Monthly Archives: June 2022

Most Quayside watchers have a hard time believing that covid was the real reason for ending the project. Sidewalk Labs never really painted a compelling picture of the place it hoped to build.

The new Waterfront Toronto project has clearly learned from the past. Renderings of the new plans for Quaysidecall it Quayside 2.0released earlier this year show trees and greenery sprouting from every possible balcony and outcropping, with nary an autonomous vehicle or drone in site. The projects highly accomplished design teamled by Alison Brooks, a Canadian architect based in London; the renowned Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye; Matthew Hickey, a Mohawk architect from the Six Nations First Nation; and the Danish firm Henning Larsenall speak of this new corner of Canadas largest city not as a techno-utopia but as a bucolic retreat.

In every way, Quayside 2.0 promotes the notion that an urban neighborhood can be a hybrid of the natural and the manmade.The project boldly suggests that we now want our cities to be green, both metaphorically and literallythe renderings are so loaded with trees that they suggest foliage is a new form of architectural ornament. In the promotional video for the project, Adjaye, known for his design of the Smithsonian Museum of African American History, cites the importance of human life, plant life, and the natural world. The pendulum has swung back toward Howards garden city: Quayside 2022 is a conspicuous disavowal not only of the 2017 proposal but of the smart city concept itself.

To some extent, this retreat to nature reflects the changing times, as society has gone from a place of techno-optimism (think: Steve Jobs introducing the iPhone) to a place of skepticism, scarred by data collection scandals, misinformation, online harassment, and outright techno-fraud. Sure, the tech industry has made life more productive over the past two decades, but has it made it better? Sidewalk never had an answer to this.

To me its a wonderful ending because we didnt end up with a big mistake, says Jennifer Keesmaat, former chief planner for Toronto, who advised the Ministry of Infrastructure on how to set this next iteration up for success. Shes enthusiastic about the rethought plan for the area: If you look at what were doing now on that site, its classic city building with a 21st-century twist, which means its a carbon-neutral community. Its a totally electrified community. Its a community that prioritizes affordable housing, because we have an affordable-housing crisis in our city. Its a community that has a strong emphasis on green space and urban agriculture and urban farming. Are those things that are derived from Sidewalks proposal? Not really.

Read the original:

Toronto wants to kill the smart city forever - MIT Technology Review

Swansea's LGBT+ scene has had its ups and downs with a number of venues coming and then quickly going again. But one re-opening is hoped to change that. Utopia - a cocktail bar familiar to many - has come under new management and wants to be a colourful home for LGBT+ communities to thrive.

Utopia opened in October last year in Little Wind Street, but was not specifically catered towards the LGBT+ community. It featured large neon lights, a penny piece bar counter and large artificial trees 'growing' out of the bar in a space uniquely designed to be a social media hub for party-goers at the start or end of their nights out. The new bar was labelled a bar "with a difference" at the time.

The new management are aiming to make sure that all LGBT+ people can feel at ease there. They are providing sensitivity training to security staff to improve the treatment of trans and non-binary people, and employing various queer acts. You can get more what's on news and other story updates by subscribing to our newsletters here.

READ MORE: Welsh LGBT+ filmmaker nominated for Digital Broadcast award

General Manager, Matthew Thom, told WalesOnline he was hoping the space would become a place for the LGBT+ community to feel safe.

"I was given the opportunity to re-open as a drag bar. I wasn't keen to do just that, I wanted to open up a completely LGBT+ friendly venue. I wanted to do this from the get go as there's really not anywhere people can go when it comes to an LGBT+ venue in Swansea," he said.

"I'm not reinventing the wheel or anything. But I'm doing things at the moment that add to it becoming a safer space. For example, we're making our toilets all gender neutral, because I don't see the need to have male and female toilets. Our door staff have had elements of sensitivity training when it comes to checking people's IDs if they're trans.

"We're looking to get a lot of queer performers and artists in, not just drag queens, because I'm really interesting in getting people like queer poets. I want [Utopia] to be actively involved with the community. I want to try and actually give back to the community in Swansea." You can read more stories about Swansea here.

Utopia bar is now open, and more information can be found via its social media here.

READ NEXT:

Find out about things going on where you live:

More here:

The Swansea bar that's re-opening as an LGBT+ venue - Wales Online

Just off the coast Long Island, there is a mythical-sounding place, a haven where gay New Yorkers could party, protest and make art, away from prying eyes in the city. Queer people have a particular stake in the question of paradise and, for those who could make it to this slim barrier island of beach homes and holiday resorts, paradise could mean a day-trip or a regular summer retreat. Jack Parletts Fire Island chronicles the cultural history of this hallowed place, examining its significance through the writers and artists who were part of its changing community.

What started off as a beach resort for middle-class New Yorkers to take a conventional family vacation, in the 1930s began to attract theater people an epithet that carried with it deviant associations. After a hurricane destroyed many of the islands houses in 1938, rental and property prices plummeted, allowing more artists and queer people from the city to move in and build new communities.

Reading the book makes you jealous that youve missed the party, but lets you feel, vicariously, that you were there. The two main resort communities of Cherry Grove and the Pines, with their different demographics, atmospheres, their distinctive cultures, rituals and patriotisms are painted vividly. Equally as real to the reader is the Meat Rack, the islands alfresco cruising spot, a mythic free-for-all where one can consummate the the stirred-up desires of brief encounters.

