Category Archives: New Utopia

There are many reasons to get excited about Bike Month in Cincinnati. The pandemic has brought an unexpected bike boom, with more people hitting the road in the last year. There are also new trails opening up.

The Cincinnati Riding or Walking Network, or CROWN, is serving as a hub connecting Greater Cincinnati's regional trails to Downtown. Several stretches of the 34-mile urban trail loop were connected over the past year and more work is underway.

Also new for cyclists, Tri-State Trails has released a new tool for beginning bikers to use to navigate the urban core. The Low Stress Bike Map provides comfortable routes, hand-picked by experienced local cyclists to help you plan your next bike commute.

And if you're looking for a cycling tour of our region, a new book for cycling enthusiasts takes readers through towns including Edenton, Loveland, Felicity and Utopia. Bicycling Through Paradise is a collection of 20 historically themed cycling tours broken into 10-mile segments. The authors Kathleen Smythe and Chris Hanlin join Cincinnati Edition along with Tri-State Trails Director Wade Johnston to discuss Bike Month.

Listen to Cincinnati Edition live at noon M-F. Audio for this segment will be uploaded after 4 p.m. ET.

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More Ways To Hit The Trails For Bike Month 2021 - WVXU

On March 11, 2021, an NFT (non-fungible token) created by the digital artist Beeple sold at Christies for $69 million dollars. Overnight, NFTs became the No. 1 topic within the creator economy. After a wave of eye-popping sales to crypto-rich investors, the hype exposed the world to the opportunities that crypto offers artists. A new creator crypto economy has emerged.

During my time at Patreon, I saw the potential of a direct-to-fan monetization model. By empowering creators to earn a steady, sustainable revenue stream through direct engagement with their communities, the systemwhich puts control and ownership into the hands of creatorswill build a more beautiful and rewarding creator economy. For artists to maximize the benefits of crypto, they will need to think beyond NFTs and begin building a more cohesive and inclusive system where all fans (including the crypto whales) can participate. Artists can focus on what they love: releasing art and bringing value to their communities.

While the NFT craze seemingly exploded out of nowhere, another blockchain development has been simmering in the background: the concept of social tokens. Social tokens are custom cryptocurrencies made by creatorsartists, musicians, celebrities, and othersto foster deeper connections with their communities and to power financial transactions within their fan ecosystems. They represent a new paradigm for monetization by taking the concept of a membership model to a new level: They provide the infrastructure for a creator to wholly own their economy and integrate that currency into wherever they engage with fans and transact for physical and digital goods and services.

The concept of social tokens and NFTs is not new. Artists have always been on the forefront of embracing new technology to connect with their fans. In 2009, Radiohead pioneered the direct-to-fan experience with the release of their album In Rainbows (with mixed results) and in 2017, Bjrk rewarded people who bought her album Utopia with crypto. But only recently has it been possible for musicians like Portugal the Man to co-create independent economies with their communities through crypto.

Over the past few years, a massive investment has been made to build out software, networks, and platforms that can mint NFTs and launch social tokens at zero or an extremely low cost. This ease of use has opened up access to the technology and led to a ton of experimentation by creators. The musician JVCKJ launched an EP and a streetwear fashion brand via his own cryptocurrency earlier this year, and Post Malone has set up a celebrity beer pong league with fans using NFTS. Actress Cara Delevingne raised money for her foundation by auctioning off an NFT video in which she explores concepts of ownership and self-expression, while Jack Dorsey donated the $2.9 million he received from selling his first ever tweet as an NFT to the charity GiveDirectly. While social tokens and NFTs are currently being viewed as separate developments, a continuum is emerging of crypto-focused services and products that are providing tools for creators to build a sustainable crypto economy. A process that began when Patreon empowered creators with ownership over their micro-economies is now thriving on the decentralized blockchain.

While weve only recently seen it crystalize, its been inevitable for some time that crypto would become an integral part of the creator economy. The economics of crypto favor artists over the big tech-owned social media platforms that have been profiting from their labor over the past decade. Creators need fewer fans than ever to make a living, and crypto allows them to directly own their financial relationship with fans instead of relying on tech giants to serve as a middlemen. Moreover, crypto gives creators control over their own economic success and helps them maintain ownership over their IP in perpetuity.

Just a few years ago, podcasting, hosting a YouTube channel, and blogging were viewed as hobbies, not professions. Now, any of those paths can be viable entrepreneurial pursuits. There are universities that teach creators how to run their business. There are venture funds looking to invest early in creators careers to help them scale their channels. There are thousands of new companies popping up every day looking to help creators in every aspect of their engagement with fans and in every aspect of running their business. The challenge was that creators didnt have a way to tie all of this together into a cohesive economy that travels with them wherever they engage with their fans.

With crypto, they do. They can launch their own economies and mint their own currencies that deliver unique value to fans. These supporters become holders of tokens that they can use to certify their superfandom or gain access to exclusive content and experiences. Artists like the DJ/producer Wax Motif are offering goods and services in exchange for their currency: Last month, he launched $WAXM to build a closer connection to his fans, and is offering a myriad of benefits ranging from 75 $WAXM for a birthday shoutout to an in-person meeting for 500 $WAXM. As a result, he and his community have driven nearly $1 million into the $WAXM economy. Similarly, streamer Alliestrasza regularly plays card games with fans on Twitch. Fans buy Twitch subscriptions with her coin, tip Allie directly with it, and also, if they choose, tip other members of the community when they do something positive. The $ALLIE economy now has more than $1.2 million.

The spark ignited by the worlds obsession with NFTs could be a game changer for the fair compensation of artists who contribute so much to our culture. From a product and user experience standpoint, NFTs are just in the beginning stages of what they will become over the next few years. NFTs of the future will be far more eco-friendly by reducing the vast amounts of energy used to build blockchains (via advancements like Proof of Stake). They will be interactive for fansand as such, arguably hold more value than the old fashioned collectibles of yesteryear. Most importantly, they will be just one piece of these personal economies instead of the entire story.

Bremner Morris is Rallys CMO/CRO. Previously, he was Head of Global Go-To-Market and Revenue at Patreon.

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Rise of the creator crypto economy is way of future - Fast Company

There are only a few places on earth where radicals and their children ritualistically burn the American flag and chant Death to America: Tehran, Baghdad, Beirut, Kabul, Ramallahand Portland, Oregon.

The City of Portland, a cloud-covered metro on the south bank of the Columbia River, has become known for its political protesters. Anarchists, Communists, ecofascists, and various other agitators regularly denounce the police, politicians of both parties, and America itself, and flag-burning has become part of the protesters liturgy. Last summer, protesters associated with Antifa upped the ante with chants of Death to America and participated in months of violent protests to avenge the death of George Floyd while he was in police custody in Minneapolis. Children as young as four marched with the crowd to the federal courthouse, raising the Black Power fist and chanting Fuck the Police!

Famously the whitest city in America, Portland has become the unlikely headquarters of race radicalism in the United States. The city has elevated white guilt into a civic religion; its citizens have developed rituals, devotions, and self-criticisms to fight systemic racism and white supremacy. The culminating expression of this orthodoxy is violence: street militias, calling themselves antiracists and antifascists, smash windows and torch the property of anyone transgressing the new moral law.

We might be tempted to dismiss this as the work of a few harmless radicals keeping Portland weird, but in recent years, their underlying ideology on race has become institutionalized. The city government has adopted a series of Five-Year Plans for equity and inclusion, shopkeepers have posted political slogans in their windows as a form of protection, and local schools have designed a program of political education for their students that borders on propaganda.

