(SACRAMENTO)

Ross Perry grew up determined to become a politician.

I was always a pretty gregarious child, and I didnt mind public speaking, he recalled of his middle- and high-school years in leadership roles and drama. So I thought I would go into politics for that reason.

But after he left his hometown of Santa Rosa and took political science courses at UCLA, he changed his mind. His impression was that politics was a morally complicated field full of opinions. Instead, he majored in psychology, taught English in South Korea, and worked for a chiropractor.

A few years after college, he decided he wanted to become a doctor and studied in a pre-medical post-baccalaureate program at Mills College in Oakland. He then found his way to UC Davis, where he expects to graduate from medical school next spring.

He doesnt regret dropping his political pursuit.

Because now, at the end of the day, I dont have to sell an opinion, Perry said. I just have to sell people on the importance of their own health goals and how we can together help them achieve those goals.

During his four years at the UC Davis School of Medicine, Perry has been a fervent supporter of promoting wellness among his classmates and the community.

That passion earned him distinction as a Blum Fellow in 2019, a UC Davis humanitarian award. The fellows program granted Perry $2,000, which he used to start a walking program to help prevent diabetes among patients of Paul Hom student-run clinic. Perry has spent many hours at the clinic volunteering.

At the programs first meeting in pre-COVID 2019, dozens of Walk with a Doc participants exercised as a group, watched a healthy cooking demonstration, and received $20 grocery vouchers to use at the Oak Park Farmers Market. The grant also paid for exercise equipment for patients.

Honestly, the reason I felt inspired to do these things at Davis is, in part, because Im just surrounded by the amazing diversity of students who are doing these amazing things; theres so much advocacy, Perry said. He then quipped: Its a wonder any of them have time to study.

In the past two years, Perry has earned a much-deserved reputation for providing compassionate care to his patients.

In fact, this past summer, the Arnold P. Gold Foundation awarded Perry the top prize in a national essay contest for his poignant account of caring for an oncology patient who later died.

Perry, a childhood cancer survivor who aspires to specialize in pediatrics and palliative care, won the foundations 2021 Hope Babette Tang Humanism in Healthcare Essay Contest for his paper, Dear Reader. The contest asked medical and nursing students to engage in a reflective writing exercise that illustrates an experience in which they or a team member worked to ensure humanistic care. It is named for Hope Babette Tang-Goodwin, who was an assistant professor of pediatrics at Columbia University.

Perrys 850-word essay recounts his interaction with a 32-year-old man who lacks family support and is being treated at UC Davis Medical Center for a recurrence of cancer.

Perry starts the essay pleading with the reader to walk a mile in the shoes of his patient, who at one point gets discharged with a urine collection bag and a colostomy bag. You are complicated now. You are messy. But you are alive, Perry writes.

Perry tells how he met the patient as a third-year medical student and felt ill-prepared to provide care.

It is day two of my six weeks on the wards, and you are far too complicated for me. I am a deer in the headlights, and you are a sixteen-wheeler with the brakes cut loose. Still, they put me on your case, Perry writes.

Perry starts to bond with the patient.

We talk through many afternoons. You are hungry to be heard, and so I listen. I hear about your travels. Your jobs. Your regrets. Your mistakes. Your fears. Your hopes. Your plans. Slowly, your humanity unfolds itself, and I begin to see a side of you no scan could ever capture.

Even after Perrys six-week rotation ends, he occasionally visits his former patient. He writes him a card, tells him it was my greatest privilege to take care of him.

You were my first real teacher, Perry states. And in the end, although I could not save you, I think I made you realize how much you matter. And I think that might be enough.

Perry thanks the patient and calls him his friend.

To you I dedicate this essay, he writes. Even in the age of medical miracles, Perry emphasizes, there is still no intervention more powerful than a genuine human connection.

He concludes that the soul, heals not by human medicine, but by human kindness. When a patient passes away, Perry declares, we often wish we had practiced a little bit less of the former and a whole lot more of the latter. May I never forget that. May I never forget you.

The essay will be published in an upcoming edition of Academic Medicine, the journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges. Perry also received $1,000.

He said he was surprised and honored to win the contest and hopes readers can learn from his challenging experience.

One of his mentors can relate.

Ross seems drawn to difficult situations, in a positive way, said Internal Medicine Clinical Professor Rachel Lucatorto.

The first day Lucatorto and Perry worked together, the professor took him to a comfort care patient whose condition was deteriorating. Perry and Lucatorto stayed until the patient died an hour later. Perry then stayed longer, after the patients wife and daughter arrived.

It meant everything to Perry to enter the familys emotional space, Lucatorto said.

While his behavior and presence were remarkable in this situation, it was also his reflection after the experience that impressed me, Lucatorto said. He completely appreciated what a big deal and even an honor it was to be present.

In addition to volunteering at Paul Hom Clinic, Perry helped found the School of Medicines Academic Medicine student interest group. He was also elected to the position of co-wellness chair of his class, a four-year responsibility.

Perry is also is known for organizing a popular ping pong tournament and other wellness activities at the School of Medicine, along with Sharad Jain, the associate dean for students, and Maggie Rea, a clinical psychologist who is director of student and resident wellness.

Focusing attention on student wellness, Jain said, shows that Perry is thinking of the future: Theres a lot of literature thats coming out on physician burnout, and it leads to depression and dissatisfaction with jobs and medication errors.

Jain added: We want our students to learn good habits now that theyre going to carry forth.

When Perry spends time away from his fourth-year clinical duties he enjoys writing poetry, playing sports, and backpacking with his wife Alyssa. Lately, hes getting extra exercise by frequently running after the couples 15-month-old daughter, Frances.

In less than five months, Perry will know which residency program hell join to continue his dream of becoming a pediatrician and a physician dedicated to helping patients deal with their serious illnesses.

And although hes done with the notion of entering politics, he doesnt completely dismiss the idea. Like any good politician, hell never say never to future possibilities.

"I may go back into politics one day, Perry said, but I hope it's after many years of direct patient care and community advocacy."

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Medical student connects with dying patient, chronicles the experience - UC Davis Health

Earlier this year I interviewed the postactivist philosopher Bayo Akomolafe forDark Mountain: Issue 19,our spring collection of art and writing on death, loss and renewal. I had just completed his innovative online courseWe Will Dance with Mountainswhich has just begun again this month.

I am preparing to leave a house I have lived in for 18 years. A gathering of starlings loopand swerve overhead in the falling light, and in the distance you can hear the grind and thump of the sugar beet harvesters in the winter-flooded fields. For the last two months, as we pack up, I have been focused on a task with four strangers from different places and ports of origin (Manchester, Holland, Nigeria, Germany, Jamaica and London): to consider the fate and future inscribed in the bones of an unknown slave woman, unearthed from a burial site in the Port of Rio de Janeiro in 1996.

The archaeologists named her Bakhita (after the Sudanese slave turned Catholic saint) and all we know of her life is that she did not survive the Atlantic crossing to work in the sugar cane fields of Brazil alongside an estimated five million of her compatriots from West Africa. Our task is to rebuild the slave ship, set by the philosopher, writer and recovering psychologist, Bayo Akomolafe, as part of an online course he has been spearheading called We Will Dance With Mountains.

I wanted to speak with Bayo because this issues contemplation of death and dying also revolves around change; how, in times of fall, we allow a known world to collapse and reform from within. In no other modern thinker have I come across such a dynamic approach to undertaking that radical act of consciousness, embedded as it is in the startling imagery of the transatlantic slave trade.

Bayo works in intense metaphor, using metaphysical infrastructure to enable us to perceive how we are kept trapped by civilisation and how we might liberate ourselves from its invisible manacles. The building blocks of his lexicon include the slave ship (with three decks of colonisers, slaves, and Earth resources); the plantation, where we are set to work; and the fugitive who escapes the capture of both. Sanctuary is a gathering place where fugitives might flock and find other ways of being together.

Charlotte Du Cann: In the Bakhita Project, we have been meeting in the transformative space of sanctuary to consider the ancestral consequences of the colonial slave trade. Do you feel our legacies can ever be resolved?

Bayo Akomolafe: The legacies of the slave ship are yet-to-come. Modernity captures the slave ship in the same way it captures black bodies, white bodies, all kinds of bodies, and allots them prescribed ways of behaving and responding to crisis events, like the idea of racial injustice and climate chaos. It looks at the white body and says you are the enemy, and to black and brown bodies it says you are the victim here. Sanctuary is this emergent space which might be tethered to a post-modernist escape from modernity.

The slave ship was an instrument of oppression and capture, an instrument of horror, but when I lean into my traditions, when I listen to the tale of the trickster and the tricksters of other cultures, such as Pan or Loki, the boundaries of what is supposedly horrific and evil, it is also shape-shifting. It is moving, productive, generative, and escapes our modern gaze. Our elders are asking us to look at the slave ship, not as a thing that is gone and done with but as a thing that is energetically present, right now.

We are all in a slave ship: capitalism is a form of slave-shipping and we are captured here, ontologically incarcerated master and slave. The very architecture of the slave ship is hinted at in the ways we perform hierarchy and order bodies on a scale of worthiness with the other-than-human world being below black bodies.

So, you might say that the invitation to rebuild the slave ship is to revisit the conditions of our incarceration, to look around us, to look again, and to see that these boundaries are never still, always movable. So I dont want to make the legacies of the slave ship OK. I want to make it sensuous, inviting, I want the wall to be porous, olfactory, membranous, I want it to be exposed and open, experimental, diffracting one thing into another. This is how new things are born.

I refuse to categorise artifacts of history as evil or good, because we do away with a lot of resources when we stabilise these things in those ways. When we name their colours too soon. So, to step into a space that is as troublesome as the slave ship is the tricksters way, to play with trouble, and that might help us to transform.

CDC This books theme is centered on death, dying and change. Is that collective space of sanctuary also where things can die and provide energy, or compost, for transformation?

BA We think of death too strictly I think, as this absolute terminal point. I am interested in spaces in culture, for gatherings, where we touch the traces of our unbecoming and notice where we are falling apart. Where we reimagine death not as something down the line, but a paradigm, a thick now, an immanent field of loss and creativity that is entangled with what we rudely tease out as life. Modernity is about putting things together neatly, proliferating still images, being coherent, noble, independent. Consider what might be produced if, instead of thinking of death strictly as a firm line or an isolated event, we find ways to experiment with how we are already falling away, and how, for example, your identity is dying, how you are nomadic, diasporic, constantly moving, even when the habits of my perceiving you compel me to see you as a white woman. If we had practices to notice the ways where our names, our bodies are changing and giving way to something else. How we are actually ghosts.1

I think dying well is about becoming with our traces and learning to touch the traces of our falling away. In a literal sense, I am leaving my cells here and there, I am less or more than I was a few minutes ago. Maybe a practice like this is the urgency of the hour. This is what I mean by fugitive exile, about leaving the plantation which reproduces images and instead helping us to see we are beyond static images. We are not as photographic as we think we are. We are abroad in ways that escape the Man, the head of the pyramid, of the capitalist structure. And that is the invitation of a constellation, of processional relational ontologies.

CDC Your teaching of ways of being and becoming in many ways echoes one of the principles of Dark Mountains Uncivilisation: taking that Man out of the centre and letting life be in the centre. You have called it a constellation of fugitive technologies that allows us to meet the world differently. Could you name a few of those that most urgently need paying attention to?

BA By fugitive technologies, I refer to sites of encounter where we might be met by the world in return, where we might learn to listen and cultivate humility in the face of a world that exceeds us, a world that never receded to the background of human ascension, even when we pretend that it did. And it is very difficult to talk out of context about what this constellation of practices might mean for different communities, which is why I have hesitated to frame making sanctuary as a universal, ahistorical process that I can plant anywhere I want.

Someone told me that poetry doesnt appeal to this moment and that we need facts. And I countered by saying: poetry is the spirituality of fact. Facts vibrate at the speed of mystery and poets are attuned to that, that facts are not as stable as you think. When people hear about fugitive technologies, they say: well, here is a practice that if I do, I might be saved. Here is a product, lets call it racial healing system, here is an app for emancipation, here is an idea, a concept that is already neatly packaged. The very presence of the word fugitive dismantles that. The fugitive is a figure that is constantly moving, so I am not talking about the arrival state, the Coca-Cola at the end of the factory line. I am talking about the methods of dis/inquiry; I call it dis/inquiry to remove ourselves from the centre of the inquiry. The inquiry is how to get lost. The question of the fugitive is how do I lose my way? How do I lose this plantation? How do we get as far away as possible? So, these technologies I speak of are not fixed products one can scale up; they are cartographies of lostness, rehearsals in losing ones way in order to meet the world anew.

Making sanctuary is a gathering place, a village of these technologies. The Bakhita Project is premised on post-qualitative/post-anthropocentric research, decentring the anthropological figure as the central researcher and storyteller and learning to listen to the world. What might that do to us? The idea of becoming lost is to become otherwise by virtue of encounters with the more-than-human world. This is not research that is intended for us to be better, or to get back to business, to our shiny ivory towers.

I might ask, right now, for the purposes of our conversation: how is Charlotte learning to trace her ghostliness, the legacies made in her name? What are the recipes for your undoing? How are you noticing the extraordinary that is packed within the ordinary? How are you sharing these recipes of your undoing around you so that we form a politics of mutual undoing?

So, my sister, it has to do with dis/inquiry, the methodologies of exile.

CDC You talk about a state of betweenness, finding the cracks, a state that is neither inclusive nor exclusive. Is this engaged with by oneself or with others or both?

BA I am very wary of individual journeys of salvation or emancipation, of personal enlightenment workshops. I am not sure what the individual is anyway anymore, when we find microbial communities living in our guts, and viruses living within bacteria. Post-humanist processes are always involved. Even if you deem it fit to focus on yourself as a separate entity, you would need physical resources to do that. Thought is not always as internal as cognitive scientists would have us believe. I feel it is environmental and ecological and that you are pulling on outside resources, even as you turn to your navel.

The basis of a fugitive politics-to-come always involves an irreducible collective of bodies, humans and more-than-humans, even when a single individual is in focus. I am interested in framing a project that does not privilege humans as the starting point, how bodies are forced to think by the environment, by happenings in the world. So for me the instigator of thought isnt human. A virus has forced India to rethink education. Because of the pandemic we are forced to go in a different direction.

I think making sanctuary is gathering those who have been disarticulated by cracks in the environment to work with those cracks, rather than patching them up and returning to normal. Are things awkward for you? You dont know how to proceed with work? You have existential questions with politics? If you feel that despair, you are not alone. Lets gather here and instead of trying to run away and fix the problem, lets move away from those solutionisms and stay with the trouble with our dis/inquiry. Lets do research which might be ecologically framed and culturally framed as katabasis. Going under and finding ways to go deep into the ground and honour ancestors, to listen beyond ourselves. We can call it individual or collective work, or human and non-human. But I just feel nothing is as isolated as we think it is. Sanctuary is making space for the world to exist.

CDC I feel civilisation has held us in a fixed grip for thousands of years, beyond even those centuries of the transatlantic slave trade, and when you consider this and the fact that slavery still exists widely in the world, you ask yourself the bigger question: why have human beings been slaves, or commanded them, for so long?

BA Im very shy about responding to why questions! The standard official explanation for what happened over 400 years to black bodies is that it was due to (human) evil or wickedness. I understand the legacies of such responses, but it does not feel generative for me. Its a conversation-stopper and doesnt do anything except label people, and might perpetuate the dynamics of the slave ship that feels so horrific to the imagination.

But if we consider that things are assemblages, acting upon other assemblages, suddenly theres somewhere to go that does not necessarily terminate prematurely at a moral judgment. When I touch the assemblage of the transatlantic slave trade that features heavily in my work, if you look at the ingredients that made it possible the Catholic enterprise of rationality that emerged from the Enlightenment, its ideologies and philosophies; sugar cane and its metabolism within human white European bodies; the climate that drove people away from chilly Europe to the sunny Caribbean and how assembling the pieces together and noticing how those ingredients interacted together became the conditions for slavery, it might free us and liberate us in ways that go beyond just answering why.

It helps to ask: if sugar was an active non-human agent in the proliferation of that economy, that arrangement of master and slave, then what kind of moves can we make today to make sure that doesnt happen? Then we talk beyond just active legislation, or healing people of their evil. We talk about meeting sugar cane, the idea that we are framed in unmasterable fields and forces that go beyond the liberal humanist project.

We need to create rituals of humility to know we are not masters of ourselves. Just framing it as something beyond us, without belittling accountability. Framing it as something that is more than human. That is what I am interested in as postactivism.

CDC It could be said that Dark Mountain was founded as a postactivist project, in that the art and writing it hosts is created by sitting with the trouble rather than fighting it. How do you define postactivism and how do you see it as a force within culture?

BA Its a pervasive myth that we are independent thinkers, that I think my thoughts, Charlotte thinks her thoughts, and that there are as many thoughts as there are people on the planet and that we all have our separate thoughts, that we act from some volitional force or agency that comes from within.

What escapes that analysis is that we are connected in very sticky ways. We actually think territorially, ecologically, we run, we hide, we look at people like us and we congregate together. And patterns and sticky formulas are at work that are occluded when we think of ourselves as individual activists. I bring that up because when we talk about activism today, it seems activism is colluding conspiratorially with the world it is trying to change. The way we tend to see it in the developing world, in the Global South, is that the very solutions passed down to us only deepen the problem we want to get rid of, so we tend to be stuck in a cycle of repeatability. The IMF comes down and says here is a structural readjustment programme, here is austerity, something to help your people, lets buy laptops for African children, so they can learn. And the laptops come and introduce new problems of their own.

I read somewhere that the West exports psychological and pathological categories. As a clinical psychologist I have gone into villages in Nigeria and been told: you are the expert, tell me whats wrong with me. What they were in fact saying was that since I was trained in Western psychology, I was superior to them, and their own indigenous experiments with being and becoming were discardable. The solution of my discipline and my expertise was supposed to cancel out the problem. It was just an allopathic response that compressed the problems and left the sickness intact.

I think activism is as materially complicit in the problems we are trying to solve, and as entangled as anything else. Postactivism is not a superior, spiritual way of responding. It is not saying here is a stream of thinking and acting, a way of behaving that will guarantee you utopia or a place of arrival. Postactivism is a democratising of responsivity. Its saying we have been stuck on a highway of responding but there are other ways that are not tethered to this highway, where we can investigate and which might lead to another kind of transformation.

