Category Archives: Nihilism

Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole attends a Stampede pancake breakfast in Calgary on July 10, 2021.

Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press

The official line in Conservative circles is: Dont panic. Campaigns matter, a week is a long time in politics, remember what happened to David Peterson, etc.

The unofficial line is: Panic. It isnt just that the Liberals hold a substantial lead in public opinion (six recent polls put them between eight and 14 points ahead). Its that the Tories have very little room to grow.

A new Abacus Data poll finds just 41 per cent of voters would even consider voting Conservative. Thats well behind the Liberals (56 per cent) of course, but its also behind the NDP (48 per cent). Its barely ahead of the Greens (33 per cent).

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How did it come to this, that the party of Confederation could have fallen into such odium that six in ten voters will not even consider voting for it?

Erin OToole needs to show he is a leader who can lead

The tendency will be to blame the leader, and certainly Erin OTooles approval numbers must be dismaying to Conservative supporters. Just 14 per cent of respondents in the latest Nanos poll picked him as their preferred prime minister, versus 37 per cent for Justin Trudeau and 18 per cent for Jagmeet Singh.

But the Conservatives woes did not begin with Mr. OTooles leadership, and they will not end there. In six elections under the unified Conservative banner, the party has averaged just short of 35 per cent of the vote four percentage points less, on average, than the old Progressive Conservative and Reform/Canadian Alliance parties used to get, between them, in the years when the movement was divided.

Of course, the Grits have fared even worse over the same period, averaging just 31 per cent of the vote since 2004. But Liberal weakness masks a more enduring strength: while the party has lost some support to the NDP, the Greens and the Bloc, it has a much bigger pool of progressive voters to fish from. With the right leader, it can still aspire to power. Whereas its not clear even a strong leader could save the Tories.

Some of that is explicable in terms of policy. On many of the most important issues of the day, Conservatives have either had nothing to say (hello, climate change) or have actively antagonized voters they might otherwise have reached (race, immigration, marriage equality).

More broadly, the party seems to have lost its nerve, unable even to advance traditional conservative policies free markets, lower taxes, balanced budgets with any vigour. The left has been right about more things than the right in recent years, but right or wrong it has been demonstrably more confident.

More confident and more cheerful. Beyond leadership or policy, the Conservative malaise seems even more to do with what I might call the partys temperament: not just its image but its persona, the deeper qualities of disposition that are revealing of character. Something in the Conservative temperament has simply become repellent to a great many people.

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If the besetting sin of Liberals is smarmy sanctimoniousness, the Conservative equivalent is a chippy defensiveness, an adolescent petulance, a conviction that the cards are perpetually stacked against them. Fair enough, up to a point: decades of what the late Richard Gwyn called one-and-a-half party rule have left their inevitable residue a bureaucracy, a judiciary and a press gallery that are inclined to see the world, if not through Liberal glasses, then certainly through liberal ones.

Far worse, however, has been its toll on the Conservative psyche. The same fundamental insecurity that, in a Joe Clark or a Bob Stanfield, emerged as a kind of apologetic cough of deference to liberal elites, is also at work in todays smirking Conservative populist. Though Canadian Conservatives have not gone so far down that road as their counterparts elsewhere there is nothing to compare to the Republicans current mix of white nationalism, LOL-nothing-matters nihilism, and lunatic, QAnon-inspired conspiracy theories they are too willing to nod in that direction.

Moreover, while the Liberals, as the party of power and therefore of cabinet posts, have always been able to recruit individuals with a record of accomplishment in other fields, the Conservatives tend to get stuck with the lifers, people who have never done anything but partisan politics and are motivated by nothing so much as hatred of the Grits. Which may explain why the partys leading lights so often look and sound like campus Conservatives.

In sports it is often observed that a team might have the best players or the best strategy, but if it does not have a winning culture, that elusive gel of belief in itself, it is still doomed to defeat. Until the Conservatives develop that culture until they acquire some self-respect, put a smile on their face, and act like grown-ups they will be condemned to the same.

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Opinion: More than leadership or policy, it's the Conservative temperament that's putting off voters - The Globe and Mail

The UEFA European Football Championship final, like the rest of the tournament, took place at the wrong time. The tournament was set to be held in 2020 but was postponed until the current year. In fact, the games were not hosted by a single European country.

