Category Archives: New Utopia

We're all familiar with hard-boiled Christian clergy who rail against the sins of other people and with culture-wars lobbyists who push restrictive laws against what they see as society's larger evils.

What often strikes their critics is the disconnection between the gospel they claim they're defending and the human foibles so visible in their own lives.

Of course, outspoken Christians aren't the only people to preach one thing and do another. That's a problem endemic to the human race. It's just more noticeable when it comes from self-proclaimed spokespeople for God.

One of my favorite spiritual writers, the Catholic contemplative Richard Rohr, addressed this problem recently in a series of devotions taken from his earlier writings.

In these devotions, Rohr suggests a radical path for the religious: learn to live your beliefs so fully you don't have to talk about them -- and then let others infer from your example what they will, without direct input from you. I offer up his observations as food for thought.

The core principle of Rohr's Center for Action and Contemplation is taken from the teachings of St. Francis of Assisi (11821226): "The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better."

In one devotion, "The Joy of Not Counting," Rohr hearkens back to Francis, who chose a remarkable approach to improving himself and maybe in the process quietly nudging the larger culture toward its own betterment as well. See tinyurl.com/3z8b7ra3

Francis arrived on the scene "in the pivotal period when Western civilization began to move into rationality, functionality, consumerism, and perpetual war," Rohr writes.

He was the product of that same complicated culture, but as his faith developed, he began to rethink his assumptions.

"Rather than fighting the systems directly and risk becoming their mirror image, Francis just did things differently," Rohr says. "He moved from the common economy of merit to the wondrous economy of grace, where God does not do any counting, but only gives unreservedly."

As the West entered a long, still ongoing cycle of economic production and consumption that would, by our time, threaten the whole planet, Francis chose to love nature and go about barefoot.

"Francis didn't bother questioning Church doctrines and dogmas," Rohr says. "He just took the imitation of Christ seriously and tried to live the way that Jesus lived."

To him, serious believers should function primarily as living, breathing, organic practitioners of Christ-likeness rather than what the contemporary Pope Francis has called "word police," "inspectors" or "museum curators."

Rohr summarizes Francis' tenets: "As the popular paraphrase of a line from Francis's Rule goes, 'Preach the gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.'"

In a subsequent devotion, "Living What We Are 'For,'" Rohr takes this idea a step further. See tinyurl.com/yeyphksr

To become spiritually effective, he suggests, people who claim to be followers of Jesus should practice what Rohr calls "non-idolatry ... the withdrawing of our enthrallment from all kingdoms except the kingdom of God."

This nonattachment is more peaceable, and more effective to boot, than constantly lashing out at everybody who isn't part of your particular sect or political party.

"Nonattachment (freedom from loyalties to human-made, domination systems) is the best way I know of protecting people from religious zealotry or any kind of antagonistic thinking or behavior," Rohr writes.

Mainly, Christians shouldn't be obsessed with all the things they're against.

That's a pet peeve of mine, if you want to know: those activists, religious or not, Right or Left, who define themselves by the people and things they hate, never by what they love.

"There is nothing to be against," Rohr argues. "Just keep concentrating on the Big Thing you are for!"

We've gotten so much of Christianity backward, he says.

In the New Testament, St. Paul taught that Christians "were supposed to live inside of an alternative society, almost a utopia, and from such fullness 'go to the world,'" Rohr says.

"Instead, we created a model whereby people live almost entirely in the world, fully invested in its attitudes toward money, war, power, and gender -- and sometimes 'go to church.' This doesn't seem to be working!"

This could be why church membership and attendance are declining:

"Some new studies indicate that Christians are not as much leaving Christianity as they are realigning with [alternative] groups that live Christian values in the world -- instead of just gathering again to hear the readings, recite the creed, and sing songs on Sunday."

Such alternative groups include support groups, prayer groups, study groups, house-building projects and the like, he says.

Now this is a radical concept, isn't it?

What if we who hold what we believe to be Christian views quit trying to push our agenda on others -- and instead concentrated on trying to live our own lives like Jesus lived his life, full of acceptance, mercy and faith? What if we sought to broaden our own relationship with the Lord more than we sought to judge everybody else's relationships? What if we felt more allegiance to the kingdom of God than to some earthly political agenda?

Why, I imagine we'd not only become better disciples, but we'd be more effective at spreading the faith. We'd say less, but accomplish way more.

Paul Prather is pastor of Bethesda Church near Mount Sterling, Ky. You can email him at

pratpd@yahoo.com

See the original post:

Live what you preach so you don't have to preach - Arkansas Online

If Netflix is no longer the ne plus ultra in streaming services, as subscriber losses in Q1 and 2 have suggested, then which platform is poised to take its place? One of the strongest contenders is HBO Max. Not only did the Warner hub and its sister brand HBO rack up a combined total of 140 Emmy nominations a few weeks back, besting every competitor including Netflix, but it also topped Vultures annual streaming-service power rankings. So it doesnt come as too much of a surprise that my roundup of Julys best new shows is also dominated by HBO and HBO Max. From Nathan Fielders latest off-the-wall social experiment to Issa Raes latest comedy about young women struggling to realize their dreams to Ethan Hawkes guided tour of an iconic Hollywood marriage, the streamer covered lots of tantalizing ground this month. Also on the list: two of the years best sci-fi offerings to date. And if youre looking for even more recommendations, here are my top 10 shows from the first half of 2022.