So postactivism is in alliance with a different theory of change. We have thought change is what humans do. We are burdened with the idea of change, and feel we need to change the world. Posthumanism comes into the picture and tells us humans are not central to the world, we have never been central to the world, we did not create the world. We are always immersed in a field of differential becomings, what Deleuze would call transcendental materialism. We are not stable things. We are diffracted, porous and transcorporeal.

Postactivism is based on posthumanism. It is my way of saying that change is not human, it is not our work. We can only ally and build stronger coalitions for change with the world around us (and not just with humans). Postactivism is the opening to this. It is about cracks and faultlines and fissures. It is like a hungry teenager, who asks: what can we do with this crack? How might this help us to build a partnership with this alien over there, in order to ask complex and new questions about the world we are in? It is not about solutions, though solutions are welcome. It is about wonder, building new alliances for becoming different. Touching the material body of activism and allowing it to shudder.

CDC You said at the beginning of your course you deliberately pivoted its enquiry not within the United States, but in Africa. What was the reasoning behind this?

BA Empires colonise conversations about change. They capture conversations that might redeem it from what you call the holding station, and then take these conversations and put them in the family way. Soon the ways we speak about decolonisation and racial justice, which might otherwise ring true for other people and cultures and lead to new sites of shared power, become about how do we appeal to the powers that be, or use certain languages or phrases to signal I am woke, or woke enough. Soon, the nuances and complexities of navigating a difficult world are reduced to a few codes, a few linguistic choices, which Empire selects, and which others must adhere to in order to be righteous. So it becomes very territorial.

I am looking for conversations that are fugitive, that escape, that grant themselves permission to do what they want to do, and do not look towards the plantation, saying can you allow me to be seen? The fugitive does not want to be seen. And America is the most visible trope.

As such, I did this decentring for me, and to let our brothers and sisters in America know that they are not central to the world. You are not carrying the burden of change, you dont have to change us. The boundaries of America are not the boundaries of the world, you are just a small aspect of what is happening. That should be liberating. So I think I am being hospitable when I say it is not about you.

CDC What often happens regarding any conversation about race, or slavery or emancipation, is that it centres on the United States and thus limits our imagination and allows people to say in Europe, for example, well it didnt happen here, it happened in the colonies. As a result we dont get to look at this properly. So having the pivot of inquiry in Africa allows other kinds of knowing and awareness to happen. Which wouldnt have happened within a North American frame it would have become stuck in what you call the ethical monoculture, a Christian duality of right and wrong.

BA I dont think the pivot is even in Africa. Its off the coast of Africa, maybe somewhere off the Bight of Benin, in the Atlantic Ocean. Its definitely in the waters, where things are rippling and diffracting. Thats the site of the course, where there is no land yet.

The kings in Africa also sold the slaves; we also sold our brothers and sisters into slavery. That is one part of the conversation we need to have not that I am trying to create an equal culpability situation here. We are entangled in this as well.

CDC I sometimes find writers shy away from metaphysics or the work of transformation while those who are focused on consciousness work resist putting it into a creative or physical form, holding their knowing in a kind of abstract cloud. I feel everything needs to be spoken out loud, or danced, or cooked, earthed in some kind of way to be effective, to let these approaches become entangled as you say. Do you ever feel hemmed into a role of spiritual teacher?

BA I think people use me, as you use the future or food or a pen. The people that I sometimes work with use me as a magical Negro (laughs) because of the way I appear and because of my experiences as a black person. There is often a sense of just listen to what Bayo says which could be patronising. I dont want to be trapped there, into being a spiritual guru. I like to have a conversation, pose questions of my own. This is not a transmission from some ancestor, or angel, or alien, but a diffracted meeting of each other in the middle.

We are all on this slave ship. You might be on the upper deck but we are all in this holding station that pegs our bodies in place. The gift of this paradigm of diffraction, or this idea that things lose their edges, this relational ontology, is that it allows us to meet each other. As I said earlier, activism can become very industrial. The way we think about transformation is very categorical. You are an artist, you do artist stuff; you are a dancer, you dance into oblivion; you write about this and that, and it becomes an industry in itself, and modernity is quite happy with that. Its not scandalised about you doing your work.

CDC Mostly, it doesnt take any notice of it, Bayo!

BA It doesnt care, so long as you stay in your place. What scandalises modernity is when things spill. And facilitating spillage is good work. Diffraction allows me to read myth, through quantum dynamics, through performativity. When we see things through each other, that is when the new has a chance to emerge. So that is what we need to learn today, to become citizens of diffraction, to become fugitives.

CDC One aspect of the sanctuary which really grabbed me is that the site of transformation is where the real power is, where the change can happen, rather than dominating forces of civilisation which activism is always trying to defuse or stop or take over from. It explained to me why writers have always had a very bad deal, because they bring that to the fore, that change is always possible in any moment, the fact you can change, or that you are porous, or that something can come out of nothing, or that the immanent god you spoke of is always becoming, is always creating within us. Which is why writers are silenced and flung into gaol, because they are trying to stop that change from disrupting the fixed control of Empire.

BA In this quest to be seen, to be noticed, which in the Deleuzio-Guattarian literature might be indexed as the politics of recognition, can be found a different power that isnt tethered to being seen. There is historical precedent for this. When the slaves were crammed into a tight space, they tried to escape. There are accounts of their efforts to take over the ship and wrest power away from the captain, but the ships themselves were designed to keep them at bay; certain structures would demarcate where the non-citizens were, and those who needed rehabilitation and those who were embodiments of purity.

The slave ship worked against them. Its almost as if their efforts to escape only enforced the trade, it made it stronger, because the slavers could get together and say, why dont we make the space smaller, dehumanise them further? To keep their property busy and sellable, they even invented practices like dancing the slave. The slavers did this both for entertainment and to keep these appropriated bodieseconomically viable.

The beautiful tradition of capoeira, the dance encoded with martial arts, which is famous in Brazil, could not have happened without the boot of the oppressor on the necks of the slave. The limbo dance is the slave trying to navigate the structure of the slave ship. And I can give many more examples of how oppression became the alchemy for transformation. How disarticulated bodies became portals for other ways of being: in dance, music, rituals, ways of interacting with the world, religions, spiritual systems.

This is why the elders said the trickster, travelled with them. The trickster works in places you do not expect generativity. You expect death and dismal silence, but there life springs. So to go back to our original conversation about death and dying, modernity has framed death and dying as eternal silence. But through the eyes of the glitch, the eyes of the trickster, death is an invitation, a lively vocation to recreate, reformulate and use our porous skins, our disarticulated bodies, to become different.

Bayo Akomolafe is one of the keynote speakers for the upcomingBorrowed Time summiton death, dying and change,hosted by art.earth on 31st October 2021

Dark Mountain: Issue 19 is available from the online shop here

Teaser photo credit: Painting of the slave deck of theMarie Sraphique. By Desertarun1 Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=108838114

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When the Bones of our Ancestors Speak to Us: A Fugitive Conversation with Bayo Akomolafe - Resilience

Progressive policies and positions are supposed to be rooted in reality and hard evidence. But that's not always the case when it comes to the culture wars that have such an enormous impact on our politics especially not since the unexpected evangelical embrace of Donald Trump in 2016, culminating in the "pro-life" death cult of anti-vaccine, COVID-denying religious leaders. If this development perplexed many on the left, it wasless surprising to a small group of researchers who have been studying the hardcore anti-democratic theology known as dominionism that lies behind the contemporary Christian right, and its far-reaching influence over the last several decades.

One leading figure within that small group, Rachel Tabachnick, was featured in a recent webinar hosted by the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (archived on YouTube here), as part of its Religion and Repro Learning Series program, overseen by the Rev. Dr. Cari Jackson. Tabachnick's writing on dominionism can be found at Talk2Action and Political Research Associates, and she's been interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air.

Her presentation sheds important light on at least three things: First of all, the vigilante element of the Texas anti-abortion law SB 8. Second, the larger pattern of disrupting or undermining governance, including the "constitutional sheriffs" movement, the installation of overtly partisan election officials and the red-state revolt against national COVID public health policies. While Donald Trump has exploited that pattern ruthlessly, he did not create it. And third, the seemingly baffling fact that an anti-democratic minority feels entitled to accuse its opponents including democratically elected officials of "tyranny."

Some dominionist ideas such as the biblical penalty of death by stoning are so extreme they can easily be dismissed as fringe, others have been foundational to the modern religious right, and still more have become increasingly influential in recent years. Those latter two categories are what we need to understand most, say both Tabachnick and Jackson.

"One of the things that struck me, as a relative newcomer," said Jackson, a former Congregationalist minister, "was that there was not sufficient understanding about the theological frames used by many individuals who are opposed to abortion." She continued, "I'm a strategist in a lot of ways, and one important strategy, I believe, must be to understand what the teachings and the theological frames are" on the other side. Which links directly to the question of what progressive activists need to do differently in this changed environment.

This failure to understand the nature of dominionism has hampered activists, not just in the realm of reproductive justice, but across an entire spectrum of political issues, both cultural and economic. Jackson discussed her own background, raised within a conservative Christian worldview.

"I was taught a very individualistic approach," she said, "taught that we shouldn't pay taxes, because doing so enabled people who were not working, and enables people whose lifestyle we don't agree with." There's nothing new about such views, but dominionism provides believers with an even stronger foundation for them.

Jackson describes her current understanding of religious faith as highly intersectional: "We believe that to understand the attacks on abortion also invites us or even requires us to look at attacks on voting, to look at attacks on immigrants, attacks on prison reform, attacks on equal pay and on and on," she said. "It's all of the same cloth: They are all attacks on humans flourishing. That's my language. The God of my understanding wants all of us to flourish in who we are."

The language of dominionism is strikingly different, to put it mildly. In her webinar, Tabachnick played a clip of one of the movement's leading figures, C. Peter Wagner, providing a definition:

Dominion has to do with control. Dominion has to do with rulership. Dominion has to do with authority and subduing. And it relates to society in other words what is talked about, what the values are in heaven [that] need to be made manifest here on earth. Dominion means being the head and not the tail. Dominion means ruling as kings. It says in Revelation chapter 1:6 that "he has made us kings and priests," and check the rest of that verse, it says "for dominion." So we are kings for dominion.

Later she provided a definition from Frederick Clarkson, author of the 1997 book, "Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy":

Dominionism is the theocratic idea that regardless of theological view, means, or timetable, Christians are called by God to exercise dominion over every aspect of society by taking control of political and cultural institutions.

Wagner, who died in 2016, is known as the founding father of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), one of the two main branches of dominionism, which grew out of the Pentecostal and charismatic traditions within evangelical Christianity. Dominionists in the other branch, known as "Christian reconstructionism," come out of conservative Calvinism, with a focus on bringing government and society under biblical law. They tend to be more circumspect, often obfuscating their true intentions and avoiding the word "theocracy" in favor of "theonomy," for example. But not Wagner, as can be seen in the title of his 2011 book, "Dominion!: Your Role in Bringing Heaven to Earth." The NAR talks constantly about taking dominion over the "seven mountains" of society: education, religion, family, business, government, arts and the media.

But it's the other branch, the Christian reconstructionists, who have excelled at strategic organizing and providing blueprints across different right-wing constituencies for almost 50 years. They are the ones Tabachnick focused most of her presentation on, specifically two key figures: Rousas John Rushdoony, the movement's master theologian, and his son-in-law Gary North, a prolific strategist, propagandist and networker who was once a staffer for Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian hero.

Christian reconstructionism, Tabachnick explained, is "about bringing government in all areas of life under biblical law, a continuation of the Mosaic law in the Old Testament, with some exceptions." This dispensation would include, "according to Gary North, public execution of women who have abortions and those who advise them to have an abortion."

In a recent private presentation, Frederick Clarkson asked a rhetorical question: "People have long said that there should be Christian government, but if you had one, what would it look like? What would it do? Rushdoony was the first to create a systematic theology of what Christian governance should be like, based on the Ten Commandments, and all of the judicial applications he could find in the Old Testament including about 35 capital offenses."

But the "Handmaid's Tale"-style extremism of dominionists' ultimate vision shouldn't really be our focus, Tabachnick told Salon. "Nobody cares about the theocratic, draconian future envisioned by reconstructionists because they don't believe it will happen," she said.

What'shappening right now, however, is that this ideology has had tremendous impact on more immediate politics. "Christian reconstructionism is the merger of a distinct brand of Calvinism with Austrian School economics," Tabachnicksaid. "In other words, it's an interpretation of the Bible grounded in property rights." The results have been far-reaching:

For more than 40 years, its prolific writers have provided the foundations and strategic blueprints for the attacks on liberation theology and the social gospel, as well as many other streams of Christianity which do not share the Reconstructionists' belief in unfettered capitalism as ordained by God and its fierce anti-statism.

The larger religious right's attack on public education, the social safety net and most government functions are largely grounded in the writings, strategies and tactics formulated by reconstructionist writers. Reconstructionism is not the only (and certainly not the first) source of interposition and nullification in this country. However, much of what is currently being taught today about using interposition to undermine the legitimacy of government is sourced in reconstructionism.

This idea of "interposition" comes through what's known as the doctrine of the "lesser magistrate," which we'll return to below. But its significance especially in the post-2020 Republican Party has only recently become apparent. Reconstructionism's initial appeal was more immediately, as Tabachnick explained in the seminar:

What Rushdoony provided is a package that included attacking what these fundamentalists hated and feared most in society, often expressed in terms of "This is communist. This is socialist." But Rushdoony provided a way to sacralize these ideas, and at the same time not just tear down the old order, but provide a blueprint for the new order.

Everyone didn't have to agree on the blueprint, she said: "Rushdoony's ideas went out in bits and pieces. The Christian right leaders took what they wanted and discarded what they didn't."

"Christian reconstructionism, as articulated by Rushdoony, provided a standard by which everyone else had to measure themselves," Clarkson told Salon. "Not everyone on the Christian right agreed with Rushdoony and his fellow Reconstructionist thinkers on, for example, the contemporary application of capital crimes listed in the Old Testament. And followers were often at pains to distinguish themselves."

Clarkson cites the case of conservative Presbyterian theologian Francis Schaeffer, who disagreed with Rushdoony on the applicability of biblical law, but became a driving force behind the anti-abortion activist movement Operation Rescue. That "militant Schaefferism," Clarkson said, "led activists to think: What's next, beyond political protest and stopping abortion? This is where the conversation has been in the Christian right for decades."

The doctrine of the "lesser magistrate," mentioned above, first emerged into public discourse out of Operation Rescue. But it did so as part of a larger, more complicated story.

There's a long history of right-wing opposition to federal authority, particularly grounded in the 19th-century defense of slaveryand continuing in the defense of Jim Crow segregation. In his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke specifically of the governor of Alabama "having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification."

As detailed by Randall Balmer in "Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right," the religious right wasn't initially fueled by opposition to the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, but by opposition to a lesser-known decision in 1971, Green v. Connally, which threatened the tax-exempt status of racially discriminatory institutions, most famously the evangelical stronghold Bob Jones University.

Anti-abortion activists have long sought not just to bury that past but to stand it on its head, somehow equating Roe v. Wade with the notorious Dred Scott decision of 1857 and claiming the moral heritage of abolitionism.

"Throughout these movements there is also an attempt to turn the tables on the claims of racism," Tabachnick said in her webinar. "This is one of the roles that anti-abortion activism as abolition plays. Also, there's a promotion of narratives that provide a different history and legal justifications for interposition, nullification and even secession. One of the things that Christian reconstructionism has added to this dialogue is the concept of the lower magistrate."

As Tabachnick explains it, the "lesser magistrate" is a heroic figure who "resists the tyranny of a higher authority" defining "tyranny" in biblical terms, potentially including any number of popular or common-sense laws or policies. This notion first gained salience in the anti-abortion context in the 1980s and '90s, as Tabachnick went on to explain.

"Many violent anti-abortionists have justified their actions in reconstructionist teachings," she said. "One of these was Paul Hill, who studied under one of the major reconstructionist leaders and corresponded with others." Hill went on to murder Dr. John Britton, a physician who performed abortions, as well as Britton's personal bodyguard, in 1994. Hill was executed in 2003, but the reconstructionist movement sought to cast him out well before that.

"Gary North responded, after the murders had taken place, in a book called 'Lone Gunners for Jesus,'" Tabachnick said. His message to Hill was, "You're going to burn in hell, you've been excommunicated. This was because Paul Hill stepped outside the bounds of the guidelines set by the movement."

To explain this, she quoted a passage from another book by North that offered qualified support for Operation Rescue: "We need a statement that under no circumstances will Operation Rescue or any of its official representatives call for armed resistance to civil authority without public support from a lesser magistrate."

"On the basis of their belief of what the law or the word of God is, they are allowed on the advice, on the interposition, of a lesser magistrate to commit acts of violence," Tabachnick continued. North was seeking to control or curb anti-abortion terrorism, but without rejecting it in principle. Murdering abortion providers or even murdering women seeking abortions could be morally justified, with the blessing of a lesser magistrate.

This is relevant to SB 8 in Texas in at least two ways. That bill bans abortions after six weeksandis enforced not by state officials, but by deputizing private individuals to sue anyone who performs the procedure or "aids and abets" it. First of all, giving private individuals these vigilante-style rights seems a lot like making them into "lesser magistrates," however narrowly constrained.

Second, the Supreme Court's refusal to stay the law which clearly violates the Constitution and existing precedent, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued in her dissent can be seen as an example of the doctrine in action. In more normal circumstances, the court would have stayed the law pending consideration on the merits, even if a majority of justices intended to overturn precedent. That's how common law has worked for centuries.

But biblical law isn't common law, especially as reconstructionists understand it. Under the doctrine of the "lesser magistrate," Roe is not precedent but an instance of tyranny and the justices have a duty to God to resist it. Of course, not even Amy Coney Barrett or Clarence Thomas has said anything like that, but it's entirely consistent with their behavior as well as with their silence, since openly making such an argument would clarify just how radicalized they have become. But adherents of the doctrine of the lesser magistrate must surely appreciate the drift in direction.

Nor is the doctrine limited to abortion cases, as already noted. Matthew Trewhella is a pastor who was a prominent leader of violence-prone wing of the anti-abortion movement in 1990s, and author of the 2013 book, "The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates," which greatly heightened its visibility.