I have spent months investigating the structure of political education in three Portland-area school districts: Tigard-Tualatin School District, Beaverton School District, and Portland Public Schools. I have cultivated sources within each district and obtained troves of internal documents related to the curriculum, training, and internal dynamics of these institutions. We can best understand the political education program in Portland schools by dividing it into three parts: theory, praxis (or practice), and power. The schools have self-consciously adopted the pedagogy of the oppressed as their theoretical orientation, activated it through a curriculum of critical race theory, and enforced it through the appointment of de facto political officers within individual schools, generally under the cover of equity and social-justice programming. In short, they have begun to replace education with activism.

The results are predictable. By perpetuating the narrative that America is fundamentally evil, steeping children in race theory, and lionizing the Portland rioters, they have consciously pushed students in the direction of race-based revolution. In the language of the Left, the political education programs in Portland-area districts constitute a school-to-radicalism pipeline: a training ground for child soldiers. This is not hyperbole: some of the most active and violent anarchist groups in Portland are run by teenagers, and dozens of minors were arrested during last years riots. These groups have taken up the mantle of climate change, anticapitalism, antifascism, and Black Lives Matterwhatever provides a pretext for violent direct action.

Contrary to those who believed that the end of the Trump presidency would bring a return to normalcy, the social and political revolution in Portland has only accelerated under President Joe Biden. On Inauguration Day, teenage radicals marched through southeast Portland, smashing the office windows of the state Democratic Party and unfurling large banners with hand-painted demands: We dont want Biden, we want revenge; We are ungovernable; A new world from the ashes. Intoxicated by revolution and enabled by their elders, Portlands kids are not all right.

Tigard, Oregon, is a placid suburb southwest of Portland. A local shopping mall hosts a Macy's, a Dick's Sporting Goods, and a Cheesecake Factory. The citys historic main street is a pastiche of coffeehouses, boutiques, repair shops, and restaurants. Historically, the citys political squabbles have concerned zoning and land-use issuesin other words, the typical politics of an affluent American suburb. Demographically, Tigard is not diverse; it numbers only 636 blacks out of a total population of 52,368, making up approximately 1 percent of residents.

Nonetheless, educators at the Tigard-Tualatin School District have gone all-in on the social-justice trinity of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Last June, at the height of the nationwide unrest, Superintendent Sue Rieke-Smith and Board Chair Maureen Wolf signed a proclamation condemning racism and committing to being an anti-racist school district. The preamble to the document recited the names of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, and confessed that the districts students of color, and Black students in particular, still regularly experience racism in [their] schools. To rectify this, the superintendent pledged to become actively anti-racist, dismantle systemic racism, implement a collective equity framework, establish pillars for equity, deploy Equity Teams within schools, create racially segregated Student Affinity Groups, and use an equity lens for all future curriculum adoptions.

The next month, the district announced a new Department of Equity and Inclusion and installed social-justice activist Zinnia Un as director. Un quickly created a blueprint, which I have obtained through a whistle-blower, for overhauling the pedagogy and curriculum at Tigard-Tualatin schools. The document calls for adopting the educational theories of Brazilian Marxist Paulo Freire, whose pedagogy of the oppressed (summarized in a 1968 book with that title) was originally designed to instill critical consciousness among impoverished South Americans and to forge the conditions for overthrowing the dictatorial governments of the era. (See Pedagogy of the Oppressor, Spring 2009.) Following Freires categorizations, Un writes that the Tigard-Tualatin school district must move from a state of reading the world to the phase of denunciation against the revolutions enemies and, finally, to the state of annunciation of the liberated masses, who will begin rewriting the world.

At the final stage, trainers plumb their subjects psyches to ensure that whiteness has been banished.

In her blueprint, Un describes the new oppressor as an amalgamation of whiteness, colorblindness, individualism, and meritocracy. These are the values of capitalist societybut for Un, they are the values of white society, the primary impediment to social justice.

What is the solution to pathological whiteness? According to Un and the Tigard-Tualatin School District, the answer lies with a new form of white identity development. In a series of antiracist resources provided to teachers, the Department of Equity and Inclusion includes a handful of strategies for this identity transformation, intended to facilitate growth for white folks to become allies, and eventually accomplices, for anti-racist work. Couched in the language of professional development, the process assumes that whites are born racist, even if they dont purposely or consciously act in a racist way. The first step in the training document is contact, defined as confronting whites with active racism or real-world experiences that highlight their whiteness. The goal is to provoke an emotional rupture that brings the subject to the next step, disintegration, in which he or she feels intense white guilt and white shame, and admits: I feel bad for being white. The training then outlines a process of moving white subjects from a state of reintegration to pseudo-independence to immersion to autonomy.

In the early stages, activities include attending a training, joining an allies group, participating in a protest. Later, white subjects are told to analyze their covert white supremacy, host difficult conversations with white friends and family about racism, and use their privilege to support anti-racist work. At the final stage, trainers plumb their subjects individual psyches to ensure that their whiteness has been banished. Subjects must answer a series of questions to demonstrate their commitment: Does your solidarity make you lose sleep at night? Does your solidarity put you in danger? Does your solidarity cost you relationships? Does your solidarity make you suspicious of predominantly white institutions? Does your solidarity have room for Black rage?

This is a pedagogy not of education but of revolution. Its also textbook cult indoctrination: convince initiates of their fundamental guilt; present a remedy through participation in the group; manipulate emotions to achieve compliance; identify and organize against an amorphous scapegoat; demand total loyalty to the new orthodoxy; proselytize through personal circles; isolate from old friends and family; and keep the ultimate solution always out of reach. A veteran teacher who requested anonymity, out of fear of reprisals, told me that the big change happened when the new superintendent and equity and inclusion director took over the district. Immediately, the focus shifted from academics to politics, and employees were expected to fall in line with the new ideology. The teacher described one professional-development training that left some of her colleagues in a neighboring school devastated: They had teachers actually crying because of their whiteness.

Which brings us to the last plank in Tigard-Tualatins antiracism program: enforcement. As soon as Un took over as equity and inclusion director, she formulated a new hate speech policy designed not just to prevent truly discriminatory speech but also to pathologize any political opposition to the new order. The cultural cues in the district are clear: teachers must support Black Lives Matter protests and oppose anything that smacks of conservatism.

I almost feel like were walking around on eggshells. You have to be careful what you say, a veteran teacher told me. Im afraid of speaking up for fear I might lose my job. . . . I mean, what would happen if I said Im a conservative Republican Christian? How would that go? When I asked how the new political education program had affected her personally, her voice broke: I dont want go back to work. I dont believe in this. It goes against my faith system. . . . Were all created as equals in Gods sight, and this is just wrong, the way were teaching our children. I dont have to be embarrassed because of my skin color.

Born as a small farming community with the arrival of the Oregon Central Rail Road in 1868, the City of Beaverton has since transformed itself into a busy and prosperous suburb. Commuters fight through traffic to the Nike corporate headquarters on Southwest Murray Boulevard, or to the Intel research laboratories in nearby Hillsboro. Like Tigard, which borders the city to the south, Beaverton is a predominantly white and Asian-American community; just 2 percent of the citys population is black.