The reasons behind this time-space anomaly are well known. Many sports, political, social and cultural events had to be postponed or canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, Covid-19 still gnashes its teeth worldwide.

Just when we had started to relax a bit (I have to say that many experts were actually cautioning the public against showing any complacency), new mutations of the virus started to appear. Meanwhile, the phenomenon of anti-vaxxers became more acute.

Its a big problem. Vaccination resistance has come in the wake of Covid-19 denial. To be sure, not all Covid-19 vaccine deniers refuse to believe that the virus actually exists.

Some are intimidated by vaccines in general, others are concerned about unknown side effects because the vaccine was developed at an unprecedented pace, others cite ideological concerns (the profits of the pharmaceutical industry), while others have been anti-vaxxers all along and have been unwilling to inoculate their children. (Paradoxical as it may sound, I know people who refused to have their kids vaccinated yet lined up to have the Covid-19 jab. The will of deniers is unknown.)

You often hear people saying, Why should I get the shot if everyone else has? And this is the argument put forward by the more moderates. At the same time, its infuriating. If theres something colorful or even amusing to the wacky conspiracy theories, the let-others-have-the-jab attitude is just exasperating, because it is evidence of excess egocentrism and extreme ignorance about the risks stemming from that attitude.

The same unbearable egocentrism is shown by the parents who refuse to vaccinate their children. If other children are vaccinated, you will often hear them say, why should I vaccinate mine?

For some people there is something rebellious in saying no, in negationism as a way of life. However, it may well be an indirect expression of nihilism. Because it is at its core a negation of life itself.

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Denial as a way of life - Kathimerini English Edition

When John Singletons first film, Boyz N the Hood, was released on July 12, 1991, it immediately made him a household name in many Black communities across the country. The movie was so well received that my mother decided to take me to see the film in the theater.

This was a big deal.

I was only 10 years old, but, despite my mothers reluctance to let me watch movies with sex scenes, she explained that it was important that I experience Boyz. After the credits rolled, I understood why.

Ostensibly the story of three friends, Tre, Ricky and Doughboy, growing up in South-Central Los Angeles, it showed how white supremacy set the conditions that ended in neighborhoods devastated by crime and, ultimately, violence. Not many white people are featured in the film, but the impact of whiteness on Black life permeates the screen.

This is evident when Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.) interacts with Los Angeless finest. As a child he sees how even a Black police officer doesnt take his father, Furious (Laurence Fishburne), seriously when he reports a home break-in; when Tre is older, the same officer pulls a gun on him during a routine traffic stop. He quickly learns that the cops are there to neither protect nor serve him or his neighbors. What Singleton shows us about the relationship between the police and Black residents may be well understood now, but at the time it was rare for the Black communitys view on policing to be so well embodied by Hollywood. I was always taught to be wary of officers as a young Black man, but this was one of the first times I saw the rationale for that fear onscreen in a major American film.

Tre may be the focal point, but it is through Furious that Singleton makes plain his ideas about white supremacy.

Early on, Furious takes a young Tre (Desi Arnez Hines II) to the beach for some father-son bonding time. They talk about girls, sex and life. Then Furious mentions his time in Vietnam. (Surely Singleton was thinking of the young soldier Fishburne played in Francis Ford Coppolas Apocalypse Now while he filmed the scene.) Dont ever go in the Army, Tre, he says. Black man aint got no place in the Army.

I sat up in the theater because this was the exact conversation Id had with my grandfather.

An Army veteran who had fought in World War II, M.C. Murray and I talked about how he felt the country let him down upon his return. He expected things to be better but was forced to fight again, only this time, the enemy was American racism. He even talked to me about how his experience left him with the realization that there were two worlds in the military: one for white soldiers and another for Black ones. That Boyz scene, though brief, is full of that history. It shows us that Furiouss ideas about race were shaped by his service and that his treatment in the armed forces haunts him.

It is clear that Furious has left-of-center Black ideas with that exchange, but it is only later in the film that those ideas are spoken of with clarity and boldness. Thats when Tre and his best friend Ricky (Morris Chestnut), now high school seniors, take the S.A.T., then visit Furious at his office, a financial services firm that helps local residents buy their own homes.