"Trewhella is now all over radio and the internet," Tabachnick said in her webinar, "claiming to meet with state legislators and attorney generals at the moment, with the cause of fighting the 'tyranny of mask mandates' and vaccination for COVID. So you can see how this is a concept that is not just limited to abortion. It is a concept that can be used in resistance of government authority all over the country in all different kinds of ways FEMA, EPA, Bureau of Land Management and so forth."

Trewhella isn't breaking new ground here. Clarkson's 1997 book "Eternal Hostility" describes him making similar arguments in a speech to an anti-tax group in Wisconsin. He was just one figure among many spreading the seeds of reconstructionist resistance to federal authority among militia members, "freemen" and anti-abortion activists at the time.

"This movement believes that rights come from God and not from any government," Tabachnick told Salon. "Therefore, any 'rights' that conflict with their interpretation of God's law are not actually rights. They are 'humanist' or a product of man's laws and not God's laws. This theme of 'human rights' versus inalienable rights from God has been at the center of the Christian Reconstructionist movement since its beginnings."

She pointed to "What's Wrong With Human Rights," an excerpt from a book of the same name by the Rev. T. Robert Ingram published in "The Theology of Christian Resistance," a collection edited by North. Ingram sweeps aside the Bill of Rights as "a statement of sovereign powers of states withheld from the federal authority of the Union," and turns instead to the Virginia Declaration of Rights, authored by George Mason in 1776.

The first section of the Virginia Declaration, beginning "That all Men are by Nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent Rights," is dismissed by Ingram for omitting any mention of God, as an "error of unbelief which falsifies all the rest that is said about human life." The second, beginning "That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from the People; that Magistrates are their Trustees and Servants, and at all Times amenable to them," he dismisses as well: "The meaning could not be more clear, nor more opposite Biblical thought. The ruling proposition of Scripture and Christian doctrine is that 'power belongeth unto God.'" In short, there are no human rights.

The connection to the doctrine of the lesser magistrate is clear: Power comes from God, not the people. Whatever the people want is irrelevant. Whatever laws they may pass are irrelevant, too, if they go against God. "Tyranny" is whatever the Christian reconstructionist decides he doesn't like.

Elsewhere, Ingram denigrates freedom of speech and the press:

Freedom of speech and freedom of press are, in fact, applied seriously only to giving government protection to instigators of riot and rebellion, as well as those who would undermine human order by more subtle attacks on morals and customs.

As for the right to dissent, he calls it "not a lawful claim to own or to do something, which is the true right," but "a turning upside down of right and wrong, calling good evil and evil good." Similarly, there is no scriptural right to "resist authority," only that granted by thefalse doctrine of "human rights."

Ingram's interpretation of the Civil War is that "Yankee radicals inflamed the Northern peoples to mount the Civil War in the name of a 'human right' to be free ... if they did not destroy the whole Southern Order, they did at least dismantle its vast and efficient plantation economy." The civil rights movement, unsurprisingly, is understood as a defiance of "Tradition, law, and custom, which preserved public peace and order in the bi-racial state of the union, both North and South," and became "the target of the right to resist in the 60's, the supposed human rights justifying the violent means."

Tabachnick didn't dig into this text in her webinar, but it serves toillustrateher central principle: "This attack on the very concept of 'human rights' can be found throughout today's religious right."

Jackson told Salon that the most important part of Tabachnick's presentation came "when she talked about humanism and the humanistic frame, from the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Those who are within the dominionist camp see that as contrary to God. I read those same documents and I say, this is pointing us toward the direction that God wants for us. They look at it and see that as counter to God, because humanism from their perspective is something very contrary to God."

If we take such arguments seriously, then we understand why for dominionists there is nothing wrong with breaking any law at all, so long as "God wills it" and you have the blessing of a so-called lesser magistrate. This is the reconstructionist argument supporting a whole range of chaotic right-wing activity today, including baseless claims that the 2020 election was a fraud. After all, the fundamental reconstructionist argument is that all such democratic government is illegitimate.

"The goal of reconstructionism is to tear down the existing order and reconstruct a new society based on biblical law," Tabachnick said. "Even if we assume that this vision of a theocratic America will never come to fruition, it's important to recognize the movement's impact on the ideas, strategies and tactics of the larger religious right and its role in sacralizing the actions of other anti-statist fellow travelers.

"As I wrote almost a decade ago, the theocratic libertarianism of Christian reconstructionism has been surprisingly seductive to Tea Partiers and young libertarians many of whom may not realize what is supposed to happen after the government is stripped of its regulatory powers."

Read more:

How extremist Christian theology is driving the right-wing assault on democracy - Salon

Organized by JCUsGuarini Institute for Public Affairs(in cooperation with theHistory and Humanities Department), the InternationalSymposium on SorgnersWe Have Always Been Cyborgswill bring together a group of internationally renowned thinkers, academics, and intellectualsto discuss, analyze and reflect upon suggestions about values, norms, and utopia, as they were presented inProfessor Stefan Lorenz Sorgners latest monograph entitledWe Have Always Been Cyborgs(Bristol University Press 2022).

According to Julian Savulescu from the University of Oxford,We Have Always Been Cyborgsis an eye-opening, wide-ranging and all-inclusive study of transhumanism. Sorgners account avoids both the utopian trap and the bogeyman spectre. He makes a compelling case for placing ourselves on the transhuman spectrum. How we continue to use technologies is in our hands. Sorgners book is both a comprehensive introduction to transhumanist thought and a clear-sighted vision for its future realization. N. Katherine Hayles from the University of California, Los Angeles adds further that With an encyclopedic knowledge of transhumanism and a deep philosophical grounding, especially in Nietzschean thought, Stefan Sorgner tackles some of the most challenging ethical issues currently discussed, including gene editing, digital data collection, and life extension, with uncommon good sense and incisive conclusions. This study is one of the most detailed and comprehensive analyses available today. Highly recommended for anyone interested in transhumanist/posthumanist ideas and in these issues generally.

The blurbs by Katherine Hayles and Julian Savulescu provide an excellent summary of the myriad of topics, which will be analysed, discussed, and reflected upon in this ground-breaking international symposium. The discussants, who agreed to respond to Sorgners reflections are world-leading academics in the fields of political sciences, applied ethics, theology, as well as philosophy, i.e. Jennifer Merchant from the University of Paris 2, Benedikt Paul Gcke from the University of Bochum, Fr. Philip Larrey from the Pontifica Univerity Lateranense in Rome, Sarah Chan from the University of Edinburgh, Maurizio Balistreri from theUniversity of Turin, and Piergiorgio Donatelli from the Sapienza in Rome. Thus, the state of the arts of intellectual exchanges on transhumanism, critical posthumanism, and the ethics of gene technologies, digitalisation, and human-machine-interfaces will be critically dealt with during this event.

Program

You can access to more detailed information about the speakers in the file Speakers Biographies file located in the Additional Info tab down below.

Please send an email to reserve your spot and use your John Cabot University email address. If you are part of our study abroad programs, please state your university.

For those who cannot attend in person, the event will be streamed live onMetahumanities YouTube channel.

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International Symposium on Sorgner's "We Have Always Been Cyborgs"Back to Events - Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies

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THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : Blessing women unable to conceive, mischiefs of kuttichathan or sale of lucky charms on the promise of bringing good fortune. These and more will become punishable offences in the state under the proposed anti-black magic law The Kerala Prevention and Eradication of Inhuman Evil Practice, Sorcery and Black Magic Bill, 2019.

Mooted by the Law Reforms Commission, the proposed legislation has stringent provisions to combat superstitions and evil practices while creating awareness among people. What this means is godmen and exorcists will find going tough in Kerala.

The bill has a detailed schedule listing various offences. They include black magic, sorcery, exorcism by violent means, bounty hunting and cheating people in the name of supernatural powers and sacrifice of animals. Godmen can also be booked for subjecting women to inhuman and humiliating practices such as parading them naked or engaging in sexual activity to bless women who are unable to conceive. Sale of lucky charms like lamps and conches on the promise that they would bring good fortune will also become punishable.

Other practices against women that the draft proposes to criminalise are forced isolation, prohibition of entry into the village or facilitating segregation of menstruating or post-partum women. Certain superstitious practices with religious colour, such as piercing of cheek with iron rods or arrows, are also banned. Pelting of stones at houses or pollution of food or water, under the guise of mischiefs of kuttichathan, will also attract punishment.

Govt will take a final call on draft bill

The minimum punishment for various offences is one-year imprisonment and Rs 5,000 fine. This may go up to seven years in jail and Rs 50,000 fine depending on the severity of the crime. The bill spares certain practices associated with religions. Also, performing religious rituals at homes, temples, mosques or other religious places, which do not cause physical harm to any person, are excluded.

The government will take a final call on the draft bill. It can amend the list of offences by addition or deletion. The bill upholds the spirit of Article 51A (h) of the Constitution that encourages the citizen to develop scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform. Due emphasis is given to awareness programmes, said Law Reforms Commission vicechairman K Sasidharan Nair.

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Kerala: Proposed anti-black magic law to make going tough for godmen, sorcerers - The New Indian Express

In a way the exchange was pure Abba: easygoing, but undergirded by serious concerns. Another chance for debate came up when the two men were discussing their Abbatars. Andersson remarked that Ulvaeus had requested a change to his digital alter egos hair because there is only so much 1979 realness anybody can take. When I remarked that it was a great way to rewrite a little bit of history while still being faithful to its spirit, Ulvaeus replied, with a slight smile, Yes, its such an interesting existential question. (Ulvaeus, known in Sweden for his commitment to atheism and humanism, enjoys such questions, later asking, So, do you think the American constitution is strong enough to withstand another Republican president?)

The Andersson-Ulvaeus songwriting bond has withstood intraband divorces and the pressure brought on by critical scorn. (For those who have forgotten: Andersson used to be married to Lyngstad, Ulvaeus to Faltskog.) They have been writing together nonstop since meeting in 1966, and their post-Abba collaborations include songs for Anderssons band as well as the musicals Chess and Kristina from Duvemla, an epic about 19th-century Swedish immigrants to America that includes the rare showstopper about lice.

While the division of labor used to be fluid in the 1970s, it is now much more clear-cut: Andersson comes up with melodies and records demos in his Skeppsholmen lair then sends them to Ulvaeus, who writes the lyrics. Asked how elaborate those demos are, Andersson volunteered to play Dont Shut Me Down, and walked over to his computer. Then he couldnt find it among his dozens of files, searching Tina Charles since the Abba song has a slinky vibe like one of the British singers hits.

He eventually unearthed not the demo but the finished backing track, and cranked it up on the immaculate sound system, providing a great example of how crucial Faltskog and Lyngstads voices are to Abbas sonic tapestry.

All the various successful groups since the 70s have had more than one singer, Andersson said, mentioning Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, alongside Abba. You hear Frida sing one song and then you hear Agnetha sing its like two bands. The dynamics are helped immensely by the fact that there are two. And then when they sing together

Their harmonies on the Voyage album bear the unmistakable Abba stamp, even if the register is a bit lower than it used to be. Age alone does not account for the difference: We used to sort of force them to go as high as they could on most of the songs because it gives energy, Andersson said.

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After 40 Years, Abba Takes a Chance With Its Legacy - The New York Times

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Even in film circles, John Farrow is pretty much unknown in Australia. But almost 60 years after his death, the product of Marrickville in Sydneys inner west remains easily the countrys most prolific filmmaker in Hollywood.

He directed almost 50 movies, produced six and wrote more than 25 screenplays winning an Oscar before dying from a heart attack in 1963.

Dynamic, driven and prone to telling spectacularly tall stories about his life, Farrow is part of a famous Hollywood family.

Driven, dynamic and enigmatic: Hollywood director John Farrow who grew up in Marrickville and went to sea at 15.Credit:Ronin

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When he married actress Maureen OSullivan, who played Jane to Johnny Weissmullers Tarzan, they had seven children including actress Mia Farrow and author Prudence Bruns, who inspired John Lennon to write Dear Prudence. Their grandson is famed investigative journalist Ronan Farrow.

Outside movies, Farrow wrote eight books, including a collection of poetry and a history of the Popes. He became a Commander in the Canadian Navy during World War II. He won an OBE and a Papal knighthood. And, despite being a staunch Catholic, he was a Hollywood playboy whose romancing of a series of Hollywood actresses apparently continued through two marriages.

When Australia won its first Oscar for Ken G. Halls documentary Kokoda Front Line in 1943, Farrow collected it.

The fact that someone so accomplished is so little known in this country fascinated filmmakers Claude Gonzalez and Frans Vandenburg when they discovered a shared affection for Farrows critically acclaimed film noir The Big Clock (1948).

Director John Farrow (left) with John Wayne and Lana Turner on the set of The Sea Chase. Credit:Ronin

Now, after more than a decade of detective work and interviews, they reveal his brilliantly colourful life in the documentary John Farrow Hollywoods Man In The Shadows that is screening at the Sydney Film Festival.

Wed always loved 40s cinema, Gonzalez says. We loved The Big Clock and got into a discussion about how good and vibrant a work it was, then we found that there was really nothing written about Farrow.

Vandenburg adds that they were fascinated to discover he was Australian and that he had made so many Hollywood movies.

John Farrow, Maureen OSullivan and their seven children.Credit:Ronin

As well as directing movies starring Boris Karloff, Lucille Ball, Robert Mitchum, Lana Turner, Bette Davis and John Wayne, Farrow won an Oscar for co-writing the comedy Around The World In 80 Days (1956) after an earlier nomination for directing the war drama Wake Island (1942).

His best-known movies also include Five Came Back (1939), Two Years Before The Mast (1946), Night Has A Thousand Eyes (1948), Alias Nick Beal (1949), Where Danger Lives (1950), Hondo (1953), The Sea Chase (1955) and John Paul Jones (1959).

Farrow was a stylish director who told engaging stories with a constantly moving camera.Credit:Getty

Gonzalez describes him as a stylish director who told engaging stories with a constantly moving camera.

Hes always creating a wonderful pace and energy to his filmmaking, he says. You can also see a humanism that is very much part of his style. He always cares about not just the hero but the secondary and the third person in the story ... the unheard voice of a female protagonist or the underdog.

The documentary shows that Farrows father worked for a tailor and his mother was a dressmaker until her death aged just 26, when he was three, in what was then called Callan Park Hospital for the Insane. While not diagnosed at that time , it is now thought she had post-natal depression.

While Farrow later claimed to have studied at Newington College, near his home, he really went to the more humble Newtown Boys.

According to a relative living in Engadine in the southern suburbs, 88-year-old Jim Farrow, the family talk was that John was a rascal and a scallywag as a child.

While Farrow later claimed to have studied at Newington College, near his home, he really went to the more humble Newtown Boys.

He used to walk around with a white coat on and a stethoscope pretending he was a doctor, he says. We knew he used to exaggerate stories and that carried on after he left Australia.

While the retired hospital courier never met his first cousin twice removed, his family research was invaluable for the documentary.

Can you imagine making, on average, 15 films per decade?: Frans Vandenburg (left) and Claude Gonzalez, who directed the documentary John Farrow - Hollywoods Man In The Shadows.

Aged 15, Farrow borrowed money from his aunt and left Sydney as a crew member on the RMS Makura in 1919. The destination was Vancouver via Fiji and Hawaii.

He later claimed to have fought in revolutions in Nicaragua and Mexico before arriving in the US in 1923, though the documentary-makers believe that was a colourful fabrication. Just like his claims to be related to Englands kings, to have written an English-French-Tahitian dictionary and to have studied at Winchester College in England and the US Naval Academy.

He just ran away to sea, had these adventures, began writing and jumped ship in San Francisco, Vandenburg says. Thats how he arrived in America: as an illegal alien.

Around a year after landing, Farrow married the daughter of a mining magnate, Felice Lewin, and they had a daughter. There is a tall story behind that marriage as well.

A report with the headline Divoce looms for Cinderella Boy about two different sides of John Farrow inThe Oakland Tribune in 1927.Credit:Ronin

In 1927, The Oakland Tribune carried a story headlined Divorce looms for Cinderella Boy that reported Jack Farrow had been living a lie when he won over Lewin.

Working as a Coast Guard seaman swabbing the decks during the day, he had been wearing a monocle and spats, claiming to be a British Lord known as the Honorable John Neville Burg-Apton Villiers Farrow, to mix with appreciative debs and dowagers at night. She wanted a divorce on the grounds of cruelty.

Working as a Coast Guard seaman swabbing the decks during the day, he had been wearing a monocle and claiming to be a British Lord at night.

Arriving in Los Angeles that same year, Farrow started to gain recognition as a poet and short story writer. He worked as a script consultant and caption writer on silent seafaring movies then graduated to writing dialogue when talkies began.

David Niven in Around The World in 80 Days: John Farrow won an Oscar for co-writing the screenplay but was sacked as director.Credit:Fairfax Media

He met the right people, Vandenburg says He was advised to go down to Hollywood, which he did. It was perfect timing during the transition from silent to sound.

Farrow made another colourful newspaper story in 1933.

The Daily News reported that he had been threatened with deportation for moral turpitude after being arrested while dancing with Argentinian actress Mona Maris at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub.

John Farrow and his famous actress wife 9and Mias mother0 Maureen OSullivan attend a wedding in 1933.Credit:Getty

The paper added that Farrow, who had previously been engaged to actress Lila Lee, had been advised to quit the US two years earlier over his questionable residency permit. He left for Tahiti and England then returned with papers declaring he was an assistant consular attach to one of the Balkan countries.

Described in court as a screenwriter and actor, Farrow was given five years probation instead of being deported. He eventually became an American citizen in 1947.

These lively interludes did nothing to stop Farrows rise as a filmmaker. After all, he was not alone in reinventing his past among the immigrants in Hollywood.

A lot of figures including Errol Flynn and Merle Oberon would recreate or reshape their lives, Gonzalez says.

Pivotal movie: Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan and Maureen OSullivan as Jane with Cheeta the Chimp in Tarzan Escapes.Credit:Reuters

When we checked, a lot of these things were proven false, but he was a great fabulist. He not only wrote good stories, he wrote good copy for his own life.

Author and critic Scott Murray says Tarzan Escapes (1936) was a pivotal movie for Farrow it was his first movie as co-writer and he met then married OSullivan after converting to Catholicism.