When it turns to literary biography, Fire Island is filled with gossip-worthy anecdotes about Americas literati. Walt Whitman, who visited Fire Island and noted its curious and original characters and who saw in America the potential for a homosexual utopia, was paid a visit by Oscar Wilde in 1882. Whitman took Wilde up to his den and the two enjoyed a jolly good time. In 1953, Patricia Highsmith went to the island on a drunken rampage, storming out when her lover Ellen threatened suicide by barbiturate overdose. There, unaware if Ellen was dead or alive, Highsmith got hammered in Duffys bar, ended up in a fight and soothed her bruises with further libations. Truman Capote is even reported to have begun working on Breakfast at Tiffanys during his stay there, one of the islands trophy stories.

The scholarly research and cultural history are punctuated by flashes of Parletts own experience. These sections explore how he came to know himself as a gay man, his hesitancy and sense of being out of place on the queer scene, and the delightful distractions of hook-ups and alcohol. The book opens with his first trip to Fire Island part-research, part-pilgrimage and chapters often begin in the confessional mode, using this as an entry point for developing a particular topic. Autobiographical detail is used sparingly and to great effect, providing the reader with an emotional anchor: the motivation behind his passion for this hidden spit of land.

Passion aside, Parlett doesnt shy away from the problematic. Fire Island feels like a case study of utopian imperfections, he writes. The islands hard-drinking culture, present ever since the 1930s, led to many of its community becoming serious alcoholics, forcing some of its denizens to quieter resorts further along the coast to dry out. Parlett interrogates the common trope when speaking about art and artists, where appreciation risks yielding to a potentially damaging romanticism about the darker aspects of queer and creative life, not least the addictions.

The safe haven that the island provides has not always been equally welcoming to everyone. The first wave of gay men to frequent the Pines were often put out when the younger, more raucous, more openly-out crowd, appeared in Cherry Grove. Even as attitudes towards discretion and secrecy slackened, Black and Latinx visitors were scarce; to get to the island one needed time, money and inclination. In the late 1950s, the increasing appearance of nonwhite day-trippers revealed the racist prejudices of some of the older gay and lesbian residents. James Baldwin visited the island as a writing retreat, but kept himself to himself and found its hedonism and endless pleasure-seeking vacuous. Baldwin describes the racist attitudes at play in the gay scene, where sexual objectification led to the laying on of hands. The islands milieu has always been somewhat exclusive, historically white, middle-class and cis-gendered, and structured around cachet and aspiration.

Despite these drawbacks, the islands very existence opens up opportunities for community, culture and political organization. The book details rituals such as the annual Homecoming Invasion, where drag queens arrive by boat and parade onto a red carpet laid out on the dock, hoping to be declared this years Homecoming Queen. Spawning from a feud that led to a protest in 1976, the tradition has now become a mainstay of the islands social calendar. By the same token, we see grassroots activism at the dawn of the AIDS crisis when writers Larry Kramer and Edmund White, alongside medical journalist Larry Mass, went to Fire Island to canvas and to disseminate knowledge. Though the initial reaction was frosty, a year later the men formed the Gay Mens Health Crisis, dedicated to combating the spread of AIDS.

The residents and repeat visitors to Fire Island made up a community historically in pursuit of freedom and safety, who celebrate and protect their tiny enclave. While the more radically-minded in the gay liberation movement saw in this neighbourly sentiment the potential for building a new cooperative from the ground up, for others their feelings of separatism were less a product of political ideology than protectiveness over the sanctity of this hideaway.

Life on the island carried on through the AIDS crisis, and bounced back partying into the new millennium. Now, artists residencies ensure they are more reflective of New Yorks LGBTQ+ landscape than the islands usual demographic, but their time is limited. Rising sea levels threaten this low-lying sandbar. Paradise may not have long left. Parletts compendious, sentimental history takes you to the heart of queer life. It makes you wish youd been there, in a halcyon summer whose pleasures defy its brevity.

Fire Island by Jack Parlett is published by Granta Books

More here:

Features | Tome On The Range | Utopia, Warts & All: Jack Parlett's History of Fire Island - The Quietus

China's Tianwen-1orbiter spacecraft has managed to capture the entirety of the Mars planet via an image. They release several orbiter's images across the surface of Mars.

The Tianwen-1 fell into the orbit of the planet in February 2021 and has circled the planet over 1,300 times. It sent 1,040 gigabytes of raw data back to Earth and was processed by scientists.

The images from News18 showed the prominence of craters. But there is an image that captured a stunning view of the Valles Mariners canyon system that is almost as long as the US. The canyons on Mars can read h up to four miles deep.

Some of the data from the Red Planet has also been published in scientific journals. They will also be available to scientists globally.

Currently, the space agency is also working with NASA and ESA to share data with them and warn them about potential collisions with other probes.

The mission of Tianwen-1 is to study the planet, such as its geological structure, morphology, distribution of surface water ice, surface material composition, soil characteristics, atmospheric ionosphere, and surface climate and environment.

Tianwen-1 will also analyze the internal structure and the physical field of the planet. For now, the Tianwen-1 has completed its scientific missions.

