Daily Archives: February 28, 2022

The term "cancel culture" surfaced a few years ago to refer to societys tendency to shut down a person or entity once they are deemed unacceptable for any number of reasons--often linked to political correctness or issues in the news, such as sexual harassment. Now there is talk of "canceling cancel culture," as both the term and the actions linked to it have been used to further political causes and have turned the original meaning on its head. We analyze where society stands today in its interpretationand misuseof cancel culture.

Panelists:Theo Greene, assistant professor of sociology, Bowdoin College; secretary/treasurer, Section on Sexualities, American Sociological Association; chair, LGBTQ Sociologists' Caucus; chair, Publications Committee, Community and Urban Sociology Section, American Sociological Association

Judith Rosenbaum, chair, associate professor of media studies, Department of Communication and Journalism, University of Maine

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Cancel culture has grown in scope since the term came into use a few years agowe'll explore how this phenomenon has morphed - Maine Public

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When I was in medical school, the term political correctness did not exist. I remember first learning about what we now call ADHD in the 1970s it was known as minimal brain dysfunction. I also remember seeing in paper charts the abbreviation FLK; it stood for funny-looking kid. Now we call it facial dysmorphology.

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It has been said that a rose by any other name still smells like a rose. If it were only that simple when we discuss ADHD.

The term ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) brings to mind two main features a deficit of attention and being very active. ADHD falls well short of what actually matters. What matters as much, if not more, are things such as executive functioning and emotional regulation.

ADHD also fails to describe that this condition has a wide spectrum of presentations. In autism, we use the word spectrum Not so in ADHD. In fact, some fuss over the H probably because boys tend to be more hyperactive than girls and thus some girls may not be diagnosed early enough because they are not hyperactive.

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Even though many children with ADHD can focus for long periods on something they are interested in, we do not talk about a situational inattention deficiency.

To add to the complexity of ADHD, respected researcher Russell Barkley recently wrote a very informative article in the publication ADDitude (www.additudemag.com online or get a paper copy of the Spring 2022 edition)

Dr. Barkley correctly points out that DESR deficient emotional self-regulation is a core component of ADHD. However, DESR is missing from the diagnostic criteria for ADHD.

Many patients with so-called ADHD also exhibit low frustration tolerances, impatience, they may be quick to anger, experience emotional excitability, an inability to self-soothe, an inability to refocus from emotionally provocative events and constantly struggle to self-regulate.

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Emotional dysregulation has been shown to uniquely predict social rejection and interpersonal hostility in childhood. In adulthood, individuals with ADHD experience more road rage, DUIs, job dismissals, marital discord, impulse buying, and conflict with a child who has ADHD.

Barkley points out that a parents ADHD could exacerbate their childs ADHD and make emotional dysregulation worse. For example, if a child with ADHD misbehaves, a parent with ADHD may fly off the handle faster than a more neurotypical parent. Two individuals feed off each other and conflict escalates. A parent with emotional dysregulation also models these reactions to his or her child.

Barkley calls these events emotional tornados. Each family member triggers another to higher levels of conflict.

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In Buddhist psychology, teachers mention an amygdala hijacking It is simply a situation where we react to an aversion rather than respond. The whole point of mindfulness-based stress reduction is for a student to learn how to cultivate a wise response rather than an unwholesome reaction.

The amygdala is a part of the brain involved in executive functioning. This section, the frontal lobe, the anterior cingulate and the ventral striatum all comprise the executive functioning and emotional circuits of our brain.

Deficient emotional self-regulation can manifest in the preschool age. Often it is dismissed as terrible twos. When the child gets older, it becomes more obvious that emotional regulation, compared to peers, may be lacking. Children who are described as being emotionally impulsive grow up and exhibit a lack of self-regulation later the lack of executive functioning then becomes the main focus.

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One of the saddest things for me to observe is that in Canada we brag about our health-care system not being two-tiered like the American system. This smugness is delusional. We do have a two-tiered system. It is true that any child in Canada can see a pediatrician to get a diagnosis of ADHD and walk away with a prescription for medication. It is also true that not all Canadian children have parents who can pay out-of-pocket for therapies such as CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) and mindfulness-based stress reduction. These children fall through the cracks because of a two-tiered system.

More and more doctors now are interested in mindfulness and CBT training probably because they realize that medication alone is insufficient. In fact, some stimulant medications used in ADHD may cause emotional blunting. As the stimulants wear off, the emotional brain may experience a rebound. This is less of an issue with non-stimulant medications.

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Educating both parents and a child with ADHD is always vital. In Canada, an organization called CADDRA offers great resources (www.caddra.ca).

