Daily Archives: October 17, 2021

Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz has a strong gab game. He could show you an old Ford Pinto and convince you that it would ride like a Tesla. And you might even buy it: his pitch and the junky car.

Coach Drink stays updated on the cultural zeitgeist, knowing that it will play well on social media. And his social-media game is up there with Lane Kiffin (Ole Miss) among SEC head coaches.

This aint Ted Lasso, Drinkwitz said, explaining his motivational tactics in preparing his squad for the North Texas game.

Well done, Coach.

Drinkwitz understands branding. He can sell himself, and that helps him sell his program. He has the media eating out of his palm like cats after a snack. He has an appealing sense of humor, with just the right amount of self deprecation. Hes a gung-ho and effective recruiter. He has the right political touch with the Missouri administration. His energy abounds. Hes a family man, which plays well in this state. I like him. The complete package is there.

Well, almost.

Gotta win some football games. Always important to remember that part. As the coach said, this aint Ted Lasso.

The challenge of winning football games in the SEC depends on a lot of things, with recruiting at the top of the list. But a head coach must also hire good assistants, and coach up those assistance, and make sure that they do whats necessary to raise the standards and the performance.

Drinkwitz already and unfortunately had made a major screwup by hiring Steve Wilks as defensive coordinator. And Coach Eli compounded the mistake by overpaying Wilks to take the gig. Wilks is an NFL coach, with a sliver of college-football experience (if that) and seems baffled by the mysterious ways of modern college-offense styles, schemes and tactics.

Missouri has a bottom-five FBS defense, ranking near the lowest depths in scoring defense, total defense, rushing defense, and a bunch of other indicators. The Tigers have been plundered for 30 touchdowns in six games. Last Saturday a harmless North Texas squad came into CoMo and put up 35 points and 493 yards. But because we like Coach Drink, multiple game reviews mentioned the improvement and the progress of the Mizzou defensive line. Well, if you say so.

Ive lost some enthusiasm for Coach Drink but havent risked breaking an ankle by hopping off the bandwagon. I want to believe in this glib, relentless, and looney-tunes (in a good way) coach. And as I fan, Ill stick with it. But the disaster of the Wilks hiring has punctured my patience.

Its just that and many of you know this better than I do it aint easy being a Missouri football fan. The Tigers have had their very good seasons here and there but then it all slows down the usual drain after a while. And that cycle makes it difficult to smile, to believe, to keep the hope.

And because of the program and the history that Drinkwitz inherited, his honeymoon may be shorter than normal even if thats unfair. Its just the reality of pledging loyalty to a program that almost always lets you down. I say that with regret, not anger.

In 2013 and 2014, Gary Pinkel coached Mizzou to consecutive SEC East titles. The 2013 team was one half of football away from defeating Auburn and lining up for a spot in the national championship game. Mizzou went down hard in the second half of the SEC Championship poof! but still ended the season as the No. 5 team in the AP rankings. The following season ended with another loss in the SEC Championship game (to Alabama) and the No. 14 ranking nationally.

These were happy times. It didnt mean Pinkel was Nick Saban, or that MU was Alabama. But in the context of the maddening Missouri football experience, the 2013 and 2014 seasons were sweet and satisfying.

Pinkel went 15-4 vs. winning FBS teams over the two years including a 3-4 mark against ranked teams. But this wasnt the start of something big, something lasting. Coach Pinkel retired after 2015, putting his heart and energy into halting the life-threatening cancer that attacked him.

Mizzou soon took its usual place.

Since the start of the 2015 season, Missouri is 6-34 in games vs. winning FBS teams, and 1-16 against ranked teams. It hasnt been much fun. MU has kicked the blood-donor teams around, and done fine (if not perfect) against lightweights and other lesser foes. But you want to see your team hang tough against the better teams not even the super teams, but the winning teams. And Mizzou continues to come up short in these tests.

I think weve overreacted to Drinkwitz at both ends of the spectrum.

