Daily Archives: August 6, 2021

Also, as a driver and a business owner along Route 66, I have noticed that all of a sudden most people are driving the speed limit instead of the previous 40 mph to 50 mph norm.

Business owners are enjoying parking in front of their businesses now, an option that didnt exist before.

Do I want people to slow down and look around and see my business and allow school children and other pedestrians to cross the road safely? Yes.

Do we have to pay more attention when we drive now? Yes.

Is the road safer now? Definitely so!

Do the stop lights need some tweaking along the way to lessen congestion? Yes.

Are the bike lanes being used? Yes, more and more every day.

There are a lot more vehicles than just automobiles utilizing our streets, and nowadays a lot more families are walking, riding their bikes or riding scooters on those streets.

I thank the city of Tulsa for the revamping of Route 66.

Oklahomans need the programs in the Biden administrations $3.5 trillion budget bill expanding Medicare, Medicaid, public education, preschool education, child care, parental leave and elder care and modernizing our aging and failing electrical grid and overdue poverty-relief programs.

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Letters to the Editor | | tulsaworld.com - Tulsa World

Paul Giamatti and Dustin Hoffman star in festival flashback at Fisher Theatre

Sedona AZ (August 5, 2021) The Sedona International Film Festival is proud to present a Festival Flashback of Barneys Version on Tuesday, Aug. 17 at 4 and 7 p.m. at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre.

Barneys Version features an award-winning ensemble cast, including Paul Giamatti, Dustin Hoffman, Rosamund Pike, Minnie Driver, Rachelle Lefevre and Bruce Greenwood. Giamatti won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Comedy, and the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Makeup.

Based on Mordecai Richlers award winning novel his last and, arguably, best Barneys Version is the warm, wise and witty story of the politically incorrect life of Barney Panofsky (Paul Giamatti), who meets the love of his life (Rosamund Pike) at his wedding and she is not the bride.

First he got married. Then he got married again. Then he met the love of his life.

Based on Mordecai Richlers award winning novel his last and, arguably, best Barneys Version is the warm, wise and witty story of the politically incorrect life of Barney Panofsky (Paul Giamatti), who meets the love of his life (Rosamund Pike) at his wedding and she is not the bride.

A candid confessional, told from Barneys point of view, the film spans three decades and two continents, taking us through the different acts of his unusual history. There is his first wife, Clara (Rachelle Lefevre), a flame-haired, flagrantly unfaithful free spirit with whom Barney briefly lives la vie de Boheme in Rome.

The Second Mrs. P. (Minnie Driver), is a wealthy Jewish Princess who shops and talks incessantly, barely noticing that Barney is not listening. And it is at their lavish wedding that Barney meets, and starts pursuing, Miriam (Rosamund Pike), his third wife, the mother of his two children, and his true love.

With his father, Izzy (Dustin Hoffman) as his sidekick, Barney takes us through the many highs, and a few too many lows, of his long and colorful life. Not only does Barney turn out to be a true romantic, he is also capable of all kinds of sneaky acts of gallantry, generosity, and goodness when we and he least expect it.

His is a gloriously full life, played out on a grand scale. And, at its center stands an unlikely hero the unforgettable Barney Panofsky.

Barneys Version will be shown at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre on Tuesday, Aug. 17 at 4 and 7 p.m. Tickets are $12, or $9 for Film Festival members. For tickets and more information, please call 928-282-1177. Both the theatre and film festival office are located at 2030 W. Hwy. 89A, in West Sedona. For more information, visit:www.SedonaFilmFestival.org.

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Sedona Film Festival presents encore of 'Barney's Version' Aug. 17 | Sedona.Biz - The Internet Voice of Sedona and The Verde Valley - Sedona.biz

By Steve Greene

The most outrageous claim Jesus ever made the most politically incorrect claim of all was when he said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to the father except through me. (John 14:6)

Jesus statement strikes at the heart of three significant myths about religion. Maybe these are myths you have heard or maybe they are myths you believe right now. We will take a look at each one.

The first myth says all religions are basically the same. Perhaps you have heard people say they believe all religions lead to the same destination.

Many people believe even though there may be surface-level distinctions between the various world religions, if you strip them all down to their essentials, at their core, they all fundamentally teach the same thing, so it really doesnt matter which one you choose to follow.

While there is some common ground between many of the worlds religions, particularly concerning certain basic values and morality, there are significant differences we dare not overlook.

In fact, with this one outlandish claim, Jesus boldly placed Christianity in a class all its own. If the path to God is through Jesus Christ, then Christianity cannot be reconciled with any other religion.

The uniqueness of Christianity is rooted in the uniqueness of Jesus himself.

Someone once noted other religious leaders say, Follow me and Ill show you how to find truth, but Jesus says, I am the truth. Other religious leaders say, Follow me and Ill show you the way to salvation, but Jesus says, I am the way to salvation and eternal life.

