeven incompatiblepolitical projects. During the January Legacy Book Club session, three of the authors Davis, Dent, and Richie joined to discuss perspectives and answer questions.

Nikki Siclare, Senior Help Desk and Education Specialist at Above the Treeline, is a co-founder of the Legacy Book Club. In describing why Abolition. Feminism. Now. was the obvious inaugural choice for the club, Siclare states, The conversations on abolition are growing and changing every day, and we respect the idea of unlearning in order to gain new ways to better our communities. Deidre Dumpson, Retail and Library Client Success Manager and Legacy Book Club co-founder, adds, In order to innovate and create radical change, weengage to listenrespectfully andactively with an ear to understanding others views and collectively form new ideas and ways of being.

The Legacy Book Club is an organic extension, associated with Ascend (Formerly Treeline2020), of the mindset throughout Above the Treeline. The mission of Ascend is to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in publishing and technology industries. This is done by investing in organizations that are already doing this work well, supplying access through internships and scholarships, and amplifying underrepresented voices.

Annie Rubin, President of Above the Treeline, explains, It is not optional to dismantle systemic racism, address climate change, and support LGBTQIA+ individuals. It is an integral part of our company mission and how we choose to make an impact in our world.

Edelweiss by Above the Treeline empowers the book publishing industry with marketing, sales, and business intelligence tools that make the journey from author to reader more efficient. Over 200,000 book professionals engage in the community and utilize the platform to discover titles and manage the processes that keep them competitive. The company has been privately owned since 2002 and based in Ann Arbor, MI. For more information, visitwww.abovethetreeline.com.

Media Contact:Amanda Murphy, Marketing Director918.210.8343 (cell)[emailprotected]

Press Release ServicebyNewswire.com

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Book explains long process of emancipation through eyes of formerly enslaved woman – UB Now: News and views for UB faculty and staff – University at…

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A new book by UB historian Carole Emberton explores emancipation through the stories of a formerly enslaved woman born in the antebellum South.

Pricilla Joyners life before and after the Civil War provides personal details of the emotional, political, social and familial experiences of someone who traveled what historians now call the long emancipation as part of an extended search for belonging.

Emberton, associate professor of history, College of Arts and Sciences, will discuss her book, To Walk About in Freedom: The Long Emancipation of Pricilla Joyner, at 6 p.m. March 9 at the Buffalo History Museum, 1 Museum Court, near Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo.

Admission is pay what you wish.

There were approximately 4.5 million people enslaved in the United States in 1865, but slaverys end did not arrive swiftly with the Civil Wars conclusion or the signing two years earlier of the Emancipation Proclamation. Slaverys death spanned decades of struggle and full emancipation remains, as Emberton writes, an unfulfilled promise.

Emancipation was a profoundly personal experience and the legacies of slavery were long-lasting, says Emberton. Freedom did not simply arrive for those who were enslaved thats not what happened. Slavery came to an end through an extended and fraught process, and what Pricillas story tells us is that for many people emancipation was a journey that spanned an entire lifetime after slavery.

Joyners story sat largely dormant, a fragmented chronicle told to Thelma Dunston, one of the writers charged with collecting the life histories of everyday Americans, including former slaves, as part of the Federal Writers Project (FWP), a Depression-era initiative that grew out of the Works Progress Administration beginning in 1935.

Emberton was working with this archive to learn what the people of emancipations charter generation had to say about freedom and what they did to recreate their lives after slavery. When Emberton discovered Joyners story, she immediately saw it as the anchor of a book that could provide light to emancipation in a story told through Joyners eyes.

I was touched by the personal nature of Pricillas story, says Emberton. When people think about emancipation and the end of slavery, theyre usually thinking about things like civil rights and voting rights, which are very important, but the story Pricilla tells in the FWP archive is the story about family, finding a home, and searching for a place where she belongs.

Joyners journey began when she was 12, when she goes to live with a community of freed slaves. Its here that Emberton says Joyner finds acceptance, love, a spouse and the beginning of family. Its not her whole story, since the historical record about Joyner contains too many gaps for what might be considered a biography. To Walk About in Freedom is a book Emberton calls more of a microhistory, a small book about big things. Its a book about obstacles that the legal abolition of slavery never dismantled, but its also a story of joy realized through the creation of families and communities.

All the stories on the long road to emancipation are unique, but there are overlapping themes, where to live, and how to find family and build community, says Emberton. The answers were always different, but individuals often worked with the same set of questions, and that created a commonality.

That readers have Joyners story today results from her overcoming reluctance about being interviewed on the subject of slavery and emancipation. I dont like to talk about it to folks, she admitted to her interviewer, Thelma Dunston, but dont mind telling it for the work you are doing. If it will do any good to have my life in a book, you can use it.

Joyners story never made it to a history book until now thanks to Embertons work.

These stories will give readers a ground level view of emancipation, she says. These are powerful, heart-wrenching stories that are not widely known.

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What Does the Bible Say About Prisons? – Sojourners

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The gospel message of liberation and reconciliation should push us toward the abolitionof prisons and policing. Here are 10 Bible passages that help us wrestle with questions of mass incarceration, criminalization, and violence:

Jesus mission statement when he begins his public ministry in Galilee includes a promise of liberation and release for those who are incarcerated. While the New Testament context of captivity wasnt entirely the same as modern imprisonment, Jesus promise aligns liberation of prisoners with healing and good news for the poor and oppressed. Taking Jesus words in this text seriously forces us to ask: If Gods reign is characterized by freedom for prisoners, why are we supporting incarceration now?

