Daily Archives: February 27, 2020

Disagreeing with the fuzzy logic – Galway Advertiser

Posted: February 27, 2020 at 2:13 am

Dear Editor,

The Through the Glass Darkly (GA, Feb 20th ) column finishes with the claim There is absolutely no way to drastically reduce carbon emissions in only 10 years.... without the appalling prospect of a massive global recession, which will impact the greatest on the poorest on the planet.

Given the fuzzy logic of a column dealing with such generalisations as Judeo-Christian and traditional religion it is hardly surprising that it concludes by invoking absolutes, notwithstanding its side excursions into references to science as though that word also embraced some absolute singularity despite its covering multitudinous theoretical speculations on approximations to possibilities as our sense organs coupled to our cranial processors, magnified by our ramifying technologies, attempt to unravel the mysteries of human existence without resort to assumptions unbased on evidence.

It seems to me there may actually be ways ..to drastically reduce carbon emissions in only 10 years.., and even to do so .. without the appalling prospect of a massive global recession, which will impact the greatest on the poorest on the planet.., and that the failure to attempt the effort required will be the result of continuing to abdicate our responsibilities to future generations, and the continuing of our feckless m finist thinking fed by the indoctrinated wisdom of greed is good, Im all right, Jack, there is no such thing as society ubiquitous neoliberal theologising of finance capital ideology under the deified Invisible Hand of the Market uber a$; a.k.a. Oscar Wildes definition of rampant cynicism as being the belief system of someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, i.e. the elevation of the great god Moolah to supreme being in our pantheon of assessments of worth.

In some quarters solutions have been proposed under the shorthand label of a Green New Deal, referring as it does to FDRs attempts to wrestle with the enormity of finance capitals ca$ino-capitai$t implosion which created the Great Depression after the squanderU$t of the Roaring Twenties. Meanwhile that same capitalism was indulging itself in the global arms race that fed European fascism and culminated in the mushroom stew of Hiroshima and their collective lunacy of ye olde napalm-raining Cold War, a demonically lucrative brainwave the usual suspects seem determined to resume.

The reason it is unlikely is due to the extent of the vested interests of greed, megalomanic militarist Mars-worship (often masquerading as Judeo-Christian crusades for democracy and human rights ), the power of group-think conformity lest boat-rocking sink our sacred careers, the slow pace of our emergence from religious wishful thinking of some celestial father-figure wedded to our patriarchic societies galloping to our rescue while we light candles in the dark. Examples of this resistance to the necessitated changes range from the orchestrated smears against Corbyn to our east, Sanders to our west, and even the terror of our local complacent evolutionary dinosaurs and tories at the moderate democratic proposals of SF, which are reminiscent of apartheid Unionisms militarising of the 1960s civil rights campaigns for a semblance of civic equality in the stagnant north east, and the failures of imagination in post-Lemass Dublin.

As has been predicted for decades, these global crises are indeed coming to a locality near us all, and at an accelerating pace.

Yours,

Damien Flinter,

The Regressive Hypocrite Party,

Headford,

Co Galway

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African Americans have been blocked from voting, but the Black vote is not a ‘bloc’ – Penn: Office of University Communications

Posted: at 2:13 am

Black History Month has been thematic since its inception in 1976, not to distill focus on the African American experience but to add to a collection of historical awareness and food for thought. This years theme, African Americans and the Vote, is deceptive in its title, and, as Penn researchers elaborate, on the face may be an inaccurate representation of singularity. In fact, the African American vote spans a history that extends beyond the adoption of Black suffrage in America, has been politically and socially fraught, and is representative of as diverse a voting body as the country at large. In short, there is not one Black vote, and there is not one history of the Black vote. The nuance is at the heart of Black History Months theme, and implores all Americans to understand the history and the current climate, to educate themselves on what it means to be Black in the American polity.

Penn Today reached out to current and former Penn faculty in the School of Arts and Sciences to expound on the idea of the African Americans and the vote.Adolph Reed, Kathleen Brown, andMary Francis Berry each spoke on the historical state of voting for African Americans, and the current election year. Black History Months origin goes back to February 1926 when Carter G. Woodson implement Negro History Week. Woodson, a writer and historian who founded of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, spent his career working to popularize knowledge about the history of Black people.It was Woodsons goal to see African American history celebrated as a one-week affair, and urged schools to use Negro History Week to demonstrate what students learned all year. By the late 1960s, college campuses across the country had begun to replace Negro History Week with Black History Month, and designated an annual theme.

2020 marks the 100-year anniversary of womens suffrage. It also marks 150 years since the Fifteenth Amendment, which won the right for Black men to vote in America. For both Black men and women, the constitutional right to vote has not hewed historically with the ease and accessibility of voting. Nor, as Reed and Brown point out, the privilege of voting for a candidate who most resembles them in terms of identity and cosmology. The womens suffrage movementa fractious campaign that spanned over eighty yearswas rife with tension between former abolitionists, eager to see newly freed Black people enfranchised, and white women who put their own access to vote ahead of a true womens suffrage.

Disenfranchisement for all Black voters has been a common roadblock to equality at the polls both before and after the Voting Rights Act of 1965. For the countrys current two-party system, more Black candidates at the local and state levels may help usher new generations of voters to the polls, and even more electoral visibility for alternative political parties. But, as Brown, Reed, and Berry all stress, to reduce Black voters to an indivisible unit is to deny African American voters singular identities, and distills the implied cohesion of the Black vote to a simple matter of opposition to racial inequality, while bypassing the broad range of political issues white voters can prioritize: economic uncertainty, religious freedom, environmentalism, etc. Black politics are more complex than simply a shared opposition to racial discrimination. The theme of this years Black History Month is to highlight that.