Beaverton shares something else with Tigard: its public schools have been consumed by the racial panic following George Floyds death. Building on some of the same pedagogies and educational theories as in Tigard, Beaverton teachers designed and began teaching a new racial curriculum for every grade level, including kindergarten. The general language for these lessons seems innocuous: diversity, empowerment, change-making, culturally responsive teaching. Under normal circumstances, most parents would glance at the syllabus during parent-teacher night and forget about it. This year, however, because of the coronavirus lockdowns and remote-learning requirements, many parents kept closer tabs on their childrens education and were alarmed by what they saw. The curriculum, they discovered, reveals its radicalism in the details.

One family that had moved to Beaverton partly for the citys highly rated public schools sent me a folder of lessons being taught to their third-grade child. The social studies module on race begins innocently enough: the teacher asks the eight- and nine-year-old students to think about their culture and identity and join her in celebrating diversity, set alongside pictures of a world map and cartoons of smiling children. The subsequent lessons become more pointed. The teacher explains to students that race is a social construct, created by privileged white elites who use these categories to maintain power and control of one group over another. This, the teacher says, is racism that can determine real-life experiences, inspire hate, and have a major negative impact on Black lives.

The next module focuses on systemic racism and the history of the United States. The teacher tells the students that racism infects the very structure(s) of our society, including wealth, employment, education, criminal justice, housing, surveillance, and healthcare. To accompany the lesson, the teacher includes a video presentation in which the speaker directly accuses the children of being racist themselves: Our society speaks racism. It has spoken racism since we were born. Of course you are racist. The idea that somehow this blanket of ideas has fallen on everyones head except for yours is magical thinking and its useless. The speaker then tells the students that if they dont convert to the cause, they will affirm the status quo of certain bodies being allowed resources, access, opportunities, and other bodies being literally killed.

The final modules present the solution: students must immerse themselves in revolution, resistance, and liberation. The teacher introduces these principles through photographs of child activists, Colin Kaepernick, the Black Power fist, and Black Lives Matter demonstrations, as well as protest signs reading White Silence = Compliance, Black Lives > Property, AmeriKKKa, and Stop Killing Us. The goal, according to the curriculum, is for students to become change-makers and antiracist in all aspects of [their] lives. They must actively fight white supremacy, white-dominated culture, and unequal institutions, or they will be guilty of upholding these evils. In the concluding lesson, the curriculum instructs the third-graders to do the inner work to figure out a way to acknowledge how you participate in oppressive systems, do the outer work and figure out how to change the oppressive systems, and learn how to listen and accept criticism with grace, even if its uncomfortable.

A parent who emigrated from Iran to the United States told me that the lessons were absolutely unacceptable and reminiscent of the political indoctrination in the Islamic Republic. I moved here because this is America, because of the rights and the opportunities that we have. And this is not where I want my country to go, the parent explained. When I asked about her own childhood in Iran, she became emotional. I remember when we would line up in the morning in an assembly. We had to chant Death to America. I remember being in elementary school and thinking, I dont want to chant this. I have aunts and uncles in America. I dont want them to die. Her husband sent a letter to the Beaverton School District, blasting the curriculum as presenting racist material under the guise of antiracism. (When reached for comment, the Beaverton School District replied that it does not advocate for overthrowing the United States.)

Theyre trying to indoctrinate the children, the father observed. He believes that the intention is to turn child against parent. After the antiracism lessons, his child felt torn between school and family, sometimes crying in confusion. Theyre slowly going to get behind their defenses, get behind the parents defenses, and create little social-justice warriors, the father said. Theyre trying to hyper-empathize and hyper-emotionalize the children in order to get them to be more receptive to . . . some sort of revolution.

The parents decided to pull their child from the social studies program and now hope to transfer to another school next year. Though they were able to opt out of the program for now, they fear that, left unchecked, the campaign to turn children into the pointed sword for revolution could lead to wider social consequences. The mother reminded me that many Iranians initially supported the Islamic Revolution in order to depose the shah and usher in a better world, only to be bitterly disappointed. The revolutionaries promised a new utopia but ended up transforming their country into a tyranny. Im fighting this at the school and even at my work, because I see this country going that way.

Unfortunately, this kind of curriculum is fast becoming the rule in Oregon. In 2017, state legislators passed a bill overhauling the state curriculum and installing a mandatory ethnic studies program that reflects the emergent racial orthodoxy. As a term, ethnic studies is another euphemism that obscures more than it reveals. It connotes a cheerful pride in cultural tradition, but the actual discipline is rooted in cultural Marxism.

According to drafts of the ethnic studies standards, teachers will require kindergartners to learn the difference between private and public ownership of goods and capital and develop understanding of identity formation related to self, family, community, gender, and disability. In first grade, they will learn how to define equity, equality, and systems of power; examine social construction as it relates to race, ethnicity, gender, disabilities, and sexual orientation; and describe how individual and group characteristics are used to divide, unite, and categorize racial, ethnic, and social groups. In third, fourth, and fifth grade, students must deconstruct the U.S. Constitution, uncover systems of power, including white supremacy, institutional racism, racial hierarchy, and oppression, and examine the consequences of power and privilege on issues associated with poverty, income, and the accumulation of wealth.

If the elementary school curriculum sets the premise that the United States is the great oppressor, then the middle school and high school curricula deliver the conclusion. The learning standards read like an old left-wing pamphlet: students must internalize the principles of race-based subversion, resistance, challenge, and perseverance; they must fight against the structural and systemic oppression of capitalism, authority, religion, and government; and they must commit to the pursuit of social justice.

The internal documents for the Oregon Department of Education make it quite clear that the point of ethnic studies is not academic achievement; its social change. Education is the means; politics is the end.

If the cities of Tigard and Beaverton represent the categories of theory and praxis, Portland represents their result: power. In recent years, Portland has emerged as the leading hub of left-wing, Marxist, and anarchist movements. After George Floyds death, Portlands radicals attacked police officers and laid siege to federal buildings. They armed themselves with rocks, bottles, shields, knives, guns, bricks, lasers, boards, explosives, gasoline, barricades, spike strips, brass knuckles, and Molotov cocktails. A year later, many downtown businesses remain closed, and insurance companies have either raised premiums or refused to issue policies because of the ongoing risk of property destruction.

Meantime, Portland Public Schools has institutionalized the philosophy of social justice and codified political activism into every aspect of the bureaucracy. In the districts 2019 Racial Equity and Social Justice Plan, the administration pledged to make antiracism the districts North Star and to create an education system that intentionally disruptsand builds leaders to disruptsystems of oppression. The superintendent hired a new equity czar and announced a Five-Year Racial Equity Plan, which promises a dizzying array of acronyms and academic catchphrases like intersectionality and targeted universalism.

Portland Public Schools has codified political activism into every aspect of the bureaucracy.

Its hard to overstate how entrenched the political ideology now is in the school system. A veteran elementary school teacher who described herself as a longtime liberal told me that the districts antiracist journey began with good intentions a decade ago. But over time, the leadership has hardened antiracist principles into dogma. Today, she and other teachers must submit to mandatory antiracism training each week. From the beginning, we were told that we couldnt question [the antiracism program], she said. I called human resources and asked them if I needed to profess that I believe [in critical race theory] and if I had to teach from this perspective. And I was told that I need to understand it, I need to know all about it, [and] I could probably lose my job [if I didnt teach that way] if my principal is super into making sure that teachers are using this lens as they teach.

In one recent antiracism session, this teacher had to participate in a line of oppression exercise. The trainers lined up the teachers and shouted out various injustices (racism, homophobia, and so on), and asked teachers who would suffer from these harms to step forward. The trainers then divided the room into oppressed and oppressors, with straight white men and women forced to reckon with their identity in the oppressor category. The objective, according to the teacher, was to intimidate white teachers into submission through collective guilt and fear of being labeled a racist.

