Daily Archives: March 6, 2022

Russia and Putin’s Ukraine war may have been preventable – MSNBC

Posted: March 6, 2022 at 9:41 pm

The prevailing wisdom in the West is that Russian President Vladimir Putin was never interested in President Joe Bidens diplomatic efforts to avert an invasion of Ukraine. Bent on restoring the might of the Soviet empire, this narrative goes, the Russian autocrat audaciously invaded Ukraine to fulfill a revanchist desire for some combination of land, power and glory.

In a typical account operating under this framing, Politico described Putin as the steely-eyed strongman who proved immune to traditional tools of diplomacy and deterrence and had been playing Biden all along. This telling suggests that the United States exhausted its diplomatic arsenal and that Russias horrifying and illegal invasion of Ukraine, which has involved targeting civilian areas and shelling nuclear plants, could never have been prevented.

But according to a line of widely overlooked scholarship, forgotten warnings from Western statesmen and interviews with several experts including high-level former government officials who oversaw Russia strategy for decades this narrative is wrong.

Many of these analysts argue that the U.S. erred in its efforts to prevent the breakout of war by refusing to offer to retract support for Ukraine to one day join NATO or substantially reconsider its terms of entry. And they argue that Russias willingness to go to war over Ukraines NATO status, which it perceived as an existential national security threat and listed as a fundamental part of its rationale for the invasion, was so clear for so long that dropping support for its eventual entry could have averted the invasion.

Recognizing this possibility does not excuse Moscows actions, which are heinous. Nor does it mean Russias insistence on regional hegemony is fair or ethical. And ultimately, it is no guarantee that Putin would not have invaded anyway. There are other factors including, but not limited to, Putin's general anger over Kyiv drifting away from Russian influence and domination and his isolation as a decision-maker that may have been sufficient to drive the invasion.

But the abundance of evidence that NATO was a sustained source of anxiety for Moscow raises the question of whether the United States strategic posture was not just imprudent but negligent.

Ukrainians might be paying with their lives for the United States reckless flirtation with Ukraine as a future NATO member without ever committing to its defense.

The fact that the NATO status question was not put on the table as Putin signaled that he was serious about an invasion so plainly that the U.S. government was spelling it out with day-by-day updates was an error, and potentially a catastrophic one. It may sound cruel to suggest that Ukraine could be barred, either temporarily or permanently, from entering a military alliance it wants to be in. But whats more cruel is that Ukrainians might be paying with their lives for the United States reckless flirtation with Ukraine as a future NATO member without ever committing to its defense.

Analysts say its widely known that Ukraine had no prospect of entering NATO for many years, possibly decades, because of its need for major democracy and anti-corruption reforms and because NATO has no interest in going to war with Russia over Ukraines Donbas region, where Russia has meddled and backed armed conflict for years. But by dangling the possibility of Ukraines NATO membership for years but never fulfilling it, NATO created a scenario that emboldened Ukraine to act tough and buck Russia without any intention of directly defending Ukraine with its firepower if Moscow decided Ukraine had gone too far.

But for the West to offer to compromise on Ukraines future entry into NATO would have required admitting the limitations of Western power.

It was the desire of Western governments not to lose face by compromising with Russia, Anatol Lieven, senior research fellow on Russia and Europe at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the author of Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry, told me. But it was also the moral cowardice of so many Western commentators and officials and ex-officials who would not come out in public and admit that this was no longer a viable project.

The West didn't want to set limits on NATO's enlargement and influence or lose face. So what it did was gamble.

The choice that we faced in Ukraine and I'm using the past tense there intentionally was whether Russia exercised a veto over NATO involvement in Ukraine on the negotiating table or on the battlefield, said George Beebe, a former director of Russia analysis at the CIA and special adviser on Russia to former Vice President Dick Cheney. And we elected to make sure that the veto was exercised on the battlefield, hoping that either Putin would stay his hand or that the military operation would fail.

What's happened has happened, and theres no going back. But it still matters.

The U.S. must do everything it can do to end this war which is already brutalizing Ukraine, rattling the global economy, and could quite easily spiral into a nuclear-armed confrontation between the U.S. and Russia, if things get out of hand as swiftly as possible, including negotiating on Ukraine's NATO status and possible neutrality with an open mind. And over the longer term, Americans must realize that in an increasingly multipolar world, reckoning with the limits of their power is critical for achieving a more peaceful and just world.

NATO was originally formed as a military and political alliance between the U.S., Canada and several Western European nations in 1949. It was meant to serve as a collective defense organization to contain the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and its most important provision, Article 5, held that an attack on one member of the alliance was an attack against all of them.

In 1990, the West led the Soviets to believe NATO would not expand further eastward across Europe in exchange for Germany reunification and the agreement that the new Germany would be a NATO member. Most famously, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker once assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that the NATO alliance would move not one inch eastward in exchange for this agreement, but as the late Princeton University scholar Stephen Cohen pointed out in 2018, this pledge was in fact made multiple times by several Western countries.

These assurances were not honored, and NATO has expanded eastward over the years to include many more countries, all the way up to Russias borders.

It is the broken promise to Gorbachev that lingers as Americas original sin, Cohen said then.

NATOs expansion was hugely controversial in policy circles in the 1990s. As foreign policy commentator Peter Beinart has noted, around the time the Clinton administration was considering NATO in the '90s to include Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic a debate that almost caused President Bill Clinton's Secretary of Defense William Perry to resign many influential voices dissented:

George Kennan, the living legend who had fathered Americas policy of containment against the Soviet Union, called NATO expansion a strategic blunder of potentially epic proportions. Thomas Friedman, Americas most prominent foreign policy columnist, declared it the most ill-conceived project of the post-Cold War era. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, widely considered the most erudite member of the US Senate, warned, We have no idea what were getting into. John Lewis Gaddis, the dean of Americas Cold War historians, noted that, historiansnormally so contentiousare in uncharacteristic agreement: with remarkably few exceptions, they see NATO enlargement as ill-conceived, ill-timed, and above all ill-suited to the realities of the post-Cold War world.

The major concern was that expansion would backfire that it would, as Kennan put it in 1997, inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion. Indeed, Russia hated it. As Lieven previously told me, for decades the Russian political establishment and commentators have vociferously objected to NATO expansion and warned that if this went as far as taking in Georgia and Ukraine, then there would be confrontation and strong likelihood of war.

Russia is no longer at the helm of a global superpower, but it is still, at the very least, a regional great power, and as such it devotes considerable resources to exerting its influence beyond its borders and using the states around it as buffers. Russia views Ukraine, a large country to which it has long-running cultural and historical ties, as a particularly critical buffer state for protecting its capital.

The issue that Russia saw in NATO was not just an expanding military alliance, but one that had shifted gears to transforming and proactively intervening in global affairs. After the end of the Cold War, NATOs raison dtre no longer existed, but instead of disbanding, its mission shifted to democracy promotion. The carrot of membership in NATO was used to encourage countries to adopt liberalization and good governance and align with U.S. political, economic and military interests.

It is imperative that America develops a clearer understanding of its adversaries and behaves more judiciously in an increasingly multipolar world.

Of particular concern to the Russians have been NATOs operations outside of NATO countries. The Russians were shocked by NATOs bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, where NATO not only intervened in the affairs of a non-NATO country, but took sides against the Serbs, allies of the Russians, and did so without United Nations Security Council approval. NATO has also been involved in regime change and nation-building projects in places like Libya and Afghanistan.

NATO is a defensive organization; I don't think it had any plans on Russia, Thomas Graham, a former special assistant to the president and senior director for Russia on the National Security Council staff from 2004 to 2007, said regarding NATOs expansion of territory and widening scope of operations. All that said if you put yourself in the position of people in the Kremlin, you can see why they came to that conclusion.