Hollywood has a biopic problem. Theres no shortage of movies or TV shows that chronicle the real lives of notable peoplethats for sure. But whether they take the form of documentaries or dramatizations, features or series, too many of these biographies ring hollow. Maybe they dutifully touch on each highlight of their subjects lives, but rarely do they move past shallow reminiscences to create a compelling, specific portrait of the icon in question. Who were they? What did they live for? How did they change over the course of decades? What did they mean to the people who loved them, and vice versa?

Its easy to forget that such depth and clarity is possible in an onscreen biography until you encounter an exceptional one like The Last Movie Stars. Recruited by the children of Hollywood legends Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward to tell the story of their parents 50-year marriage, director Ethan Hawke also had access to a trove of interview transcripts from a memoir Newman had planned to write. (He burned the audio tapes in 1998 and died a decade later.) So, in the midst of the pandemic, he tapped a slew of actor pals to bring the interviewees words to life, casting George Clooney as Newman and Laura Linney as Woodward. We find out just how amorous their romance could beand how capable they were of hurting each other. These revealing monologues by the couple, their friends, fellow actors, directors, and other contemporaries form the spine of the 6-part series; an episode 2 conversation with Woodwards high school sweetheart, voiced by Steve Zahn, is a showstopper. But for all the awe he expresses over each performers body of work, Hawke has no interest in sugarcoating their story. Particularly through his heart-to-heart chats with their kids, Movie Stars confronts the selfishness, competition, bad parenting, and miscellaneous pain that lay beneath their perfect image. The effect isnt to tear these idols down but to reveal their essential humanity.

[Read Stephanie Zachareks review.]

Why would a person ever willingly leave utopia? For the citizens of Moonhaven, a verdant, peaceful community nestled in 500 square miles of the moon, the answer is: in order to save the world. The year is 2201. Earth has been ravaged by climate change, war, and a cascade of related plagues. Now, the only hope for humanity lies with the so-called Mooners, whove spent more than a century building a kinder, more sustainable society. Sci-fi thriller Moonhaven opens just two weeks before a crucial event known as the Bridge, in which the first wave of Mooners will relocate to Earth to help their terrestrial brethren heal the planet.

Its at this moment that the lunar utopia starts to look less perfect. First, a young woman, Chill (Nina Barker-Francis), is murdered. Then, two hilariously ill-prepared Moonhaven detectives, Paul (Dominic Monaghan, a.k.a. Charlie from Lost) and Arlo (Kadeem Hardison, a.k.a. A Different Worlds unforgettable Dwayne Wayne), discover a strange connection between Chill and a pilot, Bella Sway (a taciturn Emma McDonald), who has just arrived from Earth with the powerful envoy Indira (Amara Karan from The Night Of) and Indiras bodyguard Tomm (True Bloods Joe Manganiello, playing a sentient snarl) to aid in final preparations for the Bridge. As an Earther with a violent past and a sideline in smuggling, Bella arouses the suspicion of the colonys leadersincluding Maite (Ayelet Zurer of Losing Alice), a council chair with big mother-goddess energy who is beloved by her people. Yet in Moonhaven, a philosophical near-future epic whose ambitious ideas compensate for sometimes-flimsy execution, characters tend to be more complicated than they seem. [Read the full review.]

Hours before dawn on Nov. 1, 1988, four suburban middle-school girls venture out to deliver newspapers and dodge threats from teen bullies slinking home after a long night of Halloween mischief. In search of the boys who stole their walkie talkie, they bust into an under-construction house, come face-to-face with a pair of apparent mutants, and flee into deserted streets under an angry, unnaturally fuchsia sky. Instead of fighting bullies, theyre caught in some cosmic war.

Paper Girls sounds a lot like Stranger Thingsbut for girls! And if thats what gets you to watch, so much the better. But this coming-of-age sci-fi series, based on a comic written by Brian K. Vaughan (best known for Y: The Last Man and Saga) and illustrated by veteran artist Cliff Chiang, tells a more focused, character-driven story that is particularly refreshing on the heels of the Netflix epics bloated fourth season. [Read the full review.]

Issa Rae created one of TVs realest bonds in the rocky relationship between Insecures flailing heroine Issa Dee (Rae) and her high-achieving, unlucky-in-love best friend Molly Carter (Yvonne Orji). Now, just months after that show culminated in an emotional tribute to the two characters friendship, Rae is back with another comedy about young women chasing dreams together. Shawna (Aida Osman) is a conscious rapper who dropped out of college to pursue a big break that never came and is now working the concierge desk at a hotel in her hometown of Miami. Her high school buddy Mia (KaMillion) supports a young daughter by cobbling together makeup-artist gigs and OnlyFans proceeds. When the stars align for the formerly estranged friends to form a fast-rising rap duo, they turn out to be the perfect combination of lyrical insight and bad-bitch energy.

