Monthly Archives: April 2023

Bill Maher conducted a chummy interview on Real Time Friday with likable guy Elon Musk, with the two bonding over what they deemed to be threats to free speech and what Musk has long derided as the woke mind virus.

They attack you a lot, and you seem to laugh it off, which is fantastic, Maher opened. I love it that you have a sense of humor, because a guy who is as important as you, who makes changes, could use your powers for evil and not good.

Musk cheekily said that he would never do such a thing.

I know, Maher continued. But the way I know that is because you have a sense of humor. You really do, he said, contrasting Musk with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

When Musk told the HBO host that he was once in his shows audience, Maher looked quite pleased to hear it.

Let me get back to you being a genius, he fawned, before holding in high regard tech leaders of the past and present, saying theyre the ones who deal the cards. Musk also credited tech innovations like the Gutenberg printing press and the internet for causing big step innovations in civilization.

Segueing from the proliferation of information to him taking ownership of Twitter, Musk explained what he means by woke mind virus.

I think we need to be very cautious about anything that is anti meritocratic and anything that results in the suppression of free speech, he said. Almost synonymous would be cancel culture, and obviously people have tried to cancel you many times.

Many times. Every week, said Maher, whose show Politically Incorrect was canceled in 2002. From left and right. Ive had it from both sides.

The discussion about cancel culture and being woke naturally led to Maher mentioning Fox News ousting of Tucker Carlson, who responded via a Twitter video lamenting how few places supposedly exist for Americans saying true things.

Maher joked that, given Musks recent interview with Carlson, he hoped his appearance on Real Time wasnt an omen.

Continued here:
Bill Maher Drools All Over Elon Musk in Softball Sitdown - The Daily Beast

In January 2021 the influence of the online political conspiracy movement, QAnon, came to the fore with the storming of the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump. But what has fueled the rise and popularity of QAnon? In new research, Danil de Zeeuw and Alex Gekker examine how QAnon creates alternate realities for those who engage with it. Through a process of conspiracy fictioning, they argue, QAnon content gained credence on mainstream platforms like Facebook and Instagram, eventually with destructive results for the real world.

The QAnon political conspiracy movement has gained a lot of traction in recent years. Yet many questions regarding its exact features and development over time remain. How did the posts of a (supposedly) government insider named Q instigate a full-blown conspiracy movement involved in the storming of the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021? And how should we even define QAnon? Is it a conspiracy theory, a new mythology, a social movement, a religious cult, a shadowy instance of psychological warfare, a foreign influence operation, or an alternate reality game (ARG)? QAnon is all this and more. Most of all, it is a purposefully ambiguous movement that draws its success from the playful and participatory features of social media platforms.

A few years ago, one of us, together with other members of the Open Intelligence Lab at the University of Amsterdam started to investigate the role of social media and news platforms in the initial popularization of the QAnon conspiracy theory between October 2017 and November 2018. Using digital methods, we empirically traced the spread of QAnon from the depths of the website 4chans Politically Incorrect board to its manifestation at a Trump rally in Florida less than a year later at which point the mainstream news media first started reporting on QAnon (Figure 1). What we call the normiefication of QAnon refers to the process whereby ideas or objects (like memes) travel from fringe online subcultures (like 4chan) to larger publics on other online platforms (like Reddit or YouTube).

Figure 1 QAnon-related activity across multiple Web spheres between 28 October 2017 and 1 November 2018

Turning to QAnons origins in playful online subcultures, in our subsequent research we argue that, to account for the movements success, we need to consider how it engages people, by allowing them to playfully construct alternative realities. Supercharged by the ability to participate in the online world of social media, QAnon is an instance of online interpretive play that demands deep engagement above all. In other words, it might be immaterial whether one participates in QAnon sincerely or just trolls others with it, as social media increasingly blurs the boundaries between play and politics, fact and fiction in culture and society.

