Daily Archives: July 27, 2021

Coon Island and Coon Point in the NSW Hunter region will be renamed Pirrita Island and Miners Pointafter a divisive community debate about what is and is not racist.

Pirrita is the local Awabakal Aboriginal word for oysters from the mangrove tree, while Miners Point is in recognition of the coal mining families who lived there between 1915 and 1974.

Lake Macquarie City Council last night voted in favour of the name change, in spite of a strong community backlash from people who wanted the Coon Island name preserved.

The locality got its name after Herbert Greta Heaney, nicknamed "Coon", who was the first person to live there in 1915.

It is widely thought he was given the moniker because he was a coal miner who would often return from work with black coal dust on his face.

Supplied: NSW Land Registry Services

Bahtabah Local Aboriginal Land Council acting chief executiveKentan Proctor said the name change was long overdue.

"Back in the day it was obviously a little bit different, but the Aboriginal community find the name Coon Island is quite racist, significantly racist, honestly," he said.

"It's quite a shame to have that in the community here, especially where my family is going to grow up. It's hurtful really."

A community consultation process by the council found 938 of the 2,120 respondents were supportive of a name change, but a majority of 1,182 were against it.

Supplied: Lake Macquarie City Council

On a Facebook group called "Save the Coon Island name. Cancel culture wants to change the name" many people vented their frustration at what they claimed was the erasure of local history, woke cancel culture and political correctness gone mad.

Mr Proctor said it was disappointing, but not surprising.

"They always talk about the history, but it (Coon Island) was only named that in the 40s," he said.

"We've been here for 60,000 years and we have a traditional name, so if you want to talk about history why can't we talk about ours?

"Once the issue came to light, I realised how prolific racism was in the community still, but ... at least that's shed some light on it and got the community talking, so that's a good point."

Supplied: Lake Macquarie Holiday Parks

At last night's council meeting, Councillor John Gilbert said the community discussion had also caused offence to non-Indigenous people.

"The people around here who call Coon Island, Coon Island or Coonie are not racist," he said.

"I think there's been a great deal of offence that they have felt ... by the fact that there's been grandstanding and publicity that has said this is a racist name and this is a racial slur.

"The people of this area are not racist, they do not see that as a racist name."

During the consultation process the descendants of Herbert Greta Heaney acknowledged the need for change and suggested the name Miners Point.

Supplied: Gordon Humphreys

The motion was put forward by Liberal Councillor Kevin Baker who said it represented a "coming together and a time to heal".

"We have rare occasions where we can stand as leaders within our community and support those where they are hurting," he said.

Supplied:Facebook

"We have the ability tonight to recognise our shared history, both the recent European history and the 60,000-plus years of Indigenous history."

The motion was supported by Kay Fraser (ALP), Christine Buckley (ALP), Brian Adamthwaite (ALP), Barney Langford (ALP), David Belcher (ALP), Adam Shultz (ALP) and Wendy Harrison (IND).

It was opposed by councillors John Gilbert (IND), Jason Pauling (LIB), Luke Cubis (IND), Colin Grigg (IND) and Nick Jones (LIB).

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Coon Island in Lake Macquarie to be renamed Pirrita Island - ABC News

WASHINGTONU.S. Senator John Boozman (R-AR), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, authored an opinion piece published in theWashington Examinerhitting President Bidens Land Swap Tax for the unintended and negative consequences it will have for family farms across the country.

Boozmans op-ed is availablehereand below.

Bidens land swap tax is another unfair hit to family farmers

bySen. John Boozman

Theres an old trick in Washington. If youre going to propose a controversial new spending program, give it a name everyone can get behind. Thats why its no surprise PresidentJoe Bidencalled his human infrastructure proposal the American Families Plan. Despite the proposals feel-good name, not all families benefit from what the president put forward. In fact, family farms come out on the losing end.

To pay for his plan, Biden has proposed a number of changes to the tax code dubbed the Made in America Tax Plan, including raising capital gains tax rates, eliminating stepped-up basis, and limiting the use of like-kind exchanges.

Section 1031 of the tax code allows taxpayers, including family farmers, to exchange property and defer the capital gains tax. Family farmers often use the 1031 exchange to invest the returns from the sale of farm assets into new farm assets of similar or greater value. This incentivizes family farmers to reinvest their assets into the rural communities where they live and work. Examples include exchanging a parcel of land for one that is closer to the family farm, consolidating plots, or reinvesting in more productive soils.

The president has proposed limiting access to Section 1031 to no more than $500,000, after which point, capital gains taxes would apply. This proposal effectively imposes a land swap tax. In many cases, it would require very few acres to trigger this tax. For example, in California, where the average cropland value was $12,900 per acre in 2020, it would take only 39 acres to reach Bidens land swap tax limit.

There are a number of unintended and negative consequences associated with imposing a land swap tax on family farmers.