I am very blessed to learn so much from the parents of my patients. A father of a child with ADHD introduced me to the magazine ADDITUDE, which helped their family immensely in expanding their understanding of what ADHD is all about. Via this great resource, I discovered a video on emotional dysregulation (www.additudemag.com/emotional-dysregulation-adhd-video/)

Dr. Nieman has worked in a pediatric clinic since 1987. For more information, visit http://www.drnieman.com

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Nieman: Navigating the emotional tornadoes of ADHD - Calgary Herald

Point-of-View. Is the mobilization of nuclear force a bluff, a simple desire to puff up the chest in the face of the difficulties encountered by the powerful Russian army held back by a people armed with slingshots and mobilized by a determination made of tempered steel ?

By Bernard Aubin

I order the Minister of Defense and the Chief of Staff to put the deterrent forces of the Russian army on special combat alert, Vladimir declared yesterday, staged as he likes. Looking at his military leaders, he gave a clear message, such as: Here, I am the great leader, the only leader. The leader whose orders are carried out without discussion, with application and by lowering the head as a sign of submission.

This trait of Putins character is also the trademark he imposes on those he classifies as weak. It has been illustrated many times: by the length of the table that separated him from Emmanuel Macron during the meeting of February 7, by the Molossus that sat in the legs of Angela Merkel, whom he knew to be terrorized by dogs, and by the beating (that is the most appropriate term) inflicted on Nicolas Sarkozy just after his election.

In June 2007, our new President of the French Republic found it clever to brag about a man who has the power, on his own, to raze the entire planet. And who, moreover, is not very adept at political correctness. During the press conference that followed, Sarkozy seemed drunk. The vodka had nothing to do with it: he was still groggy under the effect of Putins retort tinged with authority and enhanced with insults.

Putin is a cold-blooded animal. He gauges his interlocutors and divides them into two categories: the strong and the weak. For him, the latter have no right to compassion. He pushes cynicism to the point of playing with them as some predators do before devouring their prey. An attitude that our successive French leaders obviously did not integrate before meeting him. Obvious lack of professionalism !

Another character trait easily identifiable by simply observing the facts: Putin likes to be deliberately predictable, and he plays it up. So much the better for those who take the time to listen to him and so much the worse for the others. In 2005, the Russian President already warned: Ukraine could have problems, I say it frankly if it persisted in wanting to join Nato. Todays conflict should therefore surprise no one.

At the risk of insisting, let us recall that the facts show that Putin systematically announces his positions in advance. Sometimes in a very direct way, sometimes in a subliminal way. But he never hides his intentions. His strategy is laid out in advance, for those who take the trouble to open their ears wide. And because he hates not to be taken seriously, everything leads us to believe that he will follow through on his intentions. He assumes that, after all, we should have listened to him.

It was in 2005: Putin provoked an electroshock in the minds of world leaders during an intervention on American hegemonism. But the soufflet quickly fell back. And wrongly so. A situation not unlike the recent exchange between Macron and Putin, during which the latter clearly threatened France with serious reprisals if it were to join the camp of its opponents. A sentence very rich in meaning, but totally passed under silence by the media.The same people are now questioning the importance of Putins announcement yesterday. Is the mobilization of the nuclear force a bluff, a simple desire to puff up ones chest in the face of the difficulties encountered by the powerful Russian army, held back by a people armed with slingshots and mobilized by a determination made of hardened steel ?

Putin likes to practice humiliation towards others. But lets be aware that he will not tolerate the opposite. His pride is likely to push him to the extreme, whatever the consequences. Once again, he has displayed his intentions in advance. Emmanuel Macrons discomfited face suggests that, for once, the threat is taken seriously.At the slightest slip, the third world war will strike our small country. Perhaps even before the United States, if only to set an example. A nuclear conflict could escalate and level our planet.It will be difficult to calm tensions that are now reaching their peak. But without giving in to catastrophism, lets stop asking ourselves questions that have no reason to be asked. Putin has, once again, already said everything. And there is reason to doubt the good faith of the Kremlin when it claims to want to find an agreement with Kiev.We can only hope

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Will Putin press the red button? - Frenchdailynews.com

The German army invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. As German soldiers moved across the border, the Luftwaffe bombed military installations, airfields and whatever Polish resistance they encountered. It was the beginning of World War 2.

The American poet, W.H. Auden, knew what was coming. He wrote:

The unmentionable odour of death

Offends the September night. . .

We must love one another or die.

We are at a point in time that requires the undivided attention of our nation and its leaders to react to the situation in Ukraine. The unprovoked and unjustified invasion is as onerous as the warfare that erupted 83 years ago. It requires a forceful response from NATO and the West. The entire free world is, once again, looking to America and its president to face down the aggression of an arrogant thug.

But there is a different odour that may distract us from our responsibilities to Ukraine and its people. That smell you detect is coming from the fires of hyper partisanship that rears its ugly head in America even as we should be rallying behind the President and his ordeal.