Things turned up a notch in 2008, when NATO declared that Ukraine and Georgia will become members of NATO. It did not specify a timeline, and it was assumed that it was conditional on the countries adopting political reforms, but it infuriated the Russians.

As a way to reassert its dominance in the region, Russia invaded Georgia later that year. In another sign of Russias intolerance of losing out to Western influence in those countries, Putin annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in 2014 in the wake of the protest-spurred ouster of Ukraines Russia-friendly president, which the West favored.

John Mearsheimer, an international relations scholar at the University of Chicago, argued that a number of factors, including Ukraines potential integration into the Western European economy, played a role in Russias concerns in 2014, but NATO enlargement was the taproot of the crisis and Russia wanted to make sure that, among other things, a NATO base couldnt be set up in Crimea as Ukraine drifted toward the U.S.

Mearsheimer also warned that this was foreshadowing, and Ukraines pseudo-membership status was going to bait Moscow and result in catastrophe. The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path, and the end result is Ukraine is going to get wrecked, he said in a lecture.

Russia has grown concerned again about Ukraine for a number of reasons. Analysts like Lieven and Beebe point out that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has taken a number of sharp measures to eradicate Russian influence in Ukraine recently by doing things like banning the use of Russian language in schools and state institutions, shutting down Kremlin-linked television stations and arresting some of the most prominent Russo-sympathetic leaders in the country all while cooperating on the ground with NATO. Russia read this as a sign that Kyiv was throwing its lot in with the U.S. and the prospect of an agreement ensuring autonomy for the separatist-held Donbas region, crucial to Russias plan to thwart Ukraines NATO entry, might be dead.

All this brings us to the crisis at hand. The takeaway of this very quick survey is not to convince you to agree with Russias assessment that NATO posed an existential threat to it or that it is justified in its great power politicking. As Beebe put it, whether or not Russias perception is accurate or justified is immaterial to whether that perception is genuinely held and to whether they will act on that perception. What matters is that there is clear evidence that Russia sees NATO as destabilizing, pro-democratic and anti-Russian and clear evidence that it was willing to use force to counter NATO's enlargement.

Moreover, Putin sent clear signals that he was serious about pulling the trigger if he didn't get something. Shifting some 150,000 troops along Ukraines border for weeks was a real cost, and it placed pressure on him to not back down without extracting a major concession and risk losing face in front of Russias political elite.

I thought, and continue to think, that we should have made a deal, that there was a deal to be had not a deal that we liked, obviously, but a deal that the realities of the situation that we're facing required, Beebe said.

Graham, the former NSC official, also said the U.S. made a mistake in its approach. Ukraines future NATO membership didnt necessarily have to be permanently taken off the table, but the U.S. had to be prepared to talk about it in a serious way, he said.

Justice is circumscribed by practical matters that require us to contemplate the possibility of making things worse through imprudent action.

Emma Ashford, resident senior fellow with the New American Engagement Initiative in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, wrote in an email that it was a pity that NATOs open-door principle was not up for debate. Though she was skeptical about the political ability of the West to promise to close NATOs open door, particularly in a way that would have been credible to Moscow, she said there were potential ways to deal with Moscows concerns, such as a moratorium on NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia, conventional arms control agreements limiting the scope of NATO military integration and cooperation with Ukraine, or some form of negotiated Ukrainian neutrality.

The idea behind a moratorium of, say, 20 years is to provide a way for the West to propose to Russia that the issue can be taken up by a future generation of leaders, at a time when Russia's political class has changed and geopolitics may have shifted.

Whether or not opening up on the question of Ukraines NATO status or neutrality in some way wouldve been enough to stop Putin from pursuing war is unknowable, every expert I spoke to stressed. After all, maybe by this point changing Ukraines NATO status would not have allayed Putins concern that Ukraine was irrevocably slipping out of Russias sphere of influence and overcome his conception of Ukraine as Russias lost property. There are also always unprovable and unfalsifiable explanations for his behavior including, but not limited to, a concern with securing his legacy, paranoia and a lack of access to accurate information due to his accumulation of power within the Kremlin.

All we do know is that the NATO element mattered a great deal to Russias political establishment, and theres reason to think it couldve changed the course of negotiations. When things looked dicey, it was worth trying.

It seems unjust that Ukraine might not be let into an alliance it wants to be part of to protect itself from a country like Russia. I would say it is. But alliances choose their own members and must weigh the geopolitical consequences of expanding them the enhanced possibility of war chief among them. As with so many issues in politics, justice is circumscribed by practical matters that require us to contemplate the possibility of making things worse through imprudent action.

As Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told me, NATOs oft-touted open door policy is supposed to be based on Article 10 of the treaty, but the meaning is often misunderstood.

"In recent decades, the open door has instead come to entail dangling the possibility of membership to other states, never foreclosing that possibility, and sometimes speaking as though states have a right to join NATO if they so choose (when in fact they have a right merely to ask to join)," he wrote.

That dangling is incredibly dangerous, and it's possible that it just caused Ukraine to experience the worst of all worlds: not receiving NATO protection while also enduring one of the most aggressive forms of Russian domination possible.

Many of the experts I spoke to said Ukraine's neutrality or some kind of altered NATO status should be part of the discussion in diplomatic backchannels. Critics will say this constitutes appeasement of Putin. But as Biden has already made clear, the U.S. is not willing to wage war with Russia, and it certainly isn't going to allow Ukraine into NATO when Russia is attacking it, since that would require all of NATO to go to war with Russia. The issue now is to think clearly about how to end a conflict that could spiral into World War III.

It is imperative that America develops a clearer understanding of its adversaries and behaves more judiciously in an increasingly multipolar world. It is not difficult to imagine the U.S. making a miscalculation over what China would be willing to do to secure its domination of the South China Sea. The U.S. may want to be the only great power in the world, free to expand its hegemony with impunity, but it is not. Refusing to see this is dangerous for us all.

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Russia and Putin's Ukraine war may have been preventable - MSNBC

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Build a New City or New Humans? A Utopia in India Fights Over Future. – The New York Times

Posted: at 9:40 pm

AUROVILLE, India The bulldozer arrived one night in December, shaking Ganga Park awake in her tree house and sending her scurrying down the trunk.

When its operator paused the menacing machine, which was there to clear a path through the surrounding forest, Ms. Park clung to it. Their standoff continued until the driver gave up and turned back.

When the bulldozer returned a few days later, Ms. Park confronted it again, but this time she was joined by dozens of her neighbors in the south Indian arcadia of Auroville.

They linked arms around the bulldozer, chanting Om Namo Bhagavate, a popular Hindu mantra that roughly translates to Obeisance to the Almighty. They remained until they won at least a temporary victory: a stay order from an environmental tribunal, forcing the demolition work to stop.

It was super instinctive, Ms. Park, 20, said of her leap into action. If theres an intruder, you immediately protect and defend.

The intruder, in this case, was the government of Auroville, an idealistic community founded in 1968 with the goal of realizing human unity by putting the divine at the center of all things.

That unity, however, has recently frayed.

A bitter dispute has arisen between Aurovilles government, which has revived a long-delayed plan to vastly expand the community, and those residents who want to protect the thriving forest they have cultivated from the barren stretch of land where their social experiment began more than 50 years ago.

The community was founded by a French writer, Mirra Alfassa, better known to her followers simply as the Mother, who believed that a change of consciousness and aspiration to the divine in Auroville would ripple out to the rest of the world.

Before her death in 1973, the Mother had commissioned the French architect Roger Anger to develop a design for a city of 50,000, about 15 times the current population. Mr. Anger conceived of a galactic form: spiraling concentric circles around the Matrimandir a circular golden meditation chamber with 12 radial roads.