Other religious leaders have said, Follow me and Ill show you how to become enlightened, but Jesus said, I am the light of the world. Other religious leaders have said, Follow me and Ill show you many doors that lead to God, but Jesus says, I am the door, so follow me. Do you see the difference?

For a long time, people have tried to harmonize the various religions of the world, but there are drastic and irreconcilable differences between Christianity and every other belief system. They cant all be true because of their conflicting claims.

Most religions are based on people doing something to somehow earn the favor of God. Theres always something to say, do, give, give up or pray in an attempt to reach God.

But Christianity teaches that Jesus Christ is God reaching out to us. And that makes all the difference.

Steve Greene is the lead pastor of The Point in Seymour. Read his blog at pastorgreene.wordpress.com or email him at steve@gotothepoint.com. Send comments to awoods@tribtown.com.

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Column: Jesus' statement strikes at the heart of three myths - Seymour Tribune

SAN ANGELO One after one, Republican legislators, industry leaders,and other elected and appointed officialsexpressed their opinions on policy matters affecting the Lone Star State duringthe17th annual West Texas Legislative Summit.

The summit is hosted by the San Angelo Chamber of Commerce, along with honorary co-hosts Congressman August Pfluger, Texas Senator Charles Perryand Texas Representative Drew Darby.

A full day of topic-driven panel discussions took place for roughly eight hours Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2021, at Angelo State Universitys Houston Harte University Center.

About 400 people were in attendance to listen as several Republican leaders spokeabout policy and politics from West Texas to Washington D.C.

This year's focus was titled "Beyond COVID-19" with panel topics that touched on education, infrastructure, agriculture, energy andtransportation, as well as borders and ports.

The summit featured a who's who in Texas politics with speakers that included former United States Navy Seal and current U.S. Congressman Dan Crenshaw, a member of the Energy & Commerce Committee; Congressman Kevin Brady, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee; Commissioner Mike Morath with the Texas Education Agency; Commissioner Emily Lindley with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality;John Osborne, Chairman of the Ports-to-Plains Alliance;and Commissioner Christi Craddick, Chairman of the Railroad Commission of Texas.

Moderators throughout the day asked a barrage of questions to speakers on how COVID-19 had impacted life in Texas.

Congressman Chip Roy, a member of the Judiciary and Veterans Affairs Committee, opined how the coronavirus may have negatively affected children during a panel titled "Reimagining Education By Reshaping for the Future."

"We did a disservice to our children across this nation, running in fear and cowering in the cornerand masking them up," Roy said. "We're going to be watching what happens from a mental health perspective for years to come, and I think we ought to keep that perspective as people call for more shutdowns."

In the same panel, TEA Commissioner Mike Morath said there was "an unprecedented infusion of federal resources into public education" as the virus raged across the country.

Morath said it led to school districts across Texas spending large sums of money to find ways ofeducating children during the pandemic.

"We spent a billion dollars in the past15 months ensuring every kid in Texas had a laptop, iPador Chromebook," Morath said.

SUBSCRIBER CONTENT: No more textbooks? San Angelo ISD students to receive iPads; here's who gets them first

Additional investments Morath cited that Texas school districts made included support for better internet access, rapid COVID tests, and new ventilation systems.

Like Roy, Morath said the response to the pandemic could have long-lasting effects onTexas children.

"We saw the largest academic decline in terms of student outcomes," Morath said. "Depending on how you look at it, it wiped out somewhere between 10 and 25 years worth of academic gains in the state of Texas."

Morath said Texas school districts would likely experiment with longer school years and specialized tutoring programs to accelerate learning and bring those gains back.

Throughout the day, many Republican and Conservative-leaning panelists lambasted Democrats andthe Biden Administration, as well as left-wing policies like the Green New Deal and critical race theory both of which have become political lightning rods.

"I'm going to be 'politically incorrect' for a moment," said Congressman Randy Weber, a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, during a panel on energy management. "No CRT," and paused a moment for the applause to die down.

"Let's teach our kids that America is worth fighting for. It is the greatest country in the world for a reason," Weber said.

In May, Weber co-sponsored a bill (H.R.3046) that was introduced to prohibit federal funds from providing training and education based on critical race theory at United States military academies.

In the same energy panel, Congressman Dan Crenshaw criticized alternative energy sources, stating that Democrat plans to invest in wind and solar energy were too unrealistic at the present time.

Both he and fellow panelist Congressman Kevin Bradyadvocated for Texas petroleum, stating that solutions to climate change would likely come from the oil and gas industries.

Keynote speaker Congressman August Pfluger took several direct shots at the Biden Administration during a lunchtime address, saying the President "didn't understand rural America," nor appreciate what rural America had to offer.