He soon directed his first movie, the Caribbean crime drama Men In Exile (1937), focusing on what were intended as second-string attractions in double bills. He had a surprise hit with plane-crashes-in-the-jungle pic Five Came Back two years later.

When World War II broke out, Farrow enlisted in the Canadian Navy and reached the rank of Commander before being shipped out with typhus in 1941. He returned to directing when he recovered making A-grade pictures for the top of the bill now and quickly succeeding with Wake Island.

Poster for Around the World in 80 Days.Credit:Getty

Farrow started directing Around The World In 80 Days until the famously brash producer Mike Todd sacked him, apparently over how long he was taking to shoot the movie. It went on to win five Oscars, including best picture.

His son, John Charles Farrow, says in the documentary that Farrow told his children and others that they were directly related to the kings of England.

It was important to people at that age and in his profession to have a polished side to them, he says. The raw and the rough of Australia wasnt in style at that time.

The documentary makers had no luck interviewing Mia Farrow not surprising given the continuing controversy around former partner Woody Allen and their children.

We wrote to all the family and they all responded differently, Vandenburg says. Mia was very private in her exchanges because she had a lot of her own issues going on. All families are dysfunctional, I suppose, but theirs is a little bit more tragic.

Mia was very private in her exchanges ... All families are dysfunctional, I suppose, but theirs is a little bit more tragic.

Farrow children prepare to fly to a film shoot in Ireland where their parents are working in 1948, from left, Paddy, 5, John, 21 months and Mia, 3.Credit:Getty

Gonzalez adds that Farrow died when his children were adolescents, leaving them without a very dominant, very dynamic father at an important time in their lives. But our agenda was giving John Farrow a voice: who was he as a person, what made his films so compelling and why should they be reassessed?

Hollywood director John Farrow carries his daughter Mia, aged 9, out of hospital after a 1954 polio scare.Credit:Getty

But Mia did appreciate one discovery during production the unmarked grave of her grandmother, Johns mother, at Rookwood cemetery.

When Jim told her the news, she paid for a plaque. She was delighted and wanted to place a memorial to her grandmother on the grave, he says.

It reads in part: In loving memory of Lucy Farrow. Death came before you could know your baby John.

John Farrow on the set of his last film.

While some of Farrows best-known movies are being released on DVD, they are not streaming. We hope with the documentary that more of his movies might become available, Gonzalez says.

So how did Farrow pack so much into his life?

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Gonzalez says two of his children described him as an insomniac who was constantly on the go.

As filmmakers, we know how difficult it is to make a film, he says. Can you imagine making, on average, 15 films per decade? Its an incredible amount of work, plus writing these books and also having affairs with some of the leading ladies of the time.

John Farrow Hollywoods Man In The Shadows is screening at Sydney Film Festival this weekend and then online at Sydney Film Festival On Demand from November 12. Tickets from sff.org.au or 1300 733 733.

Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.

Email the writer at gmaddox@smh.com.au and follow him on Twitter at @gmaddox.

See the article here:

The forgotten life of Australias most prolific Hollywood director... and the tall stories he told - Sydney Morning Herald

(This being a big subject that has been largely ignored it needs a lot of explanation, the essay is split into two parts. Part 2 will be posted tomorrow)

It has not worked.

The pro-choice movement opposed by the religious right has been making an enormous mistake. We know that because it is facing disaster. That when a solid majority of Americans favor abortion rights. It is all too clear that what it has been done in support of women being full class citizens has been gravely defective. It follows that it is time to move on to a more effective strategy.

Roe v Wade rests largely upon the 14thAmendment principle of privacy as a legal and societal expression of individual freedom from invasive state control in favor of personal responsibility. The thesis is valid, but it is a defensive posture that has proven insufficient to fend off assaults from a dedicated forced birth campaign. The situation is so bad for the sovereign rights of American women that even as Catholic heritage nations like Mexico and Ireland place their trust in the gender to make the best choice, the USA is reverting to the paternalistic misogyny of the early 1900s.

The womens right movement must go on the offensive to regain the legal and moral high ground over the force birthers. Doing that requires utilizing two interrelated lines of argument.

The Big Medical Lie

One issue that has for reasons obscure long been oddly underplayed is womens health. The ant-abortion conspiracy promotes the anti-scientific disinformation that first trimester feticides are artificial and therefore bad for mothers, while child birth is natural to the point that the government must force all pregnant women to do what is good for their health physical and mental. Law enforcement must protect an apparently gullible gender from a diabolical abortion industry that is so clever that it somehow seduces many hundreds of thousands of each year a third of the national female population over time to commit a dangerous unnatural act that is against the wise ways of Gods benign creation. That when not getting an abortion is as easy as simply not going to a provider. Yet many go to great lengths to get to such, sometimes traveling long distances if necessary, knowing exactly what will happen when they do so, yet only a small percentage report having significant post procedure regrets [https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/01/416421/five-years-after-abortion-nearly-all-women-say-it-was-right-decision-study].

The hard truth is that nature is not always the best. Modern medicine is the artificial practice that has saved billions of lives from the deadly side of the biological world, including the many risks of pregnancy. Early term abortions surgical and medicinal are over a dozen times less lethal than going through the months long complexities and risks of pregnancy [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22270271]. And because the latter pumps lots of mood altering hormones into mothers, they are highly likely to experience serious mental distress before and especially after birth, post-partum depression being very common and often serious. Early pregnancy does not involve such hormone loads, and mental trauma is much less frequent after termination. That is why the regrets are rare, of the many women I know who have had abortions none was gravely upset about it. Which makes sense since a woman is making the safest decision when ending a pregnancy as early as feasible. Legally sentencing a woman to bear her pregnancy violates her core medical rights. Its like preventing someone from taking say statins, or forcing them to smoke or use mind altering drugs.

But there is another major right that the anti-abortion project violates big time. the one that the pro-choice forces have been resisting despite its potential potency.

Religious liberty.

Forced Birth, its a Religious Thing

Heres the fact that is as screamingly obvious as it is irrationally paid much too little attention by the body politic. Almost the entire movement to render women second class citizens by making them reproductive slaves of the state once pregnant, stems from one source. The religious right. That is a historically rather novel entity formed by a once unimaginable collaboration of evangelical Protestants with the Church of Rome. The anti-abortion project is the core engine of a brazen attempt by one religious clique that constitutes about a third of the population to impose their hardline faith-based beliefs on everyone else. Outside of the religious right who opposes abortion rights? Nontheists against womens full reproductive rights are as scarce as hens teeth, I personally know of only one. Polling suggests that one in ten atheists are forced birthers, but the sample is small and the figure appears inflated. Many if not most Christians Protestants, Orthodox, Catholics, etc. of the center-left favor reproductive choice, along with most Jews and other theists. That alliance of nonrelig0ious and believers form the solid majority who want broad abortion rights to remain in force in all 50 states.

The overwhelming and narrow religious basis of forced birth differs strikingly from other conservative causes such as limited government size and power regarding guns and economics, and heavy law enforcement against crimes and drugs. Those secular theses enjoy substantial support outside theoconservatism, including many nontheists advocates of laissez faire capitalism for instance have included such prominent nonbelievers as Herbert Spencer, Ayn Rand, Milton Freidman, Penn Jillette and Michael Shermer.

No God Opposes Abortion

That feticide has become such a fixation of the religious right is remarkably ironic for a reason too few are aware of. The startling fact is that forcing women to bear pregnancies to term lacks theological justification. The central motivating claim by theoconservatives that they are sincerely merely obeying the dictates of a prolife creator is patently false both on real world and scriptural grounds. Our lovely but child toxic planet provides the proof that a prolife creator cannot exist. In the academic journal Philosophy and TheologyI was the first to calculate and publish the telling and terrible statistics that remain scandalously ignored [http://www.gspauldino.com/Philosophy&Theology.pdf. I further detail the problem in Essays on the Philosophy of Humanism https://americanhumanist.org/what-we-do/publications/eph/journals/volume28/paul-1 & http://americanhumanist.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/03_Paul-SkeptoTheoPt2.pdf%5D. The stats start with how it is well documented that about 100 billion people have been born to date. To that add how medical analysis indicates that about three quarters of conceptions naturally fail to come to term about half failing to implant in the first place usually due to rampant genetic defects, the rest are later term miscarriages, many of which go unnoticed. The human reproductive complex is a Rube Golbergian mess that usually fails far from the womb being a safe refuge for fetuses, it is where most lives come to a natural early end. As geneticist William Rice states, accidental abortion is the predominant outcome of fertilization [and] a natural and inevitable part of human reproduction at all ages. [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326485445_The_high_abortion_cost_of_human_reproduction] That means something like 300 billion pregnancies have been spontaneously aborted to date. Currently, somewhere in the area of 30,000 spontaneous abortions occur every day in the US, over ten times more than those that are induced. After birth half those born have died as children from a vast array of torturous diseases that infest our biosphere, so some 50 billion kids have not grown up. It is the artifice of medicine that has driven juvenile mortality down to a few percent, less can be done about our deeply dysfunctional reproductive system. As I detail in the P&Tand EPHstudies, it is demonstrably impossible for a supernatural creator that allows hundreds of billions of preadults to die to be prolife.

The mass loss of immature humans helps explain a stark scriptural truth birth enforcement adherents evade as much as they can. Neither the Jewish nor Christian texts come anywhere close to banning abortions. The only direct mention of the issue instructs that if someone accidently causes a miscarriage involving a woman who is not their wife, then the negligent party can be sued by the father who owns the fetus feticide is a civil property matter, not criminal murder in the Holy Bible. That the Biblical God orders the Israelite warriors to kill captive children as well as women even when pregnant reinforces the indifference of the deity to the lives of youngsters. The Gospels of Jesus have nothing to say about the topic. The abject absence of scriptural condemnation against abortion illuminates why most Bible believing Protestants, including the most popular evangelical of the day, Billy Graham, had no comment in the immediate wake of Roe v Wade. Then famed Southern Baptist leader W. A. Criswell did opine that he had always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person, and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.The sanctity of preborn life was largely a Vatican thing it cannot be overemphasized the degree to which the Roman and Lutheran churches despised one another; a few years ago a couple of evangelicals standing right in front of me bemoaned how a relation who had gone Catholic was now worshipping the clergy, not Jesus. So why the ensuing great evangelical Protestant switch Graham and especially Criswell evolved into staunch forced birthers to sociopoliically weaponizing abortion as murder via a new found alliance with the heretical Catholic clergy? First a little history.

A Little History

Abortion was the norm in largely Protestant colonial and early independent America for that matter, early term feticide has always been very common in societies whether legal or not. The Puritans of yore were not as super repressive and chaste as usually thought, oops pregnancies outside of marriage were fairly frequent. And there were women who after having birthed a bevy of babies did not want to go through thatagain. All the more so because childbirth was very dangerous, about one out of fifty pregnancies killed the mother. Mother nature is not much kinder to mothers than their young ones. Early term termination with herbal toxins had its dangers, but to a lesser degree. Such abortions were not a concern to the authorities if it was done before quickening. When the all-male founders, nearly all Protestants and Deists, were assembling the Constitution that instituted separation of church and state they never imagined considering feticide, that being a womens affair outside their manly concerns. The only faction that might have been interested in the issue were the few Catholics. That they made no attempt to mention much less ban abortion was logical because the rest of the patriots would have slapped that down as an attempt to subvert the intent of the 1stAmendment to keep specific religious cliques from seizing control of governmental policies and vice-versa. Duh.

In the 1800s going into the early 1900s repression of sexuality and women reached a peak in tune with Victorian culture. Also of growing concern was that abortions were killing women, albeit less often than pregnancy. At the same time the all-male profession of medical doctors wanted to suppress competition form midwives who often aborted the much bigger money to be made from full term pregnancies. And the nativist eugenics based on agricultural selective breeding favored by Protestants (but not Catholics) called for WASP women to bear as many children as possible to prevent the others from dominating the population. Laws banning abortions appeared for the first time, and quickly became the national norm. (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/05/abortion-in-american-history/376851.)

The result. A little over a century ago the religious right owned these United States. Well over nine out of ten were Christians, nearly all conservative. It was a culture of imposed Judeo-Christian virtue. A pious repressive hyper misogynist patriarchy in which women were second class citizens required to wear heavy clothing even at the beach, and mandated to remain nonsexual until marriage in which husbands could legally rape their wives and she had no legal choice but to bear the child that by the way helps elucidate why modern forced birthers are often not concerned about if a pregnancy resulted from nonconsensual sex. The draconian Comstock laws banned mailing information on contraceptives in flagrant contradiction of the Bill of Rights. The culture of repressed sexual liberty had to have a heavy government hand to it. Lacking the force of law to keep people in reproductive line, most folks feel free to have way too much fun for the likes of the power craving forces who enjoy imagining they know what it best for all of us, feckless women especially. Note that the Dour Culture was to a fair extent a white matter, black culture was less uptight, as reflected in the advent of the sex music, jazz that quickly gained a following among white youth.

The rather Taliban like mainstream Christian scheme began to unravel what with women (mainly white) getting the vote, and the first sexual revolution of the Roaring Twenties. That unprecedented loosening of sexual habits was never entirely beaten back by the right, but as late as the 1950s women were still expected to be virgins on their wedding nights who then became stay at home housewives, access to contraceptives remained limited, and abortions forbidden. With blue laws keeping most retail closed on Sundays three quarters of American were church members according the Gallup, as virtually all professed a belief in God.

Since then its all gone to theocon hell. Even in the 50s the hot black culture continued to infiltrate the white majority via the first wave of rock-and-roll previously black slang for intercourse. What was Elvis doing up there on the stage with his pelvis? Seeing the way things were going Billy Graham started his mass crusades to try to restore America to its righteous ways.

That did not work.

Nowadays, with women being emancipated, first class citizens free to have sexy fun, sinfully tempting females strut down streets in minimal clothing. Sex outside marriage is actually the accepted societal norm. Marriage rates are down while divorce rates are sky high that started with the WW 2 generation in the late 60s BTW including among conservative Christians. Birth rates are below replacement level that when many on the right oppose the immigration of nonwhites thats needed if an expanding population is to help grow the economy. On the networks people can say screw when not talking about hardware. Then there is cable and the web. Most women have careers. The grand corporate project to convert pious frugal church goers into hedonistic materialists and digital social media addicts has succeeded spectacularly as Gallup tracks church membership plummeting from 70% at the beginning of the 2000s to 50% today [https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx] as white Protestants are a fast shrinking minority, the religious right the once ran the country has been reduced to a widely disparaged subgroup, and the nonreligious balloon by an amazing tenth of the population each decade [for a look at that see http://americanhumanist.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/art-1-Paul-The-Great-and-Amazingly-Rapid-Secularization-of-the-Increasingly-Proevolution-United-States.pdf%5D. Even Republicans are becoming less religious for Christs sake listen to how the Trumpites swore like sailors as they stormed the capital, and denounce Biden with vulgarities like Richard Pryor.

Their Real Goal

That is what the forced birth movement is really about. Having lost the mainstream culture big time over the last century theocons have no viable means to recover it by persuasion, and deep down they know that bitter fact. All those crusades, religious TV channels, megachurches, and Christian rock are getting nowhere with the mainstream. What are they to do in their desperate power trip to return the country to the good old days of largely white righteous Christian domination?

Its obvious. Try to do what worked up to the 1920s, and see if reapplying governmental coercion will get America back to its straighter laced Godly ways. There is nothing else for them to. This invidious strategy to employ laws to achieve religious aims requires the high grade hypocrisy of theoconservatives who love to proclaim individual liberty while decrying government power when the latter promotes what they see as ungodly secular-liberal values, but to without batting a cynical eye deploy said government power to lever America back to something like it was in the 1950s. When father knew best and subservient women properly behaved themselves sex wise and raised their many kids and heaven forbid could not terminate their sacred pregnancies and the churches were packed on Sunday mornings rather than folks hitting Walmart and Home Depo.

So. How to get the government back under the blessed control of the theocon minority? You have to be fairly sneaky about it. Openly admitting that the ultimate goal is to use the state to bring back the good old theoconservative days by banning abortion et al. would intensify majority opposition, while fatally undermining the legal case for making a private procedure that the Puritans were OK with into murder.

To try to rewin the culture wars via the law they have smartly gone on the sociopolitical offensive by putting a peculiarly lethargic prochoice side on the public relations defensive, to the degree that even liberals agree that the feticide that has always been common should somehow become uncommon. A hard and sad choice consistently avoided by preventing unwanted pregnancies in the first place, rather than by barring terminations. Its the abortion should be legal but rare line, rather than rare because its illegal. Both are naive fantasies that have never been achieved and never will be. Early term abortions are the norm in all societies because they involve a modest collection of cells whose humanity is problematic and mainly propounded by extremist theocons, they are fairly easy to do, in secret if necessary, and are not as dangerous as is pregnancy to the mother. At least a fifth of observed pregnancies are terminated, whether that being in advanced democracies with excellent safe sex programs, or where the procedure is illegal and riskier [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343147586_Unintended_pregnancy_and_abortion_by_income_region_and_the_legal_status_of_abortion_estimates_from_a_comprehensive_model_for_1990-2019]. This is in stark contrast to murder, which is rare in many nations including most democracies that these gun laden United States are the exception is pertinent because most who claim to be prolife support the widespread distribution of firearms that is the primary people killing device. Because murder involves a patent human being, can be difficult to do, produces an awkward corpse that is hard to secretly dispose of, and those who have been born are usually noticed to have gone missing, outlawing intentional homicide is correspondingly practical because only it renders only a tiny fraction of the population criminals while keeping the event highly atypical there are under 4000 homicides in western Europe per annum for instance, many dozens of times less than feticides. Whatever success is or is not achieved by criminalizing the latter, it does not make much actual difference because the great majority of conceptions will continue to naturally abort, so what is the point? That when making abortion illegal means turning a fifth or more of knowingly pregnant women into lawbreakers each year, and a quarter to a third of all women over their lives, while not saving many preborn, but injuring or killing a number of pregnant women in the punitive process. It is probably not possible to drive yearly American abortions below a few hundred thousand whatever the methods used. Prohibiting abortion works about as well as banning alcohol, and we know how that worked out. A basic legal tenant is that all legitimate laws must be reasonably practicable to implement the stop the abortions folks like to compare themselves to the abolitionists, but mass slavery can be ended simply by eliminating all laws that enforce bondage, leaving all slaves free to up and walk away from their masters birth enforcement does not meet that feasibility criterion. Pro-choicers, use that fact.