Note that all of the Republican candidates who are blanketing the airwaves in Pennsylvania are sending whatever desperate signals they can to the former president and current cult leader. One wants you to remember that Trump appointed him as a U.S. Attorney. Another uses a video clip of his opponent with a former First Lady of the United States and some school children as evidence that he dances the night away with his liberal friends.

And add a touch of racism into the mix. One commercial puts children on the screen and suggests that an education that includes anything that is not painted in vanilla shades becomes critical race theory. God forbid that we address slavery or any other difficult historical issue.

Others simply use tried-and-true dog whistles to make sure that MAGA world remains on their side. One proclaims that he is anti-woke, anti-political correctness, anti-socialism, and anti-liberals. A word salad that adds nothing but rancor to the early discourse. These commercials add up to a campaign of crazy. A cacophony of meaningless noise.

The world of Pennsylvania politics became trivial the moment that Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. President Biden and world leaders understand the threat to the west and the blatant opportunism of Putin. Rational leaders of both parties are doing their best to support their President as he makes crucial decisions to avert another world war. The moment calls for patriotism; not political stupidity.

But stupidity and subversion are what we are getting from the egomaniac from Mar-a-Lago.

In the battle for Western civilization versus Putins Communist adventurism, Trump is choosing Putin. The former guy says that Putin is a genius and just like when he was in office, he cannot hide his admiration for the autocratic thug.

It is time for Republicans at all levels and candidates for every office across the land to choose sides. Are you a legitimate leader with noble intentions? Or are you part of the cult that is undermining the nation and its responsibility to ensure world peace?

I am waiting for candidates to break free of the stranglehold of Trumpism. The dumpster that is unloaded on us every day on TV only adds to the fire of animosity that the cult demands. Republicans must square their shoulders and bring us back to a semblance of civility. They can put aside the clown show and stand for those principles that made the Grand Old Party in the first place. They can engage in reasonable partisan debate on real issues.

But, at the very least, they should reject the ravings of a former Ppesident whose only interest is himself. The oath of office requires that elected officials protect the Constitution and the country from enemies both foreign and domestic. I remind us all that the Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3 clearly spells out the penalties for insurrection and rebellion. Also, take a look at 18 U.S. Code, Section 2381 for what constitutes treason.

I ask every candidate running for office this year:

Do you support the current president in opposing the greatest threat to world peace since 1939? Or, do you, like the Mar-a-Lago cult leader think Putin is a genius? Will you separate yourself from the former guy who now represents a domestic threat and a clear and present danger to our country?

I stand with President Biden in this time of war. Our candidates and elected officials should be strong enough to do the same. When it comes to world peace, American democracy matters. For American democracy to flourish, our leaders need to do the right thing.

Mark S. Singel is a former Democratic Lieutenant Governor and Acting Governor of Pennsylvania.

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Americans must support President Biden during the greatest threat to world security since 1939 | Opinion - pennlive.com

Pauly has made an impression on SAS.

Seven

Shameless is an apt title for Pauly, who gained notoriety after his 2003 comedy series Fat Pizza, which followed the life of character Pauly Falzoni, a Greek pizza delivery boy living in Sydney.

In 2019, while promoting a reboot of the series, Pauly told Seven News that Fat Pizza was one of the boldest Aussie comedies on television.

The reality star deemed the show political incorrectness at its best.

A famous face who certainly echoed those sentiments is the comedians former FP co-star, Rebel Wilson.

In a 2020 interview for TheDaily Telegraph, the Pitch Perfect actress called her first ever SBS show the most extreme culturally insensitive show ever.

People would have been crucified for putting that on the air right now, but comedy, there are cycles to it and it does go up and down and it is a bit of a weird time.

Meanwhile, theSAS star has previously confessed that he thinks political correctness has, to some extent, strangled humour.

Paul gained notoriety for his series, Fat Pizza.

Instagram

I think political correctness has perhaps strangled some of the elements of humour that exist in what you might call the old-style or larrikinism, he told The Daily Telegraph.

On one hand, it really isn't cool if you are hurting someone with art or comedy. But at the same time as a person from another era, I do think that we are at a point where people can be so thin-skinned that they can't take anything.

Pauly went on to suggest that if the comedy is mean-spirited, it crosses a line.

Along with Fat Pizza, the actor has created the television series Swift and Shift Couriers, Housos, Bogan Hunters, as well as various films and documentaries.

In an interview about the inception of Housos, an SBS satirical parody about Australians living in Housing Commission public housing, the writer explained that the show was largely inspired by his former partner.

I wanted to do a love story about two bogans called Shazza and Dazza, Paul told Impulse Gamer, before adding: that, and I had a bogan girlfriend; her and her family were pure comedy!

In the same interview, Pauly was asked if he could predict the type of negativity the show might cop.

The director replied: "Some sooks will complain, but who cares, if they dont likey, then no watchey."

The comedian is no stranger to backlash, particularly during his stand-up comedy gigs, where he has experienced his fair share of unruly crowds.