"The Biden Administration not appreciating rural America is personally offensive to me," Pfluger said.

Pfluger championed conservative ideas being expressed by other panelists. During his closing remarks at the end of the summit, Pfluger stated it would be Texas thatwould "lead the country out of the mess" left by the Biden Administration.

Others are reading: Former San Angelo Central receiver Jalen Leifeste to play football for NAIA team

John Tufts covers enterprise and investigative topics in West Texas. Send him a news tip atJTufts@Gannett.com.

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Conservative policies and ideas discussed at 17th annual West Texas Legislative Summit - Standard-Times

Please dont make the Olympics into the Oscars, Bill Maher pleaded in his show-ending New Rules monologue in tonights return of Real Time to HBO after a months break.

Last April, as he reminded the audience, he said the theme of this years Oscar show was, We dare you to be entertained. Its producers, he griped, seemed determined not to let the audience forget for a moment the injustices and deficiencies of the human condition.

The Tokyo Summer Games, in Mahers view, have outdone Hollywood. He reeled off a series of instances where officials and creative staffers faced consequences over decades-old behavior. In one case, the opening ceremonys musical director was ousted over a 1994 interview in which he admitted to bullying fellow students when he was a child in school. Remember when your teacher used to try to scare you, theyd say, You know, this is going to go down on your permanent record,' he said. No longer an empty threat now.

He also ridiculed media coverage of surfing becoming an Olympic sport in Tokyo. The Associated Press not exactly some lefty activist outlet wrote that having surfing in the Games exacerbates cultural appropriation and racial indignities. Thats because non-Hawaiians have popularized and mainstreamed a sport with deep spiritual and communal meaning for its original participants. The articles headline described the competition as a whitewashed event.

While jokes still flowed and the early moments of the segment seemed fluid enough, Mahers tone was pointed and his points more urgently made than in most weeks. (It could have been the hosts new glasses, which he broke out at the opening minutes of the show, calling them a permanent new accessory. In something of a teaser for the New Rules segment, he quipped, They have progressive lenses. When I put them on, all I see is white privilege.)

This is called a purge, Maher said of the climate in the U.S. and increasingly elsewhere. Its a mentality that belongs in Stalins Russia. How bad does this atmosphere we are living in have to get before people who say cancel culture is overblown have to admit that it is, in fact, an insanity that is swallowing up the world.

As to charges that his stance means he has moved farther to the political right (a place on the spectrum given to reflexively denouncing cancel culture), Maher said, My politics have not changed, but I am reacting to politics that have.

The news coming out of the Olympics, he continued, yet another example of how the woke invert the very thing that used to make liberals liberals. Snitches and bitches: Thats not being liberal.

Maher admitted that most of human history is a horror story, but said the notion of keeping cultures and communities in silos interferes with one of the main positives in life. The good parts are groups coming together and sharing. Its sort of the whole point of the Olympics, he jabbed.

Even the Olympic Games concept itself, he pointed out, was adapted from the Greeks. He rattled off sports and their places of origin, including badminton in India, tennis in France taekwondo in Korea. What is this new rule that the first to do something are the only ones who get to have it?! he wondered.

He closed with a condemnation of the hypervigilance about cultural appropriation, though he said there are legitimate cases of it. Stealing natural resources from indigenous people yes, of course, thats exploitation, he said.

At the same time, he insisted, Not everything is about oppression.

Cultural exchange can work in other directions, too, he maintained. K-pop bands like BTS became popular in the U.S. by making pop music that is catchy to Western ears, not by playing traditional Korean songs in the style of their ancestors.

We live in a world where straight actors are told they cant play gay roles and a white novelists arent allowed to imagine what its like to be a Mexican immigrant, Maher said. Even though trying to inhabit the life of someone else is almost the definition of empathy, the bedrock of liberalism.

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Bill Maher Says Tokyo Olympics Are Out-Woke-Ing The Oscars, Proving Cancel Culture Is An Insanity That Is Swallowing Up The World - Deadline

President Joe Biden speaks about the economy and his infrastructure agenda in the State Dining Room of the White House, in Washington, Monday, July 19th, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Speech suppression is a habit that the Biden administration and its liberal supporters cant seem to break. Many staffers may have picked up the habit in their student years: Colleges and universities have been routinely censoring politically incorrect speech for the last 30 years. As Thomas Sowell noted, There are no institutions in America where free speech is more severely restricted than in our politically correct colleges and universities, dominated by liberals.

Now, the Biden administration seems to be giving the colleges and universities some serious competition. Like many Democrats during the Trump presidency, they have come to see suppression of fake news as the ordinary course of business and indeed a prime responsibility of social media platforms.