Adolph Reed is professor emeritus of political science in the School of Arts & Sciences. He has written on voting and the American electorate for many election cycles, including an article titled Vote for the Lying Neoliberal Warmonger: Its Important

The idea of a Black vote is itself historically specific, and is bound up in a circular argument. Its assumed that the definitive concern is race. To assume that all Black Americans are concerned about racial justice and racial equality slides into a taxonomy issue,that is, reduces Black Americans concerns to issues that supposedly have to do with racial classification,and contends that only questionsbearing directly or explicitly onracematterto African Americans. What marks the boundaries of Black politics? Racial justice and equality are important to all African Americans, but it doesnt end there.

What we think of as the Black vote isaproduct ofa racially defined interest-group politicsthat emerged as the consolidation of the victorious social movement of the 1960s. In that interest group peoplesinterests can be reduced to what elites have defined as Blackpeoplesconcerns. But Black peopleare concerned about a lot of things, not just racewomens issues, sexual identity, union politics, etc. But then there are arguments about political campaigns as not being Black specific.

There aremoreBlack people in the U.S.than the entire population ofCanada. DoCanadian votershave Canadian essentialism? In the U.S., income inequality has been increasingacross the boardsince the 1960s and 70s;this is a function of capitalist class dynamics, not simply race, and thats true even of the worsening economic conditions experienced by Black people. If whats understood to be a Black agenda is erasing disparities, youdontaddress the general system of inequality.In thedisparitiesframework,Black people disappear in every dimension of life except racial status. There is no room foreven imagining their interests as postal workers, homeowners, railroad maintenance workers, parents, students, stamp collectors, etc.

In a polity defined by the democratic selection of leadership, things go fine when the lower tier accepts the agenda of the people at the top.At the momentwhen the lower tier acts up, the top tries to reduce access. After the defeat of the populist insurgency in the 1890s, and since Reagan empowered the right wing, the majority went after disenfranchisement. The main reason to disenfranchise voters is to actively take Blackpeople out of the political equation for two reasons: One, because of racism, and two, because Black people voted the wrong way.

If Black voters had voted with theright-wing, disenfranchisement would not have been so actively sought. Now, in the 21st century, there is no questionthe Republican Party has been openly and stealthily disenfranchising voters. The objective is to disenfranchise Black people,buteven deeper, to disenfranchise people who arent voting Republican. Reducing the Black vote to an indivisible blochelps with this.

However, I think its narrow and shortsighted not to vote. Most of the significant votes Ive cast have been because the other candidate is worse. The time to change who and what we vote for is not at the poll but between the elections.

Kathleen Brown has been teaching early American history and the history of gender and race for 25 years. She is the David Boies Professor of History in the School of Arts & Sciences and the author of two books and numerous articles. Her current project is Undoing Slavery: Abolitionist Body Politics and the Argument over Humanity. (forthcoming, Penn Press)

Black voting rights have a long history of being denied, contested, defrauded, and obstructed. In the early years of Reconstruction, formerly enslaved men in the South voted for Black Republicans, the party of Lincoln. During this era, Black men became state and national officeholders in numbers that have yet to be surpassed. Entire communities of women as well as men turned out on Election Day, testifying to the importance of the vote. Abandonment by the federal government in 1877 left Black voters vulnerable to terrorist tactics, and Jim Crow laws subsequently defrauded Black southerners of the vote.

Many Black women supported the womens suffrage movement as it gathered momentum in the early twentieth century, despite the obvious racism of the movements leadership. Ida B. Wells, Fannie Barrier Williams, Mary Church Terrell, and locally, Gertrude Bustill Mossell [a relative of Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander] all saw possibilities for African American empowerment in womens suffrage. White suffragists from the North pandered to white supremacists in the South, which included some of the movements most important political allies. It is no exaggeration to say that the womens suffrage amendment achieved ratification in 1920 because white allies of the movement considered white womens vote to be a valuable new tool to protect white supremacy in the Jim Crow South. Upon the amendments ratification in 1920, some African American women, including in states like Virginia and Georgia, managed to circumvent voting restrictions to cast their ballots.

The historic shift in African American national political party affiliation came in the 1930s during the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, a feminist social reformer who, unlike her husband, was connected politically and personally to many Black educators and activists, advocated for programs and policies that ultimately helped to sway Black voters to support the Democratic Party.Historians now judge FDR harshly for the half-measures of his policy and his continued pandering to racist southern Democrats. But the historic shift in party affiliation had taken place.

The quandary for Black voters today is to be a minority population in a political system with only two parties in which the winner takes all. In such a system, the diverse interests of African American voters can rarely be represented. A small proportion of African American voters have become Republicans because they are tired of being taken for granted by the Democratic Party.

Mary Frances Berry is the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought and a professor of history. She is the author of twelve books, including Five Dollars and a Pork Chop Sandwich: Vote Buying and the Corruption of Democracy, which exposes the ways Black voters have experienced voter discrimination in the U.S., including felon disfranchisement, voter identification laws, and hard-to-access polling locations with limited hours.