The boys go with Furious to a street corner where the older man makes plain his (and Singletons) ideas about how Blackness is affected by white supremacy. This moment introduced me to a phenomenon that has come to shape the lives of Black people in the country for the next 30 years. The promise and theft of the American dream from Black families provides the backdrop for the films prescient message about changes that were coming to Black communities across the country.

Gentrification is what happens when the property value of a certain area is brought down, Furious says in a monologue that would be preachy if it were not delivered by one of the most talented actors of the 90s. They bring the property value down, they can buy the land at a lower price, then they move all the people out, raise the property value and sell it at a profit. A bystander played by the brilliant Whitman Mayo blames the declining property value on Black youth selling drugs. In response, Furious voices what this movie has been trying to tell us all along: Black people are not the ones who bring drugs into the country even if they are the ones dying every day.

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This is the scene that takes a pretty good film about Black life and makes it into a great one. Today, gentrification has dramatically altered the community represented in Boyz N the Hood and Black communities like it around the country.

On the surface, the film appears to be about Black crime and Black children coming of age, but just outside the frame Singleton is saying something more. Systemic racism is the real villain in this movie. It is a theme that he would revisit both in Poetic Justice and Rosewood. It is what sets the stage for Ricky to be killed at the end of Boyz and is the cause for the crime and nihilism embraced by Doughboy (Ice Cube). The characters choices start to make sense. They are either embracing the chaos that surrounds them or trying to escape it.

In essence, this is a postapocalyptic world. Except what was destroying their landscape wasnt an alien invasion or a virus. It was ravaged by white supremacy.

Singleton saw this 30 years ago, and his message remains as important now as it was then.

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Boyz N the Hood at 30: A Vivid Examination of Racism at Work - The New York Times

NEW TO AMAZON PRIME VIDEO!The Tomorrow War, directed by Chris McKay and written by Zach Dean, sees the present embroiled in a war that hasnt happened yet. By way of time travel, expendable civilians are drafted, and the public is lathered in nihilism due to not only the foreknowledge of a hopeless future but to not even being able to enjoy their present ignorantly. To quote a quotable guy, Ive seen the future, brother. It is murder.

One of those drafted is everyman Dan Forester (Chris Pratt). He is likable because he makes funny faces at children and has trouble landing a job a market-tested mannequin with rounded edges and white teeth. Dan has a history with the military, so hes able to handle a gun, which means we can skip the training montage and go straight to the wham-bam-thank-you-maam. In this case, the maam is referencing the spiders from mars, or whatever they are, and the thank you is facetious. The wham-bam is clearly gunfire.

the present [is] embroiled in a war that hasnt happened yet.

Its no surprise thatThe Tomorrow Warhas the complexity of a maze on the back of a cereal box. The problem is that its no more fun than a maze on the back of a cereal box. Theres an entire genre of action films that seem to be vague relocations of one another. Each entry seemingly covers all the same bases but in superficially different ways. McKays production falls snugly into this category without protest. None of the set pieces are inventive, and the dialogue is either overly serious or hacky ha-has. In addition to the bland everyman at the center of the story, all the supporting characters are soulless mouthpieces.

If Pratt wants to truly hang around as a Hollywood star for a long time, hes going to have to raise his standards a little. The thing about the movie stars we remember is that they actually made good films, even if they werent all awards-worthy. For example, between 1967 and 77, Clint Eastwood wasnt churning out stuff likeThe Tomorrow WarandJurassic World. Instead, he was starring inDirty Harry,Thunderbolt and Lightfoot,The Outlaw Josey Wales, andThe Gauntlet, just to name a few. These are unpretentious, wildly fun titles with provocative characters. It can be done, so why does it seem action tentpoles are all interchangeable nowadays?

Might it be possible to turn your brain off and enjoy the movie? Yes, but you could also turn your brain off and swallow a hamster. You could turn your brain off and do a lot of things. What kind of argument is that? And whats the point when youre streamingThe Tomorrow Waron a service that has hundreds of other films to watch, many of them more exciting and imaginative than this one? Youre not being forced to watch it and must, as a defensive maneuver, cognitively reframe it in your mind. Skip the mental gymnastics and watch something else. Or buy a yo-yo.

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The Tomorrow War - Film Threat

Dont try to bully China, or youll get a bloody nose. That was the Chinese president Xi Jinpings warning to the world on the centenary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), said William Yang in The Independent. Xi told a flag-waving crowd that anyone who tries to oppress China will have their heads bashed bloody against a Great Wall of steel.