For decades, print and broadcast media have been dominated by liberals, but Facebook, Google and Twitter have developed a stranglehold over the delivery of news which exceeds anything that the three major broadcast networks and a few national newspapers every enjoyed. If they suppress a story or a line of argument, it largely disappears from public view. And to the extent that it lingers, it can be stigmatized by these multibillion-dollar companies as misinformation or fake news.

Speech suppression was exactly what White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had in mind last week when she called on Facebook to suppress 12 accounts that she said were spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. These accounts, she said July 15, were producing 65% of vaccine misinformation on social media platforms.

Facebook needs to move more quickly to remove harmful, violative posts. Posts that would be within their policy for removal often remain up for days, and thats too long. The information spreads too quickly.

And she wasnt aiming her demand at just Facebook. You shouldnt be banned from one platform and not others, she added a day later. The message was surely not lost on these companies, whose fabulously successful business models are vulnerable to government disruption.

Like most speech suppressors, Psaki protested her good intentions. As did her boss, President Joe Biden, who, when asked about Facebook on Friday, said simply, Theyre killing people. The implication is that any advice contrary to the current recommendations of public health officials contrary to the science is bound to increase the death toll.

This is more in line with Cardinal Bellarmines view of science than Galileos. As Galileo knew, science is not acceptance of holy writ but learning from observation and experiment. Today, in dealing with a novel and deadly virus, current science is a body of hypotheses only partly tested and subject to revision based on emerging evidence.

Theres a long list of things once believed to be misinformation about COVID that are now widely accepted. One prime example: the possibility that the coronavirus was accidentally released from the Wuhan lab. For more than a year, this was widely treated as a wacky right-wing conspiracy theory. Facebook slapped warnings on it and boasted that it reduced readership i.e., suppressed speech.

Then, in May, former New York Times science writer Nicholas Wade, in an article that Facebook let slip through, argued a lab leak was likelier than animal-to-human transmission, and a group of 18 bioscientists called for a deeper investigation. The Biden administration, to its credit, soon reversed itself and opened its own investigation and, reportedly, multiple officials now believe the lab leak theory is likely correct. Some misinformation!

That example provides powerful support for Galileos view that debate over scientific matters takes place best out in the open. But of course the urge to suppress speech is not limited to science. As conservative commentator Stephen L. Miller wrote, Removing information on vaccines will translate right over to anything they think is misinformation on gun violence, or climate, or healthcare or what defines a man or woman. Which is why they are doing this.

If you think thats extravagant, consider that, as Townhalls Guy Benson argued, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been stretching its ambit to studying gun violence and climate change even while letting its core mission of advancing public health atrophy, as shown by its inability to produce a COVID test.

Its easy to imagine this administration pressuring Facebook and other social media to suppress information on other issues. For example, as the New York Posts Michael Goodwin noted, his papers negative stories about Hunter Bidens shady business dealings, which were largely blocked from public view in the weeks before the 2020 election.

Speech suppression is evidently habit-forming. Which is why a constitutional amendment was passed back in the 1790s guaranteeing freedom of speech, and of the press. Or is that obsolete in these modern times?

Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.

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BARONE: Speech suppression is habit-forming The North State Journal - North State Journal

So it breaks these regions in the US down, and then goes through their entire history of the characteristics and struggles of their people. I think that there are some people who have said that it's a simplistic explanation of some of these stereotypes of people, but it's a very good jumping-off point to understand how hundreds of years and thousands of years of history can come and create different cultures within a single nation.

LG: American Nations. All right. Those are great recommendations. Thank you.

MC: Yeah, and now I know why crab cakes and lobster rolls are so popular in San Francisco.

ED: There you go.

LG: Mike, what's your recommendation?

MC: So this one is a little bit on-topic because I'm going to send you to Reddit, the birthplace and proving ground of many memes out there in the world. So there's this fun little Easter egg inside Reddit, and it's called r/random. If you go to reddit.com/r/random, it redirects you automatically to a random subreddit. So it's not actually a subreddit. It's a redirection engine. You go from r/random to anywhere on Reddit, and it really just shows all kinds of stuff. So Lauren just typed it in, and she landed on the AirPods Pro subreddit. I just clicked on it because I have it set as a bookmark on my browser, and I landed on the r/Poland Reddit, subreddit.

So this is what I would recommend that you do. I recommend that you make it a bookmark on your browser bar, because when you're just bored and you need five minutes of distraction, and you just want something to look at that's not the infinite squirrel of doom known as social media, you can just go to r/random, and it will drop you into a section of Reddit that maybe hasn't seen any action in six months, or maybe has millions of subscribers and it's really interesting, maybe is a section of culture that you've never experienced before and never would have experienced like Blade and Soul, which looks like a game. Lauren, what is that you just

LG: Yeah, I just entered it again. It's a Korean fantasy martial arts massively multiplayer online role playing game, otherwise known as MMORPG, developed by NCSoft's team Bloodlust. If I sound like I know what I'm talking about, it's because I just read that out loud from the website.