Also Read:China's Tianwen-1 Mission Celebrates Its First Year on Mars, Zhurong Preps for Winter

It also brought a rover to Mars, the Zhurong, and dropped it into Utopia Planitia, which is a vast field of ancient volcanic rock that may have reserves of water frozen beneath its surface.

Zhurong covered a distance of almost 2kms on Mars after that, it hibernated on May 18 because of the extreme winter weather. The rover will resume its exploration around December during the spring.

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and is also the second smallest planet in the Solar System. It is used to describe red color in English. In Roman mythology, Mars is the god of war. Mars is also known as the Red Planet because of the dramatic reddish appearance that the iron oxide on its surface gives the planet. It is named after the Roman god of war.

Mars' atmosphere is very thin. This means that liquid water can only exist underground. The atmosphere is made mostly of carbon dioxide. The pressure of the Martian atmosphere at the surface is also very low.

Mars is not a livable planet, but there might be some primitive life forms. If a human can visit Mars, then it will take about six months to reach the planet.

China is conducting more launches than any other country in the world right now, and is also set to play a key role in the next stage of space exploration.

Related Article:China's Tianwen-1 Mars Rover Snaps First Photo of the Eerie Red Planet Amid Challenging Entry

This article is owned by TechTimes

Written by April Fowell

2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

Here is the original post:

Chinas Tianwen-1 Orbiter Captured New Images of the Entire Planet of Mars - Tech Times

The big screen debut of Marcel The Shell With Shoes On opened at $170K on six screens in New York and LA, the highest PSA of the weekend at $28,267 for the iconic lonely snail voiced by Jenny Slate.

The mock documentary about the loveable anthropomorphic mollusk hails from distributor A24, a distributor that manages to hit pay dirt more often than not, and is based on the popular YouTube series and illustrated kids book.

It takes at least 20 shells to have a community, Marcel says in the film. My cousin fell asleep in a pocket and thats why I dont like the saying, everything comes out in the wash.; Because sometimes it doesnt. He loves 60 Minutes because Leslie Stahl is absolutely fearless. Its a combination of stop-motion and traditional animation and live action with Slate, Isabella Rossellini, Rosa Salazar, Thomas Mann and Stahl.

Once part of a sprawling community of shells, Marcel and his grandmother now live alone as the sole survivors of a mysterious tragedy. When a documentary filmmaker discovers them amongst the clutter of his Airbnb, the short film he posts online brings Marcel millions of passionate fans, as well as unprecedented dangers and a new hope at finding his long-lost family.

The film by Dean Fleischer-Camp and Slate (100% with critics, 91% with audiences on Rotten Tomatoes) expands into five more top markets Austin, San Francisco. Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Boston next weekend and will be in the top ten July 8 with a slow platform rollout building throughout the summer.

Marcel grossed$169,606 (Fri. $82,188; Sat. $47,253; Sun. $40,165).

Also in specialty: Neon opened Beba to a debut of $5,428 in three locations in NY and LA for a PTA of $1,809. This is Rebeca Beba Huntts self-reflection on her upbringing in NYC and lingering generational trauma.

Flux Gourmet from IFC Midnight opened in 19 locations to $5,000 for a PTA of $263. The offbeat Berlin Film Festival Encounters feature by writer-director Peter Strickland follows a fictional culinary performance collective.

(IFC Films Official Competition with Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz grossed an estimated $50,250 on 26 screens in week two, up from four for a per-theater average of of $1,932 and a cume of $92,690.)

Utopias Facing Nolan, the documentary about Major League Baseball and Texas icon Nolan Ryan that premiered at SXSW and at the Texas Rangers stadium before a nationwide one-night-only special event in May with Fathom (that grossed $320K). Utopia played it on 69 screens Friday, primarily across TX, with support from AMC, Regal, Studio Movie Grill, LOOK and other exhibitors, taking in another estimated $40K for a cumulative gross to date of $366K to date. The film expands to more screens next week ahead of a PVOD release July 19.

Theres a bit of wide-release crush at the box office this weekend including Top Gun: Maverick, which passed $1 billion, and Elvis and The Black Phone strong. The good news for specialty is that the first two films are drawing the older demos that are key for arthouses.

JugJugg Jeeyo, a Hindi-language family comedy-drama directed by Raj Mehta, from Moviegoers Entertainment, grossed an estimated $725K at 318 theaters coming in at no. 7 at the North American box office.

Continued here:

A24s Marcel The Shell With Shoes On Makes A Splash Specialty Box Office - Deadline

Dancers are so gifted. Martha Graham the great choreographer and performer poetically wrote that dancers are an athlete of God. She went on to describe the art form as akin to the symbol of the performance of living.

Chita Rivera

On June 20 at the Chita Rivera Awards, which celebrates excellence in dance and choreography, these unique athletes of god were in full and glorious force. Were honoring dancers who work harder than anybody. Its the least we could do for them, said the great Broadway performer Jackie Hoffman of dances big night. Lee Roy Reams, who played key roles in many Broadway musicals, observed how dancers are counted upon quite heavily. Dancers have always been the backbone of the theater, said Reams.

Now, more than ever, dancers must show they are endlessly versatile and are so key in storytelling throughout their shows. As Reams explained, in 1966, when he was performing in Sweet Charity in the chorus, (now named the ensemble), economics forced casts to shrink. So, dancers had to start singing and singers learned how to dance and now they all do it beautifully, added Reams. Also, choreographers are so key, not only for creating dances, but to staging entire shows.