Weak turnout for elections is commonplace in most U.S. elections. So, making promises, though never kept, is one way to try to inspire turnout. Another way is handing out goodies on Election Day, like fried chicken boxes, or influencing the absentee ballots of nursing home residents and other probable targets. Both parties in elections at every level utilize these approaches.

For Black voters who, when they vote, usually vote for Democrats, arguing that Republicans are engaged in voter suppression is the main approach to increasing their turnout. It doesnt require serious support for easing the wealth gap, such as increasing slave-descended African American enrollments in elite higher education institutions, or actually improving K-12 education by giving poor children what well-off children receive in school (concentrated attention), or reducing mass incarcerationor even reparations. As one young man told me recently on the importance of nonviolent protest along with voting, Ive been voting and voting, and the people I vote for dont do what they say they will do, and most of the time they dont even try.

Clinton lost in 2016 in part because young people especially are wary about the efficacy of voting. Democrats ought to remember this during this 2020 election cycle.

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A multiverse, not the metaverse – TechCrunch

Posted: at 2:13 am

Following web forums, web platforms and mobile apps, we are entering a new stage of social media the multiverse era where the virtual worlds of games expand to become mainstream hubs for social interaction and entertainment. In a seven-part Extra Crunch series, we will explore why that is the case and which challenges and opportunities are making it happen.

In 10 years, we will have undergone a paradigm shift in social media and human-computer interaction, moving away from 2D apps centered on posting content toward shared feeds and an era where mixed reality (viewed with lightweight headsets) mixes virtual and physical worlds. But were not technologically or culturally ready for that future yet. The metaverse of science fiction is not arriving imminently.

Instead, the virtual worlds of multiplayer games still accessed from phones, tablets, PCs and consoles are our stepping stones during this next phase.

Understanding this gradual transition helps us reconcile the futuristic visions of many in tech with the reality of how most humans will participate in virtual worlds and how social media impacts society. This transition centers on the merging of gaming and social media and leads to a new model of virtual worlds that are directly connected with our physical world, instead of isolated from it.

Multiverse virtual worlds will come to function almost like new countries in our society, countries that exist in cyberspace rather than physical locations but have complex economic and political systems that interact with the physical world.

Throughout these posts, I make a distinction between the physical, virtual, and real worlds. Our physical world defines tangible existence like in-person interactions and geographic location. The virtual world is that of digital technology and cyberspace: websites, social media, games. The real world is defined by the norms of what we accept as normal and meaningful in society. Laws and finance arent physical, but they are universally accepted as concrete aspects of life. Ill argue here that social media apps are virtual worlds we have accepted as real unified with normal life rather than separate from it and that multiverse virtual worlds will make the same crossover.

In fact, because they incentivize small group interactions and accomplishment of collaborative tasks rather than promotion of viral posts, multiverse virtual worlds will bring a healthier era for social medias societal impact.

The popularity of massive multiplayer online (MMO) gaming is exploding at the same time that the technology to access persistent virtual worlds with high-quality graphics from nearly any device is hitting the market. The rise of Epic Games Fortnite since 2017 accelerated interest in MMO games from both consumers who dont consider themselves gamers and from journalists and investors who hadnt paid much attention to gaming before.

In the decade ahead, people will come to socialize as much in virtual worlds that evolved from games as they will on platforms like Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. Building things with friends within virtual worlds will become common, and major events within the most popular virtual worlds will become pop culture news stories.

Right now, three-quarters of U.S.-based Facebook users interact with the site on a daily basis; Instagram (63%), Snapchat (61%), YouTube (51%) and Twitter (41%) have similarly penetrated the daily lives of Americans. By comparison, the percentage of people who play a game on any given day increased from just 8% in 2003 to 11% in 2016. Within the next few years, that number will multiply as the virtual worlds within games become more fulfilling social, entertainment and commercial platforms.

As I mentioned in my 2020 media predictions article, Facebook is readying itself for this future and VCs are funding numerous startups that are building toward it, like Klang Games, Darewise Entertainment and Singularity 6. Epic Games joins Roblox and Mojang (the company behind Minecraft) as among the best-positioned large gaming companies to seize this opportunity. Startups are already popping up to provide the middleware for virtual economies as they become larger and more complex, and a more intense wave of such startups will arrive over the next few years to provide that infrastructure as a service.

Over the next few years, there will be a trend: new open-world MMO games that emphasize social functionality that engages users, even if they dont care much about the mission of the game itself. These new products will target casual gamers wanting to enter the world for merely a few minutes at a time since hardcore gamers are already well-served by game publishers.

Some of these more casual, socializing-oriented MMOs will gain widespread popularity, the economy within and around them will soar and the original gaming scenario that provided a focus on what to do will diminish as content created by users becomes the main attraction.

Lets explore the forces that underpin this transition. Continue reading through the seven articles in this series (which will be linked below as they are published daily over the next six days):

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Pantheism | Britannica

Posted: at 2:11 am

Pantheism, the doctrine that the universe conceived of as a whole is God and, conversely, that there is no God but the combined substance, forces, and laws that are manifested in the existing universe. The cognate doctrine of panentheism asserts that God includes the universe as a part though not the whole of his being.