From the lived-in dialogue to the female-gaze sex scenes, Raes voicereinforced by a writing staff that includes several Insecure alumsis unmistakable in Rap Sh!t. With JT and Yung Miami of the real South Florida hip-hop duo City Girls onboard as executive producers and The Read podcaster Kid Fury in the writers room, it also captures the pleasures and pain points of being a female MC in an era when more women than ever are climbing the rap charts. More surprising is the shows insightful use of social media. By weaving self-shot videos and livestreams into the fabric of each episode, Rae evokes an existencenot just in the entertainment industry, but also as a regular 20-somethingwhere people are always performing their allegedly real lives for an audience and surveilling lovers, friends, and rivals.

[Read an essay on Rap Sh!t and TVs newfound love of girl bands.]

This brilliant, brain-breaking series once again puts Nathan for You mastermind Nathan Fielder at the service of people with problems they feel incapable of solving on their own. But this time around the predicaments are more personal than entrepreneurial, and the Fielder who hosts, narrates, directs, and writes or co-writes each episode comes off as a more authentic representation of the real Fielderor, at least, a more authentic facsimile of a real human beingthan that inscrutable Nathan for You guy. In fact, the shows conceit is that it pulls back the curtain on its predecessor, using Fielders over-the-top social-engineering methods to help people overcome the stumbling blocks in their lives. [Read the full review.]

More Must-Read Stories From TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com.

See the rest here:

Best TV Shows July 2022: What Our Critic Loved - TIME

Tim Vandenack, Standard-Examiner

WEST HAVEN UTOPIA Fiber, operator of open-access fiber-optic networks in numerous cities across Utah, is most likely on its way to West Haven, expanding the broadband options for city residents.

The West Haven City Council last Wednesday unanimously approved an accord with the Utah Infrastructure Agency, or UIA, to build the $17.6 million network, which would be accessible by all homes and businesses in the city when complete. The UIA is a sister agency to UTOPIA, and UTOPIA officials, who crafted the agreement with West Haven officials, are to formally consider the accord at a meeting on Aug. 8.

Its hugely important because we want to be fair to every part of the city, West Haven Mayor Rob Vanderwood said Tuesday. That is, city leaders want to make sure high-speed internet, currently lacking in some areas, is available in all corners of the city.

Presuming UTOPIA officials OK the agreement, as expected, West Haven would become the first Weber County city to be fully built out with a UTOPIA system. Around 20 Utah cities in all have or are getting UTOPIA networks, including West Point, Clearfield and Syracuse, among others, in Davis County. Officials in other Weber County cities, including North Ogden and South Ogden, have also talked with UTOPIA reps, though they havent reached accord for action.

Construction in West Haven would start by the end of 2022 or early 2023, according to Kim McKinley, UTOPIAs chief marketing officer, and take no more than two years, probably less.

Accessibility to high-speed internet has become an increasing topic of debate in Weber County and beyond as demand grows and critics charge that networks of incumbent operators like Xfinity arent extensive enough. West Haven officials had been debating the issue for about a year and a half before taking action last week.

The pandemic changed how we do business and how we teach our kids, making accessibility to high-speed internet even more important, Nina Morse, a member of the West Haven City Council, said in a message to the Standard-Examiner. We have areas of the city where folks cant access internet at all. This changes that. Now every resident will be able to connect to not just internet, but high speed internet. Definitely a game changer here.

UTOPIA, owned by the communities with networks, operates open-access systems, which means private telecom firms that actually provide internet tap into its fiber to provide the service to the public.The standard operating procedure calls for bonding to cover network construction costs by UIA, backed by the particular city where the system is going in. Subscriber revenue is tapped to cover bond costs, thus requiring no out-of-pocket costs by cities.

In the case of West Haven, 3,612 subscribers would be needed to create the needed revenue stream to cover bonding costs for the $17.6 million network. Officials think theyll be able to hit the mark. I think well be able to hit it early, Vanderwood said.

West Haven City Manager Matt Jensen echoed that, noting that the network would be available to the commercial sector. He also noted the many apartments and townhomes taking shape in the city additional potential customers as well as the rapid growth of late in West Haven, one of Utahs fastest-growing locales.

West Haven officials polled city residents as part of the process in determining whether to seek a new internet option, with more than 93% of respondents saying they backed the notion of adding broadband. It was a resounding We need the service,' Jensen said.

Strata Networks also put forward a proposal for development of a fiber-optic network in West Haven. Under the Strata scheme, West Haven would have owned the network, though the firm would have helped manage it.

Join thousands already receiving our daily newsletter.

Follow this link:

West Haven OKs accord to build UTOPIA fiber-optic network in city - Standard-Examiner

Travis Scott has shared his first song as a primary artist since last November, teaming up with NAV to deliver the Lil Baby-assisted Never Sleep.