Consider that a farmer seeking to exchange assets would need to put some of the proceeds aside to pay the land swap tax. As a result, the farmer would be faced with investing in farmland worth less than the land sold. The obvious consequence of this is the farmer would be less inclined to exchange farmland and reinvest in rural communities.

The other option is to swap the current land for new land of equal value but come up with the tax payment another way, such as a loan, dipping into savings, or selling other assets. Under this scenario, the farming operation may shift to land with equal or greater value, but the farmer must borrow more, deplete other assets, or both to pay Uncle Sam. This is another disincentive to exchange assets and reinvest in the community.

Land is a farmers 401(k). Farmers labor in the dirt and care for livestock for decades in the hopes of passing the farm down to the younger generation. The like-kind exchange permitted by Section 1031 has been a tool in the family farmers toolbox for more than 100 years. In my home state of Arkansas, its a particular point of pride for families to farm the same land as previous generations. Taking it away now would cause hardships for family farmers across the United States.

The land swap tax will dry up the farmland market, create barriers to entry for new or beginning farmers, and stunt agriculture business growth and reinvestment in much of rural America.

In recent years, Americas agricultural producers have faced unprecedented challenges, including trade wars, catastrophic natural disasters, and a global pandemic. Through it all, our family farmers and ranchers continued to feed, fuel, and clothe people around the world.

Biden now suggests we show our gratitude by asking them to shoulder the Made in America Tax Plan and pay for his $1.8 trillion liberal wish list. These tax increases need to be rejected so we can ensure that people continue to have the safest, most reliable, and most affordable supply of food, fiber, and renewable energy in the world.

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ICYMI: Sen. John Boozman in the Washington Examiner: Family Farms on Losing End of American Families Plan SWARK Today - SWARK Today

The triathlon was forced to begin at 6.30 am on Monday and Wednesday to avoid the scorching mid-day sun but that did not stop gold medal-winner Kristian Blummenfelt from vomiting with heat exhaustion as he collapsed over the finish line.

The typhoon is likely to bring temperatures down temporarily but the Japanese government faces rising public anxiety about mounting coronavirus infections.

Tokyo has now gone eight consecutive days with COVID-19 infections above 1000, adding 2848 on Tuesday, double Mondays figures and the highest ever, according to government figures.

Spectators, shut out from Olympic venues, have been lining up along streets to catch a glimpse of cyclists and triathletes, while restaurants and bars continue to flout alcohol and opening restrictions.

Tokyos Bureau of Social Welfare and Public Health said on Tuesday that people in their 20s and 30s accounted for more than half of the total cases. Vaccination doses in the country of 126 million has now reached 79.38 million people, most of whom are over 50.

The number of infected people has remained high and the infection is spreading, a spokeswoman said. The Olympic Games are happening every day but we ask you that you watch them at home and cheer for the athletes.

In the Olympic bubble, seven more Games personnel, including two athletes tested positive for the virus on Tuesday. The total number of infections connected to the Games has now passed 150.

Australian medical officer Jason Patchell chases an umbrella down Tsurigasaki beach in typhoon conditions on day four of the Tokyo Olympics surfing competition.Credit:Getty Images

The growing number of cases has created an ongoing political threat for Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga who had hoped the spectacle would unite the nation behind his government.

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Suga, who faces an election by October, recorded the worst approval rating in almost a decade of any Japanese prime minister. A Nikkei/TV Tokyo poll released on Monday found the 72-year-old had fallen 9 percentage points to 34 per cent since June.

The public dissatisfaction was mirrored across three of Japans other major media outlets, the Asahi Shimbun, NHK and Kyodo News.

Only one Japanese prime minister in the past two decades, Keizo Obuchi, has survived more than a year after recording such a low approval rating.

Sugas party, the Liberal Democratic Party, has been in power almost continuously since the 1950s but leaders have conventionally resigned when polling reaches below 40 per cent.

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Triple threat: Japan and its leader face tropical, COVID and political storms - Sydney Morning Herald

In The Shop, an auto shop squeaks by with help from the owners son, a recent college graduate who has returned from a faraway land (the Midwest), until, one day, an employee accidentally loses a car. The staffs efforts to recover it lack the requisite urgency. What is wrong with you boys? a local busybody asks. Shes less concerned about the missing car than about the generational decline it symbolizes: Not one Cambodian man since my husband, Doctor Heng, has become a doctor here in America, not even those born with citizenship! My generation came here with nothing. We escaped the Communists. So what are boys like you doing?

Immigrant stories often traffic in themes of sacrifice and intergenerational strife, where the past is meaningful only as an obligation, or a set of traumas, to be silently shouldered. But the children of Afterparties seeksomething different. As one young man tells his father, You gotta stop using the genocide to win arguments. It feels transgressive that Afterparties is so funny, so irreverent, concerning the previous generations tragedy. Trauma is on the edges of each story, an acknowledgment of why the adults are so messed up and why, in the wordsof one character, this place is sofucked. In the moment, though, the youth are too busy worrying about sex or college to give it much thought. Teen-agers ignore their parents history lessons and explain why its more important to comprehend the Singularity. They wield terms like the model minority myth to point out the false consciousness driving the adult worlds achievement-oriented dreams. And they look to one another, not their elders, for role models.