We were especially interested in QAnons origins on the anonymous imageboard 4chan, and how it was initially received as a spontaneous act of trolling or LARPing (Live Action Role Playing) that is very common on the platform (but that typically does not lead to the storming of a government building). Indeed, perceptions of QAnon as a LARP were prevalent on 4chan /pol/ from the very start, and even occur in the thread that contains the first ever Q post (Figure 2). To call some- thing a LARP on 4chan typically means to designate it as a trollish in-joke, where all content exists in a suspended state between the real thing and its mocking parody.

Similar to how QAnon was perceived as a potential hoax by 4chan users themselves, several commentators claimed QAnon shares key tenets with the organizing principles of so-called alternate reality games (and might be even connected to the mysterious Cicada 3301 game). ARGs are online collaborative treasure hunts often used as marketing campaigns for transmedia properties and popularized by such early 2000s examples as The Beast for Steven Spielbergs film AI or I Love Bees for the videogame Halo 2. Traditionally, they share a premise of existing in our own reality, yet with minute changes that immerse the players into the games fictional contraptions. ARGs construct alternative realities that overlay the players everyday life and, so-to-speak, charge it with magic.

Figure 2 Screenshot of the first Q post on 4chan /pol/, including a comment that suspects Q to be a LARP

Whereas in the early context of 4chans Politically Incorrect board the question of QAnons authenticity remains highly contested, by the time QAnon reaches Facebook and Instagram its reception and adoption is shaped by very different platform cultures. Already on 8chan and later 8kun, specialized QAnon research boards presuppose the baseline authenticity of Q-drops. On YouTube and Instagram, right-wing influencers see an opportunity to monetize QAnon content, while on Twitter right-wing pundits come to entertain a vested political interest in its reality. As a result, the dynamic surrounding QAnon shifts from suspected trolling or LARP to the semi-religious scripture of a radical political movement. We call this process, whereby belief levels in a conspiratorial narrative change as it travels across platforms, conspiracy fictioning.

Belief in conspiracy theories is often seen as part of a new dark age for information literacy where a lack of media literacy as the ability to critically scrutinize different information sources accounts for most misguided conspiratorial beliefs. Against this view, danah boyd instead argues that the emphasis on media literacy in education has backfired. In the case of QAnon, the way anons fiction an alternative reality through collective interpretation games actually conveys an extreme form of post-truth media literacy, in the sense that they possess an intricate understanding of what it takes for any digital content to propagate and stick, be it a meme or a conspiracy theory.

Constantly looping back on themselves, such conspiracy fictions ultimately acquire the power to reshape reality. From Trumps original allusion to a coming storm which set in motion the QAnon fiction, to the actual storming of the Capitol, Q runs its loop: from Storm to storming, from LARP to historical event. Understanding these novel dynamics and the role of the internet in them demands further research, as QAnon might be the first of many disruptions to the way we think about the online world to come.

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QAnon's popularity has been fueled by the playful and participatory ... - LSE

Purely Political, By James Buckley

Were losing it.

I mean, we are really losing it.

The royal We, meaning those of us of a particular political bent, who find joy and inspiration in heated debate, thoughtful discourse and in the first 10 amendments of the U.S. Constitution, are and have been on the losing side of public debate for decades. And the trend continues to travel in the wrong direction.

Occasionally, we get a reprieve with a Ronald Reagan and more recently, Donald Trump, but the aftermaths of their administrations have been short-lived. The progressive agenda moves on, despite the stumbles.

This latest decline began, I suppose, after Inauguration Day 2017 with the accusation that our new president Donald J. Trump had been compromised by some nefarious relationship with Vladimir Putin and Russia.

The salacious and completely fictional Steele Dossier that claimed President Trump had hired prostitutes to urinate on the bed that President Barack Obama slept on in Moscow and other equally sensational falsehoods, had been presented as evidence to a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Court of Mr. Trumps culpability to all things Russian.