Both pantheism and panentheism are terms of recent origin, coined to describe certain views of the relationship between God and the world that are different from that of traditional theism. As reflected in the prefix pan- (Greek pas, all), both of the terms stress the all-embracing inclusiveness of God, as compared with his separateness as emphasized in many versions of theism. On the other hand, pantheism and panentheism, since they stress the theme of immanencei.e., of the indwelling presence of Godare themselves versions of theism conceived in its broadest meaning. Pantheism stresses the identity between God and the world, panentheism (Greek en, in) that the world is included in God but that God is more than the world.

The adjective pantheist was introduced by the Irish Deist John Toland in the book Socinianism Truly Stated (1705). The noun pantheism was first used in 1709 by one of Tolands opponents. The term panentheism appeared much later, in 1828. Although the terms are recent, they have been applied retrospectively to alternative views of the divine being as found in the entire philosophical traditions of both East and West.

Pantheism and panentheism can be explored by means of a three-way comparison with traditional or classical theism viewed from eight different standpointsi.e., from those of immanence or transcendence; of monism, dualism, or pluralism; of time or eternity; of the world as sentient or insentient; of God as absolute or relative; of the world as real or illusory; of freedom or determinism; and of sacramentalism or secularism.

The poetic sense of the divine within and around human beings, which is widely expressed in religious life, is frequently treated in literature. It is present in the Platonic Romanticism of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, as well as in Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Expressions of the divine as intimate rather than as alien, as indwelling and near dwelling rather than remote, characterize pantheism and panentheism as contrasted with classical theism. Such immanence encourages the human sense of individual participation in the divine life without the necessity of mediation by any institution. On the other hand, it may also encourage a formless enthusiasm, without the moderating influence of institutional forms. In addition, some theorists have seen an unseemliness about a point of view that allows the divine to be easily confronted and appropriated. Classical theism has, in consequence, held to the transcendence of God, his existence over and beyond the universe. Recognizing, however, that if the separation between God and the world becomes too extreme, humanity risks the loss of communication with the divine, panentheismunlike pantheism, which holds to the divine immanencemaintains that the divine can be both transcendent and immanent at the same time.

Philosophies are monistic if they show a strong sense of the unity of the world, dualistic if they stress its twoness, and pluralistic if they stress its manyness. Pantheism is typically monistic, finding in the worlds unity a sense of the divine, sometimes related to the mystical intuition of personal union with God; classical theism is dualistic in conceiving God as separated from the world and mind from body; and panentheism is typically monistic in holding to the unity of God and the world, dualistic in urging the separateness of Gods essence from the world, and pluralistic in taking seriously the multiplicity of the kinds of beings and events making up the world. One form of pantheism, present in the early stages of Greek philosophy, held that the divine is one of the elements in the world whose function is to animate the other elements that constitute the world. This point of view, called Hylozoistic (Greek hyl, matter, and z, life) pantheism, is not monistic, as are most other forms of pantheism, but pluralistic.

Most, but not all, forms of pantheism understand the eternal God to be in intimate juxtaposition with the world, thus minimizing time or making it illusory. Classical theism holds that eternity is in God and time is in the world but believes that, since Gods eternity includes all of time, the temporal process now going on in the world has already been completed in God. Panentheism, on the other hand, espouses a temporaleternal God who stands in juxtaposition with a temporal world; thus, in panentheism, the temporality of the world is not cancelled out, and time retains its reality.

Every philosophy must take a stand somewhere on a spectrum running from a concept of things as unfeeling matter to one of things as psychic or sentient. Materialism holds to the former extreme, and Panpsychism to the latter. Panpsychism offers a vision of reality in which to exist is to be in some measure sentient and to sustain social relations with other entities. Dualism, holding that reality consists of two fundamentally different kinds of entity, stands again between two extremes. A few of the simpler forms of pantheism support materialism. Panentheism and most forms of pantheism, on the other hand, tend toward Panpsychism. But there are differences of degree, and though classical theism tends toward dualism, even there the insentient often has a tinge of panpsychism.

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In ‘Once Were Brothers,’ The Band’s Earliest Years Shine – NPR

Posted: at 2:10 am

The Band in London, June 1971. From left: Levon Helm, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko and Garth Hudson. Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns hide caption

The Band in London, June 1971. From left: Levon Helm, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko and Garth Hudson.

The Band generated mythic status from the start. Crashing on the scene as Bob Dylan's anonymous-but-not-for-long backup band on his controversial and thrilling electrified tours of 1965-66, the group emerged fully formed, capable of both intense and experimentalist noise and tight, basic rock and roll.

The Band's first album, Music From Big Pink (1968), was embraced by musicians and critics and seen as the harbinger of a new kind of post-psychedelic roots music. That album and their second, The Band (1969), were not big sellers, but gained huge respect from critics and musicians as the group built up a passionate fan following. In 1975, critic Greil Marcus described them in Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock and Roll as "committed to the very idea of America: complicated, dangerous, and alive. Their music gave us a sure sense that the country was richer than we had guessed; that it has possibilities we were only beginning to perceive."

That symbolic weight was the core of The Last Waltz (1978), Martin Scorsese's loving documentary capturing the group's final concert in 1976. Scorsese's film framed the project as more Robertson's band than interdependent whole which all became a bit much for drummer Levon Helm who, in his 1993 book, This Wheel's on Fire, blamed Robertson for its breakup and accused him of taking credit for songs that should have been shared. Helm died in 2012; bassist Rick Danko in 1999; and pianist Richard Manuel committed suicide in 1986. Robertson and organist Garth Hudson are the only surviving members.