The theocon grand Godly plan to try to overturn modernity is simple enough. Having concocted the notion that abortion is against the will of a prolife Lord Creator contrary to all worldly and scriptural evidence, make the private procedure illegal. Hopefully eventually nationwide as a form of outright murder if enough hardcore theocon justices can be plopped into SCOTUS and extend personhood to conception the alternative is revision of the Constitution, perhaps via a constitutional convention dominated by theocons via the electoral manipulations they are working on. That doing so is not likely to actually protect enormous numbers of preborn is not the critical necessity. That would be nice if it happened in the opinion of many theocons, but the true activism driving societal hope of most forced birthers is that by making those who terminate pregnancies into criminals or at least subject to financial suits, that fear of having abortions will help tame wanton American women to be less willing to be get it on with men outside of holy matrimony. The idea is to discipline women into being both more chaste and fecund as the arrogant power hungry theocons want them to be. Its the fear and shame factors of the rights massive national social engineering project. To that add putting strictures on contraceptives to further boost the righteous mission to reChristianize America Catholics especially like that. That doing so may well increase induced abortions due to more unintended pregnancies is not the theoconservatives driving concern (with supreme irony, another side effect of protection reduction is a great increase in the rate of natural abortions).

The prochoice side often wonders often with breathtaking naivety why those opposed to abortion want to also cut back on the use of protection that can suppress said abortions. That is because abortion reduction is not the real point, lifestyle alternation is. Get that? That women will be injured and killed by unsafe outlaw abortions and by forced pregnancies is not a great concern of the birth forcers those wayward women should have known better than to get pregnant out of wedlock in the first place, and if raped oh well, the growing soul inside them takes priority to its reproductive vessel who needs to understand their Godly prolife duty. If a woman who would have gotten a legal termination if she could because it is safer than not having one happens to die from what seemed like a normal pregnancy oh well thats too bad, its Gods Will anyhow, and if she was right with Christ she is in a better place so what is the big problem. The wastage of pregnant women is well worth the glorious aims of the prolifers.

(Part 2 to continue 10/29/21)

Read the original:

The Forced Birth Movement Hates Real Religious Liberty How to Use That Against Them by Making Abortion a Religious Right; Part 1 - Patheos

MARIA BARANOVA-SUZUKI

Simon Dinnerstein in The Eye Is the First Circle.

The always adventurous Peak Performance series offering shows in the fields of dance, music, theater, visual art, acrobatics and film, often with elements of two or more of these moved its ambitious programming online during the pandemic. But it will return to live performances, at the Kasser Theater at Montclair State University, in October, and present a combination of live and online offerings for its 2021-22 season.

Here are the live shows, with quotes taken from the Peak Performances web site, peakperfs.org:

Oct. 14-17: The Eye Is the First Circle, conceived, directed and performed by Simone Dinnerstein. World premiere. The pianist, whose father Simon Dinnerstein is a painter, deconstructs and collages elements of her fathers acclaimed The Fulbright Triptych and Charles Ives Piano Sonata No. 2 (Concord Sonata).

Nov. 4-7: Look Whos Coming to Dinner, by Stefanie Batten Bland/Company SBB. United States premiere. Inspired by the 1967 film of the same name, this work represents performance at the intersection of dance-theater and installation, questioning contemporary and historical cultural symbolism and the complexities of human relationships.

Dec. 16-19: Fractales, by Cie Libertivore, written and choreographed by Fanny Soriano. The language of the circus and dance movement highlight the physical potential of the acrobatic body as performers are confronted by a landscape in transformation.

February (dates TBA): Strange Fruit, by Donald Byrd/Spectrum Dance Theater. This dance/theater work draws its title from the classic song written by Abel Meeropol and made into a Civil Rights anthem by Billie Holiday. In it, the facts of lynching act as springboards into a highly personal interior space and state of mind.

March (dates TBA): Movement, by Netta Yerushalmy. World premiere. As in Paramodernities, one of Yerushalmys previous works, existing dances are again quoted (this time from a vast array of sources) and pieced together into an intricate and elaborate quilt with radical and surprising results.

CAMILLA GREENWELL

Members of Gandini Juggling.

April (dates TBA): Smashed2, by Gandini Juggling. A sequel to Smashed, which Peak Performances presented in its United States premiere in 2018. Director Sean Gandini and Kati Yla-Hokkala borrow elements of Pina Bauschs gestural choreography and combine them with the intricate patterns and cascades of solo and ensemble juggling. (see video below)

May (dates TBA): Hotel Paradiso, by Familie Flz. United States premiere. Using clowning, acrobatics, magic, and improvisation, Familie Flz makes its highly anticipated U.S. debut after delighting European audiences for more than 20 years with captivating theatrical experiences.

June (dates TBA): Curriculum II, by Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company. World premiere. Originally commissioned as a film project but reimaged as a live performance, with the focal point coming from Louis Chude-Sokeis treatise The Sound of Culture: Diaspora and Black Technopoetics, which explores the connection between race and technology from minstrelsy, music production, cybernetics, to artificial intelligence and posthumanism.

Peak Performances online series, Peak Plus, is currently offering free streams of works by the Heidi Latsky Dance Company, the Richard Alston Dance Company, Gandini Juggling, Double Edge Theatre and more, and additional streams will be added during the season, starting with Elevator Repair Services Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge, a play based on a debate on The American Dream that took place at Cambridge University Union in 1965 between novelist and activist James Baldwin and writer and pundit William F. Buckley Jr.

CONTRIBUTE TO NJARTS.NET

Since launching in September 2014, NJArts.net, a 501(c)(3) organization, has become one of the most important media outlets for the Garden State arts scene. And it has always offered its content without a subscription fee, or a paywall. Its continued existence depends on support from members of that scene, and the states arts lovers. Please consider making a contribution of $20, or any other amount, to NJArts.net via PayPal, or by sending a check made out to NJArts.net to 11 Skytop Terrace, Montclair, NJ 07043.

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Peak Performances will be as adventurous as ever in its 2021-22 season - njarts.net

Bishop Robert Barron said Tuesday that the Harvard University chaplains made a complete and abject surrender by electing an atheist as the president of their association.

What does bother me, Bishop Barron wrote in an August 31 op-ed for the New York Post, is the complete and abject surrender on the part of the presumably religious leaders at Harvard who chose this man.

If a professed atheist counts as a chaplain which is to say, a leader of religious services in a chapel then religion has quite obviously come to mean nothing at all, he continued.

Bishop Barron is the auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles and founder of Word on Fire Catholic media.

Last week The New York Times announced that Greg Epstein, an atheist and humanist chaplain at Harvard University, was unanimously elected as the chief chaplain of the Harvard Chaplains, the association of more than 40 chaplains serving Harvard students of various religious denominations.

However, the Harvard Catholic Centre and a Christian alumni association took issue with some reporting of Mr Epsteins new role. The Harvard Catholic Centre clarified to CNA this week that Mr Epsteins role as chaplain facilitator is administrative, and has no effect on its ministry at Harvard.

There really is no influence in the role other than the fact that he has the title as the president as the Harvard Chaplains and that hes the liaison between that group and the president of Harvard,said Nico Quesada, marketing and media director at the Harvard Catholic Center, to CNA on Monday.

Mr Epstein will also convene all the university chaplains when they have matters to discuss, he said, and thus will be representing the entire group but hes not representing his own opinions if that makes sense.

The Harvard Catholic Center is the chaplaincy to the universitys Catholic students, based at nearby St Pauls parish in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is staffed by three priests serving as part of the universitys chaplains association.

Bishop Barron on Tuesday urged Harvard religious chaplains who elected an atheist to lead their association to [s]how a little self-respect. Being a chaplain has something to do with the worship of God and you shouldnt be ashamed to say it.

My point is, Bishop Barron said, that the relativising of doctrine has led, by steady steps through two centuries, to the situation at Harvard today: Even that most elemental of doctrines belief in God doesnt matter. One can still, evidently, be perfectly religious without it

Before his election as president, Mr Epstein previously served as the vice president of the university chaplains association. He has been the humanist chaplain at Harvard since 2005, and also serves as humanist chaplain at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

During the 2020 presidential election, he served as the national chair of Humanists for Biden on behalf of humanists, atheists, agnostics, and others. He has authored the book, Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe, a response to prominent atheists on humanism.

CNA

Related

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Election of atheist as Harvard chaplain president 'complete and abject surrender' Bishop Barron - The Irish Catholic

30 August 2021. The Spectator

We knew they were going to kill him. We knew that in Colombia then and now, a professor who asks more questions than he answers, a doctor who is pained by his patients hunger and knows that no problem belongs only to others, is seen as a danger; for authoritarians, kindness is subversive, and the free thinker who refuses to lose his rebelliousness knows that he carries a constant death sentence like a shadow.

Hctor Abad Gmez was always on the side of life; he taught and practised with passion, compassion and humanism and was assassinated in Medelln on 25 August 1987. Six bullets, two hired assassins, a white sheet and an infinite emptiness.

Hctor Abad Facio-Lince, one of the most widely read Spanish-language writers in the world, son of Doctor Abad Gmez and a beautiful woman named Cecilia, wrote 16 years ago a book so sad and so beautiful that one can only read it with misty eyes and a heart at midnight. El olvido que seremos, a mixture of novel and testimony, of tenderness and literature, is a work of art, of filial love and denunciation of these horrible decades of violence, which we have not been able to close.

Last year amidst overflowing hospitals, heroic doctors and entire villages witnessing parades of pandemic victims post-production of Fernando Truebas film, impeccably based on the book by Hctor Abad Facio-Lince, was completed. It was released in Colombia three months ago, and I didnt have the courage to see it until a couple of days ago. Perhaps because I knew that I would inevitably suffer as I revisited one of those tragedies that has crossed the lives of Colombians, especially doctors and those of us who have never given in to docility or resignation. It took me a long time to see it, but I know that it will stay with me as long as my memory is aware of the country, I live in.

The book and the film are both masterpieces. Javier Cmara portrays Professor Abad Gmez and I feel that he does it with such respect, with such genuine affection, that there is not a voice, a look, a texture of the sadness, of the defence of human rights and of the love of the Abad Facio-Lince family, that has gone unnoticed. It is this profound dose of humanity that one feels throughout the film. David Truebas script is perfectly in tune with our novelists book; I imagine he wrote it with his soul in every word, in every sentence of love, danger and rebellion. The images are not lacking or lacking in anything, the actors radiate light from within, and the music by the Polish composer is beautiful. Two hours of a film that you need to see, embrace and feel, just as you do when you read the book.

A buena hora Gonzalo Cordoba, Dago Garca Producciones and Caracol Televisin took on this odyssey that pays tribute to the generosity of the soul, to the urgency of rescuing public health and ensuring respect for life. How can you not love a beautiful production, full of social and emotional sense?

My respects to all the people who brought this unforgettable book El olvido que seremos to the cinema. Thus, broken and brave, with our lives on the edge and clinging to our dreams of building a just country; thus, wrapped up in so many deaths that should never have happened, we celebrate the goodness of this professor who 34 years and 6 days after being murdered, continues to give us lessons from a Heaven to which he never prayed.

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The memory we mourn - PRESSENZA International News Agency

Olafur Eliasson, Life (detail), 2021, water, uranine, UV lights, wood, plastic sheet, cameras, kaleidoscopes, common duckweed, dwarf water lilies, European frogbit, European water clover, floating fern, red root floater, shellflower, South American frogbit, water caltrop. Installation view, Fondation Beyeler, Basel. Photo: Pati Grabowicz.

THIS YEAR, to much publicity, Olafur Eliasson flooded part of Basels Fondation Beyeler, arguably the most significant private museum in Switzerland. The south-facing glass wall was removed so that the installation could be accessed from the lawn by humans, bats, ducks, insects, or whatever other life-forms happened to be passing by. Gangways were installed just above the waters surface so that bipedal visitors could walk through the southern gallery. The paths constituted a kind of labyrinth, leading through the rooms and back out to the grounds. The water was dyed with uranine, a bright-green biodegradable pigment. The ceiling carried a massive battery of fluorescent tubes that cast an even wall of ultraviolet light straight down on the water, causing the dye to luminesce.

We arrived after closing time. The garden was dark but luxurious, heavy with early-summer growth. Brought out by the first really warm night of the year, people gathered in small groups to walk down to the glowing rectangular pool. Illuminated against the darkness, the visitors were on display, the ultraviolet light making their clothes and teeth fluoresce. The clusters of Pistia stratiotes, or water lettuce, drifting on the aqueous surface were reduced by the strong backlight to abstract outlines, beautiful asterisks. I surreptitiously reached down to touch one and felt the furry, water-repelling leaf that enables it to float.

The distribution of floating plants and the title of the installation, Life, both recalled the Game of Life, the cellular automaton devised by the mathematician John Horton Conway to test how quickly emergent properties appear in simplified systems. That game has only four rules, iteratively applied, that determine which cells will be alive on each turn and which will be dead. Emergent properties, Conway discovered, appear very quickly indeed. Even in the hypersimplistic universe of the game, it is possible to create complex oscillating systems, gardens that grow or crumble or that expand in perpetuity; likewise, the water lettuce, one of the great weeds of the tropical world, will spread in its pond. The analogy cuts both ways. The screen on which this review is typed, and quite possibly read, is made legible by twisted nematics, common organic molecules that change their shape in electromagnetic fields to be either transparent or opaque. The glowing pond is a liquid-crystal display; your screen shares characteristics with a living membrane. The installation owed, in short, as much to screen aesthetics as it did to the classic signifiers of environmentalism, and in so doing took a step toward severing the romantic association between environmentalism and phenomenological experience. That Eliasson, or somebody on his team, knows this was implied by the digital side of the installation: a series of sophisticated webcams that mimicked the perceptual apparatus of nonhuman observers, allowing you to watch a livestream of the installation through the compound eye of a blowfly, among other creatures.

The installation owed, in short, as much to screen aesthetics as it did to the classic signifiers of environmentalism.

The next day, I returned to the pond. Rather than glowing like a vast LCD screen, as it had the night before, the few inches of water provided a murky veil for the museum floor. In the daylight, the installation very closely resembled its predecessors. Some years before The Weather Project at Londons Tate Modern made him internationally famous, Eliasson had flooded the Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria for The mediated motion, 2001, and added uranine to six waterways around the world to create his Green River series, 19982001. Then, the language invoked was that of phenomenology, of presence.

Studio Olafur Eliasson has a long history of smuggling art theory into the business of artmaking itself, vertically integrating its own machinery for commentary. Now, however, the keywords have changed. Entanglement, natureculture, the Planthroposcene (an aspirational corrective to the human-centric Anthropocene), and so on all featured on the Beyelers website. The removal of the windows of the museums was described, in the parlance of our times, as an act of care. . . . Aesthetic critique is in any case redundant in an exhibition that promotes intraspecies equality. Perhaps more interesting were the projects potential legal ramifications. As architect Jakob Walter pointed out in our conversation, if bats actually took up residence in the Beyeler and started to breed, provisions for the protection of endangered species would have kicked in, and it might have been difficult to evict them to reinstall the permanent collection of Giacomettis and Picassos. It is in this scenario that the theatrics of interspecies rights and posthumanism would actually have been something to grab popcorn over. A legal fight between a family of bats and the estate of Ernst Beyeler might, however, have revealed that the show was not really about dismantling the nature/culture divide, but, as is always the case in the history of institutions, about the will of the dead versus the hunger of the living.

Adam Jasper is a researcher at the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (GTA) at ETH Zurich and edits the journal GTA Papers.

Read more here:

Adam Jasper on Olafur Eliasson at the Fondation Beyeler - Artforum

After creating various records like the most viewed streaming show, Disney+ Hotstars The Legend of Hanuman released its second season on 6 August 2021. The story of the Mahabalis journey from warrior to god has attracted a large Indian audience. Following the success footprints of season one, The Legend of Hanuman season two also proved to be a classic masterpiece with advanced animation style and powerful contemporary storytelling that touched a chord with audiences across India.

The mythological animated series is produced by Graphic India and created by Sharad Devarajan, Jeevan J. Kang, and Charuvi Agarwal. Directed by Jeevan J Kang and Navin John, with lead writers Sharad Devarajan, Sarwat Chaddha, Ashwin Pande and Arshad Syed. The 13 episodes of the show are available in seven languages Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Bengali, Malayalam, and Kannada.

Animation Xpress got in touch with Graphic India co-founder Sharad Devarajan to explore behind-the-screen aspects of season two of the mythological animated series.

What was the response received for the first season? Based on the first seasons response, were any particular points kept in mind while working on season two?

Its really rewarding for all of us to see the hard work we have put into this series, find an audience and achieve these great milestones for Indian animation. We continue to be truly humbled by the response and positive reviews and feedback we are receiving.

I have no doubt that any success for the series is first and foremost due to Lord Hanuman who is the quintessential hero whose legends and stories have inspired generations of people, including myself. This has been a very personal mission for everyone who worked on it and we all strived to do justice to this hero and the billions who hold his story in their hearts.

Because of the lead times in animation, we were already deep in production on the season two episodes when season one was released in February, so there was no real-time feedback from season ones release that we could incorporate or look to change for season two. However, we were really encouraged by the great audience response and encouragement for season one that it gave our team a renewed sense of energy and purpose to put all our efforts into season two and try to deliver a similarly strong experience for the audience.

Tell us about the ultimate faceoff between Ravana and Hanuman? Both are supremo, so how did you manage to give equal weightage to the characters?

Our series was shaped around the essential story of a young vanara rediscovering his godhood, which was a unique point of view as that journey of Mahabali Hanuman has not been depicted as widely and offered a fresh take on the legend. This is a journey of self-discovery and emotional growth.

In this younger hero, we see the traits of the legend he will soon become; playful, fun-loving, righteous, optimistic, humble, and authentically honest. Lord Hanumans journey is filled with challenges of the body, the mind, and the soul. But no challenge is greater than his encounter with the demon king, Ravan.

Ravan is the counterfoil to Hanumans journey of self-discovery as through both characters we get to explore the larger theme of immortality. While both are immortal Ravan has now become numb to his endless life, whereas Hanuman has just awoken to his own power and immortality. The second season contrasts these two opposing views of how immortality can be both a blessing and a curse.