His 5-5 season against an All-SEC schedule in 2020 created buzz, and excitement, and enthusiasm for seeing Coach Drink as the coach who would change everything. He would raise the program and keep it there. The worry? Well, we have to make sure that he stays at Mizzou. Cant let him get aways. Call the money people! Give him the contract extension, ASAP! And make him rich, rich, rich! Give him everything he needs!

That was then.

But the dispiriting early flops this season with the horrific defense and underwhelming offense has us wondering if Coach Drink is just another hot shot that will fizzle out. Have we misjudged him? Were we fooled by a solid season that likely was distorted by pandemic-related circumstances? Did we fall for his charm offensive?

If we overreacted to the early success, which raised expectations, then we should probably lean on that to avoid overreacting to the early 2021 record that includes a 2-3 mark against FBS teams, including a 0-3 bust against winning FBS opponents.

In his one-plus seasons at Mizzou, Drinkwitz and the Tigers are 0-6 vs. winning FBS teams, 0-4 vs. ranked opponents, and 5-8 against Power 5 sides.

Coach has a lot of work to do, and we knew that when Missouri hired him. The reality is here, and were falling down the steps again. Time to climb back up. Time to stay up. This is what Missouri fans do.

And we can deal with it as long as Coach can handle it, and do something about it, and fix it. And that probably means owning a mistake, and eating a lot of salary, and replacing Wilks as defensive coordinator unless, of course, that area evolves and improves enough to stop an offense and lower anxiety.

If the defensive collapse remains in its present state with overrun MU defenders heaped on the ground after another huge gain by an opponent then the blame will shift away from Wilks. The blame will be dumped entirely on Drinkwitz. And it wont be as much fun as a Gatorade bath.

Coach Drinkwitz has some promising recruiting classes on the way. But thats down the road. We have to wait. On the road right now is Texas A&M, heading to Columbia for Saturdays game after shocking Alabama in the upset of the season.

In other SEC outposts, theyd be calling Paul Finebaum to rile the masses as part of the movement to lead a movement to chase the coach out of town and try the next guy.

Joe Moorhead go two seasons at Mississippi State, enraged Starkville by winning only 14 of 26 games, and was driven to the edge of town and told to leave and never come back.

Ed Orgeron you led LSU to the national championship in 2019, but we dont live in the past, so its time to go! get Dan Mullen youre overrated, and have a 2-7 record vs. ranked teams over the last two-plus seasons. Florida cant win the big one, and we aint putting up with it!

Missouris young head coach isnt in danger of losing his job dont be silly but this is a good time for him and his team to make a stand, and turn the tone of the conversation. And no matter what happens Saturday, well probably overreact to it.

Thats Mizzou football, baby. Remain calm if you can. But it aint easy.

Thanks for reading

Bernie

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Bernie Miklasz

For the last 35 years Bernie Miklasz has entertained, enlightened, and connected with generations of St. Louis sports fans.

While best known for his voice as the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch for 26 years, Bernie has also written for The Athletic, Dallas Morning News and Baltimore News American. Bernie has hosted radio shows in St. Louis, Dallas, Baltimore and Washington D.C.

Bernie, his wife Kirsten and their cats reside in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood of St. Louis.

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Originally posted here:

Bernie On Missouri Football: Coach Eli Drinkwitz, Hype, Hope, Impatience, And Overreaction. - Scoopswithdannymac.com - Scoops with Danny Mac

During the final month of 2020, weeks after Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump for the American presidency, many elements of the right-wing movement in the United States were focused on contesting the election result calling for audits, supporting protests, and fomenting a coup attempt. The powerful corporate-backed bill mill American Legislative Executive Council (ALEC), though, was focused on something else.

In December, ALEC brought together state legislators from 20 states, corporate representatives, and conservative activists for a virtual workshop entitled Against Critical Theorys Onslaught. The goal, as the title suggests, was to urge lawmakers to ban the teaching of critical race theory a decades-old academic field of study that interrogates the social construction of race and institutionalized racism, and which in recent years has turned into a catch-all for any progressive social studies education.