But without the money or manpower over the decades to carry out the plan, the communitys residents, or Aurovilians, built something different.

They dug wells and built thatched-roof huts. And they planted trees. A lot of them. Under the cool forest canopy, civets, jackals, peacocks and other creatures roam, and muriel bushes release a sweet, heady fragrance.

The divide between those Aurovilians who want to follow the Mothers urban development plans known as constructivists and those who want to let the community continue developing on its own organicists has long existed.

But the struggle took on a heightened pitch last July, when the office of Prime Minister Narendra Modi appointed a new secretary, Jayanti Ravi, to head the townships governing board.

Ms. Ravi had been the health secretary in Gujarat, Mr. Modis home state. Earlier, she was a district magistrate under Mr. Modi, then the states top official, when he faced near-universal condemnation for failing to control two months of religious riots in Gujarat in 2002 that left more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslim, dead.

The governments new interest in enacting Mr. Angers design reflects Mr. Modis penchant for ambitious construction projects to foster tourism around Hindu or nationalist sites. His Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., is the political arm of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a social organization devoted to making India an explicitly Hindu state.

Though Auroville was founded by a Frenchwoman, she was the disciple of Sri Aurobindo, a spiritual teacher and a freedom fighter for Indias independence. The planned redesign of Auroville is being done ahead of Sri Aurobindos 150th birth anniversary in August for which Mr. Modi is planning a big celebration.

Part of Narendra Modis agenda is to appropriate all religious and spiritual figures into the fold of the B.J.P., said Navroz Mody, the resident who filed the petition to pause the development project.

Ms. Ravi promised to infuse the project with millions of dollars in federal funding. The development would start by paving a perfectly circular road, part of a broader, pedestrianized beltway that would connect Aurovilles four distinct zones. But in the way stand Aurovilles youth center, a water catchment area and hundreds of trees.

Sindhuja Jagadeesh, a spokeswoman for the local government, said it was a kind of decadence for Aurovilles approximately 3,300 people about half Indian, and half foreigners to live on 3,000 acres of land in a country as densely populated as India.

Many people have become attached to their comfort in the greenery, but we are supposed to experiment and evolve, said Ms. Jagadeesh, who is also an architect and an Aurovilian.

The stance of those opposed to the development, Ms. Jagadeesh added, clashes sharply with the Mothers vision for a model city of the future that would be replicated around the world.

We are here for human unity, but also to build a city, she said.

The proponents of the development plan, which ultimately envisions a high-density, self-sustained city with a bustling economy and experimental architecture, deride the Auroville of today as an eco-village where a visitor can get a good cappuccino but not the change in consciousness its founder hoped for.

Its not just a city plan, its meant to hold an experiment, said Shrimoyi Rosegger, a resident who approves of the development and has a deep faith in the transformative power of the Mothers plan. We believe it is an intelligence which is beyond us, she added, that if we follow her guidelines, something will be revealed to us.

Leaning against a motorcycle outside the communitys free clothing store and food co-op, Auroson Bystrom, 51, among the first children born in Auroville, said he opposes Ms. Ravis plans, but thinks the intense debate has energized the community.

Aurobindo is all about evolution, Mr. Bystrom said, referring to Sri Aurobindo. And for the last 35 years, Auroville hasnt felt all that evolutionary.

Some opponents of the plan say that the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother was not as much about building a new city as it was building a new human. And that takes time.

How we urbanize is more important than how fast we urbanize, said Suhasini Ayer, an architect whose mixed-use development in Auroville recently won a design award at the U.N. climate conference in Glasgow.

The communitys small population, opponents of the development say, owes more to the unusual conditions for residency than to the lack of the ring road that the government wants to plow through trees.

Those wishing to live here must undergo a year of vetting and must invest their own money into homes that will remain town property.

Auroville receives some funding from the government, but drums up most of its budget internally, from private enterprise and donations.

Residents purify their own water, grow their own grains and make their own paper. Those who work for Aurovilles public services receive a meager salary known as maintenance.

These people want to be pragmatic, Renu Neogy, a lifelong Aurovilian, said of Ms. Ravi and her supporters. But this is not a pragmatic place, this is utopia.

Some foreign residents said they feared that Ms. Ravi could deprive them of the sponsorship they need to continue living in India if they fail to get on board with her plans.

While the two sides seem far apart, some residents believe a solution may lie in the approach to community decision-making that was a founding principle of Auroville: consensus building.

Allan Bennett, an Auroville town planner, said a group of the communitys architects were mulling how to meld together the place that the Mother envisioned with the place that exists today through a process known as dream weaving.

The architects are trying to capture the poetry of the galaxy vision and also the ground reality, he said. These are the concepts they have to weave together.

Back in her treehouse, filled with bird song and sunlight, Ms. Park contemplated what she had confronted a bulldozer to save.

Growing up in Auroville, Ms. Park picked lemons and swung on the limbs of banyan trees. When she went briefly to live in Seoul, she wore a school uniform and followed a strict routine.

Outside its unavoidable to buy trash, to get swept away by consumerism. It really gets you down, she said. Its easy to be a good human being here.

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Build a New City or New Humans? A Utopia in India Fights Over Future. - The New York Times

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The New All-In-One Grinder Advances The Dream Of Mobile Coffee Utopia – Sprudge

Posted: at 9:40 pm

When it comes to travel coffee setups, the holy grail is the all-in-one device that will store all the equipment you need to make coffee into one slim, space-saving package. And the newest edition to the pantheon of to-go coffee kits, the aptly-named All-In-One Grinder, gets us one step closer to that reality by combining an electric grinder, travel mug, and pour-over device all in one sleek package.

As reported by Yanko Design, the concept is the creation of Guangzhou, China-based designer Locus Hsu. Clocking in around the same size as a water bottle, the All-In-One Grinder is meant to (mostly) get you from whole bean to brew. The conical burr grinder is adjustable and USB-chargeable. Just toss your beans in the grind chamber and youre ready to get grinding whenever the urge hits.

Once ground, the coffee can then be loaded into the attached conical metal-filter pour-over device that seats nicely atop the reusable travel mug. All you have to do is figure out how to get hot water and pour it over the coffee (perhaps a nice Cauldryn mug?) and voila, youve got coffee!

Of course, we havent yet reached the travel coffee singularity, where all your brewing needs are self-contained. But we are getting closer and closer. Though only a concept and thus not yet on the market, the All-In-One Grinder is a very handsome step in the right direction. Once someone figures out how to work in a collapsable kettle and a water reservoir, we will truly be living in the future. Humanity, the unstoppable force fueled by coffee anywhere at any time.

Zac Cadwaladeris the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas.Read more Zac Cadwaladeron Sprudge.

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Interview: Dystopia in Utopia: Brian Pinkerton, Author of The Nirvana Effect – thirdcoastreview.com

Posted: at 9:40 pm

Author Brian Pinkerton is a lifelong resident of the Chicago area, growing up on, as he puts it, Bozos Circus and Ray RaynerCreature Features and Cubs baseball. With 12 novels under his belt, his work has extended to the science fiction, horror, and mystery genres. His latest work, The Nirvana Effect (Flame Tree Publishing), finds myopia in a tech utopia, addressing virtual reality, social media, and the barriers they remove and put up at the same time. I spoke with him about his writings and what the city of Chicago has brought to them.

Provide a little background info about yourself. Whatever youd like to share.

Im a long-time Chicagoan. Ive lived in the suburbs or the city most of my life. I was born in Evanston. I grew up on WGNs Bozos Circus and Ray Rayner, and graduated on to Creature Features and Cubs baseball, back when Wrigley Field only had day games. Later, I was into the whole Wax Trax! scene, Metro, Medusas, and Neo. I worked downtown in the Loop for eight years.