Paul also does stand-up comedy.

Instagram

I have had at least 3 or 4 guys get so drunk they try to start a fight with me on stage and throw a few punches, Pauly told Hear2Zen Magazinein 2019.

I have had glasses thrown at me a few times. They were wasted. I dont think I have had any sober attacks. It gets a bit wild because I play places that most comedians are too scared to play, but Im not that kind of person. I like it wild and if someone throws a punch, as long as I dont get a broken nose or a broken cheekbone I am happy.

Paulys readily admits that his tendency to push the boundaries can make him a polarising personality, and that's certainly been the case during his SAS stint.

I'm just one of those kind of friction people. In the universe I'm a person you either love or hate, the comedian told TV Tonight, before confessing that a few of his fellow recruits didnt warm to him.

"I think I was the oldest guy there and there were a few people being pretty patronising, considering all the things that I've achieved in my life,' he said. "I'm not going to name names, but some of them have notoriety, but apart from that, what have they done?"

SAS viewers have already seen snippets of tension between Pauly and fellow recruit, Locky Gilbert. Chief instructor Ant Middleton also confirmed there was a clash between the pair.

Speaking on NovaFMs Fitzy & Wippa, Ant confessed that Paul doesnt mess around, he comes with a punch.

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Who is Pauly Fenech? The SAS star and comedian who loves to push boundaries - New Idea

IN 1902, the Boston Brahmin and historian Brooks Adams published an influential book called The New Empire. It arrived at a moment when America was becoming a great power as imperial aspirations supplanted the restraint of the old republic. In the aftermath of the Spanish-American War of 1898, America annexed Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and much of the Caribbean. The Panama Canal was about to be completed and Washington was making inroads into China. Adams concluded,

Supposing the movement of the next 50 years only to equal that of the last, instead of undergoing a prodigious acceleration, the United States will outweigh any single empire, if not all empires combined. The whole world will pay her tribute. Commerce will flow to her from both east and west, and the order which has existed from the dawn of time will be reversed.

Adams remarkably accurate prophecy, as the sociologist Daniel Bell once noted, offers a useful reminder that the conviction that America should seek to achieve global supremacy predated both World War I and World War II. The original mandarins who envisioned a Pax Americana included Elihu Root, Alfred Thayer Mahan, Henry Cabot Lodge Hay, and John Hay. Their apostolic disciples, such as Henry Stimson, saw themselves as the Platonic guardians of America. In his recent book Tomorrow, the World, Stephen Wertheim argues that this foreign policy elite made the conscious choice to champion internationalism in the form of armed supremacy after 1945. Still, during the Cold War, Americas ambitions were constrained by its rivalry with the Soviet Union, when spheres of influence, along the lines of the 1555 Peace of Augsburgs famous phrase cuius regio, eius religio (whose realm, whose religion), obtained.

THE APPARENT stability of the Cold War meant that as the conflict ground on, some on the liberal Left came to reject the notion that it was ever necessary to confront the Kremlin as so much hooey. Starting in the 1960s, a minor academic industry developed around the idea that it was all a big mistake, the fault of merchants of death or red-baiting politicians. In his 1982 novel The Deans December, which was set in Bucharest and Chicago, Saul Bellow captured this illusion:

... liberalism had never accepted the Leninist premise that this was an age of wars and revolutions. Where the communists saw class war, civil war, pictures of catastrophe, we only saw temporary aberrations. Capitalistic democracies could never be at home with the catastrophic outlook. We are used to peace and plenty, we are for everything nice and against cruelty, wickedness, craftiness, monstrousness. Worshippers of progress, its dependents, we are unwilling to reckon with villainy and misanthropy, we reject the horriblethe same as saying we are anti-philosophical.

But a cadre on the American Right, first spearheaded by William F. Buckley, Jr., then joined by the neoconservatives who reviled the presidential candidate George McGovern and fled the Democratic party in the early 1970s, accepted this Leninist premise all too well, espousing an aggressiveno, revolutionarypolicy of the rollback of communism. The Nixon-Kissinger policy of dtente was disdained as tantamount to the appeasement of the Kremlin, one that was certain to lead to the demoralization and defeat of the West.

It didnt. Indeed, one of the most striking moments in the Cold War arrived towards its terminus when the Soviet official and academic Georgy Arbatov declared to a Washington audience, We are going to do a terrible thing to you. We are going to deprive you of an enemy. Even Arbatov could not have known just how prescient his remark would become in following decades. No sooner did the Cold War end than American hawks started searching for a fresh adversary. Instead of following prudent realist principles, they embraced the idea of the universal applicability of the American model abroadthat liberalism could be equated with progress in history.