Hosted by Broadway dance legends Charlotte dAmboise and Bianca Marroqun, the Chita Rivera Awards are produced by Joe Lanteri, founder and executive director of the New York City Dance Alliance Foundation Inc., in conjunction with Patricia Watt. With a mission to preserve dance history and recognize great talents past present and future, the stage at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts was bursting with phenomenal performances and inspiring artists.

This season on Broadway was particularly exceptional for dance as choreographers for shows including Paradise Square, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, The Music Man, MJ the Musical, American Utopia and Moulin Rouge, were all nominated. In addition to honoring theater the Chita Rivera Awards also has nominations for dance in feature films and documentaries.

Joel Grey, a Tony, Academy and Golden Globe Award winner was given the Lifetime Achievement Award. Also, Jack O'Brien received the SDC Director Award for exemplary collaboration with choreographers. During the dance-filled ceremony hosts d'Amboise and Marroquin did the killer number Nowadays from Chicago, the cast of Stomp performed and Jared Grimes from Funny Girl who tied with MJs Myles Frost for Outstanding Male Dancer in a Broadway Show, tore down the house tap dancing up a storm. Bebe Neuwirth sang Mr. Cellophane.

Curiously Myles Frost and Joel Grey each shared how they were cast in dancing roles when they were untrained dancers. I never had a dance lesson and came to MJ with a lot of raw talent, said Frost who was just coming off his Tony win playing Michael Jackson and thanked the shows director and choreographer, Christopher Wheeldon for all he taught him. And Grey talked about the legendary choreographers have shaped him including Wayne Cilento, Kathleen Marshall, Bob Fosse, Bob Marshall, Tommy Tune, Ann Reinking and more.

Throughout the show, the name that seemed to be on everyones lips was the woman for who the awards are named: Chita. She is our muse, said Amboise and Marroquin of Rivera who is one of the most nominated performers in Tony Award history. Rivera not only has ten nominations and two Tonys, but she also received the 2018 Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the theater.

Rivera also has the distinction of getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama. Like her unforgettable Anita, Chita Rivera has shown that life can indeed be bright in America, said Obama when he gave her this highest civilian honor. As Ive gotten older as a dancer, she inspires me to keep going and continue with excellence, shared Broadway star Mamie Duncan-Gibbs. Shes like the coolest person in the world, added Hoffman. If you dont like Chita Rivera, youre an insane person. its like not liking ice cream or music.

For Gelan Lambert, associate choreographer at Paradise Square, the musical which won Best Choreography in a Broadway show, having the awards be named after this first lady of dance is particularly meaningful. Its special because of what she has contributed to entertainment as an actress and a dancer. To give dance a pedestal just like an Oscar, Tony, an Emmy and call it after her continues her legacy in terms of excellence, said Lambert. We get to honor people in the dance field. A lot of times we are overlooked. So, this gives us a platform saying this is ours. This is for dance.

Rivera herself had a message for all the dancers who are starting their careers. I hope that they can be themselves, work hard and never give up, she advised. And how does she feel when shes dancing? Without any hesitation Rivera replied, like Im flying.

The cast of Stomp performing

Tendayi Kuumba, (second from right), who won Outstanding Female Dancer In A Broadway show with her ... [+] castmates from "for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf." The cast also won Outstanding Ensemble In A Broadway Show.

Jared Grimes

Joel Grey and Chita Rivera

Hosts Bianca Marroqun and Charlotte dAmboise perform "Nowadays" from Chicago.

Read more:

A Celebration Of Dance And Chita Rivera At The Chita Rivera Awards - Forbes

In September of 1997, as a newly minted officer, the New York City Police Department handed me a Glock 19 and gave me the authority to carry it concealed on the citys streets. Born and raised in Brooklyn, it felt like an extraordinary privilege. In my rookie days, I would feel it on my hip and had to remind myself I was actually allowed to carry it. I needed it because I had promised to defend the lives of New Yorkers.

Since New York State passed the Sullivan Act in 1911, that was the bar for lawfully carrying a concealed weapon in New York City: a demonstrated need for it. Few people had one. So, in a city of more than 8 million people, only 3,000 private citizens are presently licensed to carry a concealed pistol in public. Anyone else is guilty of a felony. The signal this sends is clear: A heavily-armed society is a dangerous and unpredictable one, and it is the governments responsibility to regulate carrying guns in public.

(Shutterstock/Shutterstock)

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this bar was too high. Being armed with a gun in public is a constitutional right, they declared, and a person doesnt have to prove any special need, beyond a general need for self-defense, to exercise that right. The dangers of a city armed to the teeth with handguns were explicitly left out of the calculus.

There is evidence that the more guns a city has on its streets, the more shootings there will be, the more road rage incidents will turn deadly, the more guns will be stolen from cars and homes, the more people will commit suicide, and the more we will accidentally kill our own children.

To the court, this wasnt what mattered. With this ruling, people who are not specifically excluded for reasons of insanity or criminal history shall be permitted to carry concealed handguns on New York Citys streets if they want to. Apart from the toll this will take on our citys poorest and most vulnerable communities, it turns the NYPDs work environment on its head in a way that will make policing more confusing and dangerous for everyone.