The only extended period Ive been away from Chicago would be my undergraduate years at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. I attended graduate school at Northwestern and studied Integrated Marketing Communications, when I lived in Rogers Park. The city is in my roots.

What brought you to writing? Was it something you always wanted to do or a later in life discovery?

My dad has an audio recording of me from when I was five years old, proclaiming, Im going to be a book writer! I guess I already knew at a young age. Ive always been attracted to stories and storytelling. My mom was a high school English teacher. When I was very small, I used to scribble on the papers she was grading to make my contribution. I loved libraries and bookstores. I still have vivid memories of the annual book fair at Greenbriar Elementary in Northbrook. I was equally fascinated by the writing and the illustrations. Maurice Sendak was my favorite, along with Jack Kent.

One of my earliest ambitions was to be a cartoonist. I loved tackling blank paper with a pen. My cartoons were long, comedy-adventure stories, rather than comic strip gags. Eventually, I started telling stories without the drawings. I would get impatient with the drawing it couldnt keep pace with the story in my head. Some of those cartoons would begin with careful artwork and get progressively looser and sloppier as I became more caught up in the momentum of the narrative. By high school, I was writing quirky novellas and short stories. It got more serious in college, when I took undergraduate classes of the Iowa Writers Workshop and won first prize in a local literary magazine. One of my professors was the fiction editor of Esquire magazine. He liked my literary attempts but groaned when I wrote genre fiction.

Speaking of genre fiction You shift between mystery, horror, and others. Do you have a favorite or do you love all your literary children equally?

I like to mix it up. When writing, my biggest worry is boring myself. If Im not interested, Im not motivated, and its a slog. I like genre hopping to keep the stories fresh and different. I dont have to write these books. Its not my day job. Its recreation.

Shifting between genres is probably not the smartest marketing move. I dont know if the thriller fans follow me to horror or the horror fans follow me to science fiction, so I might be restarting a readership base every time I switch things up.

Regardless of genre, my books have a common thread. They all feature ordinary people encountering something extraordinary that pulls them out of their mundane lives and sends them on a path of adventure and self-discovery. Maybe its my way of living vicariously through fictional characters.

I also blend genres a bit, so it gets even more blurry. My science-fiction novels The Nirvana Effect and The Gemini Experiment are set in the near-future. One is a dystopian horror story, the other is an A.I. thriller. I wrote a science-fiction time travel book, Time Warp, thats actually a psychological drama with no science fiction or time travel. It threw all expectations out the window. The readers were either enthralled, bewildered or pissed off.

What motivates you to write?

For me, writing a story is like going on a vacation. I can go anywhere, meet fascinating characters and have an incredible journey. I plot out stories like people build trip itineraries. My imagination is a hyperactive playground. I dont think I could turn it off if I tried. I love creating stories and sharing them with others. If someone posts a review on Goodreads or Amazon that says they got a kick out of one of my books, it makes my day.

Your newest book The Nirvana Effect is a trip through a technological dystopia. Tell us about it.

The Nirvana Effect is a dystopian story about society crumbling under addiction to virtual reality when true reality becomes unbearable and people choose to live their lives in escapism.

The book is my reaction to the intrusion of technology in every aspect of our lives. We can now experience life without ever leaving our homes. With a few quick taps, we can have all our meals and necessities delivered to our homes. Our entertainment is streamed to our personal devices. Our social interactions take place remotely on social media, where algorithms put us in a cocoon of interests and beliefs that mirror our own. We work from home on laptops and engage on Zoom.

The Nirvana Effect takes it one step further where weve ditched the physical world almost entirely to thrive in the comfort and convenience of virtual reality. Instead of an iPhone in our hand, were equipped with computer chips in our head. Its not that farfetched. Elon Musk is experimenting with brain chip implants. Mark Zuckerberg is building a metaverse. At what stage do we make the transition from harnessing technology to technology harnessing us?

At what point do we move all of the pleasures of life to the Cloud? What happens when we no longer require any true human interaction? Do we become less human?

Its bizarre. I finished writing The Nirvana Effect on March 1, 2020, right before the pandemic hit full force and changed life as we know it. So much of whats in the book started happening a lot quicker than predictedself-isolation, invasive technology, civil unrest, government mandates, mistrust of institutions, heightened tensions with Russian and China, technology used to push a false narrative, the debate between digital and tangible good. Dont even get me started on NFTs!

Chicago turns up in more than one of your books. How has the city inspired and influenced you?

Chicago has great heart and soul. The people are pragmatic, relatable. For a writer, theres a broad palette of colors to choose from. Theres great diversity and history. You have every type of weather. You have a wide range of urban and suburban sets to stage your action. Its a versatile backdrop. One of my noir short stories takes place on Lower Wacker Drive. That was a blast. The location is so vivid and unusual, it becomes another character.

Los Angeles is for dreamers. New York is for cynics. Chicago is that perfect city in-between. Its down to earth. Its the heartland. Its a very big city but still personable, a community with a lot of character.

Time management is also a factor. Part of it is writing what I know. Less research and location scouting means more time for writing and plotting. I pick locations I know because it helps me see the story unfold more vividly. Somebody has already built the sets. I just populate them with characters and chaos.

My books move around a lot, too. The Gemini Experiment begins in Chicago but then branches out across the country and around the world. Abducted starts on the west coast and migrates to Chicago halfway through. Vengeance takes place in Evanston, where Ive lived multiple times in my life.

Whats next for you? Anything big or even small in the works?

Last month, I handed in my new book, The Intruders, to my editor. Its scheduled for publication in early 2023 from Flame Tree Press, same publisher as my previous two. Theyre distributed by Simon & Schuster.

Im still shifting and blending genres. The Intruders is a science fiction-horror hybrid about mysterious happenings in a small town that grow into a worldwide threat. Its partly a tribute to 1950s sci-fi stories like The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Thing, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Its also got a contemporary subtext about things that worry me today, like climate change. Anytime I do science fiction, theres a social commentary beneath the surface.

Im also writing a few short stories. One of my earliest novels, Rough Cut, has been adapted into a screenplay by (playwright and former Chicagoan) Darren Callahan, and its making the rounds in L.A. Fingers crossed!

What are you reading these days, or what book or books (new or old) would you recommend to others?

I dont always read a lot of genre fiction. I usually avoid reading novels when Im writing. I get worried it might subliminally influence my writingnot so much the story, but the narrative voice.

My book pile right now is an eclectic mix of stuff: Ray and Joe: The Story of a Man and his Dead Friend, a collection of seriously twisted cartoons by Charles Rodrigues from the classic 1970s era of National Lampoon; The Human Stain, by Philip Roth; Blacktop Wasteland, a thriller by S.A. Cosby; A.I. 2041, a collection of short stories set in 2041 by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufab; and art sex music, the autobiography of Cosey Fanni Tutti, a controversial female performance artist and musician who was part of the industrial music revolution.

As far as recommendations, anything by Richard Matheson or Ray Bradbury. Two thrillers that influenced me a lot are Marathon Man and Magic by William Goldman. His literary novel Color of Light, is extraordinary, too.

Is there anything I didnt ask that you wish Id asked?

In the beginning, theres an idea. It could be a single scene (a murderer accidentally locks his car keys in the trunk with the body); a concept (mosquitoes carrying the zombie virus attacking rural Louisiana); or a starting point (fired nanny disappears with child).

Then I construct an outline around it. I use notecards so I can rearrange scenes and play with the pacing. For suspense, I map out when certain information is revealed, and for action, the rhythm for building and releasing tension. The plotting is very important to me, the story threads and continuity. Every scene card needs its own purpose and dramatic arc. It cant just be a block of exposition. I like to end chapters on mini-cliffhangers.