The celebrations included a dazzling re-enactment of the CCPs early struggles and its recent achievements. They glossed over the grim era between 1950 and 1970, when Chairman Mao Zedongs policies killed millions and pushed China into extreme poverty.

Yet Xi seems increasingly to be a leader in Maos mould: in office since 2012, he has abolished the two-term limit on the presidency and tightened ideological control, using technology to monitor citizens. A government unit pushes a party-approved version of history, with contrary views demonised as historical nihilism. State media fosters a Mao-style personality cult around Xi Dada or big daddy, said Ian Williams in The Spectator. His approach, though, owes more to strident ethnic nationalism than communism.

Under Xi, China adopts two rather different tones abroad, said Charles Moore in The Daily Telegraph. Claiming to pursue dialogue and harmony, it has infiltrated hundreds of Western universities, businesses and other institutions. The tone changes abruptly, though, if anyone raises questions about its theft of intellectual property; its treaty-breaking assault on the liberties of Hong Kong; or its Belt and Road Initiative a massive imperial project giving it control of transport routes and natural resources around the world. Then, with angry threats and boycotts, the CCPs true face is revealed: of a totalitarian regime bent on global domination.

The West has misread the CCP for 50 years, said Matthew Syed in The Sunday Times. Ever since Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon first engaged with it, the fantasy was that if we traded with communist China and gave it a seat on the UN Security Council, it would absorb our values. It didnt, as its rising militarism and genocide against the Muslim Uighur minority show.

China now feels strong enough to challenge the US economically, and maybe even prevail, said The Times. But Party control will always be a brake. A society without freedom of speech cannot count on innovation. A nation without internal criticism cannot correct mistakes or fight corruption. China may be hailing the Party as the institution that has made it great. But the CCP faces an uncertain future.

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The true face of the Chinese Communist Party: a totalitarian regime bent on global domination? - The Week UK

BLUE HILL Cultural critic and author Jonathan Taplin, whose career has taken him from rock and roll in the 60s to technological commentary in the new millennium, will talk about his new memoir, The Magic Years: Scenes from a Rock and Roll Life, at 7 p.m. Friday, July 16, at the Bagaduce Music Lending Library performance hall on South Street. Taplin and Sara Willis, host of Maine Public Radios In Tune with Sara Willis, will be onstage in conversation.

Taplin was tour manager for Bob Dylan and The Band in his early years, moving on to become a major film producer in the 1970s, a Merrill Lynch executive in the 1980s and creator of Intertainer, the internets first video-on-demand service, in the 1990s. In the 21st century, he has been a cultural critic and author, as well as a professor at the University of Southern Californias Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism.

His appearance in Blue Hill is sponsored by Blue Hill Books and the Word literary arts festival. He will be in Maine for the Guild Nights program hosted by the Authors Guild Foundation.

The director emeritus of USCs Annenberg Innovation Lab, Taplin is the author of Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy, a New York Times Editors Choice and nominated by Financial Times as one of the best business books of 2017. His commentary has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time magazine and many other publications.

With cameos by Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Martin Scorsese and other cultural icons, The Magic Years is both a rock memoir and Taplins personal view of a nation turning from idealism to nihilism.

Sara Willis is the longtime host and producer of In Tune, the Maine Public Radio program featuring contemporary singer-songwriters, folk, blues, acoustic rock, jazz, alt country and world music. In 2018, Maine Public launched the In Tune with Sara Willis audio stream allowing fans of the show 24/7 access to music curated by Willis from her Blue Hill studio.

Word is funded by donors including the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation, the Thompson Foundation and the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. Words media partner is WERU-FM. Its fiscal sponsor is Blue Hill Community Development.

For more info, call 374-5632 and visit http://www.wordfestival.org.

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Author of rock and roll memoir to speak - The Ellsworth American

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The Nice House On The Lake by James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez Bueno reflects all manner of literature and culture. A place that people cannot find a way to leave recalls faerie literature but also the likes of Twin Peaks and Strangehaven. A place where a being is keeping select people trapped for their own concerns smacks of The Twilight Zone, and Isaac Asimov while in title also reflecting The Cabin In The Woods. While apocalyptic literature and prophecy fills the outside world. But with the second issue, and the cast react to their new situation, they start to explore the limited world they have and how it has been designed to fill their needs but also push them in a certain direction.