There are four things New York City police officers are taught about guns from their first day in the academy: Legal guns on the street are a rare exception; any gun makes a situation more dangerous; your job is to take control of situations where a citizen is armed with a gun; and your mission is to keep guns off the street. This is why officers demand to see a persons hands to be sure there isnt a gun in play. If you think someone is armed, you draw down on them first, seize their pistol, and then sort it out. Its not that a person is armed and dangerous, but that armed is dangerous. For decades in New York City, believing that a person was armed with a gun in public offered police enough criminal suspicion to justify stopping and frisking them.

The first time I saw this thinking in action, I was in field training in the Bronx. As I filled out paperwork at the scene of a routine car accident, senior officers suddenly drew down on a motorist who had the barrel of a pistol barely visible below his shirt. It turned out the man was a city correction officer, he had just done a poor job of keeping his pistol concealed. The officers holstered and apologized, but the man understood what had happened and why: Once a situation became an armed encounter, New York City cops would act.

I never forgot that lesson. In a city like New York, the police were the bulwark against the gun violence that comes from an overly armed populace. As we relentlessly enforced the citys gun laws and watched the murder rate consistently sink, we felt like we were onto something. For all its size and complexity, New York City became remarkably safe for everyone because guns in public were so rare, with progress especially felt in communities of color.

The NYPD didnt pull this rationale out of thin air but took it from the Supreme Courts 1968 decision in Terry vs. Ohio. It set the precedent for how police relate to an armed populace. In affirming the courts decision to empower police to stop and investigate people who may be armed, Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote, If the State of Ohio were to provide that police officers could, on articulable suspicion less than probable cause, forcibly frisk and disarm persons thought to be carrying concealed weapons, I would have little doubt that action taken pursuant to such authority could be constitutionally reasonable. Concealed weapons create an immediate and severe danger to the public, and though that danger might not warrant routine general weapons checks, it could well warrant action on less than a probability. To Harlan, the simple presence of weapons out in public was the danger, not just unlicensed ones, and that gave police cause to investigate.

Weekdays

Catch up on the days top five stories every weekday afternoon.

One thing we can be sure of is that the citys police and attorneys are resourceful, and they will find ways to continue to regulate guns in public. The city may define sensitive places very broadly, to include so many prohibited public areas that legally carrying a gun becomes very impractical, for example though if they do, prepare for court challenges that may succeed.

Officers may continue to act on the presumption that armed is dangerous, even if lawful, and stop armed people to investigate. One of the biggest ironies is that todays Supreme Court, which has been more sympathetic to police officers than any in decades, may be inclined to support these approaches. The day of its concealed carry ruling, the court also ruled on Vega vs. Tekoh, a striking 6-3 decision that effectively concludes police have no constitutional duty to read people their Miranda rights. As New York City finds loopholes in the courts decision and empowers officers to use them, the cases that make it to the Supreme Court will be heard by a sympathetic ear.

But loopholes are still a far cry from the sensible law that kept New Yorkers comparatively safe for so long. If there is any sign that this decision put ideology ahead of public safety, it is that attorneys for the left-wing Bronx Defenders and the Brooklyn Defender Service filed briefs in support of the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, the right-wing plaintiffs in this case affiliated with the National Rifle Association. If liberal public defenders siding with the NRA strikes you as dogs and cats living together, you are not wrong. One saw an opportunity to put more guns on the street, and the other saw an opportunity to hamstring the police, both disregarding the public safety of the communities affected. As they say, the enemy of your enemy is your friend.

The rise in violence that accompanies a heavily armed city wont convince the ideologues on either side to change their views. For its part, the NRAs answer to gun violence will always be more guns. It is a perverse logic: If you are worried about other peoples guns, you should just get one yourself and be prepared to use it. Meanwhile, the Bronx and Brooklyn Defenders who filed their brief will always resist arrest and prosecution as part of the solution for gun violence. If gun violence rises, they will defend shooters from prosecution while gesturing toward a utopia where nobody uses guns or needs police because there is no reason to commit a crime. They will blame the government for not creating this world for people.

Stuck in the middle of all this, as usual, will be the poor, the vulnerable and the police, left to sort it out amongst themselves. With this ruling, the Supreme Court put its imprimatur on the public health and safety tragedy that continues to unfold in our major cities. Gun ownership rose dramatically in 2020, it was accompanied by historic increases in homicide, and the toll of these deaths were overwhelmingly borne by the nations minority communities. Now, New York Citys police, who know the danger of guns and who rely on the law to keep them off the streets, will be deprived of one of their most important tools.

I left policing at the end of 2019 and havent carried a gun since. Its not because I cant, but because I dont want to live in a place where I need to. Every developed nation that has taken New Yorks approach to gun control and kept firearm carry rates low are much safer places than the United States. People thrive in well-governed communities where few people carry guns in public and the law makes it clear that they are the exception rather than the rule. This idea, which is a reality in so many other countries, now seems as nave a fantasy as cities where everyone has guns so nobody dares use them, or nobody wants guns because they have everything else they need.

Del Pozo is a policing, public health and criminal justice researcher. He served in the NYPD for 19 years and for four years as chief of police of Burlington, Vt.