MC: You read that on the description. See? There you go. Something that you never knew about that you now found because of this randomness machine. So that's my recommendation. Check it out. Make a bookmark for r/random.

LG: That's pretty good.

MC: Thanks.

ED: I love that. It reminds me of the Wikipedia option to go to any random Wikipedia page.

MC: Absolutely. So, Lauren, your turn. You're the host. What's your recommendation?

LG: I admit,when I came up with this recommendation and I jotted it down in our weekly podcast script, Mike, I wondered if I was perhaps stealing it from you, because I recommend White Lotus on HBO Max.

MC: Yes.

LG: Yeah. Mike and I are both fans of the show. Emily, have you had the chance to check this one out yet?

ED: No. I saw people talking about it on Twitter and was like, "OK. Good. Apparently there's a new show I can watch," but I know nothing about it.

LG: Yeah. When you take some time off after you're all done with this, the book project, you should definitely check out this show. As I say often, if anyone needs an HBO login, let me know. I give it out freely. I think that's why HBO didn't send me the press kit this year that they normally send people, because I saw people tweeting about that, and I was like, "Where is my kit?" But anyway, yeah, it's a fantastic show about a group of extremely privileged people who descend upon a Hawaiian luxury resort. These people don't all know each other necessarily, but they traveled in the same boat together, and then they are at the same resort together. So they keep running into each other at the pool, and on the beach, and whatnot. They're interacting with the staff at the resort, who are more diverse and presumably don't have Their incomes are not as high as the people who are vacationing at the resort.

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How Memes Became Weapons in the Culture Wars - WIRED

In 2020 I served as school captain at one of Sydneys all-boys catholic schools. This position took me to the forefront of resisting the lefts seemingly endless march through our educational institutions. Some of what I saw on the journey alarmed me, however, my success also gives me great hope for the future.

I was elected by fellow students, who were told to vote again because the woke teachers resented their pick I won the second vote by even further. Ill explain why I believe I won later, but first, I want to explain what I campaigned on and what I did in the role.

I promised that I would bring back the national anthem to assemblies (it had been abolished a couple of years prior) and that prayer would come before the Acknowledgement of Country at all school gatherings because in a Catholic school God must come first. Of course, all politics is local and there were a few school-specific promises as well. Having seen the popular swell of support behind me, the teachers quickly caved and sure enough, every assembly began with a prayer, then the anthem, then an Acknowledgement of Country. Regrettably, I am reliably informed this order has been discontinued this year after my graduation with the anthem once again absent, and the acknowledgement preceding prayer a timely reminder that our resistance to the left must never cease because as soon as there is no resistance they gain ground eroding our culture.

If I thought my early-term success had defeated the woke teaching establishment, I was sorely mistaken. One day, I noticed on the calendar a scheduled upcoming visit for Year 9 students from an independent drug education company. Immediately I was suspicious. I did some basic research and noticed this company had been to a few other schools with like-minded school captains (I was far from the only conservative student elected across Sydney last year). I had them ask their students about the talks from this company. What they discovered was worse than Id ever feared.

The talk was heavily favourable on drug-taking. Its highlights included:

I naively thought the school had made a genuine mistake, so I went to the executive excited for some praise for my detective work, for saving the school (which already complained about its vaping problem) from this lunacy. I was swiftly told they knew what was being taught, and would continue with the scheduled visit. My protests fell on deaf ears.

Unfortunately for them, I dont accept defeat that easily. As Captain, every month I spoke at a parents and friends function, so I thought Id use my monthly speech to tell these parents what their 14-year-old sons were going to be taught. As I laid it all out to these parents, the outrage was palpable and the parents made their views clear immediately. The very next day the company was uninvited.

Legally, teachers dont seem to be able to suggest illegal activity like this is acceptable. However, these independent groups can seemingly come in and do what they like. Its a slick trick the industrial left uses to sidestep what flimsy measures that governments are taking to stop the lefts march through the educational institutions.

I want to give a key message to all parents: If your children attend school anywhere from kindergarten to year 12, talk to them about what they are learning every single day. You have the greatest power to prevent them from consuming and believing this indoctrination. Im certain there are many other companies out there, on a range of topics, teaching similarly harmful things.

Now, dont worry, Its not all doom and gloom.

Generation Z is fighting back. Why was I, and many other like-minded captains across Sydney, elected last year? Well, its not that students were passionately behind messages like God comes first at a Christian school. Instead, they just wanted to stick one up the woke teachers.

This exact phenomenon is described by internet commentator Paul Joseph Watson, who says Conservatism is the new punk. Its a reaction to the woke lefts takeover of the orthodoxy in education, media and art. When an orthodoxy establishes control and silences dissent, the naturally rebellious nature of young people will immediately seek to resist and dissent from that orthodoxy. Just as punk rock rebelled against the stale religious conservative orthodoxy in the 1970s, modern conservatism is rebelling against the woke political correctness of our modern world. In short, being politically incorrect has become cool.