And that's when we find the bookshelf. With DC Comics titles including Sandman including the inescapable cycle of death and life, Superman For All Seasons with its own cycle, JLA Earth 2 about another world where everything is bad, The Invisibles about this world where everything is bad but also faked, depending on your perspective and Planetary somewhere inbetween.. We also have From Hell which turns William Gull into a ghostly entity haunting and influencing the century ahead, next to The King In Yellow with its own malevolent supernatural and gothic entity affecting the future. Also what appears to be a different version of David Lapham's Stray Bullets, and is that Love And Rockets recreated as Love And Explosives? It feels like a war of comics IP here. Here by Richard McGuire survived unmolested, showing one location in a house over centuries, jumping from one time period to anotehr.

What else are we meant to take from these? Lots of books that would be at home on any student shelf, and reflecting of the college life Walter shared with some of the survivors. But some like The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz and Neverwhere talk of other worlds to travel to, of Lord Of The Flies about how people fail to survive because of their innate nature, And Then There Were None is about people trapped in a house as they are each murdered in creative ways, The Elementalsabout families living in remote summer houses, facing their own horrific doom, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline contains dark satire of American survival. There's lots more nihilism from The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, or Everything Matters about how a foreseen inevitable end of the world affects the protagonist. But overall plenty of people trapped in locations, or travelling to other planes of existence, in one way or another. I get the feeling that this bookshelf will be there to reflect much of what has happened but also what is to come. Oh Walter

NICE HOUSE ON THE LAKE #2 (OF 12) CVR A ALVARO MARTINEZ BUENO (MR)(W) James Tynion IV (A/CA) Alvaro Martinez BuenoAfter the life-changing events of the previous issue, the guests at the nice house on the lake must decide their next stepsbut there's not exactly perfect agreement about the situation. Who among them is ready to walk out the door? And who is content to simplyfloat? Retail: $3.99 In-Store Date: 7/6/2021

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Walter's Bookshelf In Nice House On The Lake #2 May Need Some Reading - Bleeding Cool News

After the Cold War, Samuel Huntington, Professor of Political Science at Harvard University, put forward the Clash of Civilizations theory, arguing that the fault lines between cultures would replace the political and ideological boundaries of the Cold War as the main flashpoints for crises and bloodshed.

Huntington forecast that the paramount axis of world politics would be conflicts between the West and the Rest, requiring the West to contain the expansion of military strength among non-Western civilizations.

Decades on, does Huntingtons thesis reflect how the world works?

The answer from China is no. You can get a glimpse of how diversified cultures peacefully coexist in China through this simple question: What is authentic Chinese food? Sichuan hotpot, Cantonese Wonton soup, Peking duck, Hunans stinky tofu? All of these and more. Diverse cuisine from different regions of China can be found in one city, and sometimes even in the same block.

The nations inclusiveness has made this happen.

This is also reflected in dozens of dialects, the traces of diverse philosophies that can be found in a single style of Chinese architecture, the popularity of traditional ethnic clothing across ethnicities, to name just a few cultural expressions.

Chinas stability is a result of its open attitude to diversity and not stifling minorities for a land of sameness.

The risk of identity-based conflicts does exist but can be avoided by smart policymaking. Religious and ethnic differences can sometimes lead to chaos and even violence, but China, a multi-ethnic country, has endeavored to build a diversified and cohesive community, respecting differences while promoting underlying unity.

There is no ethnic or cultural discrimination in China. Peoples ethnic identities are recognized by law. While some ethnic groups in certain countries, out of fear of discrimination, choose not to reveal their racial identity in public life, all ethnic minorities in China have actively participated in the countrys political and social life.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed on several occasions that cultural inclusiveness, economic independence, and emotional closeness are the bonds that unify Chinas ethnic groups. Every achievement by the country is a product of the collective wisdom and sweat of the Chinese people. Indeed, their common identity as a unified national community has become a powerful driving force for the countrys growth.

The balance between differences and unity is vital to Chinas stability and development.

The relevance of an open and inclusive culture is evident not only in Chinas ethnic relations, but also in the exchanges between China and the rest of the world. Globalization may have intensified identity conflicts in some cases, but China has embraced foreign cultures with an open mind.

Some advanced foreign cultural and technological products, after being introduced to China, have developed by leaps and bounds in the Chinese market, further enhancing and enriching Chinese culture.