The song produced by Tay Keith and Grayson, with co-production from Mike Dean serves as the lead single from NAVs upcoming fourth album, Demons Protected By Angels, which according to a press release, will be coming soon.

He and Scott share the songs chorus, rapping: Geeked, never sleep / Stretch a hundred to millions in weeks / Got her runnin and ridin for me / Where its sunny we gotta retreat / Straight from London, she out in the East / Let her shop and she keep the receipts / Dont you tell him you got it from me / After this, Ima need therapy.

I been buildin up my legacy / Hundreds on hundreds, on fold / I been up so far, somewhere / Stuck at the top and its nowhere to go.

Take a look at the lyric video for Never Sleep below:

Aside from an uncredited guest feature on Kanye Wests Donda 2 cut Pablo, Scott has had a relatively quiet year on the release front. Back in April, though, he appeared on the single Hold That Heat alongside Future and 808 Mafia producer Southside. His last headlined release was the double A-side of Mafia and Escape Plan, which landed last November as the first previews of his upcoming Utopia album.

The rapper is still making a gradual comeback to the spotlight following last years Astroworld tragedy, where 10 people were killed in a crowd surge during his headline set. Hes performed a handful of times since then, appearing at a pre-Oscars party in March and a Coachella afterpartyin April, before delivering a public show at a Miami nightclub in May. Later that month, he performed at the 2022 Billboard Music Awards.

Last week, Scott made a surprise appearance with Future at this years Rolling Loud Miami festival. The two performed Hold That Heat together, before Scott did a medley of his own tracks including Antidote, No Bystanders and Goosebumps. At the end of the set, they teamed up once more to perform March Madness.

Earlier this month, Scott opened for Meek Mill in Brooklyn, and momentarily stopped his set to address safety concerns. At one point in the show, some fans climbed up a lighting truss this prompted Scott to stop the show and tell them to get down. In a statement shared after the performance, a representative for Scott said the rapper was committed to doing his part to ensure events are as safe as possible.

Next month, Scott will perform two headline shows at the O2 in London, which will mark his first headline shows since the Astroworld tragedy. Then, in November, he will headline Primavera Sounds inaugural Brazil, Chile and Argentina editions.

Read the original:

Travis Scott and NAV join forces with Lil Baby for new single 'Never Sleep' - NME

Most "buildings" in The Line are in the 500m-high walls, with public space and facilities like this sports stadium between them. Note the mirror glass on the outside of the wall.

Finally, someone has invented the future. And it's none other than Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia! In his new city, everyone will live very closely together, with all their daily needs work, school, community activities, recreation within a five-minute walk.

Every home will have great views. Energy and water will be 100 per cent renewable, temperatures will be fully controlled and autonomous machines will do everything from shopping to cleaning the apartments. There could be an artificial moon.

It's called The Line: a "revolution in civilisation" designed to "protect and enhance nature" and by 2030 this extraordinary city could largely be built. The design is by Morphosis Architects, a US-based firm founded by Pritzker Prize winner Thom Mayne. The budget is close to a trillion New Zealand dollars.

The Line will consist of two parallel walls, 500m high (that's taller than the Empire State Building), with homes, commercial buildings, vertical farms, schools and other services fitted into them. The exteriors will be mirror glass, with the stark beauty of the desert beyond. The public spaces between the walls will be parklands and waterways, designed for "an optimal balance of sunlight, shade and natural ventilation". The city will stretch for 170km, with a high-speed railway making the journey from one end to the other in 20 minutes.

Those walls will become the world's largest structures, and yet the whole thing will be just 200m wide: the width of two rugby fields. Nine million people will live there.

And none of them will own a car. There won't even be any roads.

That's right: Saudi Arabia, the world's second-largest oil producer, is building an enormous car-free city, protected from all the adverse effects of climate change, using the billions it makes from reinforcing car dependency in the rest of the world.

"You see desert," they say, "we see opportunity." The place will be "a living laboratory, home to the brightest minds, dedicated to the sanctity of all life on Earth".

"All life", presumably, doesn't include the people Saudi Arabia routinely imprisons, tortures and often executes for such "crimes" as being raped, "behaving" in some LGBTQI+ way, criticising Mohammed or being a woman who leaves the house without permission. Or the untold number of workers, most of them migrants and treated little better than slaves, who will build The Line.

The value to MBS is clear enough: he wants to be known as a visionary world leader and not the guy who ordered the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

For the rest of us, extraordinary architecture is probably not the future but does pose a challenge. The Line asks us what we value in cities and how we might reconceive them in a zero-emissions, equitable way. We're not going to build our own Line in the sand, so what will we do instead?

It's also a warning. The Line affirms that the mega-rich will be just fine, whatever global warming does to the planet. They will build themselves fabulous pleasure cities, insulated from the world as it turns to desert.

And they will carry on mega-polluting, while their lackeys in politics and the fossil-fuel industries keep assuring the rest of us we really don't need to worry. We're going to see more projects like this.