For Ravan, he tore the universe apart to gain immortal power, only to find in the end, that eternal life without meaning leads only to madness, obsession, darkness, and despair. For Lord Hanuman, his power was taken from him as a young child, only to have him discover the true hero within himself by embracing faith, hope, love, and compassion and an unwavering spiritual anchor in his devotion to Lord Ram. This season is the story of two lives intertwined by the cosmic wheel of destiny; the demon king Ravan, whose end is soon beginning, and the immortal Hanuman, whose beginning shall never end.

The actions of Lord Hanuman in this second season, and throughout the series, will once again prove that courage and hope will always defeat darkness and that the true measure of a hero goes far beyond the powers they have, but rather, is defined by their inner strength, compassion, and character.

The backgrounds are very realistic and overall its a high-quality 3D animated show. How long did it take to create the entire 3D animated world for the series?

This was a multi-year project and that amount of character and world-building hopefully shows on the screen. The brilliant character designs and the visual world were a real testament to the amazing creativity of my co-creators, Jeevan J. Kang and Charuvi Agrawal who led the design of the series characters and environments. Along with the dedication of my fellow producers, Shaik Maqbool Basha, Roopa De Choudhury, Shivanghi Singh, Ashish Avin, and the amazing Navin John, who also directed the series with Jeevan we all together aimed to set a new high bar for Indian television animation. We were also fortunate to have the stellar team at ReDefine, led by Greg Gavanski and John Harvey work with us to scale that vision into an aggressive production pipeline.

One of our goals of the series was to make Indian audiences forget its an animation and just be pulled into the story, the world, and the characters, in the same way, they would with any big event live-action film or TV series. We focused a lot on creating a naturalistic humanism in the way the characters moved, acted, and spoke as well in their subtle facial expressions and emotions and all of this was heightened by the amazing character designs and environments. We were also fortunate to have some amazing voice actor talents, who really brought this series to life. The entire cast was incredible.

What is the response or feedback you are receiving from the industry and audience for The Legend of Hanuman season two?

For many years people have known the mission to really spark a creative renaissance in India across comics, animation, and character entertainment, and our colleagues and friends in the industry have really been supportive of what we are trying to do with this project.

The audience response through comments and ratings on IMDB have been amazing with a 9.4 rating as well as a 4.9 out of five on Google reviews, making it one of the highest audience-rated shows across all the Indian streaming originals. It reinforces our belief at Graphic India that animation has the potential to be enjoyed by wide audiences in India far beyond just kids. We hope new viewers will continue to discover and enjoy the series in the coming weeks, months, and years!

We also hope it will inspire audiences to explore new takes on our great mythology, both visually and narratively. These myths of our culture, like those of Lord Hanuman, have inspired generations for thousands of years and are some of the defining insights of all creation. Their relevancy and universal human stories continue to inspire over a billion people today. Our mythological epics should now be produced with the same visual grandeur and narrative complexity that does justice to their profound spiritual and emotional truths. Animation is certainly one path forward for that and we are also exploring live-action film and television opportunities as well.

Will there be another season of The Legend of Hanuman? Will we get to witness the life of Hanuman post the epic battle?

We are very hopeful a season three will happen, but there is no news on that yet. Anyone who sees the last episode of season two will realize that creatively we are just getting started with this series and have a lot more of Mahabali Hanumans story to tell. Hopefully, we will have that opportunity.

What would you like to say about the association with Disney+ Hotstar?

This moment in animation would never have happened without the amazing team at Disney+Hotstar. I have such admiration, respect, and gratitude for Gaurav Banerjee, Nikhil Madhok, Roopa De Choudhury, Shivangi Singh, and the entire production and marketing teams. Their belief in us and in this project never wavered and often inspired us to really attempt something unique and special. At every stage, they encouraged us to push the boundaries of what was possible in Indian series animation and reinvent new ways of working to create something special for OTT audiences in the country.

Also, the Disney brand is synonymous with animation, and I have no doubt that this association had an enormous impact on the shows success. To have this be launched on Disney+ Hotstar as their first animated Hotstar Special is an amazing responsibility and honor for us.

Are there any plans to release the series globally and will the local Indian audience get a chance to view it on linear TV as well?

The series is available only on Hotstar in India but also on the Hotstar platform in various territories outside India as well. We have received some amazing responses from audiences reaching out to us from Southeast Asia and the US who have watched the series there.

We are also exploring some interesting partnerships to hopefully launch the series in some key Asian markets like Japan and Korea and hope to announce some news there soon.

Whats next for Graphic India?

We have a number of new animation and live-action projects we are working on that we are hopeful we will be able to announce soon.

Separately, we recently announced we are going deeper into our roots as a comic book company to launch Indias first dedicated webtoons comics platform, Toonsutra, which will come out later this year. We are bringing our massive library of original Graphic India comics to the Toonsutra platform, but it will be so much more than that with the majority of the content we release in the first year coming from other partners and new creators.

At Graphic India, were recruiting artists, writers, painters, creators, and disruptors with one defining mission to create stories, heroes, and characters that spark the imaginations of audiences across India and the world. Thats the goal of our company and the personal driving mission of my life.

More:

The Legend of Hanuman may get another season and a release in Japan and Korea - Animation Xpress

A Moscow court sentenced Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny to two years and eight months in a penal colony, defying tens of thousands of his supporters who had rallied in his support since his return to Russia and Western governments who had urged for his immediate release.

Navalny, 44, was detained on Jan. 17 when he returned to Moscow from Berlin, where he had spent months recovering from a near-fatal poisoning attack in August he blames on President Vladimir Putin.

His arrest triggered mass protests across Russia, with supporters taking to the streets in more than 100 cities for unsanctioned rallies urging his release.

Theanti-corruption campaigner was charged with violating a 2014 suspended sentence for embezzlement by skipping out on check-ins with Russia's prison service while in Germany. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 2017 ruled thatNavalny's 2014 conviction was "arbitrary and unreasonable."

Here's a look at events as they unfold:

10:48 a.m.: More than 1,400 protestors were detained across Russia throughout the day, OVD-Info reported. At least 11,45 people were detained in Moscow alone first at rallies outside the court where Navalnys hearing was taking place, but the majority later in the evening as spontaneous protests broke out through the city center. Another 248 were detained in St. Petersburg, which also saw violent clashes and a forceful police response.

12:40 a.m.:Police are conducting document checks and photographing passports of everybody entering the Kuznetsky Most metro station in central Moscow, near the site of clashes between riot police and protestors, Mediazona reports.

12:25 a.m.:At least 918 protesters have been detained in rallies against Navalnys imprisonment, according to OVD-Info, with 573 detained in Moscow and 150 in St. Petersburg.

12:05 a.m.: More videos shot on the ground in Moscow continue to show a forceful response from riot police to the unsanctioned and spontaneous protests that broke out across the city after Navalnys sentence was announced. One clip posted by Open Media shows a man being taken out of a taxi, kicked and pinned to the ground.

11:55 p.m.: At least 679 people have been detained in 10 cities across Russia so far, the OVD-Info police monitoring NGO reported. Around half were detained throughout the day during Navalnys court hearing, with the rest late Tuesday evening as protests broke out calling for his release. In Moscow, 557 were detained and another 108 in St. Petersburg.

According to journalists on the ground, the police crackdown has grown increasingly forceful as the crowds have grown in the hours since the verdict was announced and authorities deployed large numbers of riot police.

11:50 p.m.:German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined international calls for the immediate release of Navalny, and urged Russia to end a police crackdown on opposition demonstrators.

"The verdict against Alexei Navalny is far removed from any rule of law. Navalny must be released immediately. The violence against peaceful demonstrators must stop," Merkel said in a message posted on Twitter by her spokesman Steffen Seibert.

11:30 p.m.:Police continue to detain protesters who have taken to the streets in central Moscow, with various media outlets reporting police using tough measures to break up crowds. A video posted by the Baza telegram channel shows riot police hitting protestors with their truncheons.

Another video, shared by Navalnys team, purported to show a member of the riot police hit a journalist over the head with their baton, knocking them to the floor.

More than 525 protestors have been detained so far across Russia on Tuesday, according to OVD-Info. Some 488 of them in Moscow.

At least 29 people were detained in St. Petersburg on Tuesday evening, as protesters there were also met with a heavy police presence.

11:10 p.m.: An estimated 2,000 protestors are now marching through central Moscow to demand Navalnys release, according to journalists from the independent Meduza news site and other outlets.

10:40 p.m.: Small crowds have continued to gather at different locations in central Moscow demanding Navalnys freedom. Protesters shouted the Russia without Putin! and Putin is a thief! chants that are frequently heard at pro-Navalny rallies.Police are detaining protesters across the city, the Meduza news site reported.

10:30 p.m.:Russia described calls by Western countries to free Navalny as "disconnected from reality."

"There is no need to interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign state," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was cited by Russian news agencies as saying, adding that "appeals by Western colleagues" were "disconnected from reality."

The European Unions foreign policy chief Josep Borrell became the latest leader to call for Navalnys immediate release, joining the U.S., Britain, Germany, France and others in condemning the decision.

"The sentencing of Alexei Navalny runs counter Russia's international commitments on rule of law and fundamental freedoms," Borrell wrote on Twitter, adding "I call for his immediate release."

10:20 p.m.:Addressing the question of what happens next for Navalnys supporters and his organization, key ally Leonid Volkov, who is based outside Russia, has pledged to increase pressure on Putin from inside and outside the country to secure the release of Navalny and all political prisoners. We will release new investigations and hold more peaceful protests.

We will make sure that no world leader talks to Putin about anything other than the release of Navalny, he said in a post on Telegram.

10:15 p.m.: French President Emmanuel Macron has said the sentence handed down to Navalny is unacceptable. In a statement on Twitter he added: Political disagreement is never a crime. We call for his immediate release. Respect for human rights and democratic freedom are non-negotiable.

10:00 p.m.:Pockets of Navalny supporters have started gathering in central Moscow, following a call from his team to protest the court decision.

9:45 p.m.: Riot police have cleared journalists from a square in front of the Kremlin where Navalnys team had called for protests to gather, the Open Media telegram channel reported.

9:30 p.m.: Navalnys lawyers say they will appeal the decision to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which oversees the enforcement of ECHR decisions. The rights court previously said that the first ruling, upon which Tuesdays decision to imprison Navalny was based, was arbitrary and unreasonable, and ordered Russia to pay compensation to Navalny and his brother, Oleg, who served a 3.5 year jail sentence in the same case.

9:22 p.m.: Navalny has been taken away from the courtroom. His wife Yulia, who was in tears when the verdict was being read out, did not speak to reporters.

9:20 p.m.:Police have ordered three metro stations in central Moscow near to the Kremlin to be closed, the citys transport authorities said, after Navalnys team called for supporters to gather there and protest the verdict.

9:00 p.m.:A large number of riot police have been deployed to Manezhnaya Square, opposite the Kremlin, where Navalnys team called for supporters to protest the verdict.Police have started detaining some protesters that have already arrived, the Avtozak telegram channel reported.

8:55 p.m.:Western governments are already reacting to the decision and calling for Navalny's immediate release. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: The United States is deeply concerned by Russias actions toward Alexei Navalny. We reiterate our call for his immediate and unconditional release as well as the release of all those wrongfully detained for exercising their rights.

In a post on Twitter,British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said: Todays perverse court decision shows Russia is failing to meet the most basic commitments expected of any responsible member of the international community.

Germany Foreign Minister Heiko Mass said the verdict is a bitter blow against fundamental freedoms & the rule of law in Russia. He noted an ECHR ruling which found the original decision baseless and added: Navalny must be released immediately.

The Council of Europe has said the ruling defies all credibility and contravenes Russias international human rights obligations.

With this decision, the Russian authorities not only further exacerbate human rights violations ... they also send a signal undermining the protection of the rights of all Russian citizens, said the bodys Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovi in a statement.

8:35 p.m.: Navalnys team calls for immediate protests in the center of Moscow over the Kremlin critics jailing.We are going to Manezhnaya Square right now!, they said in a Telegram post Manezhnaya Square is located in the center of Moscow, directly in front of the Kremlin.

Large numbers of police have been deployed both to the Square and to the court, as well as other locations around central Moscow, according to various media reports.

8:31 p.m.:"Don't be sad, everything will be fine," Navalny said to his wife Yulia after the verdict was read out, Novaya Gazeta reported.

8:22 p.m.: The verdict is in.Navalnys suspended sentence of 3.5 years will be transferred into a prison sentence, the court rules.The 10 months Navalny already served under house arrest as part of the first trial will count against that time, meaning he will be imprisoned for a further two years and eight months.

The judge ruled that Navalny was in violation of the terms of his parole which required him to appear in person with a probationary officer twice a month after he was discharged from Berlin's Charite hospital September, where he was being treated for Novichok poisoning.

If he serves the full sentence, Navalny will be behind bars until September 2023.

8:14 p.m.:The judge has now returned to the courtroom and has started to deliver the verdict.

8:05 p.m.:Alexei Navalny has been brought back into the courtroom.

7:50 p.m.:Navalnys lawyers, his wife, Yulia, and journalists have returned to the courtroom. A verdict is expected shortly.

7:30 p.m.:The OVD-Info police monitoring watchdog has increased its count of the number of people who have been detained at protests today to 354. Four of those were in the city of Izhevsk and the rest in Moscow, where Navalnys court hearing is taking place. The detained Kremlin critic had asked supporters in Moscow to come out in his support once more after two weekends of nationwide protests as he faces a 3.5 year jail sentence.

6:50 p.m.: Police have closed Moscows Red Square, the Ekho Moskvy radio station reported, saying there was a large presence of security forces around the entrance to the square, which sits next to the Kremlin in the center of the city.Several eyewitnesses are also reporting a heavy police presence throughout central Moscow, including around the headquarters of the FSB security services.

5:43 p.m.:The verdict will be announced at around 8 p.m., the court's press service tells the Mediazona news website.

OVD-Info reports that 311 people have been detained so far today, four of whom were in the city of Izhevsk and the rest at the Moscow City Court.

5:29 p.m.:The judge has left the courtroom for deliberation.

5:23 p.m.: The prosecutor asks the judge to replace Navalny's suspended sentence with a real sentence:The court showed unprecedented lenience towards Alexei Navalny despite the gravity of his crime by giving him suspended sentences. However, Navalny, despite the humanism the court expressed toward him, continued to violate the terms of his probation.

She adds that theyare willing to count the 12 months that Navalny previously spent under house arrest toward the requested sentence of 3.5 years, meaning he would face a maximum prison sentence of 2.5 years.

5:15 p.m.:The prosecutor continues to cross-examine Navalny over whether he violated the terms of his parole.

5:01 p.m.:The prosecutor asks Navalny if he wasofficially warned about replacing his suspended sentence with a real prison term each time he missed a probation check-in. I confirm that this fabricated case was regularly used to stop my political activities, he replies. The prosecutor says she didn't hear an answer to the question.

4:57 p.m.:The prosecutor begins questioning Navalny, asking him whether he intentionally" missed six parole check-ins before his hospitalization in Siberia in August 2020. He says he went to all required check-ins twice per month since 2014 according to the judges instructions.

4:45 p.m.:Kobzev continues:The poisoning of Alexei Navalny in August 2020 was called political Chernobyl by many.Therefore, I would like to end my speech with a quote from the HBO series [Chernobyl]. [Valery] Legasov says: 'Dyatlov broke all the rules and brought the reactor to self-destruction.Nobody in that control room knew that the shutdown button would act as a detonator.' Dear judge, don't be like Dyatlov, don't push the button.

4:32 p.m.:Navalny finishes and his lawyer Kobzev begins speaking. Kobzev repeats his earlier arguments that Navalny didn'thide from surveillance and that he was put on the wanted list illegally, adding that his whereabouts were always known to the FSIN.

4:28 p.m.: It's easy to lock me up. The main thing in this process is to intimidate a huge number of people, this is how it works. They are putting one person behind bars to scare millions, Navalny says. I really hope that this process will be perceived as... a sign of weakness. ...You can't put millions and hundreds of thousands in jail and I hope people will begin to realize that. Once they do and this moment will come you won't be able to jail everyone.

4:24 p.m.:Navalny continues speaking:We have 20 million people below the poverty line; tens of millions live without the slightest prospects for the future. Life in Moscow is more or less fine, but if you drive 100 kilometers away it's full of poverty. The whole country lives in this poverty, and [the government is] trying to shut them up with such show trials.

4:15 p.m.:Navalny gives his closing statement.Lets talk about the elephant in the room: Its about putting me in jail because of a trial that was ruled to be unlawful. ... We know why this is happening. The reason: The hatred and fear of one man in a bunker. Because I offended him by surviving after they tried to kill me on his orders, he says, using a term he frequently uses to refer to Putin.

No matter how much [Putin] tries to pose as a geopolitician, his main resentment toward me is that he will go down in history as a poisoner. There was Alexander the Liberator and Yaroslav the Wise. Now well have Vladimir the Poisoner of Underpants. The police are guarding me and half of Moscow is cordoned off because we have shown that he is demanding to steal underwear from opponents and smear them with chemical weapons.

4:04 p.m.:The hearing has resumed following a two-hour break.

3:15 p.m.:Dozhd correspondent Vasily Polonsky posts video of himself being detained outside the court. He is later released.

2:00 p.m.:Ekho Moskvy correspondent Irina Vorobyovashares a photo of police officers with black tape covering their badges outside the Moscow City Court.

2:00 p.m.:After reading out documents for about a half hour, the judgeannounces a two-hour break for lunch. "Can you send someone to McDonald's?" Navalny asks.

1:57 p.m.: The court confirms to Interfax that diplomats from the Czech Republic, Austria, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, the United States, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Britain, Latvia and Poland are present at the hearing as well as EU representatives.

1:27 p.m.:At least 237 people have been detained outside the Moscow City Court so far, the OVD-Info police monitor reports.

1:00 p.m.:Navalny questions the FSIN official: Comrade captain, do you respect the Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin? ... You said you dont know where Ive been since August. Putin said on television that thanks to him Id been sent to Germany for treatment.