For many years, China was an importer and imitator of foreign technologies. According to the Xinhua News Agency, up to the year 2000, Chinas patent applications accounted for only 3.77 percent of the world total, well below the U.S. and Japan.

Yet over the past decade, China has turned from an imitator, follower and traditional manufacturer into an innovator, leader, and smart manufacturer. Its annual patent filings have surpassed Japans and were double those of the U.S. in 2016. The country is now a global innovation powerhouse and the engine for an increase in the worlds intellectual property assets.

Chinas openness towards foreign cultures and technologies has been a catalyst for the transformation.

Undeniably though, the emergence of historical nihilism and cultural nihilism in recent years has posed a major challenge to Chinese culture. Therefore, boosting cultural confidence is also an integral part of enhancing cultural identity.

Burying ones head in the sand is not the right way forward. In response to the clash of civilizations scenario, Chinas open and inclusive culture is a solution.

Gao Lei is an associate professor at the School of Marxism, University of International Business and Economics, and a research fellow at the Research Institute of Globalization and Chinas Modernization. You can contact her directly at gglei9496@sina.com.

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China's response to the 'Clash of Civilizations' - Kenya Broadcasting Corporation

Russian society is notoriously complacent about state oppression.

Corrupt leadership has been in power for 21 years? Thats fine. Anti-gay legislation? Persecution of journalists? Cant be bothered. But when news broke out that the COVID-19 vaccination will be mandatory, a strong rebuke followed right away, and the government has done everything to make people distrust the vaccine and see it as a violation of their rights.

In the first couple of months of the pandemic, the Russian government had a clear message: coronavirus is nothing to be scared of. Dr. Alexander Myasnikov, a TV personality who is now running for parliament, has been assuring the audience that Russians have zero chance of getting coronavirus, and if they die, thats because its written in the Book of fates. Pro-government media has been competing in disinformation attempts, distributing all sorts of conspiracy theories about the origins of the virus and effects of vaccines.

This approach started to shift last August. The authorities announced that their flagship Sputnik V vaccine was ready, well before any other shot in the world. Other manufacturers havent rushed to declare their vaccines ready before the end of the trials, but apparently someone in Russia thought that national pride was worth it. Still, the first wave of deep public distrust had started to unfold.

A stunning 66 percent of medics surveyed said they were not planning to get the shot. Most of them were not impressed with the pace of development and questioned the vaccines safety and efficiency.

Sputnik received recognition from the scientific community later on, but the society wasnt sold on it. Today, only 11.8 percent of the population are fully vaccinated, compared to 46.8 percent in the United States and 48.9 percent in the United Kingdom.

With figures like that, it comes as no surprise that the Delta variant has hit Russia hard. President Putins press secretary Dmitry Peskov has cited nihilism as the reason for low interest in vaccination. Lets talk about nihilism.

Russians en masse are not big on pandemic precautions. The first thing youll notice upon arrival in Russia is that not too many people wear a mask properly, or even wear it at all. Social distancing is a practically non-existing concept. The authorities have banned opposition rallies, citing safety, but events that are held by the government are a different story.

St Petersburg, Europes fourth-biggest city, hosted three huge, mostly unmasked events in a month. First, it was the annual economic forum, where pro-government figures struggled to explain to investors how attractive the Russian economy is. The city has also been holding seven matches of the Euro 2020 football tournament, with thousands of fans coming in. Finally, the authorities found no reason to cancel the Scarlet Sails, an annual fireworks show for dozens of thousands of school graduates.

Despite such optimism in corridors of power, the situation is getting worse, with a 7-day average of more than 19,000 new cases per day. An obvious reaction would be a new lockdown, but the state tries to avoid it, and instead has opted for something unprecedented: a mass campaign of mandatory vaccination in a quarter of the countrys regions.

The Moscow city government maintains that 60 percent of the workforce in the service sector (not officials, though) must be vaccinated by mid-August, and placed the responsibility for that on employers. Its also unclear what would happen if employers dont comply; legally its a very grey area.

In the meantime, the anti-vax movement has gone full mainstream. Actor Yegor Beroyev appears on TV with a Nazi-era yellow badge on, comparing the perceived division of society into those who are vaccinated and those who arent to the Holocaust. The head of a tourism agency in Krasnoyarsk openly boasted on Instagram about helping clients with a positive coronavirus test board the plane to Egypt. And, according to my own sources, you can easily get a vaccine certificate without getting the shot for little more than $100.