You can check out The Line here.

Design for Living is a regular Canvas magazine series about bright ideas designed to make cities better.

Follow this link:

Simon Wilson: Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince invents 'utopia' - New Zealand Herald

Napalm Death's 1990 album Harmony Corruption is the band's first to feature vocalist Barney Greenway after the departure of Lee Dorrian. The album is widely considered to be a classic, though Greenway revealed in an interview with The Jasta Show that he actually prefers 1992's Utopia Banished.

Greenway said Utopia Banished was what he wanted Harmony Corruption to be in terms of harshness and extremity, and that he doesn't love the production on Harmony Corruption. Greenway is careful to point out that his dislike of Harmony Corruption's production has nothing to do with Scott Burns as a producer it was just a product of its time and was produced in line with the sound back then.

"Harmony Corruption is a really funny album because there is a lot of people that come to us, they'll say 'right. My favorite albums [are] Scum or Harmony Corruption.' When people present that to me and they're like, 'yeah, [Harmony Corruption] is the best,' [and] I'm like 'no, not it's not actually.'"

"Utopia Banished to me was a better album, and recording it was better. It's more harsh, it's more extreme it's what I actually wanted to do [and] what I would have preferred to do with Harmony Corruption. I like the Harmony Corruption album. I like the songs on there, some of them. Some of the moments on there, not so great for me. But the production I'm not blaming anybody for this because Scott did what Scott thought he should do, you know, for other bands, and it's not bad. It's just not a Napalm Death production as far as I'm concerned.

"Having said all that, it is a product of its time and it was a stepping stone for us to go other places as a band and so I wouldn't change it for the world, you know? I've no interest in doing a remix or recording any of the tracks."

And to clarify Greenway makes it clear through the interview that Napalm Death is not at all interested in re-recording old material or doing reissues unless there's a genuinely good reason for it.

Napalm Death and Brujeria will hit the road this October for their Campaign For Musical Destruction Tour. The tour will feature Frozen Soul on most dates, as well as appearances from MDC and Cryptic Slaughter. Get the full routing below.

w/ Brujeria

10/12 Santa Cruz, CA Catalyst10/13 San Francisco, CA Great American Music Hall10/14 Bend, OR Domino Room10/15 Seattle, WA The Showbox (w/ Cryptic Slaughter)10/16 Portland, OR Bossanova Ballroom (w/ Cryptic Slaughter)10/18 Salt Lake City, UT Metro Music Hall10/19 Denver, CO Bluebird

w/ Brujeria, Frozen Soul & MDC

10/21 St. Louis, MO Red Flag10/22 Chicago, IL Thalia Hall10/23 Cleveland, OH Grog Shop10/25 Pittsburgh, PA Mr. Small's10/26 Bensalem, PA Broken Goblet10/27 Boston, MA Paradise10/28 Brooklyn, NY Music Hall Of Williamsburg10/29 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom10/31 Carrboro, NC Cat's Cradle

w/ Brujeria & Frozen Soul

11/1 Athens, GA 40 Watt11/3 Orlando, FL The Social11/4 Tampa, FL Crowbar11/5 West Palm Beach, FL Respectable Street11/7 Birmingham, AL Saturn11/8 Louisville, KY Headliners Music Hall11/9 Nashville, TN Basement East

w/ Brujeria, Frozen Soul & MDC

11/11 Houston, TX Scout Bar11/12 San Antonio, TX Paper Tiger11/13 Austin, TX Mohawk11/14 Denton, TX Rubber Gloves

w/ Brujeria & Frozen Soul

11/16 El Paso, TX Rockhouse Outdoors11/17 Albuquerque, NM Sunshine Theater11/18 Phoenix, AZ Nile Theater11/19 Los Angeles, CA Belasco Theater (w/ Cryptic Slaughter)

Enter your e-mail below to get a daily update with all of our headlines.

More here:

NAPALM DEATH's Vocalist Discusses Why He Likes Utopia Banished Over Harmony Corruption - Metal Injection

Art Industry News is a daily digest of the most consequential developments coming out of the art world and art market. Heres what you need to know on this Friday, July 29.

Obamas Will Return to White House for Portrait Unveiling President Joe Biden has invited the Obamas to visit the White House in the fall for the unveiling of their official White House portraits. The move comes after the former president and his wife were snubbed by Donald Trump, who neglected to uphold the tradition during his term in the Oval Office. (CNN)

Documentas Artists, Curators, and Artistic Team Push Back on Censorship A joint statement from curatorial collective Ruangrupa and the artists of Documenta 15 says they do not trust the supervisory board of the exhibition. We refuse the supervisory boards recommendation to enter a process of consultation with scholars from the fields of contemporary antisemitism, the authors wrote. This environment of intimidation, suspicion, and censorship is untenable and some of the collectives in the exhibition have been experiencing it for far too long. The missive was sent privately on July 18 but released publicly yesterday after a fresh controversy that saw the German media quoting selectively from the behind-the-scenes document. (e-Flux)