Most thinking Americans now know that was not only non-existent poppycock, but was fabricated disinformation promulgated and paid for by the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and sustained by FBI leadership, along with the help of many of Americas intelligence agencies.

Piling on were the mainstream printed press, virtually all news and social media outlets, the Hollywood community, and of course, the Democratic Party apparatus. All of which claimed it to be their solemn duty to harass and destroy this presidents destructive (to the Progressive movement) mission.

They succeeded.

In April 2017, we were less than three months into Trumps presidency when we lost Bill OReilly as Foxs primetime opinionator. Hes still around but he as an influential TV voice has been scuttled. His message has been gutted. His opinion, neutralized.

Then in November 2020, the horrible news that Democrats had cleverly maneuvered a COVID-19-era presidential victory for a masked-up lifelong political hack from Delaware named Joe Biden was delivered the morning after Election Day.

Heading up a lackluster campaign out of a basement in his home, he and his least-popular-Democrat-running-for-president-ever Kamala Harris were named president- and vice-president-elect, even though President Trump had received many millions more votes (74,223,369) than he had in his first election.

Somehow, basement-dweller Biden received many millions more than President Trump (81,282,916) without stepping outside his house for any extended period.

Go figure.

On the morning of Feb. 17, 2021, barely a month after President Biden took over at the White House, we learned of the death of Rush Limbaugh. Rush had filled our late mornings here in California with brilliant insight, cogent analysis and lots of politically incorrect humor five days a week for over 30 years.

We received the awful news of his death at the beginning of his radio show, delivered by telephone by his wife, Kathryn. The Rush Limbaugh Show: began familiarly enough with James Honeyman-Scotts opening bass guitar strains from The Pretenders My City Has Gone theme song. But when Kathryn Limbaugh began to speak (most of us listeners knew Rush had been going through treatment for lung cancer), we voiced a collective Uh oh as we waited to hear what she would say.

Here is what she did say:

I like you very much wish Rush was behind this golden microphone now, welcoming you to another exceptional three hours of broadcasting, she began, voice cracking ever so slightly. It is with profound sadness I must share with you directly that our beloved Rush, my wonderful husband, passed away this morning due to complications from lung cancer.

We knew one day wed hear those terrible words about the man who worked with half my brain tied behind my back, but the reality shocked and deeply saddened us, nevertheless.

Our rock, our hero was no more.

Next, by virtue of President Bidens flurry of executive orders, the building of the Keystone Pipeline had been halted, leases for drilling in a small portion of Alaskas Arctic National Wildlife Refuge were rescinded, and a virtual ban on fracking had been implemented. In less than a month, the U.S. had lost its coveted status of energy independence.

Theres no reason to catalog the series of catastrophic policies and decisions promulgated by President Biden and his team that have not only run up the U.S. national debt, allowed millions of border crossers unfettered access to the American heartland, left the U.S. begging for oil from Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, and whose reckless spending has brought on the worst inflation in nearly 50 years.

We bristle as Trump supporters, whose only crime was to join an invited crowd into the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, are hauled into court, fingerprinted and charged, while rioters and arsonists in other cities are ignored and real insurrectionists rewarded and applauded.

And now, weve lost Tucker Carlson, the most imaginative and effective voice for common-sense resistance to the ongoing madness that we had. The uttered ecstasies of various TV personalities, talk-show hosts and left-wing political pundits at the downfall of our spokesman, our champion at the Fox News Channel leaves many of us both shaken and sad. But dont be fooled: The smarmy comments and lip-smacking elation of his detractors are evidence of the powerful and effective voice that Tucker had.

Hell be back.

We are indeed grappling with an existential dilemma, one that wakes us up at night wondering if our beloved country will ever find its way back to the ideals of its founders or of the writers of our Constitution and its foundational Bill of Rights.

But its up to us to hang on despite continued losses. Because, if we dont, therell be no one around to sweep up the mess these nasty people and their ill-informed voters will have left behind.

Lets go, Brandon!