A taste of what was to come appeared in a Defense Planning Guidance document that was supervised by Paul Wolfowitz and caused a stir when it appeared in 1992. The document advocated for huge increases in the defense budget and called for America to remain the worlds sole superpower while dismissing the notion of multilateralism. George H.W. Bush and his National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft rejected it. Bushs son did not. Restraint was out, braggadocio in. Bush the Younger invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, calling in his second inaugural address for an end to tyranny around the globe. The costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq alone came to over four trillion dollars. His successor, Barack Obama, had vowed to exit from Iraq and Afghanistan, but ended up leading a NATO coalition that bombed Libya. This campaign helped destabilize Syria, leading to an exodus of refugees to Europe.

At the same time, once the Cold War ended on American terms, Washington embarked upon the expansion of NATO by incorporating East Germany after the reunification of Germany. In 1990, Secretary of State James Baker told the Soviet leadershipin a statement that has become the basis for Russian aggrievementthat NATO would not move one inch eastwards if the Kremlin acceded to reunification. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, two new rounds of NATO expansion followed, extending the so-called Article V guaranteean armed attack against one or more of them shall be considered an attack against them allto cover one billion people. Washington was in no mood to allay any Russian apprehensions. To hell with that, President George H.W. Bush said when asked if he would compromise with Moscow. President Bill Clinton thought it could be bought off. But as the historian M.E. Sarotte observes in her important new book, Not One Inch, this approach, which the diplomat and scholar George F. Kennan stoutly opposed at the time, turned out to be short-sighted:

Along the way, a promising alternative mode of enlargement, in the form of a partnership that would have avoided drawing a new line across Europe, fell to hard-line opposition. This tougher attitude achieved results, but it obscured options that might have sustained cooperation, decreased chances of a US-Russia conflict reoccurring, and served Washingtons interests better in the longer term.

TODAY, AS President Joe Biden grapples uneasily with geopolitical shifts and the pandemic crisis, the impression is growing abroad that a new era has begun in the West in which America is no longer primus inter pares but a superpower in terminal declineone relegated, to borrow the title of a provocative book by Alexander Cooley and Daniel Nexon, to an exit from hegemony. Indeed, with polarization, political correctness, the banning of books, and alternative facts acquiring a new virulence, the belief that the United States itself may lurch into civil war has become increasingly prevalent. As the meretricious 1619 Project indicates, America cannot even agree on the most basic facts about its founding. Myths about the American Revolution as an exercise in white supremacy are percolating. At a minimum, the much-vaunted American model appears battered and bruised at home and abroad.

Writing in this issue, Nikolas K. Gvosdev underscores that nothing less than a thirty-year cycle has abruptly ended. Where this cycle began with a series of events that heralded the triumph of the U.S.-led liberal-democratic systemthe fall of the Berlin Wall, the nearly bloodless U.S.-led coalition victory in the Gulf War, and the lowering of the red banner of the hammer and sickle over the Great Kremlin Palace for the last time on December 25, 1991the terminus of this post-Cold War epoch and the birth pangs of a new and yet unnamed epoch could not be more different.

One sign of a new era is the increasingly truculent relationship between China and the United States. The Wests heady optimism that the introduction of capitalism to China would ineluctably result in political reforms has been dashed, as the Beijing leadership has clamped down internally and asserted sweeping claims to the South China Sea, alarming its immediate neighbors. President Donald Trump oscillated between denouncing China for unfair trade practices and praising its leader President Xi Jinping in a tweet for his handling of the pandemic as strong, sharp, and powerfully focused on leading the counterattack on the Coronavirus. Biden himself has not lifted many of the tariffs that Trump originally imposed upon China. Indeed, his objective has been to execute a pivot away from Europe and the Middle East to Asia. But while China may be an adversary of America, it is not clear that a competition with it must constitute Cold War II. But American pressure on Russia and China is prompting the two to cooperate much more closely. Both powers are regularly conducting joint military exercises. China is Russias No. 1 trading partner and the two tend to support each others foreign policy efforts. The more Washington leans on Moscow, the faster it seeks to bolster its ties with Beijing.

Where does this leave Washington? As Center for the National Interest fellow Paul Heer notes in this issue, a good deal of American vulnerability to China results from its own internal debilities. Some in Washington have succumbed to the temptation to ascribe Americas own weaknesses to Chinese perfidy rather than confront and rectify them. According to Heer,

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Why Putin's War Against the West Is Just Beginning - The National Interest

As the Russians began shelling airfields, the West responded with strong words, utter condemnation and... more meetings.

As the week drew to a close it was clear that far from being checked, the Russian advance was to be escalated, with convoys of Ukrainians desperate to flee to some form of safety building up.

The West reacted with the promise of more sanctions, a call for Ukrainians to embrace their passionate spirit, an alliance to try to make Putin think again and of course, more meetings.

While Im not for a moment advocating all-out war, in front of an increasingly emboldened Russia the Western response has been pathetic and beyond lame.

The reasons for what could be the biggest capitulation of responsibility in Europe since Germany was criminally indulged in the 1930s and the Nazis allowed to weaponise in readiness for all-out war make for desperately depressing reading.