Once the notecards are in good shape and tell a complete story, I start drafting. I handwrite my books on pads of lined paper, usually one chapter a week. I dont use the computer. The computer is an endless toy box of distractions. My cartooning background has made me comfortable with composing on paper, sketching out my prose in longhand.

The first draft is in pen, it just flows. Then I go back over it and edit it meticulously in pencil. The pages can get quite messy. When Im ready, I read the manuscript into a headset, using dictation software to flow it into a Word file. Its also a good exercise to read it out loud, especially the dialogue, to see how it sounds to the ear. I want the dialogue to sound natural, not written.

Then I proof the Word file against the handwritten pages; the software is good and fast, but not perfect. I find some funny mistakes.

At this stage, I make all revisions on the PC. Its very late into the process that Im actually typing on a computer keyboard. So, my novel The Nirvana Effect, which is a warning about the evils of technology, was written with a minimal intrusion of technology. I guess thats appropriate. Its defiant.

Maybe one day computers will write novels without any human input, using formulas and algorithms and templates. You pick your genre, the computer mines everything ever produced in that genre and assembles something new from those tried-and-true ingredients. Its automated and comfortably predictable, like a James Patterson novel. Now thats scary!

Related

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Interview: Dystopia in Utopia: Brian Pinkerton, Author of The Nirvana Effect - thirdcoastreview.com

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Switzerland aims to become the next crypto utopia as Lugano makes Bitcoin and USDT legal tender – CryptoSlate

Posted: at 9:40 pm

The Swiss city of Lugano has announced today that it will recognize cryptocurrencies as legal tender.

According to Michele Foletti, the mayor of the City of Lugano, Bitcoin (BTC), Tether (USDT), and Luganos own LVGA Points token will be recognized as de-facto currencies.

The announcement was made at Luganos Plan B event, where the citys key figures discussed the implications of the progressive decision alongside Paolo Ardoino, the CTO of Tether.

The decision to accept Bitcoin and Tether as legal tender was 18 months in the making, said Pietro Poretti, the director of the City of Lugano. The city began experimenting with blockchain technology and cryptocurrency payments in late 2020 by establishing a loyalty program with its proprietary points token called LVGA.

All transactions made with the LVGA token were made on Luganos Proof-of-Authority blockchain, which the city developed last year.

Although none of the panelists said explicitly, the decision to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender was certainly sped up by El Salvadors move last September when the country became the first to recognize a cryptocurrency as de-facto money.

Poretti said that the decision to make cryptocurrencies legal tender was driven by Luganos history of adopting technological developments.

Lugano is the economic capital of southern Switzerland and has always been a leader in the creation of new opportunities, he said during the panel.

To speed up its journey to adopt blockchain, the city partnered with Tether and recognized its proprietary stablecoin, USDT, as legal tender alongside Bitcoin.

Collaborating with a company the caliber of Tether is a magnet that will attract more companies to come to Lugano.

The companies that do decide to come to Lugano will be able to benefit from a generous incentive package the city enabled with the help of Tether.

Paolo Ardoino, the CTO of Tether, said that the company partnered with the city to create a $100 million incentive fund aimed at startups that relocate their headquarters and employees to Lugano. Tether will also participate in the creation of a massive startup hub in the center of Lugano that will host tech startups from around the world.

Ardoino went on name Polygon as its main infrastructure partner in facilitating stablecoin payments in Lugano. After Ethereum, Polygon is the second-largest network hosting Tethers USDT stablecoin. Polygons low latency, high scalability, and low cost will enable seamless settlements of all USDT payments in the city, he explained.

This will be especially significant given the scale of crypto adoption Lugano is expecting to achieve.

According to Poretti, there has already been a widespread effort to bring cryptocurrency payments to the public sector. Citizens are already able to pay virtually all public services in cryptocurrencies, including personal and municipal taxes, naturalization fees, access to public infrastructure, and document issuance fees.

An equally widespread adoption is expected in the private sector as well. Poretti said that over 200 businesses have already installed the infrastructure necessary to accept payments in BTC, USDT, and LVGA. In the past month, over 5,000 citizens of Lugano made payments to these businesses in the citys LVGA payment token and have been interacting with the digital wallet on a daily basis.

The citys plans to become a crypto utopia seem to be very well thought-out.

With just over 60,000 residents, Lugano is set to see a huge labor shortage if it manages to attract even a fraction of the startups it believes will relocate to the city. Ardoino addressed this concern, saying that Tether and Bitfinex have already begun working with Luganos three major universities to promote blockchain and crypto-focused education. The two companies are working with academics to establish curriculums that will help the universities produce an educated workforce thats well-versed in blockchain technology. Ardoino also said that the companies have set aside funds for 500 scholarships that will be granted to students focusing on blockchain and crypto technologies.

This isnt a marketing ploy, Ardoino said. Its a set of concrete steps to make Lugano the blockchain capital of the world.

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MetaVerse – the fabled digital utopia gets a Second Life? – Lexology

Posted: at 9:40 pm

Is this the real life?

Is this just fantasy?

Caught in a landslide,

No escape from reality

---- Freddie Mercury, Queen (Bohemian Rhapsody).

As we trudge into 2022, terms like Meta/ Metaverse/ Augmented Reality/ Occulus are on the tips of every tongue, the words seemingly flowing through social media and news platforms in an endless stream of information. As such, a crash course on this much talked about Metaverse, la Metaverse 101, is warranted before exploring the innumerable legal issues and challenges surrounding the Metaverse.

What is the Metaverse?

As noted by many researchers as well as the Merriam-Websters online dictionary, the term Metaverse was coined by the famed author Neal Stephenson, in his 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash. Metaverse may be construed as to allude to a world or conception that requires the real world in order to move beyond it and acknowledge another realm.[1]

Rather simplistically, Oxford defines Metaverse as A slang term used to describe a virtual representation of reality implemented by means of virtual reality software[2]. However, while simplistic, the above definition is also surprisingly helpful in visualizing what exactly a Metaverse is, although it may lack the depth which is now associated with the term. To begin with exploring the concept, the above Oxford definition is as good as any a place to begin with.

Into the Metaverse: Origins

While the current hype and media (social as well as conventional) would have one believe that the Metaverse is the present and the future, the same is quite a fallacy. The origins of not only the concept of the Metaverse, but also its execution, is one which goes back as far back as the late 90s although one of the most recognizable examples of the Metaverse only came into being in 2003. A trip down the memory lane would enable one to better understand the future of the Metaverse, as and when it may unfold.

Many tech savvy readers would undoubtedly recall the viral virtual world of Linden Labs Second Life[3], which took the world by storm in the mid-2000s, and till date, remains relevant and popular, and has not faded into memory. For beginners to the modern interpretation of Metaverse, the much revered (and much reviled also by quite a few!), Second Life is a great frame of reference. Second Life is essentially a digital world on its own, a plane of existence which can be accessed by creating your own avatar (or digital representation of yourself) on the online platform, and entering the world. Second Life comprises of worlds where people lead parallel/ concurrent lives and do what all they would do in real lives have a job, do shopping, socialize, have romantic relationships, get married, attend classes, go to office meetings, take your pets out for walks, etc. While the above sounds eerily similar to something like a more advanced or immersive version of EAs (Electronic Arts) famous SIMS series of games, the creators of Second Life have over the years reiterated that it is not a game there are no goals, no missions, and importantly, there is no manufactured conflict, and it is a completely open-ended experience[4]. However, this virtual world also involves a sophisticated monetary aspect as well to such an extent that users (or residents) can make actual money while living their Second Life. The Second Life world has its own economic system as well as its own currency or virtual token, called the Linden Dollar. While the Linden Dollar cannot be redeemed for actual currency from Linden Labs, users/residents can trade Linden Dollars amongst themselves, and also exchange the same for US Dollars on an exchange called the Lindex[5]. Beyond economics, Second Life also has a robust IP aspect, which John Zdanowski (CFO) of the company, in an interview by the MIT Technology Review in 2007, specifically stated that The fundamental difference is that in World of Warcraft, the company, Blizzard Entertainment, makes all the content in world. In Second Life, our users make substantially all the content. And World of Warcraft is a game. If you buy something that advances your powers, youre sort of circumventing the rules of the game. Second Life isnt a game: its a platform for collaboration and interaction. When people build something, it has value, and they have intellectual-property rights to it. Its those intellectual-property rights that other games specifically restrict and Second Life specifically allows.