Johnny Depps Paintings Fetch $3.6 Million in Hours With debate still swirling around the significance of the actors highly public U.S. defamation lawsuit against ex-wife Amber Heard, U.K.-based Castle Fine Art sold out 780 Pop-inflected portraits by Johnny Depp from his so-called Friends & Heroes collection. The works depict people who have inspired Depp such as actor Elizabeth Taylor and Keith Richards. After the surprise announcement of the sale, Depps gallery made around 3 million in just a few hours, with individual works going for 3,950 ($4,800) and the portfolio of four images selling for 14,950 ($18,064). (BBC)

Sothebys Sells 77-Million-Year-Old Gorgosaurus For $6.1 Million Sothebys sold its Gorgosaurus skeleton for $6.1 million at its Natural History sale yesterday morning. The 10 foot tall and 22 foot long dino is a member of the Tyrannosaurid family and lived during the Late Cretaceous period around 77 million years ago. (Press release)

Lisson Appoints New Beijing Director Theresa Liang has been named as Lissons Beijing-based gallery director. The Beijing space is set to open next month with an inaugural exhibition of Anish Kapoor. Previously, Liang was the director of the Long March Space, and studied fine art at Londons Slade. (Press release)

Frick Honored for Diverse Hiring Practices New Yorks mayor Eric Adams has awarded the Frick with the Sapolin Accessibility Award for Employment for hiring people with disabilities. The museums staff includes two neurodiverse individuals working as librarians, a third who works in the museum shop, and a Deaf housekeeper. (The Art Newspaper)

Dallas Museum Appoints First Person of Color to Lead Board The Dallas Museum of Art has named Gowri Natarajan Sharma the new president of its board of directors, making her the first person of color to hold the position in nearly 120 years. Sharma, an architectural advisor to her familys business, is currently a member of the museums acquisition committee, and has been on the board since 2017. (ARTnews)

De Sarthe Is Opening in Arizona Hong Kong gallery De Sarthe is opening a by appointment gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona, at 7507 E. McDonald Dr. It opens today with an exhibition of artists Mak2 and Zhong Wei, with works by Ma Sibo, Rick Levinson, and Zak Smith on view in the back room. (Press release)

Saudi Arabia Is Planning 100-Mile-Long Mirrored Megacity Saudi Arabia has released imagery of plans for a jaw-dropping futuristic urban utopia based around two enormous mirror-encased skyscrapers that will stretch 100 miles across desert and mountain terrain. Dubbed the Line, the vast complex aims to provide homes for some 9 million people. (Guardian)

Here is the original post:

Art Industry News: Johnny Depp Just Raked in $3.6 Million for His Paintings in a Few Hours Despite Everything + Other Stories - artnet News

Access to Abortion

Stephania Taladrids piece about a Texas teen-ager seeking an abortion is deeply disturbing (An Abortion Odyssey, June20th). Laura, as she was called, at least had the support of a parent who was willing to drive hundreds of miles and spend upward of a thousand dollars to help her. But, in more than two-thirds of states, when pregnant minors dont have parental consent for an abortion, the laws require them to go before a court to obtain an order authorizing one. In the best of times, the judicial-bypass procedure is traumatizing. In a post-Dobbs world, in which obtaining an abortion may mean travelling to another state, many pregnant minors will face the additional obstacle of having to get a court order there. Teens who lack parental support will thus be unable to end their pregnancies lawfully and safely; inevitably, many will resort to dangerous self-help methods instead.

Barbara AtwoodProfessor EmeritaJames E. Rogers College of LawUniversity of ArizonaTucson, Ariz.

I appreciated Louis Menands detailing of Yoko Onos artistic career (The Grapefruit Artist, June20th). About the intertwining of Onos and John Lennons work, Menand writes, Ono herself admitted that together we hurt each others career and position just by being with each other and just by being us. How true is that? As a co-author of a biography about Ono (Yoko Ono: Collector of Skies), I believe that Onos statement is very true. In the nineteen-sixties and seventies, it may not have been apparent that romancing a pop star threatened Onos credibility. But Lennons celebrity meant that Ono could no longer come and go quietly on the avant-garde stage. (Picture Marina Abramovi running off with Justin Bieber, and youve got the idea.) Ono struggled with questions about whether her art was evaluated on its own merits or because her partner was famousno small source of regret for someone forging her own artistic voice.

Nell BeramCambridge, Mass.

Thanks to Alex Ross for bringing attention to Germanys opera scene and the state of arts funding in the country (Musical Events, June 20th). As he notes, Public funding makes this quasi-utopia possible. Germany also allows taxpayers to deduct up to twenty per cent of their taxable income for charitable contributions, including those to opera houses, and to carry excess contributions into future tax years. (In much of the E.U., such deductions are limited to ten percent.) As a result, most of Germanys opera houses have a Frderverein, or friends group, whose aim is to support new productions and nurture young singers.