My election and actions as school captain is an early example of the political results and leadership you can expect from my generation. However, dont just take my anecdotes for evidence, there are statistics to back this up. A British study recently found that on a range of issues including gay marriage, marijuana legalization, transgender rights and tattoos, 59% of Gen Z had self-described conservative or moderate views.

Whats more exciting is that, as any reputable political scientist would tell you, generations become more conservative as they age. This is logical. socialism sounds nice in a textbook, however, once you start working for a living and raising a family, suddenly high taxes arent so appealing. This gradual slide towards conservatism will only be accelerated if the left continues to advocate for policies that have a disproportionately negative impact on todays youth, including endless lockdowns and mountains of public debt.

The challenge for todays centre-right leaders is to harness these favourable conditions by showing sufficient difference from the left on these critical issues. Boris Johnson and Ron Desantis have done this with their exits from lockdown once it became safe. If they both hold firm on their current stance, I make one prediction: they will both win national elections in 2024, with 60%+ of the vote from 18 to 24-year-olds.

The ball is in your court, Scott. I may be one of the few, but I still believe in you. Dont let me down. Dont let my generation down.

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Generation Z is fighting back against the left establishment - The Spectator Australia

Until recently, Kris Wu was one of Chinas most adored pop singers, swamped by screaming fans wherever he went. The Chinese-born Canadian hip-hop artist starred in hit reality shows and commanded a following of 50 million on social media. Luxury brands including Louis Vuitton and Porsche paid him millions of dollars to be an ambassador.

But in less than a month, Wu effectively became an enemy of the state. Within 48 hours after Beijing police announced on Saturday his detention on suspicion of rape, he lost all social media accounts. His entire catalog of songs and music videosfrom more than 20 albumswas removed from streaming platforms. Influencers who defended the star had their own accounts shut down, and people were fired just for joking about him. And this all happened before Wu, who has denied all wrongdoing, was even charged with a single crime or set foot in a court of law.

Wus dramatic downfall is widely seen as a major victory in Chinas feminist circles, who have tirelessly backed the accusers and amplified their allegations against Wu on the Chinese internet. A rising awareness of womens rights in the country has empowered women to speak up about gender discrimination and sexual abuse. Many women were relieved to see a star as prominent as Wu brought into custody. It was an example of how grassroots pressure led to some sort of accountability.

But this story of bottom-up change is not what youll read about in Chinas official news outlets.

Going beyond the normal scope of criminal justice, the Chinese government has started a massive information campaign to steer the conversation away from how women organized themselves to challenge the powerful.

Instead, it has sought to turn Wus detention into a case about the moral decadence of pop stars. And by portraying itself as a government acting in the public interest, it is also trying to legitimize its arbitrary and opaque use of state power. This attempt to rewrite the narrative, critics say, could derail efforts to address a pervasive rape culture in the country.

Star erased

Wu, who rose to stardom in 2012 as a member of K-pop group EXO (he quit in 2014), is the most famous man to face rape allegations in China to date. In July, an 18-year-old college student said Wus manager brought her to a casting interview at the pop stars home, where Wu allegedly plied her with alcohol and had sex with her after she passed out from drinking. Wu said he met the woman once, but denied he raped her.

Facing an outpouring of anger from Chinese women, authorities initially blamed the scandal on an elaborate scam and criticized the accuser for hyping the allegations for fame. But on Saturday, Beijing police said they had detained Wu on suspicion of rape. The accusers supporters rejoiced.

Although police did not release details of Wus alleged wrongdoings and he has yet to be charged, the detention is seen as an official denouncement, and it set off a campaign to erase an A-list star from the Chinese internet.

Not only were Wus own social accounts banned, but those who have defended him against alleged sexual misconduct were silenced, too. Microblogging site Weibo suspended the accounts of at least four influencers who had argued it was fine for Wu to sleep with his female fans. A total of 990 accounts that commented on Wus case were shut down for picking quarrels and provoking trouble, attacking the government, malicious marketinga reason often used to silence critics of the authorities.

Wus songs were removed from all major streaming platforms in the country, including the Chinese version of Apple Music. His fan groups on different platforms were also closed. On Douban, a major film review site, Wus name was scrapped from cast lists. Searching Wus name turned up the message, The search result cannot be displayed according to relevant laws and regulations.

Although the government has banned stars who have used drugs or visited sex workers from appearing on TV and in movies, this kind of total erasure, sometimes done to dissidents, is unheard of for a pop star who has steered clear of Chinese politics.

Parent companies of the platforms, including Apple, Tencent, and ByteDance, did not respond to requests for comment.