This was hardly ALECs first foray into legislation that curtails speech deeply critical of a state and its society. Several years earlier, ALEC met with U.S. legislators urging them to enact laws that would effectively ban the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement the nonviolent, Palestinian-led campaign to end global complicity in Israeli violations of Palestinian rights under international law. Such anti-BDS legislation, civil rights advocates have warned, threaten to directly infringe on Americans constitutional right to free speech generating the same repressive effect as other bills promoted by ALEC.

For many activists, organizers, and academics in the Palestine solidarity movement, this years uproar in the United States over critical race theory, and the accompanying efforts to ban it from being taught in schools, feels very familiar. Over the past decade, and particularly during Trumps presidency, pro-Israel organizations and politicians have sought to redefine antisemitism to include certain criticism of Israel by using the workingdefinition promoted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliances (IHRA), in an attempt to silence such views in classrooms and on college campuses across the country.

While they do not necessarily share the same roots, the movements to ban these critical perspectives from U.S. education resemble each other in myriad ways, sharing an array of financial backers, legislative tactics, and political motives to quash legitimate criticism of the racist and colonial practices of increasingly embattled states.

Floridas Historic Capitol and Florida State Capitol, Tallahassee, Leon County, Florida, August 31, 2013. (Michael Rivera/CC-SA-3.0)

For many Jewish Americans and their best-funded, longstanding institutions, the attacks on critical race theory present them with a conundrum: while many oppose the bans on the theory, some are simultaneously supporting the crackdowns on speech critical of Israel.

One thing I feel pretty strongly about is that the right wing has used Palestine and the Palestinian solidarity movement as a test balloon for tactics that they use more broadly against progressive issues, said Tallie Ben-Daniel, director of special projects with Jewish Voice for Peace. This is one of the ways that this is happening.

Republicans have used critical race theory as a tool to harness the kind of energy and anger that fueled their political revival during the early years of Barack Obamas presidency. Indeed, veteran Republican operatives seem to believe that the furor over the academic field is a goldmine.

In May, for example, Politico reported that Trump was teaming up with former Congressman Newt Gingrich to craft a new Contract with America to run on for the Republican Party in 2022. It should be positive, Gingrich said of the hypothetical contract. School choice, teaching American history for real, abolishing the 1619 Project, eliminating critical race theory and what the Texas legislature is doing. We should say, Bring it on.

Republican-controlled state legislatures have gotten the message. As of early September, 27 states have introduced legislation or taken steps through other avenues to curtail discussions of race and gender-related topics in classrooms. Twelve of those states have already enacted bans, including those led by presidential hopefuls like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas.

The language in a number of these critical race theory bills is astonishingly vague. In one case, a bill targets the teaching of what it simply describes as divisive concepts, leaving educators unsure about what they can and cannot teach while giving states the ability to expand the definitions as they see fit.

The consequences of the critical race theory craze thus far, however, have been anything but vague. School board meetings across the country have turned into conflict zones, featuring mainly white parents screaming about the perils of critical race theory and COVID-19 safety guidelines. As school board members resign due to the meetings hostile climate, Republican groups are also investing to ensure that they win the newly-vacated seats.

Protesters seen in support of the Tucson Unified School Districts Mexican-American studies program, March 11, 2013. (Arizona Community Press/CC-BY-SA-4.0)

Legacy American-Jewish organizations, like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which enthusiastically support defining certain criticism of Israel as antisemitic, have not been so bullish on the bans on critical race theory. In June, the ADL published an article basing the anti-critical race theory movement in virulently antisemitic white nationalism, arguing that the debate is being used to propagate the myth that the white race is under attack.

Yet some of these same pro-Israel organizations have also battled advocates of a more inclusive American history education. In California last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed an ethnic studies bill on the grounds that it was insufficiently balanced and inclusive of all communities after a proposed ethnic studies model curriculum did not include content on Jews amid other concerns. Newsom credited the opposition of pro-Israel groups as decisive in his decision.