J. Patrick TruhnBerlin, Germany

I was heartened by Rebecca Meads article about the theatre director Robert Icke (A Hamlet for Our Time, June13th). Having worked in theatre for decades, I, too, believe in looking at what is in the text instead of projecting ideas onto it. Icke poses brilliant questions about Ophelia in Hamlet, and his inventive staging deepens our understanding of her character, her madness, and her relationship with the tortured prince. When I studied in London, in 1977, I asked my teacher Judith Gick for her best advice about staging Shakespeare. Remember he is writing about real people, she said. This seems to be precisely Ickes approach.

Randi Jean KleinSanta Fe, N.M.

Letters should be sent with the writers name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail@newyorker.com. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium. We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.

Read the original:

The Mail - The New Yorker

Its hard to tell stories about utopia. What can you tell stories about in a perfect world? Turns out, immense questions of human frailty and potential.

AMC+ has an early gem in Moonhaven, a sci-fi series premised around a dying planet Earth and a Moon colony, Moonhaven, designed to develop both a technology and a society to save itbut a colony safe from the brutality and poisons of Earth. Three generations in, the colony is composed of utopians who have been raised to think of nothing but bringing their perfection to the suffering Mother Earth.

Earth is a polluted Blade-Runner urban hellscape, clearly devouring itself, with a populace of gas-masked inhabitants waiting for the slow, eventual salvation of future generations through AI. That autonomous, self-learning AI, called IO, designed and effectively rules the moon colony. Although there is human leadership, IO decides when the leadership comes and goes, as the intellectual property of a group called ICON.

IO is fluent in the history of our mistakes, says Indira Mare (Amara Karan), the human envoy of the AI. Those mistakes define humanitys future. But IO learns by observing the Mooners, what Indira calls the best of humanity: People who have never experienced true evil, true corruption, and greed.

Moonhaven itself is a finely imagined and realized science fiction setting: it is a forested, bucolic expanse, a kinetic and bohemian Eden with a plethora of art and very-unspace-like wooden architecture. The shows lead Moon character is Paul Sarno (Dominic Monaghan), a detective in a world where police are largely preoccupied with helping the relatives of victims heal emotionally from trauma. Together he and his partner Arlo (Kadeem Hardison)- a cheerful dreamer investigate the first murder in a long time in the moons history, a murder linked to an Earther pilot and combat veteran named Bella Sway (Emma McDonald), who is incidentally headed to the moon with Indira Mare herself as the Envoys pilot.

Bella is the shows central protagonist, and shes a fascinating and charming characterthe kind of spunky, gives-no-shits kind of strong female protagonist its very easy to mess up, especially by trying too hard to make her both bitchy and lovable. Shes one of those capable, secretive, intuitive POV characters that works well both as lens and a distinct personality.

Slowly, the show builds and builds the stakes and complexity of the Moon and Earths relationship, one an increasingly reluctant savior and one reluctant to be saved. Change is a pressurized impossibility at every turn. Darker and darker twists emerge.

The setting is as fascinating as the story. The differences of language and cultural nuances in Moonhaven are precise and pervasive. Its incredible worldbuilding, with the settings complexities and imperfections on display. There are design choices that feel novel but intuitive. Each small device and technology has been carefully imagined in a way that its very difficult not to admire. From costume design to interior decorating to music players to instruments, from social concepts to linguistics, Moonhaven is a true sci-fi vision.

Not to overstate things by invoking the great Le Guin, but the closest thing I could compare the rendered cultural difference to is the opening conversation in The Left Hand of Darkness, when the Earth-born representative of a galactic collective speaks with an official of a planet reluctant to join. The representative slowly begins to realize that even after years of study, he does not understand the person he is speaking with. A divide of logic and purpose as well as lightyears stand between them. The realization sets up the books mode of acceptance and possibility: different modes of being are at play simultaneously, and the audience has to be ready to recognize and expand with new perspectives.

Moonhaven accomplishes the best of science fiction without the weight of pretentiousness or self-importance. Its honestly a treat. Some critical responses have been dismissive, but theres always some innate silliness to sci-fi that makes it tempting to be cynical of the shows high-concept aims. So yeah, it wont be for everybody. But give it a shot.

The first season is now streaming on AMC+, with the first episode free with an Amazon Prime subscription.

'Physical' on Apple TV+ Remains the Most Miserable Show on TV |'Better Call Saul': Mutually Assured Destruction

Header Image Source: AMC

Read the original here:

'Moonhaven' Is the Top-Notch Sci-Fi You've Been Sleeping On - Pajiba Entertainment News

CHICAGO, July 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A first-of-its-kind test could make it easier for newborns to get care for spinal muscular atrophy, a common genetic disease that is life-threatening but treatable if caught in time. Findings on this method and a second innovative test that could improve diagnosis of pediatric urinary tract infections (UTIs) will be discussed today at the 2022 AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo.