A new documentary, Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band, directed by Daniel Roher, is a warm, poignant take on The Band's story again, as the subtitle suggests, from Robertson's point of view. It often feels like a direct response to Helm's version of the story; in extensive interviews, Robertson heaps praise on his bandmates and reminisces wistfully about their best years together. Accompanied by beautiful photos of recording sessions and Big Pink, the group's house in Woodstock, New York, the film is nostalgic and elegiac, and adds to the sense that the recording of their first two albums was a musician's utopia deeply collaborative, done on their own terms. There are the usual rock documentary talking heads with the likes of Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen and Van Morrison appearing as well as archival interview clips from The Band's members.

The gems here are the tales of Dominique Bourgeois, Robertson's ex-wife, a French-Canadian journalist who met him in Paris while on tour with Dylan in 1966, and who then lived with him during the making of The Band's classic records. It's still rare to see women represented as essential to the rock scene of that era, and Dominique Robertson's contributions recenter the Big Pink experience around relationships and place, rather than solely music.

The film's most significant contribution to the group's overall legacy is its extensive coverage of the earliest adventures of The Band, when they were still The Hawks and backing up the great rock wild-man Ronnie Hawkins in clubs around Toronto and on tours through America. Plenty of fresh photos and a television performance from those years help add detail and texture to a formative period for rock and roll, the pre-Beatles '60s, that's often mischaracterized as lacking grit.

Once Were Brothers presents that era as historically on par with any show The Band performed with Dylan which, in the end, might be its most significant contribution.

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Letting Australians get drugs from a doctor rather than a dealer will save lives – The Guardian

Posted: at 2:10 am

Prof Dan Howard SC, head of the special inquiry into illicit amphetamine use in New South Wales, has handed down his report to the NSW government following a lengthy commission looking into both the drug ice but also other issues such as pill testing and the effectiveness of NSW drug laws.

In his report, Howard has recommended that the government decriminalisation illicit drug use. Many people might be wondering what on earth that actually means. Terms like decriminalisation are bandied around regularly in the media and theres often confusion as to the jargon that already exists.

Heres one way to look at it:

Depenalisation simply means to take the penalty out of the crime. For example, if you are caught possessing drugs its a crime, but you are referred to treatment instead of facing heavy fines or potential jail time.

Decriminalisation means that possessing drugs for personal use ceases to become a crime altogether, but remains a civil offence like running a red light or jay-walking there are still penalties (eg fines) and the other consequences. This system is currently in practice in countries like Portugal where people are instead referred to treatment, if it is appropriate.

Regulation means to fully legalise drugs but to control the supply of drugs either through a government or commercial market. Much of the drug field use regulation instead of legalisation because the latter can conjure up images of reckless drug use without limits. However, our current system, which is essentially mainly one of prohibition, offers little in terms of control.

Our system has been shown to spend a lot of money in arresting people, court time and lockup with little hope of changing behaviours. Prohibition laws themselves clearly do little to stop large chunks of our community from using illicit drugs.

Although depenalisation is a small step in the right direction ... it wont stop young people dying

Why is that? How can we have laws that work and others that dont? Weve changed these in the past, and changing laws can do a lot to maximise benefit and reduce the costs associated with faulty laws.

Im often reminded of Don Chipps work while he was still a Liberal, creating the R-rated classification in motion picture content rating. Before that restriction, some movies were simply banned. Did it stop people watching them? Of course not. Its foolish to think we will ever delete a black market altogether, but we can minimise and manage it. The black market in tobacco in Australia is a good example. It exists but its small enough for law enforcement to contain, as opposed to the illicit drug market.

Speaking of tobacco smoking has dropped significantly in Australia. Good regulation means banning advertising, reducing exposure, taxing effectively and running effective health campaigns all in a strategic fashion. Tobacco regulation highlights the difference between a well regulated market and one thats out of control.

A recent report shows that there have been close to 400 MDMA-related deaths in Australia from 2000 to 2018, most of which were people in their early to mid 20s.

Nearly half of these deaths were due to mixed drug consumption and just over half were due to MDMA toxicity. The NSW deputy coroner Harriet Grahame told us in 2019 that pill testing could help to mitigate both of these types of death.

Depenalisation is a step, decriminalisation is another step. But full regulation of all drugs thats when we begin to take control of the situation.

We must look to the horizon and strive towards a healthier society, one that takes control of the drug issue to save as many lives as possible. This can only be done with a fully regulated supply of drugs all drugs, not just cannabis where doctors and pharmacists are in control of someones dependency, not a dealer.

Our system will and should be unlike countries such as the US where there is sometimes little control over how drugs like cannabis can be marketed and sold.

I have already warned that, as the ACT legalises the use of cannabis in a week or so, it risks being unprepared and hurting other states future attempts to regulate cannabis.

Like our tobacco laws, regulating drugs shouldnt mean unmitigated use. True regulation should seek to take control of a harmful substance, like alcohol, and ban advertising, limit its reach to young people and use the taxes it creates to provide help for those who are inevitably harmed by it.

Regulation is not utopia in Australia. Instead, its a pragmatic approach to taking control of a situation thats taking too many young lives.

The NSW premier has an opportunity to change the state for the better. To create a healthier and safer society where harms to our children are reduced and lives are saved.