In Superking Son Scores Again!, the members of a high-school badminton team worship their coach, Superking Son, a nineties legend of their Cambo hood. Its rumored that he was so good in his prime that he could vanquish any challenger while eating a Big Mac with his free hand. His unorthodox, aphoristic coaching style results in their winning the local championship: The first time we called ourselves number one at anything.

To the rest of the world, though, Son is just the goddamn grocery-store boy. One day, a college-bound city kid named Justin, who seems too good for our team, our school, our community of Cambos, arrives. He doesnt understand why the teammates look up to their coach, and he delights in challenging his authority, leading practices in Sons absence and taking everyone out for fast food afterward. But Son seems more deeply affronted by the effortlessness of Justins existence than by the impertinence of his manner. Man, that dumbass kid doesnt know shit about working hard, Son explains. Which means he doesnt know shit about badminton, because badminton takes workreal work! His outburst confuses the students. Werent we supposed to aspire to the status of Justins family? Werent we supposed to attend college and become pharmacists? Wasnt that what our parents had been working for? Why our ancestors had freaking died?

So once remarked that he was raised on stories of genocide that would often, somehow, end on a joke. In his stories, the structure is inverted. His sentences are brusque and punchy, and theres an outrageous, slapstick quality to his scenes. But the stories often end on a haunting note, resonating with the broader consequences of leaving or staying. Son and Justin eventually settle their differences with an epic badminton session, and the teammates begin to recognize the tragically static contours of Sons life. What they fear, just as much as violence or poverty, is that they will inherit the passive, fatalistic relationship to the past that so many around them possess.

In Maly, Maly, Maly, two teen-age cousins, Ves and Maly, hang out and get stoned in the hours leading up to a party of sortsthe celebration of Malys deceased mothers spiritual rebirth in the body of their second cousins baby. Reincarnation might be a pillar of Cambodian Buddhist belief, Ves reflects, yet its all a bit ridiculous. He contemplates driving off to college right now, leaving behind my worthless possessions, my secondhand clothesall of it. I could finally start my life, with a blank slate. But hefeels responsible for Maly, whosemother took her own life after looking to the next day, and the day after that, only to see more suffering. Its not quite survivors guilt, like that experienced by their parents and grandparents. Still, Ves and Maly are outsiders who can see through the bullshit, and the thought of leaving her behind saddens him. As they sit together, blowing off her moms reincarnation with weed and porn, he tenderly imagines Malys future, wondering whether she will ever leave home and be reborn somewhere else.

Ted Ngoy, the real-life Donut King, burned through his fortune. A lavish home and jet-setting vacations werent enough for him. He became an avid gambler, imperilling both his family and his leaseholders. If the American Dream couldnt satisfy Ngoy, how could the steady, dutiful ethos of immigrant life be sufficient for the youth of Afterparties?

In Three Women of Chucks Donut, Tevy and Kayley wonder if their parents failed relationship offers any clues about what makes life meaningful. They discuss their estranged fathers explanation that Cambodians, upon leaving the Khmer Rouge concentration camps, sought to marry for skills, pairing up out of pragmatism, not love: He said marriage is like the show Survivor, where you make alliances in order to live longer. He thought Survivor was actually the most Khmer thing possible, and he would definitely win it, because the genocide was the best training he couldve got.

For other characters, the vision of a workable future involves a frictionless, tech-assisted grafting of old and new. In the story Human Development, a romantic Stanford graduate named Anthony teaches high school, a choice that differentiates him from his college buddies, all of whom dream about angel investors and seed capital. He meets Ben, a fellow Cambodian American, on a hookup app, and they begin dating. Ben is an entrepreneur who wants to create an almost utopian app that will let users find the safe space of like-minded people that they seek. On the side, Ben has perfected healthy versions of the fatty dishes from their homeland: One of my aspirations is to disrupt the Khmer food industry with organic modifications. Anthony begrudgingly loves Bens cooking, complimenting him in the only terms legible to the entrepreneur: Id pay twenty bucks for this.

Anthony is cool and guarded,whereas Ben seems a bit of a Silicon Valleybuffoon, propelled by a dream that technology might offer people a sense of fulfillment, even rush them to shore, secure everyone to land. Their unlikely relationship unfolds into something steady and comfortable. But never too comfortable: along with a sense of unease, Anthony totes around a copy of Moby-Dick, which hes thinking about assigning to his students the following year. He realizes that what ultimately turns him off about Ben is his fixation on efficiency and his obsession with solutions. Anthony wants a future that is as stupid and vast as the novel, maybe even as futile as Ahabs quest.