Increasing Access to Spinal Muscular Atrophy Testing Spinal muscular atrophy is the leading inherited cause of infant death after cystic fibrosis, and early diagnosis and treatment are crucial to giving affected newborns the best chances at healthy lives. However, most newborn screening panels that use next-generation sequencing (NGS) do not detect this condition. The most common form of spinal muscular atrophy is caused by an abnormal version of the gene SMN1, which produces a protein essential to nerve cells involved in muscle movement. NGS panelswhich analyze hundreds of genes for disease-causing changestypically exclude SMN1 because of difficulty distinguishing it from another gene known as SMN2. The two differ only in a small spot.

Gustavo Barcelos Barra, PhD, and colleagues at Sabin Medicina Diagnostica in Brasilia, Brazil, developed a NGS panel that detects a mutationin that small spot on the SMN1 gene that causes spinal muscular atrophy. Using this NGS panel, they tested 52 DNA samples from spinal muscular atrophy patients, then compared the results to those from a single-gene PCR test (a widely used method for diagnosing this condition). After eliminating four samples for technical reasons, the researchers found that panel results for SMN1 and the single-gene test agreed in all cases.

Including spinal muscular atrophy on NGS panels means that "parents do not have to look for an additional test for [this condition]," said Barra. He added that his innovation would save laboratories from performing an extra test for spinal muscular atrophy along with NGS newborn screening.

Identifying Children's UTIs QuicklyUTIs are common in children and when left untreated, they can cause acute distress, septic shock, and even kidney damage. The gold standard for diagnosing UTIs, thoughurine cultureis slow and labor-intensive for laboratory staff, leading doctors to sometimes inappropriately prescribe antibiotics before getting results. This is a serious issue that is contributing to the rise of antibiotic resistance.

A team led by Jingcai Wang, MD, PhD, of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio,is the first group of researchers to show that a faster method for diagnosing UTIs in adults could also work in children. Known as UTOPIA, this method uses urinalysis results and other variables to predict UTIs, and delivers answers well before the 2-3 days needed for culture results.

In order to evaluate this method's performance in children, the researchers used it to analyze data from the medical records of 5,353 children who previously underwent both urinalysis and urine culture for UTI. For each of these patients, the researchers entered their age, sex, risk for UTI, and urinalysis results into UTOPIA's algorithm to see how accurately it predicted their urine culture results.

Based on receiver operating curve (ROC) value, UTOPIA predicted positive urine culture results more accurately than any individual variable did on its own. The algorithm's ROC value was 0.825, versus values for individual variables, which ranged from 0.546 to 0.776. The closer the ROC value is to 1, the more accurate the testing strategy, Wang explained.

"UTOPIA is a simple way to predict urine culture results. You get quicker diagnosis of UTI and prevent potential kidney damage," Wang said. "It can potentially reduce unnecessary urine cultures, save money, and reduce use of unnecessary antibiotics in children."

Abstract InformationAACC Annual Scientific Meeting registration is free for members of the media. Reporters can register online here: https://www.xpressreg.net/register/aacc0722/media/landing.asp

Abstract A-155: Incorporating spinal muscular atrophy screening by next-generation sequencing into a comprehensive multigene panel for newborn sequencing: a pilot evaluation will be presented during:

Scientific Poster SessionTuesday, July 269:30 a.m. 5 p.m. (presenting author in attendance from 1:30 2:30 p.m.)

Abstract B-243: Evaluation of a prediction algorithm value in predicting positive urine culture in pediatrics: a retrospective cohort study at Nationwide Children's Hospital will be presented during:

Scientific Poster SessionWednesday, July 279:30 a.m. 5 p.m. (presenting author in attendance from 1:30 2:30 p.m.)

Both sessions will take place in the Poster Hall of the Clinical Lab Expo show floor at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago.

About the 2022 AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab ExpoThe AACC Annual Scientific Meeting offers 5 days packed with opportunities to learn about exciting science from July 24-28. Plenary sessions will explore artificial intelligence-based clinical prediction models, advances in multiplex technologies, human brain organogenesis, building trust between the public and healthcare experts, and direct mass spectrometry techniques.

At the AACC Clinical Lab Expo, more than 750 exhibitors will fill the show floor of the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago with displays of the latest diagnostic technology, including but not limited to COVID-19 testing, artificial intelligence, mobile health, molecular diagnostics, mass spectrometry, point-of-care, and automation.

About AACCDedicated to achieving better health through laboratory medicine, AACC brings together more than 70,000 clinical laboratory professionals, physicians, research scientists, and business leaders from around the world focused on clinical chemistry, molecular diagnostics, mass spectrometry, translational medicine, lab management, and other areas of progressing laboratory science. Since 1948, AACC has worked to advance the common interests of the field, providing programs that advance scientific collaboration, knowledge, expertise, and innovation. For more information, visit http://www.aacc.org.

Christine DeLongAACCSenior Manager, Communications & PR(p) 202.835.8722[emailprotected]

Molly PolenAACCSenior Director, Communications & PR(p) 202.420.7612(c) 703.598.0472[emailprotected]

SOURCE AACC

See the original post here:

New Tests That Could Solve Persistent Challenges in Children's Healthcare Presented at the 2022 AACC Annual Scientific Meeting - PR Newswire