Teresa Montao, professor of Chicano and Chicana studies at California State Northridge University, was a member of the group that wrote the model ethnic studies curriculum for the state last year. The hypocrisy of pro-Israel groups supporting ethnic studies without the inclusion of course content on Palestine, for instance, is a contradiction I couldnt live with, she said.

I think groups like the ADL and others that have some history in the multicultural movement today theyre being much more exposed for what their real intentions are, Montao said. You cant say youre about equity if youre not going to question race and racism and colonialism.

The ADL declined a request for an interview for this story.

Though it remains to be seen how many of these bans on critical race theory will function in practice, experts have warned that the parameters of the legislation could severely complicate how Jewish history including the Holocaust is taught in schools.

Holocaust Museum, Washington DC, August 2, 2015. (Karen/CC 2.0.)

Some already believe there is cause for alarm. At a meeting of the Missouri state legislature in August, a member of the states Holocaust Education and Awareness Commission asked representatives whether a bill that would ban the teaching of critical race theory would mean that teachers could not, for instance, tell students that Nazis systematically targeted Jews.Republican Rep. Ed Lewis replied, in part, You wouldnt want me to say, Well, youre inherently a racist or a[n] antisemite because youre a German. That is kind of the implication of what critical race theory would do if we were to apply that to the Holocaust and its history.

Aside from specific concerns about Holocaust education, an anti-critical race theory, anti-ethnic studies approach to education would, in many ways, upend how Jews have long conceptualized and taught their history more broadly.

There is something fascinating about the Jewish opposition to critical race theory, because Jews teach history like that, said Shaul Magid, professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth University. Theyre always teaching it from the perspective of the victim because thats how they see themselves in the world. And then suddenly another group does it, and implicates the Jew on the other side [as perpetrator], and its like, Hey, thats not good.

As the BDS movement gained momentum following the 2014 Gaza War and the continued expansion of Israeli settlements, pro-Israel forces worked to counter the movement, as well as mounting public criticism of the occupation, by broadening the definition of antisemitism to include speech critical of Israel.

In 2016, IHRA adopted a working definition that characterized a range of criticism of Israel as antisemitic. That definition has since been adopted by more than 30 countries, including the United States.

In parallel, American states began moving en masse to deter and penalize support for BDS, characterizing the nonviolent protest movement as antisemitic. Thirty-five states have passed anti-BDS legislation since 2015, with wide-ranging consequences for educators, activists, and pro-Palestinian organizations.

Protesting the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, New York, February 3, 2019. (Gili Getz)

Trump, who received millions in campaign backing from pro-Israel individuals and organizations, added to this effort in late 2019, when he issued an executive order to penalize colleges and universities for failing to take action to combat antisemitism using the IHRA definition.

A group of scholars released an alternative definition in the spring, called the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, to counter the IHRA definition. But while the document was cheered by a number of academics and left-leaning U.S. Jewish groups, organizations like the ADL and the American Jewish Committee have opposed it, and the State Department has declined to adopt it.

For Magid, the conflict over antisemitism definitions is a red herring. This so-called debate over antisemitism between the IHRA document and the Jerusalem document, its not really a debate about antisemitism, said Magid. Its really just a debate about Israel under the guise of a debate about antisemitism Antisemitism is not really whats at stake here.

What is at stake, Magid continued, is hegemonic U.S. support for Israel, especially at a time when young Americans are becoming increasingly critical of the occupation. Laws targeting anti-Israel speech are a way for Jews to criminalize critique, he said. Thats kind of what its doing, and then once you do that, you can slowly extend and expand what critique fits into that. And that is clearly a response to fear.

The logic behind both the bans on Israel speech and critical race theory functions in similar ways: equating critiques of nation-states with criticism of individual students in classrooms.

These videos of parents being, like, My child is being harmed by this person saying [white people] are racist, to me, feels very similar to [the notion that] by talking about Israeli apartheid, or the wall, or settlements, you are creating a hostile climate for Jewish students on your campus, said JVPs Ben-Daniel.