Earlier this year, the journal n+1 published Baby Yeah, a moving essay So wrote as a tribute to a friend who took his own life. When they were in graduate school together, So and his friend, who is described as a half Iraqi Chaldean poet, loved discussing Jos Muozs notion of queer futurity and listening to the indie-rock band Pavement, which also escaped Stockton. They wondered if they would do something meaningful and great, despite coming from ethnic backgrounds where that seemed impossible and, more important, impractical. Its one of the most discerning essays Ive ever read about friendship, and it contains a clue for understanding all of Sos work, as he swoons over Pavements ability to make music that was simultaneously jaded yet big-hearted, doubtful yet sentimental, qualities he couldnt find in literature.

Yet even his fascination with this band, with which he has little in common, is tinged with reminders of his own alterity. He realizes that one of Pavements best songs, Box Elder, was recorded in Stockton on January17, 1989. That very day, probably no more than a few miles away, a deranged white man, aggrieved by the growing numbers of Cambodian and Vietnamese people in the city, entered Cleveland Elementary School and began firing. He killed five schoolchildren, all of them Southeast Asian, and wounded thirty-two others. It was the most fatal school shooting of the eighties and remains among the nations most horrific incidents of targeted anti-Asian violence. Sos mother was a bilingual aide at the school that year.

Afterparties is a collection of short stories, yet names and settings recur, offering a sense of how intimate the characters world can feel. Nearly all the protagonists of Afterparties resemble one another, the jaded yet big-hearted young men and women who yearn for history to take them beyond the Central Valley. The references to reincarnation give the book a cyclical feel, as though new bodies are always returning to old scars, hoping to figure out where they came from.

The swaggering idealism and bitter humor found throughout Afterparties are what make the more sombre final story, Generational Differences, utterly devastating. It is told from the perspective of a Cambodian woman who, like Sos mother, worked at Cleveland Elementary. She is setting down an account of her life for her son, and has reached the last section, about the day of the mass shooting, which she witnessed from inside a classroom. Its a strange conceit for a story, and she is impossibly composed and lyrical as she tells him about the shooter, who had acted to defend his home, his dreams, against the threat of us, a horde of refugees, who had come here because we had no other dreams left.

Writing literature is one way that immigrants humanize themselves to their uncomprehending hosts, but in Generational Differences So refuses to appeal to a readers liberal sympathies. The mother recounts the day she told her then nine-year-old son about the shooting, and how he asked her to show him the classroom where shed hidden, so he could make sure it would be safe if another attacker came. She took him to the school, where they ran into a white colleague of his mothers, whose Blond hair appeared combative, as if forcing me to register its abundance. The white woman, seeing the boy, began crying over the memories of dead children and the senselessness of it all. His mother was incensed. I wanted her to stop filtering the world through her own tears, she later writes to her son. I almost slapped her.

As the mother completes her narrative, she urges her son to resist the temptation, when he grows older, to gather the raw materials of their American lives and twine them into a coherent story. When you think about my history, I dont need you to see everything at once, she writes. I dont need you to recall the details of those tragedies that were dropped into my world. Shes not saying that the stories are insignificant, or that they paint the community in a harsh light. Her point is that its an impossible task, and she wants to free him from the obligation of pursuing it: Honestly, you dont even have to try. What is nuance in the face of all that weve experienced? But for me, your mother, just remember that, for better or worse, we can be described as survivors. Okay? Know that weve always kept on living. What else could we have done?

Read more:

Anthony Veasna So Takes On Trauma, but Doesnt Leave Out the Jokes - The New Yorker

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Would India be a secular democracy if its religious demography was any different? Well, one just needs to look around for an answer. Samuel Huntington, in his final book, Who Are We?, had raised a similar question. He asked, Would America be the America it is today if in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it had been settled not by British Protestants but by French, Spanish, or Portuguese Catholics? The answer is no. It would not be America; it would be Quebec,Mexico, or Brazil. Anglo-Protestant culture, as shaped by the Protestant ethic of hard work, was at the core of American culture. Similarly, what we know as Indian secularism religious coexistence and non-discrimination is an Indian, read Hindu, civilisational feature, which might not have existed if India had experienced a more profound rupture in its history and culture during the medieval period.

Every country is sacred to its people irrespective of where they go on pilgrimage. That the Buddhists of the world have their place of pilgrimage in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, and Christians in Jerusalem, doesnt diminish their reverence for their respective lands. Neither the holiness of Mecca does it for an Iranian or a Turk or a Pakistani with regard to their own countries. In fact, the word Pakistan is the exact Persian rendition of Punya Bhoomi, an appellation which, if used for India, makes many Indian Muslims flinch. A peoples relation with their countrycant just be political. Constitutional rights are anchored in history and culture. One could have a transactional relation with their government, but with the country it has to be an emotional one. Muslims have their place in India as Indians, not as a subset of the global ummah.