More:

How the court just hurt cops and the communities they serve - New York Daily News

BY KIM REEDER

CONTRIBUTED TO THE OBSERVER

LEE COUNTY

As I look over how many intakes we have encountered at the Lee County Humane Society (LCHS), just in this past week, I find myself wondering, How can I help? What can I do? What will ignite a difference maker? The recurring answer for me is simply, I dont know. My heart wants to save and rescue every single animal. My magical, endless bank account wants to build massive shelters everywhere shelters with a well-paid staff, high-end amenities, industrial washers and dryers and grassy knolls. This magical dream is pursued by each and every volunteer and staff member at LCHS. The passion and hope for this animal shelter utopia is what each and every one of us strives to achieve. If you have the wonderful opportunity to talk and listen to an animal shelter employee and/or volunteer, you will find that our hearts work day in and day out in the hopes to build this magical place.

Sounds amazing, right? Of course it does. However, our minds at LCHS are aware that our dream of saving all animals, having state-of-the-art technology and most importantly, space to provide a safe and loving home for our animal friends simply isnt realistic. Our animal shelter utopia is just a pipe dream. This knowledge of it being just a dream doesnt stop our drive and passion from trying to make it happen. It doesnt stop our volunteers from working tirelessly to make it happen. So back to the questions at hand: How can I help? What can I do? How can I be a difference maker?

ADOPT. RESCUE. FOSTER. TRANSPORT. SPONSOR. DONATE. VOLUNTEER. EDUCATE. CARE.

In hopes to bring a focus to an immediate need for how you can help, I would like to reintroduce our Shelter Jewels Program, our Diamonds In The Ruff. This elite group of animal friends has taken up residency at LCHS for quite a long while. They have been with us the longest. Think of a teenager stuck in foster care their entire life, the child thats never known a forever home, one that is too old for that family to adopt, the anxious couples missing piece of their family, yet they feel that this isnt the one. The one that is overlooked with thoughts of them being too much of an undertaking, too risky, too hard, too mature or too grown. Just like this aged-out teenager longing for family dinners and game nights, our Diamonds have similar longings. They long for a family, a yard, belly rubs and ear scratches. They long to provide the best welcome home each and every time you leave the house. This is their utopia. This is their dream a dream that isnt far-fetched. You could be their forever family. If forever isnt an option for you, becoming a foster just might be.

Having a prolonged residency in a shelter does come with some speed bumps. With patience and time, our Diamonds In The Ruff will love you with such gratitude, youll wish you would have rescued them earlier. If you are familiar with how a diamond is formed, you will understand our special gems, our Diamonds.

The formation of a diamond takes patience, pressure (stress/strain), a fiery temperature and time. It requires all of these things and then some for these carbon atoms to even begin to become a gem, a diamond. Same applies to our Diamonds. It will take patience, time, pressure (stress/strain) and a fiery soul, but wow, in time, what a gem. A Shelter Jewel.

With any precious jewel, special care is required and recommended. You wouldnt ordinarily give a 3-year-old a 3-carat diamond to play withand neither will we. You wouldnt choose a pipe cleaner for your ring setting with that same 3-carat diamond. If LCHS was a jeweler (we kind of are) we certainly wouldnt insure your pipe cleaner setting. In LCHS terms, we make sure our 3-carat diamond will have a perfect setting, one fitting for such a gem. We take tremendous pride along with tremendous love and care for our Diamonds, and we dont want their integrity compromised. To ensure quality and longevity of our Diamonds, we provide training, toys, wire crates, blankets, food, bowls, medicine (if needed) and a free photo session with our media specialist. There is also a virtual, four-week training session via GoodPup when certain LCHS Shelter Pets are adopted.

Puppies are beautiful, and they deserve forever homes, but when referencing our Diamonds, puppies are the cubic zirconia. They are cute their own diamonds in the making but they arent Diamonds. Some people are the family heirloom types Shelter Jewels people while others are the new, bright and shiny like diamond people: puppy people. And then there are so many of us all that fall in between. Thats the great thing about it. Just like diamonds, we are all unique, and none of us are the exact same. It is what gets us closer and closer to that inner animal shelter utopia. It is what helps us rescue, adopt and foster our animal friends. Simply magnificent. If you are unable to adopt, rescue or foster, please remember you can volunteer, transport, donate, sponsor, educate and most importantly, care.

Are you ready to meet our Diamonds In The Ruff? Visit us at leecountyhumane.org to find out more.

Original post:

'It Is In The Shelter Of Each Other That People Live.' Irish Proverb | The Observer - Opelika Observer

The artist couple Ilya and Emilia Kabakov live and create at a home and studio on Long Island, New York. The Art Newspaper met with them there and spoke to Emilia about the often prophetic nature of art and Russias invasion of Ukraine, where both artists were born.

The Art Newspaper: One of Ilyas drawings of ships, which has "go fuck yourself" written in Russian in the background, has become a sort of meme during the war in Ukraine. It has been used to represent the famous incident at Snake Island in the Black Sea in February in which defiant Ukrainian sailors declared: Russian warship, go fuck yourself. Ilya's image, created decades ago, began to circulate widely online after a recording of the standoff went viral. Can you tell us about that?

Emilia Kabakov: Ilya's drawing was created in 1984, and there is a whole story there. It is an album, with drawings depicting cows, rabbits, all kinds of flowers and birds. The idea is that there are childrens drawings, but there are always these bad words hidden behind them.