The ideology of antiracism has permeated every department in the district. Even educators in the English as a Second Language (ESL) program have begun teaching the principles of critical race theory to immigrants and refugees. According to a document that I obtained, ESL teachers are told to develop counterstories to the dominant American culture and to focus instruction on advocacy for racial equity for emergent bilingual/multilingual students. As part of the curriculum, they are asked to teach immigrants that racism in the USA is pervasive and operates like the air we breathe and that civil rights gains for people of color should be interpreted with measured enthusiasm. To combat the pernicious influence of their own Whiteness, the district recommends that white teachers adopt a series of affirmations, beginning with getting to know myself as a racial being and then [deconstructing] the Presence and Role of Whiteness in my life and [identifying] ways I challenge my Whiteness. Finally, after shedding their racial limitations, the teachers can begin the work of interrupting institutional racism and the perpetuation of White Supremacy.

This is a bewildering curriculum decision. Portland has a significant population of immigrants and refugees from countries such as Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Guatemala, and El Salvador. These families have escaped some of the most nightmarish conditions in the world, including civil war, genocide, starvation, and grinding poverty. Portland is not perfect, but it is certainly a haven of peace and opportunity for the foreign-born. In my own experience with the Eritrean community in the Pacific Northwest, most families have fled civil war and spent years in refugee camps. They express nothing but gratitude for their new lives in the United States. Yet Portland schools are intent on teaching the children of this community that their adopted country is systematically racist and will deprive them of opportunity.

How does all this translate in the classroom? At Forest Park, Whitman, and Marysville elementary schools, a teacher named Sarita Flores, who runs the information technology program, has transformed her role into that of a political inquisitor. According to leaked internal documents and whistle-blower testimony, Flores holds weekly antiracism sessions in which white teachers are expected to remain silent, honor the feelings of BIPOCblack, indigenous, and people of colorand make space for and amplify BIPOC educators. In presentations resembling Soviet-era struggle sessions, Flores instructs teachers that they must deepen [their] political analysis of racism and oppression and start healing with public apologies about [their] racism and then go back and apologize through an audit through an anti-racist lens. During one of these sessions, Flores hosted an exercise resembling Orwells Two Minutes Hate, in which minority teachers were allowed 90 seconds to berate their white colleagues. During the exercise, Flores denounced one of her white female colleagues by screaming, You make me feel unsafe, you make me feel unsafe repeatedly for 90 seconds. Afterward, Flores boasted on Facebook that she had publicly humiliated a racist, despite providing no evidence of racism or misconduct. It was a pure display of racial dominance. (Flores did not return request for comment.)

For Flores and other teachers in the social-justice wing of Portland Public Schools, the only solution is revolution. During one presentation to teachers, Flores claimed that an educator in a system of oppression is either a revolutionary or an oppressor. In a folder hosted on the district website, Flores shared a meme with teachers that justified the ongoing political violence in Portland: The root cause of every riot is some kind of oppression. If you want to end the riots, you have to end the oppression. If you want to end a riot without ending its root cause, your agenda isnt about peace and justiceits about silencing and control.

Her message to students was similar. In a series of videos delivered to her elementary school students, Flores declared: Black people were used as slaves in the U.S. and therefore students must become justice fighters. At the height of the Portland riots, Flores released another video message telling the children that protesting is when people hold up signs and march for justice. Youve trained for this moment all year: the fight for justice.

By high school, the basic education about skin color and justice fighters turns into advanced race theory and live-action street protesting. At Lincoln High, a wealthy public school with only 1 percent black student enrollment, some students take two full years of critical race studies. The courses, taught by Jessica Mallare-Best, begin with training on racial identity, white supremacy, institutional racism, and racial empowerment, with the goal of providing methods in which students can begin to be activists and allies for change. The following year, students take two semesters of critical race theorystudying white fragility, intersectionality, whiteness as property, the permanence of racism, collective organizing, and being an activist, with an eye toward training them to do [their] part in dismantling white supremacy. The abstract becomes concrete, theory is transformed into action, and the young people of Portland come of age steeped in race analysis and revolutionary logic.

The next step is obvious. Children, endowed with conviction in their own moral purity, head to the front lines. In 2018, Ockley Green Middle School invited police abolitionist Teressa Raiford to hold an assembly on social justice, after which she led hundreds of students into the streets to perform a die-in in the middle of an intersectionwithout seeking permission from or notifying their parents. During the Floyd protests, the teacher- and student-led protests accelerated. Children as young as five held a mock protest at Sabin Elementary School and raised the Black Power fist alongside their teachers. Middle school students in northeast Portland led a public march advocating for defunding the police. High school students marched through a neighborhood in southwest Portlandthe whitest part of the citydemanding that residents provide reparations to blacks.

The conclusion of Portlands educational program is a grim one. More than two millennia ago, Aristotle understood the connection between education and the political regime: That the legislator should especially busy himself about the education of the young would be disputed by no one, as the regime is damaged in cities where this is not done. The young need to be educated to the regime, since the character proper to each regime is what customarily preserves it and establishes it to begin with. In Portland, the educators have abandoned this classical insight and implemented a revolutionary programpedagogy, praxis, powerexplicitly against the regime of the U.S. Constitution. They have discarded Aristotle for Marx and enlisted children as their revolutionary foot soldiers.

Violence has followed. The Youth Liberation Front, one of the most active and violent protest groups in Portland, was founded by teenagers and has recruited hundreds of young people to fight against the American regime. The group is organized into autonomous cells to avoid law-enforcement infiltration and has armed itself with shields, weapons, gas masks, and explosives. The group organized a walkout of Portland high schools and then rioted for more than 100 consecutive nights following George Floyds death. We are a bunch of teenagers armed with ADHD and yerba mate, the group declared on social media. We can take a 5 a.m. raid and be back on our feet a few hours later. Well be back again and again until every prison is reduced to ashes and every wall to rubble. Over the course of the summer, Portland and Multnomah County law enforcement arrested dozens of minors, including members of the Youth Liberation Front, for protest-related crimes, including rioting, burglary, property destruction, throwing rocks and bottles at police officers, brandishing a handgun at a crowd, setting fire to the police union headquarters, and stomping a man unconscious.

Their teachers, too, have immersed themselves in the destruction. Over the course of the summer unrest, police arrested at least five school teachers for riot-related crimes: Rose Addis, an award-winning Portland Public Schools elementary school teacher, was arrested for felony riot, disorderly conduct, and attempting to steal an officers baton; April Epperson, a Portland Public Schools elementary school teacher, was arrested for disorderly conduct and interfering with a police officer; Jacob Soto, a Portland Public Schools middle school band teacher, was arrested for felony riot and interfering with a police officer; Cody Porter, an avowed Communist and Multnomah County school instructor, was arrested for assaulting a federal officer; and Hannah Fewster, a preschool teacher, was arrested for disorderly conduct and interfering with a police officer. All except one were released immediately without bail; according to publicly available directories, at least two of the Portland Public Schools teachers appear to be still employed by the district.

We have reached the strange reality in which the state, through education, agitates for its own destruction.