Also read: Indian Muslims have come to terms with Hindutva. They are now looking for survival strategies

Much like a corollary of what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his convocation address to AMU last December, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat has recently made a statement about Muslims and their place in India, which is being artfully construed as a major departure from the Sangh ideology. Bhagwat said that Muslims have had the same DNA as the Hindus for 40,000 years, therefore they do not become a different people merely because of subscribing to another mode of worship. He went on to add that the thought of Hindus dominating the Muslims to settle old scores was preposterous in the democratic age. He quipped that the talk of Hindu-Muslim unity was redundant since there was no real difference between the two. Furthermore, he condemned the lynching of Muslims, calling it against Hindutva, and urged Muslims not to get trapped in fear regarding their status in India.

Even thoughBhagwatmight not have said anything that the RSS has not always maintained and many sceptics have been quick in dissing it as disingenuous platitude there has been a veritable stampede among the Muslim narrative makers to welcome his speech as a harbinger of an ideological shift in the Hindutva ideology. Much of the import of Bhagwats statement would consist in how these wise menare going to respond not react to his idea of Indian nation premised on common origin and shared history and culture irrespective of religious affiliation. A contrived effusion for the statement without internalising its inner logic, and forcing into it such meanings as were not intended, may attract the obloquy of opportunism.

Bhagwats asseveration touch upon three main issues relating to Muslims: 1) nationality/identity; 2) fear of domination; and 3) targeted violence such as lynching.

Also read: Indian liberals have no strategy to counter RSS own brand of Hindutva constitutionalism

Bhagwat substituted Muslims narrow communal identity with the broader national one by poetically tracing a common lineage with Hindus over four millennia. One could hear an echo of Sir Syed Ahmad Khans famous averment, For centuries we have been living in the same land, eating the produce of the same land, and drinking the water of the same rivers, breathing for life air of the same land.Hence, there is no alienation between Muslims and Hindus. As the people of the Aryan race are called the Hindus, similarly Muslims may also be called Hindus, i.e., those who live in India.

That considered, why would one belabour this point if this idyllic vision corresponded with reality? Islam came to India less as a faith and a way of worship that is way of apprehending and accessing the divine and more as a cultural package with the entitlement to sovereignty. Its imperial theology wouldnt countenance any assimilation with the local culture, and would nurture a disdain for things organic to this soil. Little wonder that the idea of assimilation remains the bte noire of identity politics. Bidat theology posited Islams purity in its insularity from the Indian influences, which continue to be considered contemptible and contaminating. Moreover, the ruling class derived their authority from foreign origin, and most of the high castes among the Muslims are the descendants of the foreign invaders, and most of the low castes are of indigenous origin.

Identity politics, which is the repackaging of two-nation theory, is underpinned by a theological reasoning that deracinates the converts, denigrates their history, and makes them despise their culture. They are made to assume a new identity, adopt fictive ancestors, and relate to a foreign history and culture. Such de-nationalisation of the convert is a concern to be addressed by a corrective theological reinterpretation as the Quranic locus of identity is lineage and nation, not religion (49:13).

The Indian experience of conversion has been unique. In no other country, change of religion created a dilemma about ones national identity. An Arab remained an Arab, an Iranian an Iranian and a Turk a Turk upon conversion to Islam. Their religious identity has been a subset of their national identity. It was only in India that a conflict between ones national and religious identities was conceived, and an egregious problematic of whether one was first an Indian or a Muslim was formulated. This issue is above any expedient ambivalence and needs a resounding resolution.

Also read: Hindutva to Sachar report What Syed Ahmad Khan would have done today

Another point in Bhagwats statement has been the dismissal of delusion that one community could subjugate another in a democracy. This pooh-poohing might have assuaged Sir Syeds fear of domination of one community by another as inevitable. His apprehension of democracy stemmed from the fear of domination of Muslims by Hindus. But, for the supremacist urge to be neutralised, the disintegrating dynamics of identity politics which goes on splintering groups into ever smaller entities would have to be checked, as democracy is worked by individual citizens, not religious groups.

Francis Fukuyama, in his recent book, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, invokes the concept of Thymos to argue that liberal democracy has not fully solved the problem of identity. Thymos is a Socratic concept adumbrated in Dialogues of Plato. It is that part of the soul that craves recognition of dignity. Isothymia is the demand to be respected on an equal basis with other people; while Megalothymia is the desire to be recognised as superior. Isothymia can easily slide into Megalothymia if a group agonises over the lack of recognition to which it feels entitled. Thus, identity politics, both majoritarian and minoritarian, is a veritable minefield because identity, unlike economic interests, is non-negotiable.

Bhagwat addressed an urgent concern of the Muslims when he condemned lynching as anti-Hindutva. Dj vu. We have heard that terrorism is anti-Islam too. Proof of the pudding is in eating.