That logic is not the only area of overlap. Both movements have reshaped the definitions of existing terms on racism and antisemitism, and used them to introduce legislation that severely restricts speech threatening to the political right. Moreover, both movements are receiving financial backing from a number of the same organizations and funders.

Protest against ALEC by the Occupy movement and other groups, St. Paul, Minnesota, March 13, 2012. (Fibonacci Blue/CC BY 2.0)

ALEC has long been involved in pushing legislators to oppose the BDS movement and suppress pro-Palestine speech on college campuses under the guise of antisemitism. In 2018, The Guardian reported that ALEC had brought state lawmakers together in Texas to discuss legislation on antisemitism that would encompass criticism of Israel; shortly thereafter, the state of Florida passed a law banning antisemitism in public schools based on the IHRA definition.

The organization has been similarly active in the fight against critical race theory. After its virtual workshop last December, a number of the state legislators it hosted went home to boost anti-critical race theory bills in 2021.

ALEC is not the only right-wing group straddling both movements. As far back as 2015, the Koch brothers, the libertarian business magnates, were part of a small group that invested in excess of $300 million in the effort to silenc[e] dissent and solidarity with Palestine. This year, organizations with ties to the Koch network have published an onslaught of articles on critical race theory, helping to fuel the ensuing moral panic.

There is further overlap in major donors and leadership between a number of right-wing think tanks in the United States and right-wing think tanks in Israel, including the Heartland Institute, the Tikvah Fund, and the Kohelet Forum, many of which have pushed for laws cracking down on anti-Israel speech, critical race theory, or both.

It is perhaps no coincidence that bans targeting speech on Israel preceded bans on critical race theory. [Palestine] is the testing ground, said Lara Kiswani, executive director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center. Its both physically the testing ground and laboratory for weaponry, surveillance, and technology, but its also a testing ground ideologically around whats possible in terms of a right-wing agenda here in the United States.

According to Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, Israel whether its backers intend it or not is often used as a wedge issue to make reactionary policy palatable to liberals and progressives. Once reactionary policies designed to help Israel are passed, they are often expanded upon to other fields. Friedman pointed to legislation in states like Texas that targets private businesses for discrimination against the gun, oil, and gas industries, which are based in part on anti-BDS legislation. These Israel-related bills, she said, are the tip of the spear to destroying free speech.

The Senate Chamber in the Texas State Capitol, Austin, Texas. (Wally Gobetz/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Battles over the ideological content of U.S. education are not new, and Palestine has not always been so prominent in them. But both Friedman and Magid said that the impetus for the new bans on antisemitism and critical race theory is a growing sense that public opinion is turning against both the Israeli and American national projects.

The anti-BDS laws [are] clearly a response to fear, Magid said. And critical race theory and the Jewish response to critical race theory is also a response to fear.

It is little coincidence that efforts in recent years to target Israeli settlements through labeling, bans, and boycotts in the United States and in Europe sparked a rash of anti-BDS legislation. Similarly, the racial justice uprising that followed the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis last summer ignited a backlash against a national reckoning with the content and purpose of U.S. history education.

For folks who have not been super down with more progressive rethinking of U.S. history [critical race theory] was something they could basically ignore, Friedman said. But there is a zeitgeist right now around this, and as that zeitgeist has more energy, there is a need to not just ignore [the theory] and marshal it, but to demean it and possibly kill it.

The trajectory is striking to many activists and educators who are interested in teaching the history of Israel and Palestine in a more critical light. They recognize that to teach honestly about Israeli land theft, militarization, and occupation is to necessarily implicate the United States and vice versa.

Clearly, said AROCs Kiswani, there is a broad spectrum of alignment as it relates to ensuring students dont have access to liberatory, anti-colonial, anti-racist education that students dont have access to tools that would allow them to have an analysis of race and power.

Read the rest here:

How anti-BDS laws paved the way for the assault on critical race theory - +972 Magazine

As a celebration of women in music, National Album Day this weekend [October 16] is honouring Shirley Manson with a special vinyl edition of Garbages debut album. The record is now widely regarded as one of the most significant albums of the last 30 years with definitive tracks such as Stupid Girl and Only Happy When It Rains. It has also found a new generation of fans.