In one case, the eventual consequence of Portlands bad education was a grisly death. Throughout the summer, a 16-year-old girl armed with a metal baseball bat accompanied her 48-year-old father, antifascist radical Michael Forest Reinoehl, to protests and riots across Portland. In July, the elder Reinoehl was arrested for rioting and possessing a loaded gun in public; at a separate protest, he was shot in the arm during a violent confrontation outside a barall in his daughters presence. As Reinoehl told reporters: I have my daughter here with me because Im trying to give her an education. The fact is, shes going to be contributing to running this new country that were fighting for. And shes going to learn everything on the street. The following month, Reinoehl hunted a Trump supporter through downtown Portland, lay in wait for him behind a parking garage, and then seized him from behind and fired two shots, with one bullet piercing the mans chest and killing him on the spot. Reinoehl fled to Washington State and, after an armed confrontation with law enforcement, was shot and killed by U.S. marshals.

Educators and parents in Portland are playing with fire. They have filled the heads of the young with dark visions of America and then told them to find fulfillment through revolution. But that revolution is devoid of positive values; it is a war of negation, destruction, and death. The child soldiers have been promised a new world from the ashes, but the real outcome, if they get their way, would be a world of ruincold, empty, and salted over. Its hard not to see this as a cynical game: teachers and administrators, ensconced in the public bureaucracy and secured by the public trust, engage in an absurd theater of cultural Marxism, spinning stories about the pedagogy of the oppressed to their privileged, suburban, predominantly white students. For all the talk about liberation and critical consciousness, they are indoctrinating these children in a profoundly pessimistic worldview, in which racism and oppression pervade every institution, with no way out but revolution.

We have reached the strange reality in which the state, through the organs of education, agitates for its own destruction. Educators have condemned the entire structure of the social order and celebrated those who would tear it down. They might get what they wish for, though not in the way they imagine. The ancient Greeks warned about the degeneration of democracy into ochlocracy, or mob rule, which occurs when the populace loses faith in constitutions and the rule of law. The result is anarchy. In Portland, educators are shaping the character of the young into this regime of disorder. When the citys rioters chant Whose streets? Our streets! in call and response, we should heed themand beware of whats to come.

Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Sign up for his newsletter here.

Top Photo: The citys adults are indoctrinating children in a profoundly pessimistic worldview, in which racism and oppression pervade every institution, with no way out but revolution. (ALEX MILAN TRACY/SIPA USA/NEWSCOM)

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The Child Soldiers of Portland - City Journal

Even before COVID-19, things werent going all that well on post-secondary campuses across Canada. Research before and during the pandemic has revealed that food and housing insecurity are a major problem for many students and staff.

There has been an acceleration towards commercial and branded spaces on public university campuses, which has come at the detriment of the very population these institutions are intended to serve. Whether through corporatizing library, housing or food services, the profits accrued by these large commercial interests have been extracted from increasingly indebted and impoverished students.

Read more: Low funding for universities puts students at risk for cycles of poverty, especially in the wake of COVID-19

As we emerge from the pandemic, those institutions with substantive endowments and high-paying international students may yet be able to return to business as usual. But relying on international students for revenue is a dangerous strategy as many universities in Australia have discovered. For many Canadian institutions, and students, post-pandemic business as usual may simply not be sustainable.

Instead of rushing back into a competitive global race to recruit students and achieve high university rankings, there is another way that could mean a more affordable education for students and that more money remains invested in the education system: co-operatives.

Co-operatives are businesses owned by the members. Principles of co-ops include reinvesting profits in the co-op, supporting other co-ops, education and training for members, equity and community.

Co-ops provide a place to learn about more democratic and equitable ways of living, working and learning together and also offer ways to re-imagine alternative business models. My hope is that universities would offer support for students, staff and faculty to develop co-op housing, co-op grocery stores, cafes and more on campuses.

Back in 1936, during the Great Depression, students at the University of Toronto created a housing co-operative that still exists today.

Extensive research points to co-ops being better able to withstand economic downturns; they can be more efficient and sustainable than other economic organization forms.

The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) reports that 1.2 billion people on the planet are part of a co-operative, and 10 per cent of the worlds workforce are employed through co-operatives.

A study commissioned by the United Nations concluded that combined the global co-operative economy is two times larger than Frances economy and places right behind Germanys economy as the fifth largest economic unit if it were a united country. Co-ops do fail, as we saw with Mountain Equipment Coop, but they do fare better economically and in creating equitable conditions than other forms of business.

Mondragon University is a co-operative university in Spain that has 4,000 students. Within the university, each faculty with a legal co-operative structure is built upon a shared project with common co-operative principles such as co-operation, democracy and solidarity. The university is part of Mondragon Corporation which includes 96 co-operative businesses that employ over 70,000 people.

While other companies in Spain were laying off workers, the Mondragon co-ops managed to keep their workers on the payroll.

A principle of co-ops is to support other co-ops a co-op among co-ops model applies so they can take advantage of large scale purchasing, for example, but also govern themselves in ways that maintain autonomy.

Crises bring renewed interest in co-operatives. In the United Kingdom, higher education co-operatives and partners have made progress towards creating a co-operative university.

Co-operative food stores and cafes save money through bulk buying while giving students more say in governance and access to quality food.

Co-op bookstores aim to provide people with reasonable prices and opportunities to be part of the governance of the co-op.

In Toronto, the Neill-Wycik Co-operative College opened for students in 1970 three years after its 1967 incorporation. Today it offers affordable housing to 750 post-secondary students from several institutions and has operated as a hotel in summers. The co-op also provides educational opportunities for participating in democratic governance.

For post-secondary institutions emerging from the isolation of the pandemic with the knowledge that business as usual isnt going to happen, promoting and encouraging co-operative ventures is one way to contribute to a more resilient society in the face of multiple global crises.

But thinking co-operatively requires looking at ourselves as interdependent, both individually and institutionally.

Post-secondary institutions have a responsibility to be at the forefront of trying out new ways of living, working and being together that does not privilege profit over education, equity and sustainability. There is renewed interest. A group I belong to has brought together academics, students and co-operators from different sectors to work towards more equitable campuses.

Co-operatives arent a lost utopia, but they do provide a model for moving towards a more inclusive post-secondary sector, which research demonstrates is key to strong educational, health and civic engagement and innovation outcomes.

The challenge is to connect this research to how governments and university leaders translate their commitment to an equitable education system into how they allocate limited resources now and into the future.

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With campus co-operatives, universities could model new ways of living after COVID-19 - The Conversation CA

By operating in Hungary and Greece, two countries negotiating access to the EUs Just Transition Fund, HUI hopes to accelerate deployment of the waste-to-energy technology. Source: Cristian Palmer on Unsplash

Powerhouse Energy, a British sustainable hydrogen company, has agreed to sign a contract with UK-based technology company Hydrogen Utopia International (HUI) for the licence of Powerhouses Distributed Modular Generation (DMG) technology, which will convert waste plastic into energy, including hydrogen, across Greece and Hungary.

DMG is a new type of recycling technology, which produces a clean syngas used for power generation or as a source for hydrogen. The technology takes end-of-life plastics, which are introduced into a chamber at high temperature with an oxidising agent. The thermal conversion chamber operates in the absence of oxygen, so there is no burning as the plastics gasify.

Powerhouse Energy executive chair Tim Yeo says: The process is controlled according to the feedstock to produce a clean syngas, generally free of contaminants. The syngas is further cleaned and then used to create electricity. Hydrogen is separated and we then have a fuel that can be used by HGVs. Two tonnes of hydrogen can be produced per day, which can fuel 60 lorries to travel 250-300 miles. Heat is also created in this process.