Ilya Kabakov's Ships. Go fuck yourself (1993) Ilya & Emilia Kabakov The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, 2022

We have a few stories about this set of drawings. A father went to the store, brought back a colouring book, and the mother saw the bad words in it. They went to the militia and there was an entire investigation into the enemies of the Soviet Union who planted such bad words in a childrens colouring book.

Ilya made these drawings in 1984, and in the 1990s we made prints, without anything like war in mind. Now it has been dug up and taken on a whole different meaning. It turns out Ilya hit the nail on the head. [Russian collector and gallerist] Marat Guelman helped get this meme started. I immediately got a call from the Lithuanian National Museum of Art [who have a collection of works by Ilya] asking for permission to publish it. We agreed, sent them the image, and they made postcards.

You have shown us a number of your works today and shared the stories of their creation. It seems like many of them are taking on a new life in connection with current events?

They have turned out to be multi-layered and many of them live on in the present day. The Red Pavilion was made for the 1993 Venice Biennale [It was designed to show that the Soviet Union never truly disappeared]. Yes, at the time Perestroika [the attempt launched by Mikhail Gorbachev to reform the Soviet system] was still happening in Russia. Everything was changing. But as the former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin once said: We wanted the best, but it turned out as always.

The Red Pavilion in Venice Courtesy of the artists

It turned out that everything that Russia managed to build and change in the past 30 years disappeared overnight, and everything is returning to the same old system of repression. Im not even mentioning the military operation [in Ukraine], which is in fact the most frightening of wars because since it seems possible that it could lead to all-out nuclear war. Everyone is on edge. The entire world has turned upside down. Why this happened, and to what end, no one knows.

The Red Pavilion has returned. We were told at the time that it would never return, that it is nonsense and we are stuck in the past. But it turns out we werent stuck in the past. We were looking into the future. We didnt want this, but this is as fate would have it.

There was a time when contemporary art seemed to be accepted by the Putin regime. Do you think that was the case?

It never became an official form of art. That is an illusion. It was accepted only conditionally. Ilya and I were talking today about why they didnt simply kill all of the underground artists in Soviet times. Almost all of them had official jobs. Half of them were members of the Union of Artists. [Erik] Bulatov, [Oleg] Vassiliev, and Ilya were all members. That is how they survived.

At the same time, they all did what they wanted. None of them were political artists. The political ones were another circle of artists. These werent. But each of their works was multilayered, and it turned out that many years later their work took on a different role. For example, it seems to me that some of Bulatovs paintings from those years can now be interpreted as a glorification of Soviet images, rather than being against them. Paintings such as Bulatovs portrait of Brezhnev have suddenly started transmitting a different message.

Ilya's works are completely different, like a prediction of the future. Those childrens ships ended up being the [Russian] military ship that was cursed at [by Ukrainian sailors]. Thats not what he had in mind. When we made The Red Pavilion, we thought that the USSR would return, but we did hope that it would not happen. Thirty years later it is here again. It was a fantasy, but also a fear of the return of the USSR, of the totalitarian regime.

We dont believe that its possible to build a democratic future there. Utopia is a word that cannot be brought to life, especially in such a country as Russia, because there is a certain kind of inertia. On the one hand there are many incredibly talented people. On the other hand this is a country that time and again, after certain intervals, tosses out or destroys these talents. This happened with the revolution. It happened in 1937 and after the Second World War when a huge number of people remained in the West, left the Soviet Union, died, or were imprisoned again. And this is happening now.

It seemed like things had relaxed and that something new had begun. Bridges of friendship were built, museums exchanged knowledge and practices, Russians went to work abroad, specialists came to Russia. Something was being done. And now suddenly it all falls into an abyss. For a very long period of time Russia will become an aggressor, the enemy of humanity. For what? When one country completely destroys another, with no regard for victims, it also suffers and dies. That is what is happening now. Both Ukraine and Russia have been destroyed.

There are many painful discussions on social media right now between Ukrainian and Russian curators about whether Russian art has the right to speak after the invasion of Ukraine. How is this dividing the art world?

On the one hand I understand [the Ukrainian perspective]. I was recently told that I am not speaking enough about the suffering in Ukraine. For me, any warany killing of men, women and childrenis unacceptable in any country, whether it is Israel, Palestine, Iraq or Afghanistan. Russia and Ukraine all the more, the two countries in which I have lived, from which I am from. But I came from a country, the Soviet Union, in which everyone pretended to get along. Im not referring to the totalitarian system, which is the reason I left, never returned and would never return. I wouldnt return for any reason, whatever I may be offered, because unconsciously I always feared everything could repeat itself. And thats exactly what is happening now.

Inside the Kabakov's New York studio Photo courtesy of Sophia Kishkovsky

Art must unite people. Art does not belong to Ukraine or to Russia. Culture must be protected by everyone. Cultural memory and cultural heritage are what distinguish us from animals. Now it is being destroyed from both sides. It is physically being destroyed by Russians in Ukraine. Id like to say that its not Russians but some mercenaries, but Im afraid that Russians are also actively participating in those massacres. The cultural heritage of another nation is being destroyed. No one wants to understand this, but those who do are leaving Russia today. Many people in Russia dont want to believe or understand what is going on.

What will happen with the Russian art world?