Regrettably, a perfect storm of events has conspired to show the West to have been weakened to its lowest point in living memory. As Russia has brazenly built up arms, munitions and deadly ambition, Western nations have stumbled from farce to folly and fiasco.

Surely nothing better demonstrates the embarrassingly supine position most nations of the West have been forced into or in some instances have adopted with unbridled glee than the toe-curlingly absurd order earlier this month for tens of thousands of troops serving in the British Army to take the day off so they could spend the time reflecting on inclusivity.

The command came from General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith who used a series of mini-films to show soldiers the importance of being a team.

Is this the level to which our once proud military has sunk? In the past home of warrior soldiers such as Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery, Colonel Herbert H Jones from the Falklands conflict and the SAS heroes who stormed the Iranian embassy, it now appears to be being run by David Brent from The Office.

Can you imagine how that news went down in the Kremlin? If, God forbid, our troops have to face Russian tanks, just how important do you imagine those lessons in inclusivity will prove to be? Lets be straight: issues such as inclusivity and tackling unacceptable behaviour in the workplace have considerable merit.

But to be stressing about those, as well as debating transgender toilets and whether statues should be pulled down, as a hostile foe gears up for war is insane.

Just as the UK has defaulted on its responsibilities, so have other nations.

There can be no doubt that Putin will have watched the calamitously bungled evacuation of Kabul last year when the Taliban was allowed to seize power unchallenged and recognised the all too evident weaknesses.

Since then, the US has allowed itself to become even more inward looking and divided, led by a President with tumbling approval ratings. Its taken little time for Americans to turn against a leader who simply doesnt look up to the job.

And alarmingly, the picture is just as gloomy across Europe. Its impossible to imagine the EU allowing Putin to continue unchecked if Angela Merkel were still in power in Germany.

The Russian president wasted little time in moving after Merkel stood down last year. She had the sort of steel and will that could have at least caused Putin to pause.

In her absence, the perpetually pouting French President Emmanuel Macron has sought to seize the mantle of being the de facto leader of Europe, but has failed miserably. Unable to staunch growing unrest in his own country, its nigh on impossible to tell from day to day which Macron is going to turn up Napoleon or Neville Chamberlain.

As the West gets weaker and woker, Russia has been watching and waiting.

Its assassination of Litvinenko in London in 2006 and the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in 2018 went largely unpunished. Its now clear a far more robust approach was required.

Much of this contemptible complacency can be put down to political correctness.

Now it looks as if were about to see just how incorrect that was.

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Were I to ask you how much you earn, Im pretty certain youd be able to recall the number pretty swiftly. So what on earth is going on with someone who should be as quick with figures as a race course bookie?

When canny Labour MP Dame Angela Eagle quizzed Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey about how much he earns, the rather monosyllabic money man said he didnt carry that number around in my head.

To assist him, the amount is a cool 575,000 this from the man who is urging the rest of us NOT to push for large pay increases for the benefit of the nations economy.

As he possesses the skills required in such a demanding job, hes 100 per cent deserving of his salary. However, a touch of humility wouldnt hurt either.

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TVs top twosome Ant and Dec have roared back to our screens with their rambunctious Saturday Night Takeaway show and our weekends will be brighter for it but their show last week bewilderingly seems to have provoked a bit of a rumpus.

Complete with giant wigs, fake breasts and half a ton of make-up, the duo dressed in drag to perform their new charity single at the end of the show.

This has now attracted a number of complaints with some even saying this was #womanface in the same way that white performers using make-up to portray black people can be referred to as blackface.

With whats going on in the world, it beggars belief anyone can be that offended by something so harmless.

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In an unremittingly grim week, once again it fell to the Duchess of Cambridge to lift our spirits by hurling herself down a childrens slide with the enthusiasm of a toddler using it for the first time. While Id never usually highlight a womans age, this tremendous advert for our nation is a 40-year-old mum-of-three who delightfully demonstrates the adage that age is nothing more than a number. As Kate used her first foreign visit since the pandemic to gain greater knowledge about early years development and education, her brother-in-law Prince Harry returned home from sitting in a VIP box to watch the Super Bowl.

For me, there is no doubt who scored the touchdown...

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You and I fund the BBCs news division to the tune of 350million, employing around 3,000 people.

Last week saw the exodus of some its biggest names to my home on LBC radio continued unabated.

What is happening where you live? Find out by adding your postcode or visit InYourArea

Last week also sawthe RTS Television Journalism Awards, the most prestigious in the business. The BBC were thumped by their perennial rival ITV, picking up just three of the 19 gongs available. So why are we forced to pay for such an inferior service?

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Bonus seasonat the banks and it seems some bankers may need wheelbarrows to get the cash home. At HSBC the bonus pool available totals 2.6billion, at Barclays 1.9billion and at NatWest 298million. Thats a lot of loot... any chance they could actually providesome open branches?