The use of the DMG technology can provide a closed loop solution within local level communities for non-recyclable plastic waste, cleaning up oceans, and helping to accelerate the clean energy transition.

By operating in Hungary and Greece, two countries negotiating access to the EUs Just Transition Fund, HUI hopes to accelerate deployment of the waste-to-energy technology.

The Just Transition Fund will provide financial support to EU member states as they move towards net-zero emissions, helping the EU become climate neutral by 2050.

Yeo said: We are pleased to extend the countries in which it is intended HUI to help deploy our DMG technology to include Greece and Hungary. This is part of our long-term vision for rolling out sustainable hydrogen technology internationally. We believe this will accelerate the clean energy transition in Hungary and Greece and provide both countries with a solution to end-of-life plastic.

Based on their population ratio, HUI will acquire exclusive agreements for Greece and Hungary for $304,300 with a 10% deposit.

Hydrogen Utopia International CEO Aleksandra Binkowska said: It is my delight that the alliance between Powerhouse Energy and HUI has become stronger with acquiring rights to Greece and Hungary. Since our first agreement in November, our mutual work has been as successfulas one can possibly imagine.Now having three territories under our umbrella, I believe that the DMG system rollout will be even faster and more aggressive than we have ever anticipated.

The Polish Centre of Hydrogen is still our main target, but we are more than pleased to have new opportunities in new markets to ensure that the expansionof DMG will be more than satisfactory to both Powerhouse Energy and HUI.

The development follows a non-binding Heads of Terms Agreement for the application of its technology in Poland that Powerhouse Energy and HUI signed in November 2020.

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Plastic waste-to-energy tech is being unrolled in Hungary and Greece - Power Technology

Powerhouse Energy (PHE) is set to roll out its hydrogen technology internationally with the signing of an exclusive, non-transferable licence with Hydrogen Utopia International (HUI) today (May 10) for the application of its technology in Greece and Hungary.

The UK-based energy groups unique technology provides a solution to non-recyclable plastic and produces a clean fuel that can help improve air quality by replacing diesel with hydrogen as a transport fuel.

By targeting Hungary and Greece, two countries which are negotiating access to the European Unions Just Transition Fund, HUI hopes to accelerate deployment of PHEs DMG technology.

Powerhouses technology aims to be used at a local level providing a closed loop solution within the community for non-recyclable plastic waste, cleaning up our oceans and helping to accelerate the clean energy transition to reach the target of net zero emissions by 2030.

Read more: Powerhouse Energy and Hydrogen Utopia International sign agreement

Read more: Powerhouse reports great progress at its waste-to-hydrogen site in Poland; looks for future expansion opportunities

This follows the non-binding Heads of Terms which PHE signed with HUI in November last year for the application of its technology in Poland.

Tim Yeo, Executive Chair of Powerhouse energy, said, This is part of our long-term vision for rolling out sustainable hydrogen technology internationally.

We believe this will accelerate the clean energy transition in Hungary and Greece and provide both countries with a solution to end-of-life plastic.

Aleksandra Binkowska, CEO of Hydrogen Utopia International, said, with having three territories under our umbrella, I believe that the DMG system rollout will be even faster and more aggressive than we have ever anticipated.

Polish Centre of Hydrogen is still our main target, but we are more than pleased to have new opportunities in new markets to ensure that the expansion of DMG will be more than satisfactory to both PHE and HUI.

Get all the latest hydrogen news, views and developments straight to your inbox.

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Powerhouse's waste-to-hydrogen technology to roll out in Greece and Hungary - H2 View

China is planning to land a spacecraft and rover on Mars this month.

If it succeeds, it will become just the third nation to safely touch down on the Red Planet after Russia and the United States.

China's Tianwen-1 orbiter joined spacecraft from five other space agencies circling Mars in February.

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Since then, Tianwen-1has been mapping thesurface of Mars and getting ready to land its first rover, Zhurong, named after an ancient god of fire.

While the exact landing date is unclear, i's likely to be mid this month,according to reports from Chinese state media.

China'sMars exploration program may beless mature than NASA's, but the Tianwen-1 mission will makea significant contribution to the science community, saidDavid Flannery of Queensland University of Technology, who works on NASA's Perseverance mission.

"It is a capable mission that has some really ambitious science goals," hesaid.

It's also an important stepping stone to more sophisticatedmissions, in the same way that early NASAmissions such as Pathfinder, which landed the first rover Sojourner in 1997,paved the way for the US Mars program, he said.

Supplied: CNSA

All going to plan, Zhurong willjoin three other spacecraft from NASAincluding Perseverance, which landed in February.

But landing on Mars isnotoriously tricky.

"Landing isthe most technically challenging part, it's where most missions fail," Dr Flannery said.

Weighing about 240 kilograms,the car-sized rover has six wheels and is covered by four solar panels, making it look like a "blue butterfly".

Reuters: Tingshu Wang

Onboard are six instruments, including cameras designedto map the terrain, sensors that analyse the chemistry of soil and rocks, ground-penetrating radar that will search for signs ofice water beneath the surface, a weather station, and a magnetic field detector.

While most of these instruments are analogous to those found on NASA rovers, the magnetic field detectorcouldyield some exciting new science, Dr Flannery said.

"This is the first magnetometer sent to the surface of Mars," Dr Flannery said.

The magnetometer on the rover will work with the magnetometer on the Tianwen-1 orbiter to measure Mars' magnetic field.

"One of the big questions in planetary science is, 'What happened to Mars in the past? Why is it so desolate?'" he said.

"One of the ways you can answer that question is by measuring the magnetic properties of rocks that recorded the state of the planetary magnetic field as they were deposited."

The spacecraft will land somewhere in the southern part of a vast plain known as Utopia Planitia.

The 3,300-kilometre-wide plainis the largest impact crater on Mars.

Viking 2, one of NASA's earliest missions, landed in the northern part of the craterin 1976.

NASA/ABC

The region is one of the easiest places on Mars to land, Dr Flannery said.

"The way to reduce the risk is to choose a landing site where you have very few objects that would cause a problem to land on," he said.

The southern part of Utopia Planitia is mostly flat and smooth with a few sand dunes and boulders.

Supplied: CNSA

The plain is also one of the lowest areas on Mars, so there is more atmosphere to help slow down the spacecraft as it descends.

But a safe entry is not the only reason to target this region.

There may also bevast amounts of water ice under apartof the plain, according to mapping by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

"This is essentially a site that would be suitable for China's first human mission to Mars," Dr Flannery said.

Landing on Mars is known as the "seven minutes of terror" for a reason.

Remnants of China's biggest rocket crashinto the Indian Ocean, with the bulk of its components destroyed upon re-entry into the atmosphere, according to media reports.

The spacecraft is on its own from the timeit enters the thin Martian atmosphere travelling at supersonic speeds, until it reaches the surface seven minutes later.

The time delay between Earth and Mars means no-one knows whether it has safely touched down or crashed aka terrabraked until after it hashappened.

NASA recently landed its latest rover Perseverance on the Red Planet using a series of choreographed steps and technologies that included parachutes, rockets and a sky crane.

But China's landing sequence will be slightlydifferent.

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For a start, it is detaching from an orbiter 70 kilometres above the surface (Perseverance didn't have an orbiter).

Protected by a cone-shaped heat shield, it will hurtle towards the surface at supersonic speeds before deploying a giant parachute to slow it down.

Then the final stage will rely on rocketsto lower it to the ground, and a system of cameras andlidar navigationto try to avoid obstacles as it's coming in.