The story of Joseph contains a promise of Gods fidelity throughout Josephs incarceration. God never leaves Joseph, and eventually vindicates him. Meanwhile, the stories of the two men imprisoned with Joseph Pharaohs baker and cupbearer highlight the arbitrary nature of incarceration, as one is freed and the other executed. As civil rights lawyerBryan Stevenson says, our current system treats you better if youre rich and guilty than poor and innocent. This is the inevitable result of a system that exists to serve the interests of the powerful.

The prophet Jeremiah is an early political prisoner. Before the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, he is imprisoned because he tells King Zedekiah that God wants him to surrender to the Babylonians so Jerusalem will be spared. Jeremiahs imprisonment reminds us that incarceration is fundamentally a tool of power. In our times, too, people who oppose the powerful in ways that are declared illegal from whistleblowerChelsea Manningto water protectors at Standing Rockto Black Lives Matter protesters face prison.

Daniel and his three friends Azariah, Hananiah, and Mishael (the Jewish names for Shadrach, Mishach, and Abednego) present examples of civil disobedience and another reminder that legality is not the measure of morality.In these stories, the Jewish exiles in Babylon refuse to obey laws designed to interfere with their religious practice and are punished by the state for it: Daniel is thrown into the lions den, and Azariah, Hananiah, and Mishael are cast into a fiery furnace. Their words to King Nebuchadnezzar we have no need to present a defense to you in this matter (Daniel 3:16) are a sign of their fidelity to God to deliver them, but also a challenge to the very legitimacy of punishment from an unjust state. When our systems of prisonsand policinglead to unjust and raciallydisparate outcomes for marginalized people and communities, we can also say in response: [W]e have no need to present a defense to you in this matter. Our current system of mass-incarceration-as-racial-control is not the arbiter of justice.

Jesus public ministry begins after John [the Baptist] was put in prison (Mark 1:14). Jesus preaches the coming kingdom of God under the shadow of that arrest. And when John, from prison, asks Jesus for a sign of whether he is the Messiah, Jesus response points to practices of solidarity and liberation that he is already enacting in the world (Matthew 11:4-6).

We, like John, see signs of hope and solidarity already being enacted among those who are criminalized and incarcerated such as organizing by groups like the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committeeand grassroots prisoner support organizations led by incarcerated people and their loved ones like the California Coalition for Women Prisoners. This is a potent reminder that abolition begins with smaller acts of liberative hope.

Swiss theologian Karl Barth writesthat the criminals crucified along with Jesus formed the first certain Christian community. As U.S. theologian and abolitionist Rev. Nikia Smith Robert writes, Jesus proximity to criminals and his position of criminality make the cross and resurrection a site of retribution and resistance that points to the possibilities of transformation of our system of mass incarceration. In other words, Jesus crucifixion as a criminal, among criminals, sets God ultimately on the side of those who are criminalized.

Peter is miraculously released from prison twice in the book of Acts. In considering this story as Christians, we must be careful and take its description of the religious authorities with some reservation, remembering that it was composed in the context of Jewish-Gentile schisms in the first century. The New Testaments villainization of Jewish leaders has had violent consequences throughout Christian history. The point here is not to condemn the high priest or the Sadducees, or to draw an exact parallel between the prison Peter was in and our modern prison-industrial complex but instead to recognize God's liberating action within the story. The liberating work of God makes Peters story resonate with contemporary abolitionist efforts.

Paul and Silas are also imprisoned while preaching by the Romans, in their case, and after being accused by a slaveholder whose wealth they had threatened. Their incarceration is clearly the result of challenging an established order of power. While they are in prison, God again miraculously opens the doors and breaks the chains in the prison.

Paul and Silas dont escape but instead stay in order to protect the life of the jailer, and then convert him. This story, while it again shows Gods liberating power in the face of incarceration, can complicate our search for an abolitionist narrative in the Bible. Yet perhaps it demonstrates the varieties of forms solidarity and resistance can take within carceral settings. The power of God is present in the singing of hymns in the prison and among those who are incarcerated; prisonis where the jailer finds God. Abolition unlike criminal justice reform must be driven by the needs and priorities of incarcerated people and those who love them, because that is where the liberating power of God is present.

What do we do about harm and violence without prisons? Abolitionists turn to restorative justiceand transformative justice, methods of dealing with interpersonal harm by meeting the needs of those harmed within a community. The New Testament offers support for this work in Matthew 18, as activist theologian Ched Myers and restorative justice practitionerElaine Enns write. The admonition to protect little ones (Matthew 18:6), they explain, requires we prioritize the needs of those who have been harmed or who are at risk of harm, especially when they have less power in a situation (a key insight of transformative justice); the parable of the lost sheep (Matthew 18:1114) reminds us that God doesnt want anyone thrown away or excluded, regardless of what they have done (a foundational value of restorative justice).

A word of warning: Treating Matthew 18:1520 as a process to follow is dangerous, especially if it ignores power dynamics in situations of harm or abuse! Supporting those who have been harmed must always take priority in our practices of restorative and transformative justice. Nonetheless, this chapter as a whole supports values of safety and restoration, and teaches us that God is with us in the process of what abolitionists Mariame Kaba and Shira Hassan call fumbling towards repair.

Jesus description of the final judgment offers the last word on incarceration, and although this appears in the gospel of Matthew, its a fitting ending because its a picture of the end times. Jesus identifies himself with those who are criminalized and incarcerated, and even promises that our solidarity with them is what determines our eternal destiny.

As biblical scholar Lee Griffithwrites, when we act in solidarity with those in prison, It is not that we find God there; it is that God finds us there. We can honor Gods identification with those who are criminalized and imprisoned when we commit ourselves to abolition.

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What Does the Bible Say About Prisons? - Sojourners

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