As such, the above mentioned Second Life digital world, which still exists and has millions of active users, can be thought of as a base about what the Metaverse is all about. Except, the new conception of the Metaverse has a capitalistic aspect to it, and there is far more emphasis on economics and marketplaces. Nevertheless, there are significant overlaps between how we perceive the Metaverse, and the gaming concept of MMORPGs (i.e. Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game).

As such, at present there is no single Metaverse, rather, as per the definition and conventional notions about the term, many Metaverses already exist in the form of various platforms such as the above mentioned Second Life, Microsoft Mesh, Facebooks Horizon Worlds, etc. These are essentially centralized expressions of the Metaverse, with the creators essentially at the end of the day, having ultimate control over the worlds they have created. In this context of the Metaverse, the context of a Centralized system versus a Decentralized one, is one which merits an in-depth analysis.

Further, while an existing Metaverse certainly has the tools to elevate social media and marketplaces to the next level, one does wonder about just how far can mankind push its digital boundaries?

Thus, using the above frame of reference of what an existing Metaverse is, we now look towards what the Metaverse is at present, and what it can be.

Time to move forward and deeper Into the Matrix!

Into the Metaverse sliding into 2022 with a Bang

Perhaps the change of name of Facebook to Meta, is likely the most ringing endorsement of the notion that the tech world is now gearing up towards the next big paradigm shift, perhaps leaving the world of conventional internet behind!

This notion is further reinforced by the fact that Facebook, or rather Meta, has committed to invest 10 Billion US Dollars this year on its Metaverse division (Facebook Reality Labs)[6]. The company has stated that it sees AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) as the core of this future of the Metaverse. This in itself hints at the two below directions that the winds of the Metaverse are blowing in:

Coupled with what a marketplace is in an existing digital world like Second Life, and with recent ground-breaking developments in the last few years, especially in the realm of AR and VR, the possibilities of a paradigm shift in how we perceive the above two most popular online activities are endless! For instance, imagine browsing a super-store, from the comfort of your home, while being fully immersed in a 3D representation of the same via AR/ VR and being able to shop in a manner reminiscent to how one would in an actual store! That said, the application and creative reach of the Metaverse is not in the slightest limited to the above two overarching fields indeed Hyundai Motors for instance, aims to expand human reach and fulfil unlimited freedom of mobility by utilizing robotics and integrating it with the Metaverse.[7]

However, while the future is seemingly bright for the Metaverse, the same is beset with innumerable questions and dilemmas, including but not limited to legal, social, economic, moral, etc. As such, the same also opens up a Pandoras Box of Intellectual Property related questions as well.

Over the coming weeks and months, we would hope to explore many of these questions.

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Strong Gross for The Batman Shows Audiences Excited by Smart Reimagining of the Familiar – IndieWire

Posted: at 9:40 pm

The Batman (Warner Bros.) delivered the goods with an excellent $128,500,000 domestic opening, $248,500,000 worldwide. That makes it nearly three times better than any previous 2022 debut and the second best since 2019.

Its a big victory for theaters for multiple reasons. Perhaps most importantly, as Warner Bros.s first release of the year, it returns them to theater-exclusive openings after more than a year of initially streaming on HBO Max as well.

Spider-Man: No Way Home and Batman v Superman, two comparisons to The Batman, set unreasonably high marks for similar releases. The former opened to just over double ($260 million), while the most recent D.C. Comic mainstay character release in 2016 debuted at $166 million.

This is somewhere between an apples to apples and apples to oranges situation. Again, $128.5 million is terrific. And more so in a period where clearly fewer people are attending theaters.

As a reboot, it lacked some of the momentum that these other two titles had. Both of them, particularly Spider-Man, were helped by good will from the previous franchise title, while B v S was boosted by its Easter weekend start (with Friday a holiday for many), despite being poorly received.

But The Batman also had some standalone assets. It opened after more than two months without a blockbuster. Spider-Man came at a time with less pent-up demand after a strong fall. B v S followed massive recent openers Zootopia and Deadpool.

The Batman sold 30 percent of its tickets on premium screens, and it overall benefits from significantly higher prices than B v S, even somewhat higher than those last December. None of this is meant to diminish the excellent figure.

The context is critical because the demands on it to provide results is intense. Only one other film this month is likely to open to over $20 million (The Lost City/Paramount), with The Batman to provide the majority of the March gross. Certainly it has given it a great smart. The $156 million total for the weekend (82 percent from The Batman) is a third better than the same weekend in 2019.

This boosted the ongoing four week rolling comparison to the same period three years ago to 75 percent. That will mark a high point for a while next week will face off against Captain Marvel, which in 2019 opened at $153 million.

The best news for The Batman is what appears to be a positive first reaction. Its A- Cinemascore bests the weak B grade for B v S. This shows up in the Saturday versus Friday plus preview gross drop. This time the fall was 24 percent compared to 38 percent in 2016. That bodes well that it could top $300 million, more so with the clear field ahead this month.

What this opening reasserts is that top-flight high expense (the budget premarketing here a reported $200 million) is the best way to ensure a big gross. But at the same time, the disparity between this type of blockbuster and all movies, and the gap of time between similar titles, along with few mid-level successes at the same time, remains a major issue for theaters.

Fortunately the rest of the year looks to provide several other titles opening over $100 million. But these need backup. Theaters are of a pace this year to struggle to gross 75 percent as much as 2019. A 25 percent drop in business (the projected result; at this point it is barely above 50 percent for 2022 so far) is enough to sustain theaters, but not a sign of a healthy business.

Despite top-flight competition, holdovers did well overall. Spider-Man fell only 24 percent on its way to an over $800 million domestic total. The third weekend of Dog (United Artists) dropped 41 percent to reach $40 million. Uncharted (Sony) reached $100 million, in second spot, down 52 percent.

The three decently performing subtitled films in Oscar contention The Worst Person in the World (Neon), Parallel Mothers (Sony Pictures Classics), and Drive My Car (Janus) all are at or about $2 million. These titles stand out in the still weak specialized field. All but Worst are available at home now, as is After Yang (A24), Kogonadas acclaimed film with Colin Farrells second role opening this week.

A24 reports the 24 theaters playing After Yang took in $47,000. That suggests nearly all of its viewing will not be in theaters.