Technology used in the landing is based on China'ssuccessful human spaceflight and lunar missions, space journalist Andrew Jones said.

The heat shield and parachute technologiesare used in their Shenzhou space flight program, which has sent six crewed missions into space since 2003.

The enginesand navigation systems are similar to those used in its three successfulChang'e lunar missions.

"They haven'ttested this altogether, but they have had the experience of dealing with these technologies," Mr Jones said.

Getty Images: Barclay Media

If the spacecraftsurvives the landing, then the plan is to roll theZhurong rover off the lander a few days later so it can begin its 90 (Martian) day trip across the surface.

Releasing the rover and navigating across the Red Planet is"no trivial task,"Dr Flannery said.

Meanwhile, the orbiter will continuecircling Mars, acting as a communications relay station for at least one Martian year.

When it comes to Mars, there are no guarantees.

While NASA has successfully landed six spacecraft and a helicopteron Mars since 2003,other spacecraft such as the European Space Agency's (ESA) Schiaparelli lander have failed.

Even though this is China's first attempt to land on Mars, it's already proven it has technological clout when it comes to space missions.

It's the only nation to havelanded on the Moon three times in the past decade, and to have pulled off a complex mission to bring backthe firstrocks from the Moon's surface in more than 40 years.

"What they are doing is extremely challenging and impressive," Mr Jones said.

But even thoughmany of the technologies have been tested for lunar missions, Mars presents different challenges: it has a thin atmosphere, a different gravity field, is much further away, and there isa lag in communications of between 12 and 20 minutes.

"They are dealing with something they haven't dealt with before," Mr Jones said.

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If something does go wrong,there is no backup rover, he added.

"I was wondering if there was going to be a backup mission to this rover, just like there is normally a backup to the lunar missions, but it turns out there isn't, so this is their only chance."

But even if things don't go to plan, they will still learn valuable lessonsfor future missions, such as a planned sample return in 2028 or 2030, he said.

"Even ifthe landing fails, they will learn a lot about what it takes to land on Mars."

For example, he said, the ESA has used data from the failed 2016 mission to inform the Rosalind Franklin rover mission that's due to launch in2022.

"It wouldbe a disappointment [if the landing fails], but I don't think it wouldbe a major blow," Mr Jones said.

"It's very challenging, so I don't think their Mars exploration plans are dependent on this landing."

Get all the latest science stories from across the ABC.

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China's Tianwen-1 mission getting set to try and land Zhurong rover on Mars - ABC News

To the editor:

As our country divides ever farther apart we see the impact of this oppressive ideology, which is not about addressing social justice and overcoming systemic racism. Set aside their narrative and examine the underlying history of this movement to better understand the radical agenda that seeks to undermine our country.

Cultural Marxism was born out of Marxs economic theory that the working class would eventually rise up and overthrow the hated bourgeoisie. The global worker uprising never happened, except in Russia, which never became utopia, only a murderous dictatorship.

Italian Antonio Gramsci and Hungarian Georg Lukacs (both Communists) theorized that Western values were too deeply entrenched and Christianity too strong, so Western culture and religion had to be destroyed. Their ideas appeared in the 1920s, arguing that the rise of a successful Communist takeover necessitated undermining the pillars of society including Christianity, family, truth, law, patriotism and national unity, sexual restraint, language and tradition, among others.

A group of German Marxists, influenced by this thinking, established the Institute for Social Research, popularly known as The Frankfurt School. The group relocated to New York with Hitlers rise to power, taking positions at Columbia University. The term Critical Theory was first used in 1937, a social theory that harshly criticizes a culture, brutally and unremittingly, in order to change it. After WWII, most of this group returned to Germany, but Herbert Marcuse stayed in New York, becoming a powerfully influential voice of the left over the following decades. Stoking grievances would unite disaffected groups into a powerful, angry force. In his 1965 essay, Repressive Tolerance, he argued for toleration of all leftist ideas and movements while prohibiting ideas and movements from the right. Sound familiar?

Success in this long march through the institutions requires destruction of said cultural institutions, opening the way for political takeover. This began with academia and the media. Radical students in the 1960s moved into teaching and journalism. By the 1980s, critical theory dominated higher education, and this philosophy now infects big business, government, public employee unions, K-12 education, and even the military. In our post-modern era, truth is one of the pillars they redefined, claiming it is rooted in historical and social conditions, based on narrative and feelings, not objective facts. How else could adherents defend 2+2=5? Political correctness describes a method of controlling social discourse in order to shape the culture.

Just as Hitler used race as a key fault line to stoke grievances and build hatred, race is exploited in our country for the same end. Identity politics brings other groups into the fold based on gender, sexual orientation and others. Vocal and sometimes violent proponents of this movement include Antifa, which traces its roots to German Communists in the 1930s, and Black Lives Matter, founded by trained Marxists. Today, Antifa fights against liberal democracy and capitalism. The latter group has scrubbed some of the more offensive notions from its website to disguise their real mission of upending society. Do not be misled by lofty platitudes of these groups and others. The endgame is an oppressive socialism.

This destructive ideology is best shown by the countless examples of CRT nonsense brought into public and even some private schools. For example, Philadelphia Public Schools now teach kindergartners that America is built on a pyramid of hate culminating in genocide. Really? Parents and grandparents, be aware of indoctrination that may be taking place in schools and speak out against it. Red flags include descriptions such as diversity, equity and inclusion or similar phrases. If, on the other hand, you believe all white people are racists and 6-year-olds should be taught they are either an oppressor or oppressed, you support these initiatives.

Don Stuart, Nashville

Send letters to newsroom@bcdemocrat.com by noon Thursday before the date of intended publication (noon Wednesday on holiday weeks). Letters must be signed by the author and include the writers town of residence and a contact method in case of questions.

Letters are the opinions of the writer. They are not verified facts.

Only one letter every two weeks, per writer, to allow for diversity of voices in the opinions section. Please be considerate of sharing space with other letter-writers and keep your comments concise and to the point. Avoid name-calling, accusations of criminal activity and second- and third-hand statements of fact.

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Letter: 'Origins of wokeness/critical race theory (CRT)' - Brown County Democrat

Its happening. America is reopening, and like a sprawling field of bright red poppies the post-Covid consumer is bursting with a renewed self-expression and ready to dance again experts say. Which is great news for the economy and business owners, except for one thing, finding willing workers is tough right now.

Back to the Future office

As the massive U.S. Covid-19 vaccination roll-out campaign to date has already inoculated more than 100 million Americans, Harvard Business School Online sponsored a recent survey which asked 1500 home-bound workers how they felt about going back to the office after one year (March 2020 March 2021). Turns out the results didnt surprise anyone. 81% said they prefer a hybrid schedule or not going back at all. And only 18% said they wanted to return to the office full time. Thats less than 1 out of 5. Why? Too many workers adjusted to a life working from home, and they like it. And many simply dont want their old jobs back. At least not the old way and are asking themselves: Why risk going back, getting sick when Im safer at home and still getting paid?

But its still not a utopia. Rumblings can be heard and widening cracks seen in the stay-at-home castle wall fortress. Lack of social interaction among peers, reduced networking options, and Zoom fatigue are among the growing issues that have only recently given some restless home-gamers second thoughts, and thus willing to hear a good back-to-the-office pitch.

To make matters worse adding to the widespread labor shortage are millions of laid off cave-dwellers suffering from the same maladies. Paid more at home collecting pandemic unemployment and stimulus checks, these unemployed hordes have shown little interest in getting back to work while the free money rolls in. And its expected to stay that way unless employers can grab their attention.