On Tuesday, Chinese carmaker Honzo Auto issued an apology on Weibo after leaked screenshots from its internal chat group showed several employees joking about hiring Wu as a brand ambassador. They were soon fired by the company for remarks that seriously challenged social valuescode for moral misconduct.

The Communist Party under President Xi Jinping has been tightening its control over Chinese society in the past few years, putting pressure on businesses to carefully toe the official line and distance themselves from personalities deemed politically incorrect by Beijing. Those who fail to do so can face dire consequences. The NBA, for example, was banned in China for one year after a team official tweeted in support of Hong Kongs anti-government protests.

Now, to many Chinese womens delight, the state is turning this vast machinery against a wealthy, famous man facing sexual abuse allegations.

The government is taking a populist approach to show it is using its power to respond to peoples demands, said Fang Kecheng, a communications professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Kris Wu is merely an entertainment star with no political identities. To the government, he can be easily discarded.

The crackdown on Wu contrasts with how other prominent sexual abuse allegations were handled. A woman who accused a famous state media host of sexual harassment got her Weibo account suspended this year, after she shared details about a continuing civil suit against the man. Richard Liu, the founder of e-commerce giant JD.com, suffered no major public backlash in China after he was accused of raping a student in the United States in 2018.

In general, sexual assault on women in China rarely leads to legal penalties. According to a 2011 United Nations survey, 75 percent of male respondents who admitted to committing rape experienced no legal consequences. While not unique to China, this degree of impunity has contributed to the prevalence of sexual violence, UN researchers wrote.

Feminist activists say the popular campaign against Wu shows that more Chinese women are resisting the exploitation. The government, however, wants to tell a different story.

After Wus detention, authorities accused the entertainment industry and the obsessive fans of harboring criminal activities and promised a tougher crackdownnot on the permissive culture for sex abuse, but on the excesses of showbiz.

Following the lead of mouthpieces like the Peoples Daily, state media and entertainment industrial groups have in the past few days published a slew of articles attacking the countrys poorly-behaved pop stars, as well as the social media companies that profited from their popularity.

No one can enjoy impunity. The stardom offers no protection. Fans offer no protection. Foreign passports offer no protection, either, the state broadcaster CCTV wrote in an editorial on Sunday. Kris Wus case should give a wake-up call to the fans carried away by their obsession.

A weakened #MeToo moment

Activists say the emphasis on Wus identity as a celebrityand a Canadian one at thatis an attempt to downplay what should be a #MeToo event about womens rights.

The first accuser, Du Meizhu, never mentioned #MeToothe hashtag is intermittently censored in China, and many people are reluctant to identify with a campaign that originated abroad for fear of being accused of foreign collusion at a time of geopolitical tensions. Nevertheless, the womens solidarity campaign sparked by Dus accusations resembled the global campaign against sexual abuse.

Female internet users openly supported Du. Several young women shared their own experiences with Wu and alleged a pattern of predatory behaviors. Online posts discussing the importance of sexual consent and protection of survivors went viral. Under public pressure, brands including Bulgari and Louis Vuitton cut ties with the star.

None of this could have happened without the growing feminist voices in China, activists say. The young generation of Chinese women have become more united and vocal in pushing back against patriarchal norms, from womens traditional role in marriage and childrearing, to the harassment and abuse they often suffer from in intimate relationships.

Zheng Xi, a Chinese activist who has campaigned against sexual harassment, said the #MeToo movement has given women, including Wus accuser, a powerful language to tell stories of sexual violence.

But when authorities shift the focus to the entertainment industry, Zheng said, they are making it harder for victims to build connections with each other, and reducing public discussions on similar sexual abuse incidents in the wider society.

Fang, the professor, said although the government has gone hard on Wu, it is discouraging such activism by casting the story as the state fixing problems in the entertainment industry, instead of it being forced to act by a womens campaign.

If the focus is placed on women helping themselves, it would be acknowledging and encouraging the resisting forces in the society, he said. This time, they target Kris Wu. Who knows whom they will target next time? The state would not want to encourage this.

On social media, news of Wus detention sparked euphoria. Female influencers launched lucky draws to give away cosmetics, snacks and bubble tea. But as the crackdown intensified, women became divided over who should be credited for his downfall.

You can always believe in socialism, believe in the justice system, said a widely shared post praising the Chinese law enforcement for holding Wu accountable. Many people compared the swift detention of Wu with the long time a rape trial often takes in countries like South Korea, arguing Beijings so-called iron fist is more friendly to women.

But the governments critics cautioned that the crackdown on Wu was less about womens rights than about demonstrating the states control, which is showing dwindling tolerance for dissent. Some listed Wu alongside the companies and industries that have come under regulatory crackdown recently, arguing they were all victims of Chinas arbitrary law enforcement.