Matt Noffs is the chief executive of the Ted Noffs Foundation and a spokesman for the Take Control Campaign for Safer, Saner Drug Laws

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Last and First Men Review: Jhann Jhannssons Posthumous Film Is a Dazzling Vision of the Apocalypse – IndieWire

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Jhann Jhannssons work as a film composer transcended expectations of the craft, not only supporting a filmmakers vision but clarifying its appeal. His dynamic, soul-churning music for Sicario, Arrival and Mandy reached for a visceral depth that suggested he might become one of the all-time greats. Sadly, the Icelandic talent died in 2018 at the age of 48, but not before completing one final achievement that elevated his artistry to a whole new level.

Last and First Men, which Jhannsson directed as a live multimedia performance prior to his death, has been finally completed as a singular 70-minute cinematic event. Guided by Jhannssons ethereal score, this dazzling apocalyptic immersion blends cosmic 16mm black-and-white images of Yugoslavian architecture with a deadpan Tilda Swinton voiceover, resulting in a profound lyrical rumination on the end of days.

Its also one of the most original science fiction movies in recent memory. Last and First Men draws its title and concept from Olaf Stapletons 1930 speculative sci-fi novel, in which the last survivors of an advanced society two billion years in the future send a note documenting their utopia and its imminent destruction in a cosmic memo to the distant past. While Stapletons book detailed multiple eras of human evolution, Jhannsson and co-writer Jos Enrique Macin consolidate the unconventional narrative into a riveting 70-minute essay rich with existential contemplation. Prior to his death, Jhannsson performed the piece in a handful of cities worldwide. The completed feature shows why that presentational approach made sense, even as it maintains its awe-inspiring allure in its final form.

The images of Last and First Men capture the sprawling concrete monuments to Yugoslavias Tito era. Built in the postwar period and embodying the architectural style known as Brutalism, these hulking blocks loom over the countryside like monsters of rock. Theres an operatic glory to the work, particularly the giant, angular buildings reaching out to the heavens, much like the impossible utopia that Josip Broz Tito thought his society could become. The structures were intended to salute the former presidents unique attempt to balance the two political extremes of socialism and democracy in contrast to the rest of Eastern Europes Stalinist extremes, but Jhannsson never makes that history explicit. In fact, those unfamiliar with so-called third way socialism wont come out of the movie with any new insights. Instead, Jhannssons hypnotic collage transforms the sculptures into magisterial pillars of progress at once alien and familiar.

Last and First Men

Sturla Brandth Grvlen

Theres some formula at work here: From the first image of a charcoal monolith reaching deep into a cloudy sky, Last and First Men evokes the spirit of Stanley Kubrick and 2001, while the use of black-and-white photography to evoke otherworldly themes tips its hat to Bela Tarr. However, Last and First Men also revisits the psychedelic meditations on civilizations progress in Godfrey Reggios trippy Koyaanisqatsi and its sequels, while utilizing contemporary visuals to construct an elaborate future mythology akin to Chris Markers La Jetee. Yet Jhannssons approach builds on these precedents with its own precise narrative trajectory.

Last and First Men doesnt adhere to a story in the most traditional sense, but once the premise settles in, it guides the viewer through several haunting chapters. In Jhannssons telling, humanity has obtained utopia and immortality, but bears little resemblance to its roots. Swintons voiceover includes intricate details about the bizarre simian features of this future race, the magnifying lenses affixed to their foreheads, and a ritual that involves a 20-year pregnancy followed by infancy that lasts a century. Technology has progressed to inconceivable extremes, including the insights of of telepathy and deep-space travel, which Swinton explains in measured tones that call to mind the dispassionate deity Dr. Manhattan of Watchmen fame. When Swinton describes the species subjectivity as huge fluctuations of joy and woe, its an apt summary of the movies undulating mood, as Jhannsson casts an absorbing spell.

All along, the composer guides the images along with his low, rumbling score, as it drifts through windy tangents and arrives at unexpected orchestral swells. Last and First Men manages to envelop viewers in its world before injecting it with higher purpose, as the species come around to issuing a plea to their ancestors thats both metaphorical and riddled with mystery. Outdoing no less than Arrival in its narrative finesse, Last and First Men similarly revolves around bringing an alien understanding of the world into our own.

Some may feel that Jhannssons dry assemblage deprives these images of their original significance. At the same time, one could argue that the utopia described here extends from the far-reaching goals of the Tito era, and registers as a somber recognition of their impossibility. Swinton, whose mechanical intonations develop an emotional tenor as they move along, announces that the beings have found a triumphant love of our fate. Humanity should be so lucky.

Cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grvlens crisp visuals ensure these lifeless sets come to life, as glacial camerawork hovers around the structures to enact a ghostlike sense of awe. Jhannsson counteracts the colorless palette with sudden bursts of color, including a green dot that captures the rhythms of Swintons voice like a beacon from a distant time. When she refers to her kind as the wreckage of our former selves, you believe it.

As Last and First Men builds to its climax, it takes on a wistful quality; its simultaneously an environmental plea and one that makes peace with the possibility that were already doomed. Its all so entrancing that one cant help but experience overwhelming sadness in witnessing the last work from an artist so in control of his mission. By that same token, the posthumous nature of Last and First Men injects its message with additional poignance: The movie is a testament to the strength of wisdom more powerful than death itself.

Last and First Men premiered in the special gala section of the Berlin Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.

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Last and First Men Review: Jhann Jhannssons Posthumous Film Is a Dazzling Vision of the Apocalypse - IndieWire

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Tyrone Middle in St. Pete to get a $28 million makeover – Tampa Bay Times

Posted: at 2:10 am

The Pinellas County School Board on Tuesday unanimously approved a $2.1 million contract with Rowe Architects Inc. to design and administer a $28 million renovation at Tyrone Middle School in St. Petersburg.