So, what do workers want post-Covid?

For starters they want every employer to recognize and have adapted their business practices to take every reasonable safeguard and precaution to protect employees from Covid. Anything less is a non-starter bringing into focus for employers a resounding obvious truth to a post-Covid workforce. After a year at home, employed or unemployed, workers need some serious motivation. And if youre an employer desperately in need of staffers to service increasing sales post-Covid the message is loud and clear, go big or go home. Sound familiar?

In January 1914, in an all-out effort to stem worker turnover at the plant in Dearborn, Michigan and to incentivize new workers to join the payroll, Henry Ford doubled his automobile assembly line workers daily wage from less than $2.50 to $5.00/day. A shocking increase at the time. But it worked. Fast forward a hundred years later in April 2021 Jack Flanigan owner of the famous Crab Shack restaurant near Savannah, Georgia is so desperate for workers as the local news there reports that hes offering new staff a $3,000 sign-on and stick around bonus. They need workers he says. And its working. In fact, new sign-on bonuses are popping up everywhere, on job boards too. ZipRecruiter for example saw a 50% increase in April topping 2.5 million help wanted listings with the search title: Covid sign-on bonus. SimplyHired saw a similar increase in the last 30 days.

With countless more Covid incentive stories emerging each day, pulling together the latest insights suggest that having the right new incentives can help motivate a growing restless home-bound couch-dweller back on his feet and rearing to go if you need one. But as every situation is different youll have to find your sweet spot by experimenting in what specifically works for your business model and the competitive landscape. Nevertheless, according to my research some companies are pulling out all the stops, while others are still asking employees what they want. The resulting middle ground incentive programs being tossed about by employers to lure workers back will give you some idea of what youre up against:

Essentially, employers will need to throw a lot of money at workers in the short term. Trouble is for some industries like food, hospitality and travel that already report being hit hard by lockdowns and worker shortage problems simply cant afford to pay more in wages and benefits. Pre-Covid pressures to increase minimum wage levels across many states to $15/hr aka to a living wage was tough enough. Couple that with a new return-to-work post-Covid additional cash bonus requirement and the resulting double whammy may be the final straw and force many companies to cut hours, or shutter permanently.

As of now, finding enough workers is a growing challenge across all industry segments and may get worse before things settle back down in 2022 economists forecast. And hopefully not because of a recession. Until then it makes sense to stay well informed and act decisively. If you need workers now, be creative about how to attract them. Also be sure to consider often over-looked employee candidates including those with minor criminal offenses (background check exceptions), immigrants that require employer-sponsored work visas, and older workers. By contrast these are each among the eager prospects, able and willing.

When the music stops

Alternatively, you could try and wait it out, because you figure, at some point when the music stops and the Covid cash machine runs dry millions of current consumer couch potatoes, like hibernating bears after a long cold winter, will need to find work if they want to eat, consequently flooding the job market in mass. And thus, this begs the final question; how can we get a better sense of when the gravy train will actually run out of steam and compel these sleepy bears to re-enter the labor force in America?

A quick look at the free stimulus cash flow checks distributed to families and workers since the pandemic began may provide the answer. To-date as of May 2021 Americans impacted by the virus have received 3- waves of stimulus checks from the government worth trillions of dollars.

The first wave of $1,200 checks per adult (more with dependents) was sent out April 2020 after the CARES act passed. This followed by the second wave of $600 checks for adults starting in December 2020. And finally, most recently on March 10th 2021 Congress passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, a third wave of Covid stimulus payments of up to $1,400 per adult earning less than $80,000/yr.

While state unemployment checks keep rolling in

Adding more money to the mix significantly each state is currently piling on the unemployment benefits to millions of workers impacted by Covid. Normally unemployment benefits last for 26 weeks. But many can apply for a Pandemic Unemployment Assistance extension which can add an additional 29 weeks. All told collectively given federal and state assistance workers have about one year of paid time off with many earning as much or more at home than they earned at work. So, when will it end? Lets do the math.

If workers were laid off last summer in 2020, and the cash runs out roughly 12 months later they might need to jump back into the job market very soon. In fact, recent weekly jobless claims dropped to a new record pandemic low, suggesting that workers are slowly coming back. Something to think about as employers consider which re-hire or new-hire incentives will catch their eye.

What to do now

My advice is simple. Pay now or pay later. But dont just sit on your hands. If you need more staff now and you dont offer any incentives at all, how will your employees respond to a market awash with grass-is-greener temptations from other employers? Still. At some point within the next 12-24 months labor markets and back-to-work hybrid models which are running by trial-and-error right now will identify key trends and best practices including which incentives do work and which dont. Until then, re-define post-Covid what your company will need to win the day, not just today but in 3 years post-Covid time. Paying up now for the best people who can demonstrate a strong commitment to your companys mission and passion for quality customer service is always a good thing. These workers are an investment, not a transaction. Make that clear and you will attract better long-term workers, not the ones looking for flashy over-the-top car-dealer bonus incentives to get off the couch and drag themselves back to work. Remember. What comes around goes around.

Make sense?

Written by Rick Andrade.

Read more:

Where is Everybody? Are Big Incentives the Only Way to Attract Good Workers Post-Covid? - CEOWORLD magazine

EXCLUSIVE: HBO Max and U.S. distributor and sales firm Utopia have acquired rights to well-received Sundance Film Festival title Were All Going To The Worlds Fair.

The coming-of-age horror-drama follows teenager Casey who becomes immersed in an online role-playing horror game, wherein she begins to document the changes that may or may not be happening to her.

The film, which will have its NY premiere later this month at the New Directors/New Films festival, is the narrative feature debut of writer-director Jane Schoenbrun. Utopia will release the film in U.S. theaters early next year and HBO Max has licensed U.S. streaming rights.

With an original score by Alex G, the movie stars Anna Cobb and Michael J Rogers alongside a number of performers appearing in various real and staged YouTube videos, including Theo Anthony, Evan Santiago, and the ASMR content creator Slight Sounds.

Related Story'Doctor Who' Star David Tennant Joins 'The Amazing Maurice'; HBO Max Greenlights Spanish-Language Original 'Garca'; Channel 4 Axes 'The Circle' - Global Briefs

Carlos Zozaya and Sarah Winshall produced the film, with cinematography by Daniel Patrick Carbone and Abby Harri serving as co-producer and casting director.

The deal was negotiated by Danielle DiGiacomo for Utopia and Chris Grunden for HBO Max with CAA Media Finance on behalf of the filmmakers.

Utopia is honored to be partnering with Jane Schoenbrun on the release of their first feature, Sundance standout Were All Going To The Worlds Fair, a chillingly immersive and emotional journey into the all-encompassing universe of the internet. We cannot wait for audiences to enter into the riveting cinematic world that Jane has built, said Danielle DiGiacomo, Head of Content for Utopia.

I am so honored to be working with the smart and lovely team at Utopia, and to be bringing my first film to streaming via HBO Max. Were All Going To The Worlds Fair is a deeply personal film that was made with a lot of love by a small group of artists and friends, and to know itll have a proper chance to find its audience with the help of these great companies is so exciting to me, added Jane Schoenbrun.

Utopias previous acquisitions have included TIFF comedy Shiva Baby, Cannes title Mickey And The Bear and Errol Morriss American Dharma.

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HBO Max & Utopia Pick Up Sundance Coming-Of-Age Horror Were All Going To The Worlds Fair - Deadline