I read that apartment exhibitions are being held again in small cities around Russia. Artists bring their paintings and invite people to see them for free. Weve returned to Moscow of the 1960s and 70s. Things have come full circle. It means unofficial art will appear again. We will get a new unofficial world of Kabakovs, Bulatovs, Vassilievs, Komars and Melamids and many others.

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov's The Ship of Tolerance (2005-ongoing) in Miami in 2011. The project involves collaborating with schoolchildren, who make paintings based on the meaning of tolerance that are then combined to make the sail of a ship Courtesy of the artists

I received a very interesting email today from a Moscow artist who has two sons and will probably be forced to leave Russia because he has put together an exhibition of portraits of people who were arrested. He asked me what to do. I said he has to think of his children as they will suffer. He said hes read all of the interviews Ilya and I have given and everything weve written because he wants to understand how to create multi-level works in which its not always possible to recognise whats insidefor them not to be obviously anti-government. My answer is that art must always be like this. It cant be direct or unilinear, it must be complex. People are not so simple. There is no black and white. We are very multi-layered people. That is what makes us people.

The problem is that all of the truly talented artists have left. They are all known here, but they are not there. A very interesting article came out recently in a Russian publication about 100 living Russian artists you should know. It says Ilya Kabakov still holds the title of number one Russian artist". I think they might have rushed to claim him as a Russian artist so that Ukraine doesnt lay claim to him.

But I would like to repeat what I said before: We consider ourselves international artists, born in the Soviet Union and living in the United States of America.

Read the original:

'Art will go back underground': artist Emilia Kabakov on the war in Ukraine and the fate of the Russian art world - Art Newspaper

I went outside to discover that my beautiful bees were swarming. I heard the loud buzz of rebellion, and saw the sky turn black. My brain buzzed in return as I stared, unsure of what to do first. My friend, and beekeeper extraordinaire, Martin, had once told me to bang pots and pans if they swarmed. For some reason, the bees will stop their flight and settle in the nearest tree instead of disappearing into the distance.

So I grabbed the pots, and Isaac and Thomas joined me, clinking and clanking, and what do you know? The bees flew over our fence and settled on a little tree just on the other side. Unfortunately, the other side of the fence had construction workers toiling away. I ran around the block and in a gasp told them, Be not afraid! They are very gentle when theyre swarming!

They stood in a row, stepping backwards, mouths and eyes wide, unconvinced. So, I suited up, and with the help of my kids, scooped those bees out of the tree and into a box. I cannot describe the feeling of holding bowlfuls of bees, while tens of thousands fly about your head and climb up your arms. It was like a vibrating dish of weightless water that turned into marbles as they poured out of my hands and into the waiting box.

People have asked me why bees swarm. Sometimes they swarm if there is something wrong in the hive: mites, hive beetles, or chemicals. Usually they swarm because they have become so crowded that the workers can no longer smell the queens pheromones, so she lays some new queen eggs, and when they are ready to hatch, she takes half of the hive and says farewell. Off they go to look for a new kingdom to rule. And sometimes, despite all measures taken, bees swarm simply because it is in their nature to do so.

Once upon a time, beekeepers took pride in the swarms of their bees. It meant healthy queens, and new hives of honey. Nowadays, there can be a certain sense of shame in having your hive swarm. It means you werent paying enough attention. You didnt take the right steps to prevent it. And as much as people tote Save the Bees bumper stickers, swarms cause a certain, understandable terror in our over-sterilized society. But we are fooling ourselves if we think we can tame the spirit of the bee. You cannot feel too much shame when the bees are just acting according to their make-up. Its not like they obey commands for biscuits.

Nature cannot be tamed, at least not as much as we believe it can. There is no utopia, no perfect communion with the beasts of the earth. Remember the people who lived with their beloved pet lions? Rest in peace. Ahem.

I once watched an amazing documentary on a real-life farm that had promised to only work with nature as they overcame problems. After seven years of struggles, they amazingly found many ways to farm without the use of predator traps or pesticides. It was brilliant! And when they nearly reached their utopia, a forest fire burned them down. Nature cannot be tamed. It is fierce and beautiful, and a sign of God, but its instinct is survival at all costs. That is why the Morning Glory survives, while the strawberries struggle; Morning Glory chokes them out.

Human nature, while pulled to the same survival, is called to something more, something above. God calls man into the seventh day with him, to rest and become like him. But we are tempted back into day six of creation, the day of the beasts, where impulses, instincts, and strength reign. Alas, the shame for us is real when we simply act according to our broken and beastly human nature, instead of reaching for our made in Gods image human nature.

Caryll Houselander writes in The Reed of God, not one of us, by Himself, could imitate Christ: we are a handful of dust held together by seventy-five percent of liquid, with souls that were stained at birth, and which are weighted all through our lives with a heavy downward lurch towards sin.

Imitating Christ is not the meaning of Christianity, she writes. What we are asked to do is to be made onewith Christ, to allow Him to abide in us, to make His home in us and through that oneness, to become Christs. And when we are one with him, we will become like him. That is the nature, Gods image, that we were created for.

When I watch with such great wonder the magnificence of the beehive, I am still filled with awe. But I am filled with something else: a great sense of awe that the God who made them, also made me, and invites me to join and share in his love, to be one with him. That is the beauty of humanity, and something worth banging pots for.

Read the original post:

Our human nature is to be one with Christ - The B.C. Catholic