The Top Ten

1. The Batman(Warner Bros.) NEW Cinemascore: A-; Metacritic: 72; Est. budget: $200 million

$128,500,000 in 4,417 theaters; PTA (per theater average): $29,092; Cumulative: $128,500,000

2. Uncharted(Sony) Week 3; Last weekend #1

$11,000,000 (-52%) in 3,875 (-400) theaters; PTA: $2,839; Cumulative: $100,276,000

3. Dog(United Artists) Week 3; Last weekend #2

$6,000,000 (-41%) in 3,507 (-320) theaters; PTA: $1,711; Cumulative: $40,007,000

4. Spider-Man: No Way Home(Sony) Week 12; Last weekend #3

$4,400,000 (-24%) in 2,709 (-293) theaters; PTA: $1,624; Cumulative: $786,448,000

5. Death on the Nile(Disney) Week 4; Last weekend #4

$2,727,000 (-41%) in 2,565 (-855) theaters; PTA: $1,063; Cumulative: $37,095,000

6. Sing 2(Universal) Week 11; Last weekend #6; also on PVOD

$1,520,000 (-32%) in 2,026 (-356) theaters; PTA: $750; Cumulative: $153,569,000

7. Jackass Forever(Paramount) Week 5; Last weekend #5

$1,360,000 (-57%) in 1,981 (-932) theaters; PTA: $687; Cumulative: $54,452,000

8. Cyrano(United Artists) Week 2; Last weekend #9

$682,607 (-51%) in 797 (no change) theaters; PTA: $856; Cumulative: $2,575,000

9. Scream(Paramount) Week 8; Last weekend #10; also on PVOD

$570,000 (-57%) in 853 (-713) theaters; PTA: $668; Cumulative: $80,226,000

10. Gangubai Kathiawadi(Hamsin) Week 2; Last weekend #12

$(est.) 590,000 (-41%) in 280 (-205) theaters; PTA: $2,107; Cumulative: $(est.) 1,698,000

Additional specialized/limited/independent releases

After Yang(A24) NEW Metacritic: 79; Festivals include: Cannes 2021, Sundance 2022; also on Showtime

$46,872 in 24 theaters; PTA: $1,953

Hudas Salon (IFC) NEW Metacritic: 70; Festivals include: Toronto 2021; also on VOD

$8,000 in 30 theaters; PTA: $267

Great Freedom (Mubi) NEW Metacritic: 89; Festivals include: Cannes 2021

$8,814 in 1 theater; PTA: $8,814

Adventures in Success (Utopia) NEW Festivals include: Cinequest 2021

$3,437 in 3 theaters; PTA: $1,155

The Automat(Slice of Pie) Week 3

$6,562 in 2 (-1) theaters; Cumulative: $54,285

The Worst Person in the World(Neon) Week 5

$210,000 in 264 (-290) theaters; Cumulative: $2,224,000

Parallel Mothers(Sony Pictures Classics) Week 11; also on PVOD 83

$43,833 in 52 (-31) theaters; Cumulative: $1,995,000

Nightmare Alley(Searchlight) Week 11; also streaming on HBO Max and Hulu

$19,000 in 165 (-100) theaters; Cumulative: $11,218,000

Drive My Car(Janus) Week 13; also on HBO Max

$75,645 in 102 (-60) theaters; Cumulative: $1,962,000

Licorice Pizza(United Artists) Week 14

$152,548 in 211 (-396) theaters; Cumulative: $16,443,000

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This is how to make travel in New Zealand more accessible – Stuff

Posted: at 9:40 pm

Pieta Bouma works for accessible communications agency All is for All.

OPINION: After becoming disabled in 2019, it struck me how often people underestimated me after seeing my disability.

Amazed that I could drive, or do basic things like grocery shopping for myself, people seemed to be constantly underestimating exactly what I am capable of.

Supplied

Pieta Bouma works for accessible communications agency All is for All. She has been a paraplegic since 2019.

In the same way, I think the tourism industry may be underestimating disabled people as potential clientele for all sorts of tourism activities, with one in four New Zealanders experiencing some kind of disability. Thirty-five per cent of these are over 65; potentially retirees looking for somewhere accessible to relax or explore the country. Furthermore, many disabled people travel with companions, further increasing the money spent.

But more important than the profit margins this could bring, providing accessible travel opportunities fulfils the rights of disabled people to enjoy the benefits of tourism, as outlined in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

READ MORE:* Five of the best walks in New Zealand that are accessible to everyone* 'Learn to be creative': Three travellers with disabilities or chronic illness share how they navigate the world* We need beach access for everyone, and that includes people with a disability

Accessible travel has benefits even for those non-disabled, such as mothers with pushchairs. So what could New Zealand do, to become an accessible utopia for tourists, and to open up the beautiful sights and thrilling activities to people of all abilities?

The first and most obvious step is to provide detailed and up-to-date information to empower disabled people to make decisions about what is within their capabilities and how best to prepare. When searching for accessible walks or hiking trails I could do in my manual wheelchair, I found almost nothing useful on which walks had steps, how many, or what the surface or gradient of the track was like.

If I had this information available, I could plan a hike, rope in the appropriate amount of people needed to help if there were a few doable barriers such as just a few steps, and know what equipment would be best suited to the terrain. Without it, I was forced to abandon all plans of a great escape into nature. With all the benefits of time connecting to nature, and the beautiful landscapes New Zealand has to offer, it seems a shame that a whole subpopulation of New Zealanders may be missing out on this due to lack of information.

Supplied

Pieta Bouma wants it to be easier to book accessible accommodation and experiences, and for tourism providers to have detailed information available on their websites.

Details also needs to be clear and readily available for accommodation and other tourist attractions. What is accessible to one, might not be for another, so there should be clear pictures and descriptions of what to expect, so disabled people can make a judgment on what is going to work for them.

It should be just as easy to book online accessible rooms, with pictures and a description, as it is to book any other room. The information provided must also be accessible to all, which means making websites friendly for those with low vision or those who use voice assistance.

A less often thought about barrier disabled people face doesnt exist in the physical world, but in the general attitudes of the public. People with disabilities face stigma, misconceptions, intrusive questions and much more from (usually well-meaning) members of the public who do not know the appropriate way to interact with disabled people. It is important here to acknowledge that disability goes far beyond a person in a wheelchair, as epitomized by the symbol, but includes sensory, mental, behavioural, intellectual, and communicative impairments.

Although the array of disabilities is large, some basic rules go a long way, such as, always address the person with a disability, even if you are unsure if they can understand and communicate with you. It is always better to talk to the disabled person and have a support person step in to answer on their behalf than to make assumptions and talk over someone's head when they are perfectly capable of communicating themselves.

Supplied

Asking disabled people how can we help make this experience accessible to you? is a helpful way to cater to wheelchair users.

In my experience many people need reminding not to ask intrusive questions about the disability. What are your mobility needs? or How can we help make this experience accessible to you? go a lot further in making a disabled person feel catered to and respected than Whats wrong with you?.

It is as basic as airline staff knowing to ask me if I want help before touching my paralysed legs to help me transfer into a plane yes, even paralysed people want bodily autonomy. If the staff of tourism companies had some basic training regarding catering to a range of needs, it would make travelling a lot more enjoyable and less stressful for disabled people.

Makingtrax is one trailblazing organisation currently doing amazing work in New Zealand opening up the tourism sector to the whole range of abilities. They educate adventure companies and other tourist operators on how to make their experiences inclusive, and also provide a Trax seal to indicate to travellers that this company is equipped and educated to provide for every ability. This is groundbreaking work that is opening up all sorts of experiences to disabled people.

Its no secret New Zealand has a lot to offer; breathtaking nature, adrenaline filled activities, places for families to connect and unwind. It should be equally obvious that people of all abilities want to enjoy all of these taonga.

The social model of disability teaches that although it is individuals who have impairments, it is the environment in which they exist that may or may not disable them. We have the power to create enabling environments so that the one in four Kiwis with a disability dont miss out on all the tourism opportunities New Zealand has to offer.

Pieta Bouma is studying a conjoint degree in global studies and health sciences at the University of Auckland, while working for All is for All, an accessible communications agency. She has been a paraplegic since 2019.

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Summers comfort in the colours of spring – The Business Standard

Posted: at 9:40 pm

We human beings have always expressed our thoughts and emotions through various art forms, literature, symbols, or even recently, contemporary digital media.