The project will be done in phases and will include new space for the schools Center for Innovation and Digital Learning, upgrades to the gymnasium, a new classroom building and a new cafeteria, art room, band room and administration offices. Other improvements include a larger space for the car line, which will face 66th Street, and the removal of four portable classrooms.

The schools digital learning program uses project-based lessons, interactive online activities and face-to-face lessons to encourage students to be critical thinkers. It is open to students countywide.

The project will begin in Feb. 2021 and is expected to be completed by August 2022. Tyrone Middle, opened in 1954, is one of the countys oldest middle schools.

The Pinellas County school system will host an information session March 12 for anyone interested in becoming a teacher. Like other districts in Florida, Pinellas is experiencing a teacher shortage. The district has 37 vacancies, with the greatest need in math. Across the rest of the state, schools also are seeing teacher shortages in elementary schools and in the areas of science and exceptional student education. At the information session, hosted by the Pinellas Schools Talent Acquisition Team, participants will learn how to become a certified teacher with a bachelors degree or higher. Among those who have gone through the districts Teacher in Transition program are a nurse who became a biology teacher, a Navy veteran who became a math teacher and a teacher who left the insurance business. The session will be held from 5:30-6:30 p.m. at the Stavros Institute, 12100 Starkey Road in Largo. Participants are asked to register by March 10 at https://www.pcsb.org/Page/32609. For more information, call (727) 588-3746 or write to TalentAcquisitionTeam@pcsb.org.

St. Petersburg College will host a free jewelry-making workshop using computer-aided design software from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. March 7 at the SPC Clearwater Campus, 2465 Drew St. Students will design their own 3D-modeled jewelry that will be created on site with a 3D printer. The workshop, sponsored by Duke Energy Foundation, will also provide information on SPCs Computer Aided Design (CAD) certificate program, which prepares students for careers in the energy and engineering fields. The event includes free lunch and giveaways. To register, visit https://web.spcollege.edu/survey/29334. For more information, contact Lara Sharp at sharp.lara@spcollege.edu or call (727) 398-8256.

Students in a residence hall at the University of Florida St. Petersburg are competing to see who can use the least amount of energy over a three-week period. The project was organized by Nicolas Gonzalez, an environmental science and policy senior who wants to encourage his peers in Pelican Hall to use the stairs instead of the elevator and turn off lights when they leave the room. The competition, dubbed Utility Utopia, began on Feb. 21 and ends March 13, according to the USF St. Petersburg website. It was inspired by a documentary Gonzalez saw while in high school about how competitions can motivate people to adopt more sustainable practices. Ive kept thinking about that idea, Gonzalez told the school. When I needed to come up with a research project for my senior year, I decided this would be perfect. Residents are competing to see which floor can use the least energy as tabulated on a website developed by Gonzalez. We often talk about energy harvesting and generation," said Gonzalezs adviser Madhu Pandey, a visiting assistant professor of chemistry. "But we need to think more about ways to conserve energy by using less.

The work of hundreds of Pinellas County student artists is on display over the next few days at Gibbs High School, 850 34th St. S in St. Petersburg. The exhibition includes sculptures and ceramics in the schools art gallery and short films to be shown at a premiere from 5:30-7:30 p.m. March 4 in the Grand Theatre. Student artists and their teachers will be present for the event.

(March 2-6)

Monday: Chicken nuggets with roll, Max Cheese Sticks, fruit and yogurt plate, deli meat and cheese sandwich, baked beans, marinara cup, veggie dippers.

Tuesday: Breakfast for lunch, Pizzaboli, chicken caesar salad, Jamwich Kit, deli-roasted potatoes, marinara cup, romaine side salad.

Wednesday: Pasta and meat sauce or meatballs, beef ravioli and roll, chicken nuggets with dip cup, yogurt and fruit parfait, ham and cheese croissant, crispy fries, sliced cucumbers.

Thursday: Bacon cheeseburger, grilled cheese, Apple-A-Day Salad, chicken caesar wrap, tomato soup, mixed side salad.

Friday: Pizza variety, fish nuggets with roll, chef salad, turkey and cheese hoagie or sandwich, spinach or collard greens, fresh veggie dippers.

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X-Men Cyclops and Wolverine Are Definitely Having Sex On The Moon – Screen Rant

Posted: at 2:09 am

Spoilers for X-Men #7 below!

The new issue ofX-Men strongly suggests a sexual relationship between two of the team's most prominent mutants, Cyclops and Wolverine. In previous issues ofthe series, writers strongly implied a polyamorous relationship between Jean Grey, her husband Scott Summers AKA Cyclops, and "Logan" Howlett, better known as Wolverine, his longtime rival for Jean's affections. The exact nature of their partnership has been one of the biggest mysteries looming over the recently-relaunched team, but this week'sX-Men #7makes a strong case that Scott and Logan are directly sexually involved.

Jonathan Hickman'sDawn of X relaunch has completely changed the status quo for mutantkind, relocating them to a new nation called Krakoa. The island is a peaceful utopia where all mutants are encouraged (and possibly forced) to erase past conflicts and bond together. In fact, Krakoa's ruling council set a cardinal lawmandating that the populationhook up more often: "Make more mutants." The prologue miniseriesHouse of X ended with a highly suggestive scene in which Logan, Scott, and Jean shared drinks. Jean even passed one to Emma Frost, Scott's paramourin the years leading up toDoX. (Scott and Emma are also still in a sexual relationship of their own, as Storm mentions in Marauders #8.)