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Global shortages elsewhere have fortunately not deterred the makers in Chile of the Errazuriz Sauvignon Blanc from keeping the supplies coming, and at 9 at Tesco it represents tasty value.

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PC culture behind the West's pathetic response to Russian invasion, says NICK FERRARI - Daily Express

Good morning. Stay safe, stay sane. Another woke storm is probably blowing up somewhere. In the past 10 days, we have been through several of those.

This week, The Daily Telegraph kicked up a squall with a news report of an e-learning Civil Service course that was allegedly pushing a woke agenda by asking attendees to be mindful that pub work outings and all-male interviewing panels can be discriminatory. The Cabinet has now cancelled the course.

A Bristol pub landlord decided to only sell ethical products, meaning those not indirectly linked to slavery or linked to exploitation. Oh my. That triggered some tempests. Callers to radio stations wanted to cancel the pub, some because they honestly believe the landlord is a threat to our freedoms.

Our wonderfully inventive Royal Shakespeare Company was targeted by racists who object to its Afro-futuristic Much Ado About Nothing. Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi has issued guidance to schools on impartiality after pupils in one school wrote letters criticising the PM. All in the name of free speech.

Earlier this month, Oliver Dowden, an ex-secretary of state desperately seeking attention, delivered a speech to a right-wing US think-tank, making the odious and foolish claim that woke psychodrama is weakening the West. So now we know. Vladimir Putin marched into Ukraine because Nato nations have been sapped by wokeness.

What is the response of Her Majestys Opposition to this ugly, sinister, new McCarthyism? Labour is supposedly anti-racist, pro LGBT+, defender of the poor and powerless, committed to universal human rights and equality, to redressing historical injustices all of which are being delegitimised by the ruling elite.

So are they standing up for those values? No. They quake, hide from the winds, speak without conviction. Lucy Powell, the Shadow Culture Secretary, personified the cowardice when interviewed by a Telegraph journalist in January: I wouldnt say Im woke. Im not woke. But Im not anti-woke either. Geddit? No, me neither. As the journalist Nesrine Malik observed in The Guardian on Monday: Progressive politicians still do not seem to have understood that the only way to beat the charge [of wokeness] is to own it.

As you know, I am unabashedly woke. And properly PC. In the 80s, I worked for the Inner London Education Authority which steadfastly promoted equality and fairness. Thatcherites hated what we did so they abolished the authority in 1990. Then came the years when Political Correctness was slandered by right-wing and also some left-wing politicians, academics and commentators. They warned it was a social disease that was seriously undermining, even emasculating, the US and UK. Humbug. And they knew it.

In 2018, I wrote this in my book, In Defence of Political Correctness: Within the Anglo-Saxon axis, anti-political correctness has gone mad, bad and treacherous too. Invectives, lies, hate speech, bullying, intemperance and prejudices have become the new norms. Intolerable deeds are justified through invocations of liberty. Restraint is oppression.

I could write exactly the same paragraph about the anti-woke battalions. They care about the statue of a slaver more than they care about the injustices endured by their living black fellow citizens. They defend the right to use insulting racist and sexist language and cry foul when we call them out. As with PC, these unbending nationalists simultaneously sneer at and demonise the woke.

What is it to be woke? David Merritt, the father of law graduate Jack, who was killed by a terrorist in London Bridge, defines it as the opposite of ignorant. It is to have an open mind and critical antennae. It is to understand that, though the world will never be perfectly fair to all, we all have a duty to strive to make it fairer, and stand by the many who are kept down and denied, generation after generation.

For Sam Leith, of the adamantly right-wing Spectator: [It] is to show curiosity about other people; to aspire to enlarge your range of sympathy. It is to take an interest in how the world may look from another perspective the aspiration to be woke is in line with the basic project of the Enlightenment: to question received ideas and see if your assumptions are susceptible to disproof.

We all have an obligation to examine our own life stories and inherited prejudices. Both are too often airbrushed or Photoshopped out. I cannot claim to be woke if I dont address, for example, the racism and embedded sexism and homophobia and intolerance of the cultures I was born into. I learnt to interrogate what I was taught and to have respect for gay and disabled people here, in this country.

Thank you GB, for enlightening and educating me. For making me woke.

Read more:

Great Britain made me woke, and thats something both Labour and the Conservatives cant seem to grasp - iNews

Its an expression used to greet family, friends and work colleagues. It is also a turn of phrase that increasingly has many gasping for a more inclusive greeting.

The word guys, along with the phrases hi guys and hey guys, has become ingrained in our day-to-day conversations and is used by most with absolutely no intention to offend.

In the singular, guy is masculine. But for some of us the plural version guys has come to include everyone as a sort of casual alternative to ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.