And this year, fashion brand Le Reve has portrayed all these forms of expressions in their latest Spring/Summer 2022 collection, titled 'Liberate'.

"In this collection, Le Reve has highlighted 70's polka dots, suspending and tumbling floral prints, classic paisley along with optical geo pattern etc.", informed Monnujan Nargis, the CEO of Le Reve.

According to her, the optical geo pattern represents the digital influence of the present day.

'Hacked Utopia', the second theme of this campaign, is currently the most talked topic in the world fashion industry.

The idea of hacked utopia is attaining the long-cherished dream of escaping the mundane daily life and getting lost into the unknown through the help of the virtual and imaginary world.

Based on this idea, Le Reve has developed some unique prints for the summer collection.

The fashion brand has also incorporated free-form fluidity motifs that represent the linear way of our life.

Some of the prints in this collection focus on arts and paintings as well. These prints feature Kintsugi- the art of creating something fascinating by mending the broken pieces.

This motif is pictured through our digital patchworks. Besides, one can also notice motifs inspired by the paintings of various master painters.

"On the whole, the clothing of this collection is the expression of the joy and merriment people feel when they enjoy the shining bright rays of the summer sun after the long bleak days," said Monnujan Nargis.

This collection promotes the palette of bright spring colours with the comfort we need this summer. Fabrics like cotton, twill, voile, raimi cotton, viscose, slub, linen, smooth georgette, textured faille, organza, crepe silk, cotton pique etc have been introduced to save people from the scorching heat.

In terms of women's clothing, Le Reve has paid notable attention to the neckline design in this collection. Starting from shirt collar to frill-trimmed, boat neck, v slit, mandarin, round band, high neck, kimono, ascott, and shawl collar have been included in the collection.

For bottoms, they have designed harem pants, leggings, and matching palazzo.

In terms of men's clothing, the Spring-Summer casual styles have been given priority in this collection.

Along with short and long sleeve casual shirts, Henley and classic t-shirt, polo, and gym vest, people will also find Bermuda shorts, chinos, cotton, Tencel, and premium quality pajamas as well.

These pajamas can be worn as both casual wear and loungewear.

Colours of spring and comfort of summer together make up the Kids Spring/Summer-wear Collection.

Frock, ghagra-choli, tunic, salwar kameez, kaftan, 2-piece set, and knitted tops have been designed for girls. Whereas, boys have the options of t-shirt, polo, panjabi, casual shirt, and shorts. There is a new summer collection for newborns as well.

Matching hats, sandals, bags, purses, accessories, and home dcor products will also be available in the new Spring/Summer collection.

To know more about this new collection, you can browse their website and facebook page.

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All the New Science Fiction Books Arriving in March! – tor.com

Posted: at 9:40 pm

Head below for the full list of science fiction titles heading your way in March!

Keep track of all the new SFF releases here. All title summaries are taken and/or summarized from copy provided by the publisher. Release dates are subject to change.

Stars and Bones (A Continuance Novel) Gareth L. Powell (Titan)

Seventy-five years from today, the human race has been cast from a dying Earth to wander the stars in a vast fleet of arkseach shaped by its inhabitants into a diverse and fascinating new environment, with its own rules and eccentricities. When her sister disappears while responding to a mysterious alien distress call, Eryn insists on being part of the crew sent to look for her. What she discovers on Candidate-623 is both terrifying and deadly. When the threat follows her back to the fleet and people start dying, she is tasked with seeking out a legendary recluse who may just hold the key to humanitys survival.

No new titles.

The Kaiju Preservation Society John Scalzi (Tor Books)

When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food delivery apps. That is, until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls an animal rights organization. Toms team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their next field visit. Jamie, eager to do anything, immediately signs on. What Tom doesnt tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here on Earth. Not our Earth, at least. In an alternate dimension, massive dinosaur-like creatures named Kaiju roam a warm and human-free world. Theyre the universes largest and most dangerous panda and theyre in trouble. Its not just the Kaiju Preservation Society who have found their way to the alternate world. Others have, too. And their carelessness could cause millions back on our Earth to die.

Memorys Legion (The Expanse) James S. A. Corey (Orbit)

On Mars, a scientist experiments with a new engine that will one day become the drive that fuels humanitys journey into the stars. On an asteroid station, a group of prisoners are oblivious to the catastrophe that awaits them. On a future Earth beset by overpopulation, pollution, and poverty, a crime boss desperately seeks to find a way off planet. On an alien world, a human family struggles to establish a colony and make a new home. All these stories and more are featured in this unmissable collection set in the hardscrabble world of The Expanse.

Kingdoms of Death (Sun Eater #4) Christopher Ruocchio (DAW)

Hadrian Marlowe is trapped. For nearly a century, he has been a guest of the Emperor, forced into the role of advisor, a prisoner of his own legend. But the war is changing. Mankind is losing. The Cielcin are spilling into human space from the fringes, picking their targets with cunning precision. The Great Prince Syriani Dorayaica is uniting their clans, forging them into an army and threat the likes of which mankind has never seen. And the Empire stands alone. Now the Emperor has no choice but to give Hadrian Marloweonce his favorite knightone more impossible task: journey across the galaxy to the Lothrian Commonwealth and convince them to join the war. But not all is as it seems, and Hadrians journey will take him far beyond the Empire, beyond the Commonwealth, impossibly deep behind enemy lines.

The Temps Andrew DeYoung (Keylight)

Jacob Elliot doesnt want a temporary job in the mailroom at Delphi Enterprises, but after two post-college years of unpaid internships and living in his parents basement, he needs the work. Then, on his first day, the unthinkable happens: toxic gas descends on a meeting in Delphis outdoor amphitheater, killing all the regular employees and leaving Jacob stranded inside the vast office complex. Wandering through Delphi headquarters, Jacob finds other survivors: Lauren, the disillusioned classics major whos now writing online personality quizzes; Swati, the fitness instructor trying to escape a toxic relationship; and Dominic, the business school student who will do almost anything to get ahead. Stranded in the wreckage of the company that employed them, the temps band together to create a miniature world thats part spring break, part office cultureuntil a shocking discovery disrupts the survivors self-made paradise and drives them to uncover the truth about the mysterious corporation that employed them and the apocalypse that brought their world to an end.

Sweep of Stars (Astra Black #1) Maurice Broaddus (Tor Books)

The Muungano empire strived and struggled to form a utopia when they split away from old earth. Freeing themselves from the endless wars and oppression of their home planet in order to shape their own futures and create a far-reaching coalition of city-states that stretched from Earth and Mars to Titan. With the wisdom of their ancestors, the leadership of their elders, the power and vision of their scientists and warriors they charted a course to a better future. But the old powers could not allow them to thrive and have now set in motion new plots to destroy all that theyve built. In the fire to come they will face down their greatest struggle yet. Amachi Adisa and other young leaders will contend with each other for the power to galvanize their people and chart the next course for the empire. Fela Buhari and her elite unit will take the fight to regions not seen by human eyes, but no training will be enough to bring them all home. Stacia Chikeke, captain of the starship Cypher, will face down enemies across the stars, and within her own vessel, as she searches for the answers that could save them all.

Until the Last of Me (Take Them to the Stars #2) Sylvain Neuvel (Tordotcom Publishing)

The First Rule is the most important: Always run, never fight. For generations, Mias family has shaped human history to push them to the stars. The year is 1968 and she is on the cusp of destiny, poised to launch the first humans into space. But she cannot take them to the stars, not quite yet. Her adversary is at her heels, the future of the planet at stake, and obeying the First Rule is no longer an option. For the first time in one-hundred generations, Mias family will have to choose to stand their ground, risking not only their bloodline, but the future of the human race.

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All the New Science Fiction Books Arriving in March! - tor.com

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