However, the Edinburgh-born singer admits she had serious reservations about the band after joining them to cut the eponymous debut. It was 1994 in the middle of a bleak mid-western winter and while recording the album Manson entered a black mood wondering why she had even bothered to try out for a band who just didnt cut the mustard.

Twenty-seven years on and 17 million worldwide album sales later, she admits she thinks differently now. It was my own immaturity, she says. I was looking at it from a superficial standpoint. I felt we werent going to make a record good enough to transcend how we all looked.

I had grown up in a band (Goodbye Mr Mackenzie) where we were looking at the coolest rock stars like David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Nick Cave thinking there is no way we can compete with that legacy.

It didnt help that Manson was left to her own devices in a lonely Midwestern hotel unable to drive or go anywhere while the band went home to their families. It was a kind of lockdown and when she experienced something similar many years later, because of the pandemic, she found being stuck indoors had its advantages.

I fell in love with the San Antonio Spurs and learned a lot about how they handled themselves in triumph and defeat, she says. I love basketball and baseball and it got me through. The Spurs coach, Gregg Popovich is arguably the greatest coach in sports history.

Manson describes last years lockdown at her home in LA as a ghastly experience though before adding: Im married to an incredible husband (record producer Billy Bush) who brought good cheer and made incredible cocktails every day. We would sit and listen to a piece of vinyl and study it; that has kept me alive.

Her seventh album with Garbage, No Gods No Masters, released earlier this year, features a photograph taken by Manson in an Edinburgh necropolis. I happened to be in the Dean Cemetery and these two sister angels appeared out of nowhere, I was like thats it. I sent the picture to our graphic artist and he used one of the iconic angels.

While the re-release of Garbages first album arrives in pink, the colour of No Gods No Masters became an unlikely source of rage. I fought with the record company who didnt want the vinyl to be neon green. I wondered why they had such a bee in their bonnet until I found out green is the most expensive, at which point I said to my manager; this is a hill I will f****** die on. She said, dont worry; well get you the green.

The daughter of a theologian, Manson grew up in a Church of Scotland family and was taught at Sunday school by her father. Since her early teens, she has distanced herself from organised religion but suggests people have pointed out one of the apparent themes of the new record.

God is all over this record, she says. It never occurred to me before for some inexplicable reason. I dont know why other than Im middle-aged, Im questioning everyone, Im challenging everything and I guess Im frustrated at how organised religion is shoring up this patriarchal system that isnt benefiting anyone apart from old white men.

The albums opening cut The Men Who Rule The World is an arresting listen, and lyrically her target is firmly fixed: The men who rule the world/Have made a f****** mess/The history of power/The worship of success. Manson describes it as a futurist modern retelling of Noahs ark where she is Noah on George Clinton's Mothership. I come down to save everything beautiful, divine and worth saving while leaving everything thats wretched, cruel and violent behind. The band just really killed it and met the energy of the song; all of us were laughing what a weird song.

I suggest the tracks jagged and funky riffs recall Bowies Fame as well as a hint of his maligned 90s output. Were such big fans, his name thrills any time we can get close to that genius, she says. He was treated abysmally (during the 90s). Then when he died, they were started playing Bowie on the radio. What a joke. How about playing him while he was alive?

Manson knows herself how strange fame can be. She struggled when the band quickly hit a zeitgeist moment around the globe. She soon became an alternative pin-up and cover girl not long after the band released their 1995 debut, which was followed by Version 2.0 three years later. Both albums went on to shift four million copies apiece but fame proved to be a strange and demanding mistress.

We found ourselves in some ludicrous situations, she says. I think one that strikes me and that also highlights the ludicrousness of the industry was Bob Dylan. Can I underline that Bob Dylan, was going on before Garbage! It was on a festival stage, also Patti Smith and Nick Cave. We were mortified that these three amazing icons of song-writing and artistry were going on before a relatively new band.