I was in a coma, then I was in the ICU, he continues. I sent you medical documents; you had my address and contacts. What else could I have done to tell you where I am? I have a lawyer and my lawyer has a telephone... how could I have informed you better?

The FSIN representative responds that Navalny needed to provide documents and explain the serious reasons for not showing up to inspections.

I was in a coma! Navalny says.

12:49 p.m.:Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova writes that the presence of foreign diplomats at Navalny's hearing "isn't just meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign state, but the self-incrimination of the west's unsightly and illegal attempts to contain Russia." She accuses the diplomats of being"an attempt at psychological pressure on the judge."

12:45 p.m.: The Kremlin says Putin is not following today's hearing, adding that it hopes Navalny's fate would not affect Russia's ties with Europe.

"We hope that such nonsense as linking the prospects of Russia-EU relations with the resident of a detention center will not happen," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists, days ahead of a visit to Moscow by the European Union's foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell.

12:39 p.m.:Navalnys lawyer Kobzevasks why the FSIN didnt contact his family or lawyers when he missed his check-ins with his probation officer and only added him to Russias wanted list months after he was evacuated to Germany. Kobzev sayshe submitted medical files from Berlin the FSIN in person in November, contradicting prosecutors claims that they hadnt heard from Navalny or his representatives.The whole country, the whole world knew where he was, he says.

12:34 p.m.:At least 127 people have been detained outside the Moscow City Court so far, the OVD-Info police monitor reports.

12:20 p.m.:A Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN)representative formallyasks the judge to replace Navalny's suspended sentence with a real prison term of 3 years and 6 months.

"Since the end of September 2020, Navalny has been in outpatient treatment. Judging by media reports, he moved freely and gave interviews. He did not contact FSIN inspectors, although their phone number was posted on their website. He was put on the wanted list, as the service decided that he was systematically evading a suspended sentence," the representative says.

When the judge asks the prosecution why the FSIN didn't take action against Navalny earlier, they respond that there was hope hewould get on the road to reform.

12:01 p.m.:After the hearing resumes, the prosecutiondismisses the Charit document, saying it does not state where Navalny was after he was discharged for outpatient treatment on Sept. 23 and before his outpatient treatment ended on Jan. 15.

11:54 a.m.:Vyacheslav Detishin, the head of theSimonovsky district court that is presiding over Navalny's trial, submitted his resignation on Jan. 28, the Znak.com news website reports.

11:42 a.m.:Detentions continue outside the court as the judge calls a 10-minute break.

11:36 a.m.:Navalny's lawyerVadim Kobzev asks the courtto admit a medical document as proof that he was in outpatient treatment atBerlin's Charit hospital until Jan. 15 and that he was unable to check in with his probation officer before then, Mediazona reports. Kobzev also submits a document from Charit stating that Navalny underwent inpatient treatment forsevere poisoning from Aug. 22 to Sept. 23 as well as the European Court of Human Rights' statement that the verdict against Navalny in the Yves Rocher case was unfair.

He adds that ifNavalny hadn't been detained at the airport upon his Jan. 17 arrival in Moscow, he would have checked in with his probation officer the next morning.

Go here to read the rest:

As It Happened: Navalny Sentenced to 2 Years and 8 Months in Penal Colony - The Moscow Times

ByStaffThe Canadian Press

Posted January 28, 2021 12:38 pm

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Konrad Sioui, the former grand chief of the Huron-Wendat Nation, is taking the reins of the board of directors at the Socit de lassurance automobile du Qubec (SAAQ).

Sioui was appointed to the post at the provinces automobile insurance board by the Council of Ministers on Wednesday. He is the first representative of a First Nation to head the board of directors of a Quebec Crown corporation, according to the provincial government.

In a government statement, Sioui said he was very enthusiastic about his new responsibilities.

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Quebec Transport Minister Franois Bonnardel welcomed the appointment and praised the qualities of Sioui, whose experience and humanism will support the SAAQ in the constant improvement of its customer services and to road accident victims.

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Sioui was grand chief from 2008 to 2020 of the Huron-Wendat Nation in Wendake, near Quebec City. He was ousted from the position after he was defeated by current chief Rmy Vincent.

When he was elected in 2008, he himself took over the role from Max Gros-Louis, who died last November.

2021 The Canadian Press

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Former grand chief Konrad Sioui tapped to become next head of SAAQ board - Global News

The final moments of The Rescue continues the Disney-era Star Wars tradition of tying every supposedly new story back to the multigenerational adventures of the Skywalker family. Photo: Disney+

The second-season finale of The Mandalorian was the best of Star Wars and the worst of Star Wars, a momentarily thrilling and moving episode that, once you stepped back and took a hard look at it, felt more like a victory for the dark side.

Created by Jon Favreau Disneys speed-dial answer to David O. Selznick, a producer-director-writer who has worked on Marvel, Star Wars, and Disney Animation projects simultaneously The Mandalorian is earnest and lovingly crafted, easily the freshest thing Lucasfilm has given viewers since Genndy Tartakovskys 2003 Cartoon Network classic, Clone Wars. For two seasons, it has tapped into the light side of the franchise, represented by the humor, action, world-building details, and friendship narratives that have defined George Lucass science-fiction fantasies since 1977. But in the final moments of Chapter 16: The Rescue, the series succumbs to the dark side of parent company Disneys quarterly-earnings statements, which keeps dragging Star Wars back toward nostalgia-sploitation and knee-jerk intellectual-property maintenance.

Where to begin lamenting this self-defeat? For one thing, the Luke cameo in the final moments of The Rescue continues the Disney-era Star Wars tradition of tying every supposedly new story back to the multigenerational adventures of the Skywalker family. Even universe-expanding takes like Rogue One (a clever retcon of the original Death Stars structural flaw, with cameos by Darth Vader, Grand Moff Tarkin, Princess Leia, and other familiar characters) and Solo (an origin story for everyones favorite smuggler-general and the future baby daddy of Kylo Ren) fall prey to this tendency. It always feels like a sop to Disney stockholders and a way of hedging bets on any property that dares to take even a modest risk.

Its hard to capture in words the galaxy-collapsing shortsightedness of requiring that every new Star Wars tale ultimately connect, however tangentially, with the same handful of genetically linked characters. Star Wars bizarre obsession with Force-amplifying, midi-chlorian-rich blood, and the proximity of regular characters to those with special blood, makes Lucass galaxy far, far away a place so vast that you need hyperspace to cross it feel as rinky-dink as a backwater American town, the kind of place where everybody is required to kiss the same local familys butt for survivals sake. Every time a Star Wars story genuflects to the Skywalker saga yet again, Lucass mythos shrinks further in the collective imagination. Sometimes its so small-minded that youd think Disneys mandate was to reimagine Mayberry with starships and laser swords.

Thus does the galactic rim in the postCivil War era thrillingly envisioned by Favreau and his Mandalorian writers as a science-fiction fusion of two related genres, the spaghetti Western and the samurai adventure pivot without warning toward insularity. Thus does a great character like Pedro Pascals Din Djarin an orphan who adopted a fundamentalist interpretation of Mandalorian self-identity and a genocide survivor who feels kinship with members of the Alderaan diaspora become a mere extra upon the cosmic stage, fascinating not because of how he practices or compromises his beliefs but because he briefly met the dude who faced down Vader and the Emperor. And thus Grogu, a member of the same species as Yoda, becomes worthy of our attention not because hes a case study in nature and nurture possessing dark and light impulses and open to manipulation and corruption by vile tricksters like Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) but because Luke deemed him important enough to rescue. He has a special purpose, you see. Not like all those other gifted kids throughout the galaxy who need a parent to guide them toward the light.

We shouldve known things would wrap up this way the instant that Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) moseyed into The Mandalorian and pulled focus from Mando. Miraculously disgorged from the Sarlacc pit that devoured him in Return of the Jedi (a silly twist canonized in spinoff properties), Fett had come to reclaim the armor sported by one of The Mandalorians most charismatic new characters, a Tatooine marshal (Timothy Olyphant) who wore Fetts gear like a knight riding into battle against a dragon (actually a sandworm/sand-shark monster). But Fett was really onscreen to reclaim The Mandalorian for that sector of the Star Wars fan base that refuses to accept anything that feels like a revision, subversion, or expansion of what they already know they like particularly when the new iteration asks them to look beyond all the lovely, shiny things onscreen and think about whether their own relationship with the tried-and-true elements of Star Wars is healthy.

Speaking as a card-carrying OG Star Wars nerd literally: I bought the first set of trading cards at my neighborhood comic shop in Kansas City, and to this day I cant look at jpegs of those babies without hallucinating an olfactory Proustian bubblegum rush I truly do understand the grateful tears that some viewers shed during the last ten minutes of The Rescue, particularly at the surprise revelation of Grogus savior. When that hood dropped, waterworks flowed around the world. And the saltwater level rose when episode director Peyton Reed held that anguished close-up of Mando watching his emerald child depart.

But only one of these two moments is rooted in something achingly real. And its not the one that smashes a Pavlovian fan-service button after spending several minutes pandering to the toxic not my Luke faction of the fandom, which would prefer to forego themes of regret, failure, bitterness, and other unpleasant but inevitable adult emotions and instead watch a character they spent a lifetime identifying with flip through the air while dicing up foes with a magic sword. Like an action figure the kind I used to play with when I was 9.

Lending new pungency to the phrase zombie IP, The Mandalorian Frankensteined a Luke cameo, employing the same CGI that gave Grand Moff Tarkin and Princess Leia their uncanny-valley vibes. A walking deus ex machina, Luke Rubberface arrived late yet just in time, like Han and Chewie at the battle of the first Death Star, then echoed (deliberately, one assumes) the most polarizing fan-service moment in the Disney-era films: Darth Vaders slaughter of Rebel troops in Rogue One.

Mingling terror and exhilaration, but settling mainly for exhilaration, Vaders hallway rampage in Rogue One underlined an area in which Lucass vision always needed bifocals: the tendency to let the spectacle of violent domination become an adrenaline-stimulating drug powerful enough to shatter any philosophical frame the storytellers try to put around it. Lucas envisioned the original trilogy and the prequels as anti-fascist tracts pitched at a level that a child could understand; despite sometimes getting lost in the weeds of merchandising, F/X innovations, and studio-building, the results consistently encouraged viewers to identify with the oppressed over the oppressors and tried to be clear about whom, in the real world, the oppressors were. A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi brazenly drew a connecting line between imperial England, the Nazi war machine, and the postwar American military-industrial complex. The Galactic Rebellion conflated the American colonists, the World War II anti-fascist underground, and the Vietcong into basically same mentality, different uniforms and gadgets. The Death Star was Lucass equivalent of the atomic bomb, a weapon that the United States alone is guilty of dropping on civilian targets. A generation later, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith showed how democracies willingly let themselves slide into dictatorship: A complacent and out-of-touch Jedi Council lets young Senator Palpatine rise to power by solving crises that Palpatine himself secretly created, each time convincing the galactic legislature to surrender more authority to the chancellor and the military. By the end of his masterful campaign of manipulation, the Senate itself is dissolved, leaving power in the hands of a despot whose army pledges loyalty to him personally, rather than to any institution or creed.

Unfortunately, to a certain type of fan, good and evil, chaos and order, morality and treachery as laid out in Lucass cosmology are all mere pretexts for laser-sword fights, blaster battles, spaceship combat, and planets getting maimed or atomized by the bad guys doomsday weapon du jour. And heres where things get really dark: The power-fantasy thing has been an inextricable part of Star Wars appeal from the beginning, even when Lucas and his collaborators were studiously warning viewers that the Force should only be used for defense, never for attack, that there are alternatives to fighting, that fear leads to hate, hate to anger, anger to suffering, etc. The mirroring of the Rogue One hallway massacre and Lukes Cuisinarting of Moff Gideons death droids is charged with explosive storytelling potential, but its ideologically unstable. Any time Star Wars lets the mayhem genie out of the bottle, puffs of it stay out there in the world, where toxic fans can imbibe it, ignoring the context that Lucas and three generations of collaborators put around it.

Favreau, Mandalorian executive producer Dave Filoni & Co. need to keep a firm grip on possible fan takeaways moving forward and do all they can to make sure that any adrenaline rush that viewers may have gotten from watching Luke Skywalker make like a combo of the Terminator and Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil is properly called out for what it is: an invocation of the appeal of the dark side of the Force, which is powered by rage, insecurity, childishness, and other negative emotions. The scene is already being held up in some Star Wars forums as proof that the franchise is committed to eradicating any remaining self-aware and questioning elements that were raised by Rian Johnsons brilliant The Last Jedi an anti-nostalgia tract that rejects dogma and received wisdom, argues that we are what we grow beyond, makes one of its male heroes a hothead who endangers the good guys by not listening to a female superior, intimates that its fearless young heroine is a nobody who succeeded on talent and discipline alone, and ends with a shot of an anonymous slave boy fantasizing about being a Jedi on the heels of J.J. Abramss The Rise of Skywalker. The ninth, and unfortunately probably not final, Star Wars feature was an ideological doomsday weapon, the Snyder Cut of Lucasfilm, meant to placate Star Wars obsessives who did not appreciate being made to feel uncomfortable about any of the problematic aspects of the series that theyd either approved of or failed to notice in the past. Shoehorning Palpatine into a trilogy that had been chugging along nicely without him, and chucking original trilogy characters (including Force ghosts and a CGI Leia) into a fan-service gumbo, the film wasnt a do-over exactly, but it had that sour and dutiful spirit. It was the cinematic version of firing a wunderkind new employee who had dared to question the companys mission statement, then throwing out any object hed touched when he worked there.

That a good part of Star Wars fandom has enthusiastically embraced the dark side demanding implied loyalty pledges to half-baked notions of childhood innocence and playground fantasies of dominance confirms that even when Lucas worried that he was using a mallet as a tack hammer, his blunt instrument still wasnt blunt enough. And, really, thats on Lucas. Maybe all these problem areas are features rather than bugs, built into the essence of the dazzling, wildly popular thing that he willed into being. Maybe the phenomenon is adjacent to Franois Truffauts observation that theres no such thing as a truly antiwar movie, because war is so exciting to watch that viewers cant help getting lost in the reptilian brain rush, forgetting the misery that violence leaves in its wake.

The impulse of the power-fantasy-worshipping, Skywalker-centric, royalty-obsessed faction of Star Wars fandom, which treats any hint of maturity, humanism, and inclusiveness as a declaration of war against fun, is related to a movement in modern political discourse that conflates any questioning of reactionary sentiments as censorship or cancel culture. This impulse is forever implying, sometimes flat out saying, that things were better the way they used to be; that nothing needs to change; that theres no better way of doing things, or even looking at things; and, therefore, everybody needs to just shut up and watch those lightsabers-go-brrrr.

The nostalgic/reactionary impulse is so intense that it retroactively obliterates The Mandalorians sincere attempts to add complexity and contradiction to Star Wars, in scenes like the Clients season-one speech asking if the galaxy was really better off without the Empire in charge and the sequence in season twos penultimate episode where ex-Imperial soldier Migs Mayfeld (Bill Burr) asks Mando whether theres functionally any difference between the New Republic and the old Empire if youre a peasant. Mayfeld, possibly the most philosophically conflicted character in 40-plus years of Star Wars stories, answers his own question in that same episode, purging his PTSD over participating in an Imperial act of genocide by shooting an officer who participated in it.

When Mayfelds long-suppressed guilt bomb detonates, Star Wars momentarily becomes as morally instructive and clearheaded as Lucas always wanted it to be. The episode asks viewers to think about the galaxys endless conflict from more than one point of view, and concede that, in the words of one of the greatest Onion headlines, the worst person you know might have a point but that awareness of relativity doesnt mean a person can throw their moral compass away and plead neutrality.

Its a pity that this same compass goes out the window when fans treat any self-questioning impulse in Star Wars as a personal attack. Like power itself, power fantasies corrupt absolutely. Thats how you end up with essays and YouTube videos arguing that the Empire was misunderstood or somehow right, or that, perhaps, somehow, it had a point. Its Walter Sobchaks famous line from The Big Lebowski played straight: Say what you want about the tenets of intergalactic fascism enforced by planet-killers, Dude at least its an ethos.

This is a dire development for a tale that Lucas first pitched to studios as a live-action Disney adventure like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: suitable for the whole family but with an edge that let viewers reassure themselves that they werent watching kid stuff. After all of the meticulous, thoughtful work that The Mandalorians writers, producers, and F/X team had done over the previous 15 episodes to expand and deepen Lucass universe and make it seem infinite in its storytelling potential a vast mindspace, populated with kajillions of eccentric, fascinating beings with no genetic or political connection to the Skywalker clan here comes the season-two finale, making like Lucy yanking the football away from Charlie Brown. Now The Mandalorian, like Grogu, has the potential to go one way or the other: to embrace the light side or get swallowed up in the darkness. Cloudy the future is.

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Has The Mandalorian Succumbed to the Dark Side? - Vulture

Ajay BanerjeeTribune News ServiceNew Delhi, December 20

A narration of personal experiences of four officers, who took part in the historic and one-of-its-kind crossing of the Meghna river during the 1971 war with Pakistan, was the highlight of the concluding day of the 4th military literature festival on Sunday.

The annual event conducted in Chandigarh is being held virtually this year due to the COVID-19 protocols.

Each officer narrated how the crossing across the Meghna river (Dec 9- Dec 15, 1971) was done while the Indian Army approached to encircle Dhaka (then known as Dacca) from the eastern flank.

Interspersed with some thrilling anecdotes of the war and also the conduct of the 4 Corps Commander Lt Gen Sagat Singh, the session was moderated by Squadron leader Rana TS Chinna, who is part of the Centre for Armed Forces Historical Research (CAFHR), under the USI.

Dhaka was then the capital of East Pakistan, the river Meghna was crossed by troops using helicopters while tanks forded across the strong currents leading to a hasty fall of the Pakistan Army.

Lt Gen SS Mehta who led first tank troop using PT 76 tanks into Dhaka termed this as victory of democracy over military rule and a victory of humanism over barbarism.

The game changer was the helicopter-lift for crossing of troops and tanks by fording across the Meghna, he later told the Tribune. The river has strong currents and is as wide as 15 km.

The war was about liberation over occupation. Pakistan had occupied it (Bangladesh) and we have liberated them. We did not stay beyond 90 days, said General Mehta, who was commanding the 5th Independent squadron of his regiment, the 63 Cavalry.