At first I thought Wus custody was a women's victory, but now I realized it was the iron fist trying to regulate fan circles, a Weibo user wrote. A tank is coming, and it happened to hit a bad guy on the way.

L Pin, a Chinese feminist activist based in New York, said women should be credited for bringing down Wu. Although the case did not reflect a general improvement in law enforcement, L told VICE World News, it was indeed a victory that womens collective voices put a famous man behind bars.

We dont have a reliable legal system. Everyone knows this is an exception, a surprise, L said. But without feminists, even this exception would not have happened. We should let women celebrate this.

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#MeToo Hits One of Chinas Biggest Celebrities. The State Is Taking Credit. - VICE

Grimeborn, the annual opera festival, has moved round North London's Latte Belt from Dalston to Hackney and pitches up at the grand old Empire with the second part of Richard Wagner's The Ring Cycle, Die Walkrie. It's a change of location that brings problems and opportunities, with an echo or two of those given to Brnnhilde in the work itself.

Sensing his doubts, she disobeys her father, Wotan, and spares Siegmund death as her heart is touched by his confessions of love for his sister, Sieglinde, whom he has recently found after years of separation. Wotan, as gods are wont to be if defied by women who think they know better, takes badly to this turn of events and does Brnnhilde's job for her, ensuring that Siegmund dies in his fight with Hunding, with whom he has been feuding. Things don't end well for Hunding either - it never pays to get too close to an angry Norse god.

Brnnhilde spirits Sieglinde away, telling her that her unborn child will be the greatest hero of them all (The Ring Cycle is a boxed set, remember) and seeks sanctuary with her fellow Valkyrie sisters, who, taking time off from selecting the dead warriors fit to enter Valhalla, rally to her side, but quail in the presence of Wotan, still dialling the bad temper to 11.

As punishment, Brnnhilde is made mortal and exiled to a mountain top (German Romanticism's ethos could hardly accept less) but, Wotan, remembering his love for his favourite, allows her request for a ring of fire to encircle her, Brnnhilde having calculated that the only prince who could traverse it and wake the sleeping beauty she will become is Siegfried, the hero yet to be born.

So, mash up Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings, and out pops this testosterone-fuelled epic, albeit one with strong female characters. As Grimeborn operas intend, this stripped back version by Jonathan Dove and Graham Vick, is certainly accessible, but I'd suggest that it's worth reading the synopsis in the programme or on Wikipedia before taking your seat.

Moving from the tight confines of The Arcola, home to Grimeborn and the excellent 2019 production of The Ring Cycle's first part, Das Rheingold, diminishes and enhances the unique pleasures of a boutique opera, the scaling up of the concept not wholly successful.

It's still a privilege to hear singing of this quality outside the big houses with their big prices - Mark Stone expressive as Wotan, Laure Meloy heartbreaking as Brnnhilde and soprano, Natasha Jouhi, sensational as Sieglinde - but it's a big house to fill and you do lose the almost atavistic impact of these voices giving it everything within touching distance, as they are in Dalston. Perhaps the aesthetic dimension is enhanced, as Stone's baritone resonates round the house, but the thrill is diluted.

The vast stage doesn't help matters, with Bettina John's set design looking like a backstage space at The Royal Opera House, with scaffolding poles a "neither here nor there" proxy for swords. The stakes seem less life and death and more "Who's going to fix the broom handle?" It's only when the three Valkyrie sisters (in leather tailoring no less) turn up on swings and accompanied by their impressive and familiar fanfare, that the stage looks filled - owned really - by the gods whose domain it is. Too often, the sparks have too much distance to cross to ignite the fires that roil beneath the surface.

We gain with the music. Peter Selwyn conducts the 18 strong Orpheus Sinfonia with such confidence, all the power and emotions of Wagner's score working its way into our souls. The surtitles may give us the English translation of the German libretto, but they're largely superfluous - the music is telling us everything we need to know. There are one or two occasions when the Donner und Blitzen overwhelms the voices, but not often, that balance (so crucial and so often overlooked) perfect from my seat in the stalls.

There will be more spectacular versions, maybe more intimate versions too, but director, Julia Burbach, gives us a Die Walkrie that has much to offer Wagner superfans (I suspect there might not be any other kind) and plenty too for those dipping a toe into a legendary (in every sense) work that can be intimidating as opera gets. Coming in at not much above three hours with an interval, you can look the unsmiling Saxon composer with the politically incorrect reputation in the eye and say (like Siegmund) "Let's do this." You won't be disappointed.

Die Walkre is at the Hackney Empire until 7 August and the Grimeborn Festival continues at The Arcola Theatre until 11 September.

Photo Alex Brenner.

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BWW Review: DIE WALKRE, Hackney Empire The Grimeborn Festival scales up for the second part of - Broadway World