The Muslim intelligentsia and soi-disant leaders, even as they vie with one another in welcoming the RSS chiefs statement, would give a better account of themselves if the narrative they promote had the integrity to engage with its underlying presumptions.

The author is an IPS officer. He tweets @najmul_hoda. Views are personal.

(Edited by Prashant Dixit)

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Shes going to be long remembered as the leader who faced the largest amount of personal abuse, attacks and mud-slinging from her own party

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Green Party of Canada Leader Annamie Paul will never win a federal election and form a government. You can bet the farmhouse, and every acre of land associated with it, on that. But shes going to be long remembered in our countrys political history as the leader who faced the largest amount of personal abuse, attacks and mud-slinging from her own party.

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Over the past month and a half, Paul has faced the repeated threat of a leadership review and non-confidence vote. She has withstood a backlash over policy issues, most notably on Israel and the Middle East, which led to one vocal MP, Jenica Atwin, abandoning ship and joining the Liberals. Pauls senior advisor, Noah Zatzman, who spoke out against anti-semitism in the party, was removed and the party attempted to force Paul to apologize for his statement.

Former leader Elizabeth May defended her party, and offered a cryptic and flimsy defence of its current leader. Funding for Pauls impending campaign in the riding of Toronto Centre was cut. And the Greens, along with the Green Party Fund, filed a legal application against the arbitrator who shut down a non-confidence vote against her.

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Theres more, but you get the point.

Ive been involved in politics and the media a long time, and have never seen anything quite like this before. The old battles between the Reform party and the Progressive Conservatives, as well as the public spats between the camps of former Liberal prime ministers Jean Chrtien and Paul Martin, didnt even come close to the level of animosity seen within the Green party.

The brouhaha with the Democratic Representative Caucus a group of dissident Canadian Alliance MPs who rebelled against their leader in 2001 and ended up forming a coalition with the PCs had shades of the Paul-Greens war, but was not on the same level.

The Waffle movements attempt to take control of the NDP in the early 1970s, which was later replicated by the partys socialist caucus, seem like childs play today. Conflicts that have erupted between other third parties, including the historical break between the Communists and Marxist-Leninists, were tamer, too.

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Who would have believed the informal title of most divisive political entity in Canadian history would be awarded to a small, hippy-dippy environmental party with two MPs and an unelected leader?

And whats been Pauls reaction to this political coup dtat (of sorts)? Remarkably tepid, all things considered.

Paul acknowledged that, This experience has been incredibly painful for me and for my family, during her July 19 press conference. She went as far to call it a one-sided campaign against her. Yet she has refused on multiple occasions to answer questions about the nameless perpetrators of the campaign and what they actually perpetrated and emphasized on July 23 that she wouldnt be distracted by this small group of dissenters.

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But why is Paul putting up with this disgraceful behaviour from the party shes supposed to be the leader of? Many Green executive council members, donors and party faithful clearly oppose her leadership. Pauls opponents dont appear to have enough support to force her out, but the level of opposition provides serious obstacles and makes it nearly impossible for Paul to lead an effective election campaign.

While there have been calls for a temporary detente between the warring factions, when a significant number of people within your own ranks want to clip your political wings at the first available opportunity, theres simply no way to be an effective leader. Paul appears hopeful that the turnover of a new Green executive council on Aug. 19 will improve her political fortunes. This could end up being wishful thinking on her part.

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So, why is Paul still there? While only Paul knows her true motivations, it is likely that she believes her unique standing as Canadas first Black and Jewish party leader will ultimately help her overcome this internal strife. She may believe that public sympathy for her political plight will help her defeat her opponents in some ridings and elect her allies in others. She may feel that a solid election result will help quell the discontented Green masses and reform the party as a whole.

Or, it may not be in her nature to accept defeat, no matter the cost. Most politicians that Ive known would have already called it a day. It wouldnt have been perceived as a sign of weakness to abandon a rapidly sinking political ship.

Paul could even have used this attempted coup to her political advantage by seeking a senior role within in the Liberals or NDP. Times ticking, Annamie Paul. Choose your political destiny wisely.

National Post

Michael Taube, a columnist for Troy Media and Loonie Politics, was a speechwriter for former prime minister Stephen Harper.

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Michael Taube: Why is Annamie Paul still putting up with the Green party? - National Post

Michael Stephens| Guest columnist

A few years back, I drove a friend around Gainesville in an effort to help him find a place to live. He survived on a disability check so small he had tosearch his mailbox with a magnifying glass, so we limited ourselves to the cheapest prospects. One of the last was a ragged trailer park on the east side.

Unable to find the office, we bumped down washed-out alleys, looking for residents to ask about rent. Atlastwe met an elderly couple outsidetheircrumblingsingle-wide.

The man sat in a wheelchair. They told us the park was closing. It had been sold, and was to be demolished. They did not knowwhere they were going to go.

My friend ended up at a homeless camp before finding a room he could barely afford.