We all have a pet peeve when it comes to the way we are greeted by others. Some detest being called dude, precious, sugar, doll or honey, and there are many more who bristle at the gender disconnect created by the word guys.

Critics of those who use the term to address groups that include women and those who identify as non-binary argue it is not gender neutral and is therefore exclusionary.

Using you guys, for example, may make some women feel overlooked or ignored in a mixed-gender group.

There are those, however, who argue the word has evolved to be entirely gender neutral.

They claim attempts to remove the word from our banter is yet another case of political correctness out of control.

While those seeking to do away with guys concede the words meaning may have shifted slightly, they maintain it has retained a certain male flavour.

They argue those who continue to use the exclusionary term are simply imagining that male words are gender neutral. The expressions good guys, bad guys, old guys, tough guys and even wise guys, for example, have not lost their gendered associations.

Besides, the term actually positions men as the default because guy in the singular invariably means male.

One of the reasons guys has endured is that the English language, at first glance, does not offer many gender-neutral alternatives.

Folks, while having some merit, may come across as a little forced or even too folksy.

People sounds plausible, but can sound too pushy, a little impersonal and perhaps a touch contrived.

Team may work in some, but not all, situations and can come across as a patronising. Friends is good for certain social contexts, but may seem a little awkward or out of place in the workplace.

While those seeking to do away with guys concede the words meaning may have shifted slightly, they maintain it has retained a certain male flavour.

As our voices for inclusion become louder and louder, diehard fans of the word guys will be forced to accept that language has the power to make some people invisible, and they will be prompted to surrender a word they maintain is harmless.

If you are trying to edit guys out of your vocabulary, you cannot go wrong with using one of two words that ooze inclusivity and will not leave at least half of the world feeling left out, ignored or an afterthought. Those words are everyone or everybody.

For further insights and expertise on current workplace topics visit AIM WAs Workplace Conversations

Professor Gary Martin is chief executive at the Australian Institute of Management WA

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Gary Martin: Should we stop using hi guys in the workplace? - PerthNow

West Hams three best players against Wolves as Hammers get second wind with important 1-0 victory at the London Stadium.

David Moyes and his players knew they were standing at a crossroads ahead of the home match against Wolves.

Wins for Arsenal and Spurs had put the Hammers under pressure in the race for the European spots.

Conversely Manchester Uniteds failure to beat Watford also offered a carrot ahead of Sundays game.

The pressure was on with West Ham knowing a Wolves win would put Bruno Lages side above them in the table with a game in hand.

But there were really positive signs here that West Ham still have a bit of fuel left in the tank.

Moyess side have looked like they were running on empty of late.

If that was the case then the Scot saw his players get a second wind against a very strong Wolves side.

It was far from perfect. And still a far cry from the swashbuckling West Ham who have been putting teams away with ease over the last couple of seasons.

But make no mistake this is a superb result for West Ham after draws against Newcastle and Leicester. It also serves to highlight just how important not losing was in those games.

The east Londoners are now two points off Man United in fourth.

Arsenal have three games in hand but they are by no means a sure thing with Spurs, Chelsea and Liverpool being their catch-up matches.

It was a solid team performance but who were the standout performers?

It has taken the outbreak of war for the reaction to the Zouma saga to quieten down. But the defender has not put a foot wrong since his daft actions brought an unwelcome spotlight onto West Ham.

Zouma was immense again and comfortably the man of the match. I have not seen who was awarded that by Sky Sports in the live coverage, but if it wasnt Zouma then it would have been political correctness gone mad.

The 29m man was absolutely everywhere, first to every ball and every header. And he made several potentially goal-saving interventions and tackles. A superb performance and without him West Ham may not have won that match. Man mountain.

This was more like the Rice we know and love after some rare below par performances from the West Ham talisman.

Breaking up attacks, charging forward, picking the right passes and using his athleticism and power to ensure West Ham got the win.

A mature display in which he was desperately unlucky not to get at least one goal with a brilliant curling effort from outside the box hitting the post.

What a player. A real captains performance in every way.

It was a toss up between a number of players including Ben Johnson, Craig Dawson, Lukasz Fabianski, Manuel Lanzini and Pablo Fornals to pick out West Hams third best player on the day.

Fabianski did so well and showed why he is still Moyess number one. He just does all the basics so, so well. Dawson was excellent again and Lanzini was so tidy on the ball when he was able to get on it.

Fornals, though, was back to his hard-working best and was involved in most of West Hams good play going forward. Full of intent, full of running and really put a superb shift in for the team. Came off right at the end to much deserved big hugs from all the coaching staff and rapturous applause from the home fans.

Fabianski 7, Johnson 7, Dawson 7, Zouma 9, Cresswell 7, Rice 8, Soucek 6, Lanzini 6, Fornals 7, Bowen 6, Antonio 6.

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West Hams three best players against Wolves as Hammers get second wind - Hammers News - West Ham United FC