So, are many Russian being nihilistic by refusing to get vaccinated and comply with other safety measures, citing their rights? Absolutely. But theyre definitely not more nihilistic than those in power, who act frantically and disregard their own policies whenever they can.

Image: Antoine K.

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Russia: nihilism in the age of a pandemic - Fairplanet

This years 4th of July will feel more normal, whatever that is, from last years, at the height of the pandemic uncertainty. My days of lighting off bottle rockets and strings of firecrackers are past, sort of. I do maintain the habit of re-reading the Declaration of Independence.

The dated prose still cuts cleanly, especially the unmodified conclusion on the character of King George III: A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

I love that line.

So after the fireworks, parades and hot dogs, we celebrate not only freedom from, but freedom with purpose. For self government is not nihilism but the obligation for honesty, forbearance and a touch of modesty about the purposes and rightful boundaries of government. The pandemic and its aftermath have tested those.

After 30 years of covering the government in one medium or another, I do admire the touch of modesty and forbearance Ive seen in some of the most skilled public servants Ive known. And Ive known a lot of them. Although I cant say that, as a person, Ive had to face a zealous criminal prosecutor or an exacting environmental regulator.

Our latter day reality is a really big government, more extensive than the Founders could have imagined. For better or worse, its wound into the day-to-day life of Americans. Also true: The nation is richer, more technologically advanced, and more diverse than anyone could have reasonably imagined 245 years ago. If you said to old John Adams, Youll have to go through a millimeter wave advanced imaging scanner, and wear an anti-virus mask before boarding this airplane to Boston Logan, he wouldnt have understood a word you said. Maybe Boston.

As the largest employer, the federal government of today is an endlessly fascinating institution. Each year about now, along with the federal holiday of Independence Day, out come the rankings of Best Places To Work in the federal government a concept that would have puzzled the signers of the Declaration.

The most remarkable thing about the latest Best Places to Work in the federal government rankings? How unremarkable the results actually are. In fact, they nearly match last years, and the year before that.

A casual reading shows, gosh, engagement scores look way up across the board. Perennial top-ranked NASA, for instance, saw its 2020 score rise to 86.6%, from 81.5% a year before. Homeland Security rose from 52.3% to 61.1% in the same period. The Government Accountability Office, the usual topper among mid-sized agencies, saw its engagement score rise from 81.8% in 2019 to 89.4% in the latest edition.

So, did federal employees undergo an epiphany in the pandemic and find renewed gusto in their public service? Thats hard to tell.

The Partnership for Public Service, which produces the Best Place to Work listings, included this note on how it calculates the scores, which are derived from answers to certain question on the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey: Previously, we divided the number of positive responses (e.g., the number of respondents who answered agree or strongly agree) by the total number of people who completed the survey. Beginning in 2020, the Partnership divided the number of positive responses to each question by the number of people who answered that particular question. This change resulted in smaller denominators, filtering out respondents who skip questions, and slightly larger percent-positives [emphasis mine].

Therefore, how much of that engagement score uptick is attributable to people being happier at work versus attributable to the change in scoring methodology is impossible to know?

You can find evidence, though, that the pandemic did have a positive influence. Feds gave high marks to their agencies responses to the COVID pandemic. Satisfaction with pay, while middling, exceeds the average in the private sector.

The usual issues resurfaced. Too many employees dont think survey scores will spur much change. Leadership is seen as ineffective. And so on. One clear signal is that satisfaction ratings, perceptions of leadership, feelings about agency effectiveness or employee empowerment those arent related to whos in the White House. They have more to do with whos running individual agencies than whos running the political apparatus.

Well, one exception. For whatever reasons, the employee engagement index for the Office of Management and Budget sank like a stone in 2020, from a high of 76.3 to 54.6, or number 29 on the list. Swings of that magnitude are unusual in the rankings, even with smaller denominators. Sometimes its the numerator.

By Adrian Dannhauser

Bones found on Seymour Island indicate that 37 to 40 million years ago, penguins stood at a formidable 6 feet tall and weighed 250 pounds.

Source: Mental Floss

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Working through the pandemic how great was that! - Federal News Network