Polk's Gainesville city directory for 1980 lists 23 mobile home parks. There were still20in 1992, and some had expanded.

Windmeadows, perhapsthe largest, is listed as having 332 lots. Today its site is home to an extension of the soul-blighting Butler Plaza shopping complex.

Most of the smaller parks have vanished as well. Indian Summer, Hillcrest, Ideal, Moore Haven: All have gone the way of so many Florida trailer parks.

What became of their residents is seldom recorded.

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The total number oftrailerlots across Florida is in a slow decline. With Florida's population explosion, that makes spaces in trailer parks increasinglyhard to come by, and drives prices up. Furthermore, the small, humble parks that tend to shelter the working poor have suffered the most closures.

In some parks, residents rent trailers directly from the park owners. In others, the newcomer buys a trailer or moves one in, and pays rent only forthe lot on which the trailer stands. Either way, with fewer lots to go around, it's increasingly a game of musical trailers.

As free-market affordable housing, trailer parks would seem to be ideal for Florida. They were at one time. But as Florida has grown richer for some,and crowded for all, they have been pushed aside.

Today, Floridians who live in trailer parks have few political friends. Most have no money to donate to campaigns, and their homes are increasingly inthe way of well-connected developers.

For big-business Republicans, trailer parks' fates are purely economic: land values and rent potential. They don't care where the residents gothe poorare unwisely written off as voters simply because they are poorbut they slobber over the vision of a shopping center or professional sports stadiumrising on the land vacated by a financially inefficient trailer park.

The hostility of many liberal Democrats is more complex. The parks harbor what are to them the most inexplicable people: working-class Republicans,with their MAGA hats and battered pickup trucks. Trailer parks are citadels of individualism that defy liberals' desire to regiment and manage the poor.

With their hard-maintained independence, trailer-dwellers seldom make servile followers of any political creed.

Sowhat changes can help Florida's trailer parks and their residents, assuming anyone in government will work on their behalf? Less restrictivezoning wouldmake establishing new parks easier. With their light infrastructure, trailer parks have far less environmental impact than subdivisions or apartmentbuildings, and the land can be more easily repurposed if demand changes.

Successful cooperative associations (tenant-owned trailer parks) in Florida have lowered residents' costs while giving them security against beingevicted for redevelopment. Providing tax incentives would help new cooperative associations rehabilitate neglected trailer parks. Moderating codes ininland locations would allow owner-occupiers to bring in older trailers that may not quite meet the stringent codes required of commercial trailer parks.

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Traileritesmight also do well to make common cause with the similarly disparaged tiny-house movement. Between them, they could develop enoughlobbying power to win "small" victories. And parks combining hipsters in their tiny houses and blue-collar squares in their trailers would be better able tocircle the wagons (so to speak) against the forces of upper-middle-class respectability.

The age of Florida's freewheeling "tin-can tourist camps" may be long over, but Florida's need for affordable housing has never been greater. Floridiansof the past had the right idea when they set up trailer communities that emphasized both affordability and freedom.

Trailer parks are not perfect, but they can help the most economically vulnerable Floridians avoid homelessness. At their best, they offer people oflimited means a little slice of the Florida dream.

Michael Stephens lives in Gainesville.

Send a letter to the editor (up to 200 words) to letters@gainesville.com. Letters must include the writer's full name and city of residence. Additional guidelines for submitting letters and longer guest columns can be found at bit.ly/sunopinionguidelines.

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Where have all the trailers gone? - Gainesville Sun

I have bad news about the company that makes some of your favorite products.

Its called Unilever, but you know it by what it sells brands like Hellmanns mayo, Lipton tea, Popsicles and Dove soap.

Oh and Ben & Jerrys.

That one just made headlines.

Unilever announced it was no longer selling the ice cream in Israels West Bank settlements.

Now heres the bad news about the Hellmanns/Lipton/Popsicles/Dove company.

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Despite that self-righteous boycott over supposed morals, Unilever is in favor of funding global terrorism.

And mass murder of civilians.

At least thats the message theyre giving by despite the Israel move continuing to sell in Iran. Yes, Iran.

Oh, and Syria, too.

In the last decade, the Syrian regime has killed over 400,000 people to crush opposition.

And Iran, of course, is known as one of the worst state terrorism sponsors, even funding groups that killed U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

Apparently, Unilever is fine with that.

But if the Jews build settlements in disputed land boycott time.

Normally, Id have no problemwith Unilever doing business in places like Iran and Syria. Its called free-market capitalism. Like countless global firms that sell in such countries, theyre neutrally providing products for the people there.

But their Ben & Jerrys boycott changed all that.

More: Israeli leaders are asking states to sanction Ben & Jerry's after Palestinian boycott

Heres their statement: We believe it is inconsistent with our values for Ben & Jerrys ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

That put the company on record saying their markets reflect their principles. And that they wont sell where they disapprove of policies.