Related:Wolverine Thinks The X-Men's New Home Is One Big [SPOILER]

The opening issue X-Men #1 later confirmed that the entire Summers familyare living together on the Moonin one home with a peculiar setup: separate bedrooms for Jean and Scott, as well as a room for Logan, arranged so that the three connect in a line with Jean's room in the middle. It was clear that Jean was sleeping with both men, but it was unclear when her partners were simply in simultaneous relationships with her or if the new love triangle connected at every point. Fortunately for curious readers, anearlyscene of issue 7 offers some clear evidence of attraction between the former foes.

After the opening scene and the title page, the story cuts to the Summer House, where Scott and Logan are spending an early morning together. The latter is kicking back in a light bathrobe while Cyclops is in full costume (sans the trademark head-sock). When Wolverine mentions that he had trouble sleeping, Cyclops blames "all that hair" before inviting him alongon a space vacation to Chandilore, the island-like planetoid that Cyclops mentioned inNew Mutants #7. Logan admits that the scenery is hard to pass up, especially Jean in a bikini. "Scott in a speedo", the spectacled mutant adds. Logan laughs and responds: "Hell, who could say no to that?"At this point, the subtext has become text.

The Summers' husband and the Summers' boyfriendshare a pause that could be read as comfortable silence or as a moment of tension before the conversation heads into the much darker territory that looms over the rest of the issue. Theytalk about a history of "deciding what's right and what's wrong", alluding to the"Schism" era of the franchise in whichCyclops and Wolverine were enemies locked in battle, a time that the shorter and hairier of the two doesn't want to revisit. Ultimately, Wolverine has no interest in helping Cyclops process his feelings. Is their intimacy romantic in nature or strictly physical? It's hard to say, but this sheds some light on Cyclops' cryptic remark inX-Men #2that he "loves a single someone". Did the strait-laced strategist mean that he lovesat least one person, or that he onlyloves one person? Either way, it's clear thedays of Scott and Logan fighting over lovers is long over.

X-Men #7, written by Jonathan Hickman with art by Leinil Yu and color by Sunny Gho, is available from Marvel in stores now.

More:The X-Men Need COLOSSUS For War Against Mother Russia

Iron Man is Secretly The Son of [SPOILER]

Sean Finley is a comics news writer for ScreenRant. Mutated as a child by a radioactive copy of Amazing Fantasy #15, he now contributes articles, reviews, and short fiction to local and online outlets using a variety of thematic personas. When he isn't writing, he's the forever DM for his local D&D group, where everything is made up and the points don't matter. You can reach him at wseanfinley (at) gmail.com.

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The rise of Britains woke members clubs – The Economist

Posted: at 2:09 am

Out with cocaine-fuelled hedonism, in with gender politics

Feb 22nd 2020

NAMED AFTER Marx, who famously did not want to belong to any club that would accept him as a member, the Groucho sold itself as the antidote to the gentlemens clubs of Londons St Jamess district when it opened in 1985. With a heavy drinking culture, artistic spirit and cocaine-driven largesse, the club captured the zeitgeist. Of late it has been swept up in Sohos commercialisation, and is now owned by a private-equity firm. Despite offering reduced fees for under-30s and a vegan menu, it is not the magnet for youth it once was.

Todays antidote is a breed of clubs promoting values rather than loucheness. They offer a similar aesthetic to those of the 1980s and 1990s: all have adopted the velvet chesterfields and modern British art customary at the Groucho Club and Soho House, another club popular among media types. The new ingredient is wokeness.

In October The Wing, a glossy feminist utopia that does not admit men, opened its first branch outside America, where there are ten. Candidates to join the new outpost in Fitzrovia are asked, for instance, to describe how they have promoted or supported the advancement of women and what they think is the biggest challenge facing women today. At the clubhouse, oil paintings of Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Mary Beard (feminist heroes in acting and academia respectively) line the walls, the library is free from books written by men, and badges dispensed at reception allow everyone to indicate their preferred personal pronoun. Members are described either as the cohort or the witches (liked for its connotations of subverting male power).

The Wings native British equivalent is AllBright. There are two in London, and there will be three in America by the end of the year. Like The Wing, it offers an additional service beyond somewhere stylish to socialise and work: self-help. At The Wing, recent events have covered self-sabotage, boundary-setting and how to be sober and social. At AllBright, group sessions have discussed impostor syndrome and how to overcome fear. Cognitive behavioural therapy and psychoanalysis are available by the hour. Mindless hedonism is off the menu.

For mixed company, people passionate about driving positive impact can join The Conduit in Mayfair, opened by a former chairman of Soho House, which claims to be a platform for catalysing and supporting new ideas and collective action. For eco-enthusiasts there is Arboretum in Covent Garden, a leafy idyll where people who care about the planet convene, create and collaborate. Its deli promises dishes free from dairy, refined sugars, additives and chemicals.

Other than the offer of cheap drinks by some traditional clubs to attract younger members, little has stirred in St Jamess. As a result, clubland is increasingly diverse. There are ever more clubs for a modern Marx to be rejected by, and even more reason to reject them.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "More woke than coke"

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