How come festival organisers and so on are not noticing how disrespectful and outrageous that is? At what point as a culture are we going to value things of depth and importance. Why are we valuing money and ten-a-penny artists that will be never remembered? Some of these artists are struggling to get on the page; thats a joke!

With sexual misconduct allegations in the music industry among prominent figures such as the Garbage singers namesake Marilyn Manson, who she recorded a duet with in 2005, a number of artists are now being dropped as part of the Metoo movement. How does she feel about the recent shift?

I dont know one single artist that is without sin, says Manson of musicians being cancelled. Theres no one without failings as human beings. For us to expect perfection from artists in particular but humans in general is naive and sort of unrealistic. If a human being makes a beautiful or essential piece art that brings you joy, that art exists whether the person behind it is flawed or not and if we were to cancel anyone who has ever done anything wrong we would end up with s**** music, movies and s**** everything; it would be the blandest world you could imagine. You could cancel the great David Bowie if you care to for numerous things or Iggy Pop the list is endless and they are all capable of great mistakes as are we all.

Another of Mansons great heroes is Sean Connery who died last year. Manson was born in the same city as the first Bond and he was a significant inspiration when she was growing up in the 1970s.

I was very moved by Sean Connerys death, she says. He represents a lot of beautiful things for me. I wrote about it on my Instagram page at the time of his death. He was the representation of dreams for a lot of Scottish people; we didnt have anyone at that level or in Hollywood and there was Sean in this incredible iconic role representing Scotland on the world stage. Wed never seen anything like that before.

With Garbage, Manson was also the third Scottish female after Lulu and Sheena Easton to sing a Bond theme recording The World Is Not Enough for the nineteenth 007 film in 1999. It makes sense to me that Scottish singers would be well represented in the litany of Bond themes because of course Ian Fleming, the writer was a Scotsman (by descent), she says.

Theres an inherent understanding culturally of what that franchise is trying to do and does, so to get invited to be part of the longest and most important film franchise in the history of cinema was spectacular, Im very, very proud of that and its a glorious part of our history.

Garbage is out now on special edition pink vinyl as part of National Album Day to mark the contribution of women in the music industry

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Shirley Manson: At what point as a culture are we going to value things of depth? - HeraldScotland

During a recent TechRadar interview, Fall Guys head game designer Joe Walsh said that the Mediatonic development team is considering resurrecting an unused minigame from the scrap heap. And its all because to Squid Game, Netflixs newest original series.

While Fall Guys world and themes arent half as sinister as Squid Games, its premise allows for a lot of overlap. Take Red Light, Green Light for example, the well-known childrens game which takes up much of the shows first episode. While developing Fall Guys, Mediatonic also considered its own version of Red Light, Green Light that ultimately never saw the light of day. With Squid Game now dominating the cultural zeitgeist, Walsh feels the time is right for revisiting the unused concept.

Squid Game, written and directed by South Korean filmmaker Hwang Dong-hyuk, concerns a deadly, 456-player competition that promises to pay a single winner enough money to escape their crushing debts. Intended to be an allegory on modern-day inequality, Squid Games similarities with properties like Battle Royale and The Hunger Games (not to mention the entire video game genre those properties ultimately inspired) has made it a hit among viewers.

Within a video game, theres something about movement, Walsh told TechRadar. n real life its very hard to stay still, but in a video game, you just put your controller down. And so, at the time, I think we were like, Well never do Red Light, Green Light, it doesnt make sense. But now, seeing how popular Squid Game is, Id love for us to have another crack at something like that and see if we could do it in Fall Guys.

Fall Guys has enjoyed several seasons of new content since launching in August 2020, some of which was even branded with crossover appearances from franchises like Among Us, Nier: Automata, and Godzilla. A collaboration with Squid Game, whether officially or just via homage, wouldnt be the wildest thing to happen to the bouncy battle royale. In any case, its cool to see Mediatonic recognize the non-gaming media to which the genre owes so much.