Which means they clearly approve of the mass-murder policies of Syrias leader, Bashar al-Assad.

And also the policies of Iran, which Amnesty International says crushes protests, tortures dissenters, oppresses womenand funds terror.

Unilever sells in China, too, which, again, would normally be fine thats certainly a critical market for American companies.

Patinkin: Bristol cop served with pride in Afghanistan, but agrees it's time to leave

But since Unilever says it should be judged by where it sells, that means its a fan of communist tyranny, repression of political opponents and the ethnic cleansing of the Uyghurs.

Unilever must like the dictator in its El Salvador market, too, as well as the corrupt rulers of Venezuela and Lebanon, where political incompetence has caused economic disaster.

But the owner of Ben & Jerry's wont stand for what Israels doing.

Unilever claims its beef is just with the settlements that it's still selling Ben & Jerrys in Israel itself. Except they wont renew the license of the factory that makes the ice cream in Israel. So the target country is clear.

Patinkin: Is the outrage at Israel selective?

Lets call it what it is blatant BDS, which stands for boycott, divestment and sanctions, the pernicious campaign to delegitimize Israel. Thats the real danger of Unilevers Ben & Jerrys move its a global dog whistle to jump on the anti-Israel train.

Its a go get 'em to Israel haters, especially to liberal campus activists whove jumped on the boycott issue to signal their virtue. Look at us, look at us were standing up against apartheid Israel.

Sure you are.

And embracing Hamas, which murders political opponents, represses womenand uses kids as human shields, and God help you if youre gay in Gaza.

More: Mandy and Mark Patinkin discover family's terrible fate during Holocaust

And as far as the apartheid label, well, almost 2 million Arabs are Israeli citizens, whereas 800,000 Jews were ethnically cleansed from Arab countries, but I guess thats OK.

Also, a fifth of Israeli doctors are Arab, and its Parliament has a dozen Arab reps, who were key in recently bringing in a new prime minister.

Yeah, thats apartheid all right.

One reason Unilever spinelessly caved was because of pressure from boycott backers on social media. Except that Twitter, Facebook and TikTok all have offices in Israel, but, hypocriticially, the campus Israel-haters arent dropping off those in protest. I guess their principles dont apply if it means they could no longer post vain selfies and giggle at memes.

More: Ben & Jerry's plans to end ice cream sales in Occupied Palestinian Territory

I sent a journalists inquiry days ago to Unilevers media people asking why theyre boycotting Israeli settlements but not Iran and Syria. I havent heard back. Shocker.

But Ive seen the company insist disingenuously, like other boycotters that theyre not antisemitic; its just about policy.

Oh, got it.

Lets see Unilever feels its OK for Iran to fund terror.

For Syria to commit mass murder.

For China, El Salvador and Venezuela to have repressive dictatorships.

For Yemen, where Unilever also sells, to commit war crimes.

And OK for human rights violations in other company markets like Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and more.

But if the Jews build settlements on disputed land, theyre the only country in the world singled out for boycott.

If thats not antisemitism, Unilever, I dont know what is.

mpatinki@providencejournal.com

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Opinion/Patinkin: Ben & Jerry's boycott targets Israel, but Iran and Syria are OK? - The Providence Journal

TheSocial Democratic LiberalParty (SODELPA) is demandingthe Government withdrawthe iTaukei Land Trust (BudgetAmendment) Act 1940 that wasannounced during the 2021-2022 National Budget announcementlast Friday.

In a statement, SODELPAleader Viliame Gavoka called theamendment an act of bad faithand called on the Prime Ministerpersonally to see to its withdrawalas chairman of the TLTBand guardian of the landownersinterest.

He cannot sit undisturbedin this move by his Attorney-General towater down indigenousrights on his watch asboth the Prime Ministerand chairman of TLTB.

He said the proposedlaw would be tabled as aconsequential Bill to the2021-2022 National Budgetand the FijiFirst Governmentwanted it to be debatedin less than an hourof parliamentary time.

Mr Gavokasaid the Bill would affect Section12 of the iTaukei Land Trust Act1940, which required theconsent of the iTaukei LandTrust Board (TLTB) for anydealings related with thelease given to tenants.

What the FijiFirstGovernment is doing isintroducing a new subsection(1A) which will amendthe law consequentially notrequiring the consent ofthe board for any mortgage,charge, pledge, caveat or forany such lease to be dealtwith by any court of law or underthe process of any court of law,he said.

The new subsection three furtherreduces TLTBs discretion orthe landowners rights, interests,and wishes.

Basically once the tenants takethe lease, then, so long as the tenantis not in breach of any law, thetenant can effectively do most, ifnot all, the things that a commerciallessee and indeed a non-commerciallessee wishes without havingto consider, through TLTBsdiscretion, any rights, interests,or wishes of the landowners, headded.

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The Fiji Times Amendment an 'act of bad faith' - Fiji Times