The General, then a Major, did the task of making his squadron tanks cross the river using them in an amphibious role.

The proof is that Bangladesh is a faster growing economy. We captured Dhaka with just 3000 troops and 30,000 Pakistan Army surrendered.

He recollected how his tank squadron was parked in the grounds of the Dhaka University and at its edge stood a 16th century Nanak Shahi Gurdwara which was damaged by Pakistan Army and its granthi was killed.

The gurdwara was refurbished and troops got in a new granthi too. The first speech of new leaders of Bangladesh in their officiating capacity was made from the gurdwara.

Lt GS Sihota was air operations pilot tasked with Gen Sagat Singh the 4 Corps Commander described how the operation was planned and how the general himself visited each spot to select the best possible location to cross the Meghna after several air reconnaissance sorties.

Sagat Singh could not accept defeat, he said.

Group Captain CS Sandhu, who was commanding the 110 Helicopter unit of the IAF, was tasked with ferry troops across the Meghna said the unit had 10 Mi-4 helicopters supplied by then USSR.

In June 1971, I was told that I would be operating with the 4 Crops and asked to go and see General Sagat Singh, who then advised me to train for night flying.

With just a navigation light, a small cockpit light and with no radio transmission permitted, the task was to coordinate the flying speed of the copters with accuracy to prevent any mid-air crashes. The training was done post-monsoons in 1971.

From December 9 to December 15, IAF helicopters lifted 6,000 men from the east bank of the Meghna and dropped them at the west bank of the river for the onward march to Dhaka, he said.

Maj Chandrakant Singh, who was in the infantry, described the battle of Akhaura as the toughest battle of the eastern sector. Akhaura is further east of Meghna and close to Tripura, India.

By December 6, the troops were moving towards the river line of Meghna.

The planning to heli-drop troops was conveyed over night and it helped us push Pakistan further westwards towards Dhaka. Sagat Singh was clear in his mind that he would use helicopters in an offensive role.

The moderator Squadron Leader Chhina, said these individuals on the panel shaped the destiny of three countries and the operation across the Meghna was a daring plan which led to the fall of Dhaka.

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Crossing Meghna led to fall of Dhaka in 1971, share four officers - The Tribune India

Kolkata: On December 1, BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging that some words of National Anthem be replaced by the version of the Jana Gana Mana composed by Netaji Subhash Chandra Boses Indian National Army.

That version is called Subh Sukh Chain.

Swamy wrote that the National Anthem composed by Rabindranath Tagore raised unnecessary doubts as to whom the poem was addressing.

It is also inappropriate for post 1947 independent India for example the reference to Sindh in the words of the national anthem, he wrote.

On December 12, Swamy shared the letter on Twitter along with a copy of acknowledgement from the prime minister.

Interestingly, perhaps unbeknownst to Swamy, Subh Sukh Chain too mentions Sindh in the second line itself.

For a section of Bengalis, this request is an insult to Tagore.

Five-time Congress MP from Bengal, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury hit back at Swamy and wrote a letter to the prime minister as well, stating that Swamys letter both in spirit and understanding is narrow, divisive and violates the deep national sentiment that exists on the subject matter.

Swamys understanding of Jana Gana Mana is too limited and narrow as he takes mere territorial understanding of the present India and hence, he considers Sindh as a misfit in the post-1947 India. But India is not merely a territorial land, it is an ocean of cultures and ideas with an infinite capacity to knit together infinite pluralism in perfect harmony. Gurudev, as Rabindranath Tagore is loved and remembered, is our nations pride and a global icon. He was primarily a humanistic thinker and his Jana Gana Mana only portrays the essence of humanism, Chowdhury wrote.

Rabindranath Tagore at work in his study at Santiniketan. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Swamys letter may have come a good 73 years since Independence, but the Bharatiya Janata Party to which he belongs and organisations ideologically similar to it has often been critical of Tagore and his ideas.

In 2017, Dinanath Batra, head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, recommended to the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) that Tagores thoughts, especially those related to nationalism be removed from NCERT textbooks.

After facing a lot of criticism in parliament, then Minister for Human Resources and Development, Prakash Javadekar, assured the House that no such thing was going to happen.

In 2017, while speaking at an event in Nagpur, RSS chiefMohan Bhagwat saidthat after winning the first Nobel Prize in 1913, Tagore was on a world tour with Gitanjali. In 1916, he visited a Japanese University and was supposed to address the students there, however, no students turned up. Bhagwat said, No matter how big an individual is, one does not gain enough respect if he comes from a weak country.

Senior Tagore scholar, and former director of Nippon Bhavana, a centre Tagore started to foster Indo-Japanese relations, Amitrasudan Bhattacharya said Bhagwats comment had no base. Tagore had elaborately documented his visit to Japan and there is no mention of this incident. He had always been very truthful about his foreign interactions. He was so touched with the relationships he built with the Japanese intellectuals that he started the Nippon Bhavan in Shantiniketan. So the question of such a rebuff does not arise, Bhattacharya told TOI then.

Tagore for the Hindutva cause

For the past few years, many BJP leaders in Bengal have tried to reimagine Tagore and have portrayed him as a Hindutva exponent. They keep referring to Swadeshi Samaj, an essay Tagore wrote after the partition of Bengal in 1905, to claim that he was a proponent of the Hindu Rashtra.

In 2019, historian Diptesh Chakrabarty wrote in The Telegraph, that he was simply appalled to see a distorted and caricatured Tagore now being mobilised to fan the flames of anti-Muslim sentiments among the Hindus of West Bengal all in the interest of harvesting a few more seats in the elections to the Lok Sabha.

In the piece, Chakrabarty writes that upon being forwarded an email that purported to show through various quotes how critical Tagore was of Islam, Chakrabarty found there was distortion and falsification of what the poet actually said throughout.

The forwarded message quoted the following by Tagore: Everyday, lower-class Hindus keep becoming Muslims or Christians [but] Bhatpara [pandits] remain unconcerned.

Rabindranath Tagore hosts M.K. Gandhi and Kasturba Gandhi at Santiniketan in 1940. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

What was entirely missing from this quotation, wrote Chakrabarty, were the first few words with which the sentence began: Everyday, to save themselves from social humiliation, lower-class Hindus

Thus, the sentence actually was an indictment of Hindu society and its caste oppressions, not of Islam, Chakrabarty wrote.

A common myth unofficially propagated by the RSS is that the Jana Gana Mana was actually written to greet King George V, and that it was made Indias National Anthem in place of the Vande Mataram only to ensure that the Muslim population were happy with the choice.

Tagore against the Hindutva cause

Memes circulated by rightwing accounts on social media often call Tagore characterless, anti-Hindu and a pimp of the seculars and the British.

Also read: In Bengal, Hindutva Confronts Two Icons Tagore and Fish

Propaganda outlets also attempt to put forth the cause of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, who wrote Vande Mataram, as the rightful winner of the Nobel Prize instead of Tagore. While this is done in a clear effort to assuage Bengalis by propping up another Bengali and true Hindu hero, the point to be noted here is that Chattopadhyay died in 1894, a good seven years before the Nobel was first given out in 1901.

(L) Bankim: The litterareur who truly deserved the Nobel prize. He was not afraid to speak the truth.(R) Tagore (seen with Helen Keller reading his lips): The characterless, licentious, anti Hindu agent of foreigners and secularists who got the Nobel.

Of late, BJP has increasingly been using Tagore to prove its Bengali credentials and counter the outsider rhetoric of Trinamool Congress. So much so that, the saffron party in one of their membership drives in Nadia district used a popular Tagore song O amar desher mati, tomar pore thakai matha (O my motherland! I bow to thee), written in the heydays of the freedom movement.

These days, Prime Minister Narendra Modi very often quotes the bard in his speeches. The latest was on December 10, while laying the foundation stone for new parliament building, Modi quoted Tagore as having said, Ekota utshaho dhoro. Jatio unnoti koro. Ghushuk bhuboner shobe bharater joy! (Continue with the enthusiasm of unity. Every citizen should progress and India should be hailed all over the world!)

Previously, while addressing the 95th annualplenary sessionof the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC), Modi quoted from Tagores poem Ore nuton juger bhore (Dawn of new century).

But Modis wanton quoting of Tagore strikes as too much of an attempt to woo Bengalis in election season, considering the overall unfamiliarity with Tagore and his verses, displayed by BJP leaders.

BJP leader and Tripura chief minister, Biplab Deb on the occasion of Tagores birth anniversary in 2018 said, Rabindranath Tagore returned his Nobel Prize in protest against the British. Tagore never did that, but he did refuse the knighthood.

BJP Bengal president and MP Dilip Ghosh once wrongly credited Bengali social reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar for writing Sahaj Path, an elementary Bengali text book written by Tagore.

To top it all, while addressing a rally in Birbhum during the Lok Sabha election last year, Union home minister Amit Shah said, Rabindranath Tagore was born in Shantiniketan. The mistake lent itself to a tweet by the Bengal BJP unit which claimed that Visva-Bharati is Rabindranath Tagores birthplace. The tweet was taken down after a few hours.

Original post:

BJP Is Always Uncomfortable With Tagore PM Modi Quoting His Poems Won't Reverse This - The Wire

New Delhi: In the run up to the India International Science Festival 2020, CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB), New Delhi participated in the Vigyan Yatra on December 21. The Director of CSIR-IGIB, Dr. Anurag Agrawal, kicked off the online program with a reminder of Article 5A(h) of the Indian Constitution which states that it is the duty of every citizen of India to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of enquiry and reform, stressing how the solution to many problems of the modern world lie in science. Dr. Agrawal emphasized that the rapid response of the scientific world to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic came from years of investment into good science, irrespective of the classifications of basic and applied.

Prof. K. VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India delivering the keynote address noted how building redundancy into our scientific establishments is essential for a fast and nimble response in an emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic. He spoke about how science in post-COVID era cannot stand isolated but rather had to move forward hand in hand with industry and society. Constant dialogue, challenges and counter-challenges from one to the other are important for us to keep our research relevant and responsive, he added.

A short video was screened highlighting the achievements of IGIB in the areas of genomic medicine. IGIB has a major focus on genomics with special emphasis on genomics of human diseases; from the sequencing of the first Indian genome in 2009 to sequencing the genome of 1000 Indians, to creating a reference database of Indian genomes for precision medicine development. The expertise in genomics also allowed the institute to rapidly sequence large numbers of COVID-19 samples when the pandemic struck India early this year. CSIR-IGIB has also been leading the fight against COVID-19 by developing a paper-based RNA diagnostic system called FELUDA based on the CRISPR-Cas9 system. This development was the result of already ongoing research into developing CRISPR-diagnostics for sickle cell anemia. IGIB is also using stem cell technology to correct genetic diseases such as sickle cell anemia and thalassemia, which has a wide prevalence in the country. Finally, research at CSIR-IGIB has led to the birth of a modern scientific discipline known as Ayurgenomics. Ayurvedic doctors and genomics scientists have over the years worked together to identify a genomic correlate for the Prakriti-based stratification of population used in Ayurveda.

Alagappa University organized a Special Lecture on History of Indian Science under the banner of India International Science festival (IISF) through the virtual platform to promote history of science in India. The event was conducted to create awareness amongst the youth about the Indian Civilization and its imprints across the globe. Total 600 participants, including Undergraduate students, post-graduates, research scholars and school students from various colleges, institutes and schools from the Sivaganga District of Tamil Nadu joined the event.

Prof. N. Rajendran, Vice-Chancellor, Alagappa University, Karaikudi mentioned about the very evolution of science as the struggle against nature. He also highlighted that the CharakaSamkitha invented anciently is used for 150 surgeries alongside shusritha.

Prof. S. Sivasubramainan, Former, Vice-Chancellor, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore in his special address emphasized upon the nature, types, fields and need of science through which scientists have plied their craft not because of the importance for glory or material award but to satisfy their own curiosity about the way the world works.

Dr. D.K. Hari, Founder, Bharath Gyan, Chennai in his Keynote speech said, India has been noted to be the scientific country right from Vedic to modern times with the usual fluctuations that can be expected of any country.

Shri. V. Parthasarathy, Treasurer, Arivial Sangam, VIBHA Tamil Nadu Chapter felicitated the chief guests. Prof. H. Gurumallesh Prabu, Registrar, Alagappa University delivered the thematic address. Prof. Sanjeev Kumar Singh, Nodal Officer Alagappa University, IISF 2020 proposed the Vote of thanks. He has also encouraged the participants of the event to join the main event of IISF 2020.

CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-NEERI) and Vigyan Bharati (VIBHA) organised the Vigyan Yatra as part of the 6th India International Science Festival (IISF-2020) and Jigyasa: Student-Scientist Connect Program to nurture scientific temper and inspire young minds. The Vigyan Yatra was organisedto showcase the scientific activities virtually. Students and teachers from KendriyaVidyalayas, NavodayaVidyalayas, Government Schools, etc. from Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and other parts of India prominently participated in this programme.

Dr. Rakesh Kumar, Director, CSIR-NEERI in his welcome address cited some interesting examples where science could be applied for betterment of the people and environment. Students can do better if they are innovative, creative, and think out of the box, he added.

Dr. (Mrs) AtyaKapley, Scientist and Head, Directors Research Cell, CSIR-NEERI outlined the role of CSIR-NEERI in IISF-2020. She informed that CSIR-NEERI would coordinate two major events, namely Women Scientists and Entrepreneurs Conclave and Sanitation & Waste Management.

Prof. Umesh Palikundwar, Department of Physics, RTM Nagpur University described about the role of VIBHA, Vidarbha Chapter in IISF-2020 and nation building. Dr. K V George, Scientist and Head, Air Pollution Control Division delivered a popular science lecture on Our Atmosphere and Its pollution. The students interacted with the CSIR-NEERI scientists and cleared their scientific concept. IISF promotional video and Dr APJ Abdul Kalams inspirational video were screened on this occasion.

The IISF 2020 is being organised by Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) in collaboration with Ministry of Earth Sciences, Department of Science and Technology (DST), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and Vijnana Bharati (VIBHA).

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Special Lecture on History of Indian Science by Alagappa University - India Education Diary

Film: Unpaused

Director: Krishna D.K, Raj Nidimoru, Nitya Mehra, Nikkhil Advani, Avinash Arun, Tannishtha Chatterjee

Cast: Richa Chadha, Ratna Pathak Shah, Saiyami Kher, Gulshan Devaiah, Sumeet Vyas, Abhishek Banerjee, Lillete Dubey, Rinku Rajguru, Geetika Vidya Ohlyan and Ishwak Singh

Nonika Singh

Desperate times dont just call for drastic measures. Often, these can unlock doors of creativity. Covid-19 that tested our patience and resolve also brought out the best in many of us. And it is to this human instinct, the innate goodness in all of us that Unpaused, an anthology film, is dedicated to. Circling around the time when the world paused for there was no choice, here is an ode to humanity and to human spirit that invariably trumps whatever may be the odds.

With five (actually six for there is a duo too) directors coming together to present their individual takes on the testing Covid times, what we get are human and humane accounts by way of five short films. Directors are no wannabees but the best in the field.

Glitch by the masterly duo Raj and DK is a love story of sorts. From virtual dating to paranoia surrounding Covid to the silent warriors (pay attention, its no accident that the heroine played by Saiyami Kher is hearing and speech impaired) fighting the disease, the account is both mirthful and insightful. And it has a surreal futuristic feel to it, taking us back to the lockdown phase as well as post it in an exaggerated-dramatic fashion where hypo stands for hyper hypochondriacs.

In fact, most stories take off as much from the reality that surrounds us, as from the flight of imagination. Be it the migrants family finding refuge in a sample flat (Vishaanu by Avinash Arun) or the neighbours connecting despite the age gap (Rat-A-Tat by Tannishtha Chatterjee) or the bond that develops between an auto-rickshaw driver and a matronly senior citizen (Chaand Mubarak by Nitya Mehra), there is a utopian touch to the stories. Even Nikkhil Advanis Apartment which could well be an offshoot of a noted journalists me too tale very much out in public domain, has the wishful thinking tenor by way of this good Samaritan.

If you like to pick bones, well, certainly the short films are not unduly complex or highbrow. Nor are these trying too hard to unravel the complexity of the situation that had us in throes of anxiety. Undeniably, Covid-19 brought in its wake many a tragic story. But by design and intent Unpaused does not dwell over the negatives. Warm and fuzzy, these appeal to the heart more than the brain. Though you may like to read meaning in the references to clanking of vessels and Glitch employs subversive humour, Unpaused is not intrinsically political. Yet each story makes a statement.

In the tales of lockdown and coronavirus driving many of us on the brink of hypochondria, directors not only find humanism but also feminism, religious harmony and above all the inherent human need to bond. Sure the arcs, especially the climaxes are predictable. Besides, all stories are based in Mumbai. But then isnt the maximum city emblematic of India and its diversity. As the migrant woman character in Vishaanu says, Mumbai is good. The city which gives livelihood is good.

The triumph of all the five stories is that these stay with the trajectory of the storyline each individual director has chosen. There is no mishmash of thoughts, only an overriding connecting thread as each story is a stand-alone short film. The lead characters are flesh and blood with beating hearts. It helps immensely that actors at hand are superlative. Be it the seasoned ones like Ratna Pathak Shah (Chaand Mubarak) and Lillete Dubey (Rat-A-Tat) or newer faces like Ishwak Singh (Apartment) and Shardul Bhardwaj (Chaand Mubarak) or established names such as Richa Chadha, Gulshan Deviah, Sumeet Vyas or rising ones like Abhishek Banerjee, each actor puts his/her best foot forward. In the process we can feel them, feel their emotions and turn a tad more emotional ourselves.

More than one story touches our heart, but the most moving is Chaand Mubarak where bit by bit you warm up to the two lonely people connecting en route a ride despite religious and social divide. To be honest you connect to all these men and women, who bring to life an adverse situation and let only humanity shine like a beacon. Thats precisely why Unpaused offers wondrous joy and is a ray of sunshine in these dark and dismal times. You can certainly pause and pay heed to the breezy anthology that makes more than a point, often in an uncomplicated yet subtle manner. Direct to the heart is this OTT offering streaming on Amazon Prime.

nonikasingh@tribunemail.com

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Direct to heart is this Amazon Prime offering Unpaused, calling for you to pause and pay attention - The Tribune