News Summary:

Continued here:

Fall Guys have been inspired to revisit unused minigames thanks to the Squid game - Gaming News - BollyInside

Flora MoreauLiterature Editor

Is Sally Rooney boycotting Hebrew? Twitter would certainly lead one to believe so.

Rooney trended on Twitter once again this week after news broke that she had declined to sell translation rights to an Israeli publishing house, despite the fact that her two previous novels had been translated into Hebrew. The timeline then promptly set itself alight with discourse. But no, Rooney is not boycotting Hebrew. The award-winning author released a statement following the backlash saying that she refused to allow her new novel to be translated into Hebrew due to her support of the cultural boycotts of Israel. The cultural boycotts in question are those sanctioned by the BDS movement (boycott, divestment and sanctions), a Palestinian-led worldwide movement. In a statement from Faber and Faber, Rooney said that she would be pleased and proud to have her recently published Beautiful World, Where Are You translated into Hebrew if I can find a way to sell these rights that is compliant with the BDS movements institutional boycott guidelines.

So whats the problem?

While all popular authors are subject to some form of public scrutiny, Rooney in particular seems to be constantly examined for hypocrisies within her politics the online rows after she described herself as a Marxist despite the fact she writes books about over-privileged Trinity students comes to mind (not the mention the fact that there was literal merchandise for her newest novel). Misreporting on her decision to not sell the translation rights to this particular Israeli publisher quickly led to hundreds of spurious, if not defamatory, tweets labelling Rooney an anti-Semite looking to boycott an entire culture and community rather than a government.

Misreporting on her decision to not sell the translation rights to this particular Israeli publisher quickly led to hundreds of spurious, if not defamatory, tweets labelling Rooney an anti-Semite

Would this have happened with another writer? Perhaps. A tweet by the editor of Tribune Magazine Ronan Burtenshaw remarked: Will there be an apology to Sally Rooney from those who defamed her yesterday? No. Because the story about her refusing to publish in Hebrew was a deliberate distortion designed to paint support for Palestinian human rights as antisemitic. Thats how it works.

Twitter does not leave room to expansively articulate the implications of Sally Rooney choosing not to have her novel translated into the language of a country on one side of a long, complex conflict. But she can be called anti-Semitic in 280 characters.

Rooney is not the first author to boycott Israeli publishers: in 2012, Alice Walker decided against publishing The Colour Purple in Hebrew because she believed Israel to be guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people. This is not the first time Rooney expressed support for Palestine, either in May, she signed the Letter Against Apartheid that called for an immediate and unconditional cessation of Israeli violence against Palestinians, and asked governments to cut trade, economic and cultural relations. So why did this particular incident create such a storm?

It seems sometimes with Rooney shes damned if she does and damned if she doesnt. After previously being lambasted for not being politically active enough, she now weathers very pointed criticism after publicly supporting what she believes in. While of course there will always be detractors and disagreements, an alarming amount of the criticism of Rooneys decision appears to have been made in bad faith for example, having weathered the brunt of the finger pointing and releasing a statement, Rooney was then accused of not anticipating the backlash to her actions quickly enough there is no need to spell out how eye-rollingly online these detractors actions are.

While there are always healthy critiques to be made and debates to be held about a public work of art (no, I will not be debating calling Normal People art) and a public figure, criticism directed at Rooney always seems painfully personal something that is rooted in the publics decision to conflate her with her waifish, sharp-witted protagonists. As a result, critics often perceive, or search for, political hypocrisy that might not actually exist. This, coupled with becoming (somewhat unwillingly) part of the cultural zeitgeist, means that the Sally Rooney discourse wheel just keeps on turning, no matter how mind-numbingly petty or uninteresting it is. It is easy to hate people who are more successful than ourselves a key part of being a Twitter user is being a hater after all but Rooney-related discourse stopped being interesting a long time ago after it was quickly discovered to be motivated by hatred for who she is perceived to be rather than actually informed, insightful discussion.

Read more:

We Need to Talk About Sally Rooney. Or Do We? - The University Times