James Buckley is a longtime Montecito resident. He welcomes questions or comments at jimb@substack.com. Readers are invited to visit jimb.substack.com, where Jims Journals are on file. He also invites people to subscribe to Jims Journal.

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Its been rough, but we have to hang on - Santa Barbara News-Press

Victorio Korjhan. Photographs by Peggy Taylor.

By P. A. Gallett

A venerated flamenco dancer and teacher is back this spring on the Upper West Side to gather his stomping flock once again at Steps on Broadway at West 74th Street. After nearly three years stuck at home in order to avoid COVID-19, and a six-week recovery from a recent fall, Victorio Korjhan is bound and determined. Im currently concentrating on building up my dance class, he said, when I dropped in on him at Steps, recently.

He neednt worry about having followers; Victorio has been sought out for decades as a teacher and a performer. The son of a New York City police lieutenant, he attained an enviable artistic pedigree. Dancing was not part of my upbringing, he said. At 18, I received a scholarship to Juilliard and worked with some of the most famous in modern dance and ballet, such as Jos Limn, Antony Tudor, Margaret Craske, and Martha Graham.

It was flamenco, however, that eventually captured him and carried him off to Spain to learn from masters and to perform on both sides of the Atlantic. His flock followed him for many years at Fazils in Hells Kitchen, thence to Steps after Fazils closed in 2008. This day, he invited me to join the class. Tough as a boiled gizzard, the old geezer is still at it. (Lest there be confusion, Victorio is the one in black.)

Zoom is up and running for the tele-terpsichoreans and the audio system is checked out. Victorio confers with Simon Applebaum who has been his teaching assistant over the course of seventeen years.

Simon explains why he joined forces with Victorio: I really enjoyed the way he taught the class. He kept it light. He was politically incorrect. He cracked jokes. He was very demanding, very demanding. He was able to get a lot of material into his class.

A journalist and broadcast producer by profession, Simon has been dancing for nearly 32 years. He began with folk and mambo, then gravitated to ballroom before arriving at flamenco. As usual, Simon will lead footwork and the floor work; Victorio will direct from the comforts of the sideline.

We warm up with armwork well be using in the Gypsy tangos, before footwork. Arms count! The arms dance; the feet work. Casual spectators, bedazzled by flamenco footwork, usually fail to appreciate that the the soul of this dance is in the upper body, the arms, and the emotion projected.

Victorio explains to the class how to snap a turn to a cold, dead stop.

Dariusz Horvth-Krol is the class wunderkind who often gets volunteered to demonstrate a turn. Like Simon, Dariusz is a ballroom dancer, and counts 23 years in a variety of dance forms.

Says Dariusz, referring to ballroom dance, Flamenco is helping with my pasodoble [a Spanish dance], which is the main reason why I started learning it. One of my coaches highly recommended that I learn it from Victorio. He teaches in such a simple way that you do not understand how good it is and how it works. But sooner or later, you realize that you have learned so much without even understanding why or how. Only later do you find out. But in the meantime, all of this information has gotten into your body and subconscious.

After a few combinations across the floor of increasing difficulty, the inevitable happens. Chaos. The Gypsy tangos dissolve into mush. We get called out. And called back. The bewildered Gypsies are admonished. They repent. Simon deconstructs the steps, demonstrates, and restarts the drill. Satisfaction. The West Side Gypsies are back in formation now, with another progress across the floor, much improved.

His days of leaps and triple knee spins may be past, but Victorios compensating reward is a calmer Sunday afternoon teaching a new generation: The best part about teaching dance is seeing how certain students develop over time and reach a professional level.

We are exhorted to higher valor. This is a bullfight! Youre not fighting a hamster!

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Flamenco and a Venerated Teacher Return to Steps on Broadway - westsiderag.com

Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu is a master of the slow-burn drama. His careful cinematic style using wide master shots and long takes, allowing the action to play out within the frame without edits is put to service in exploring complex, hot-button social issues abortion in his 2007 Palme dOr winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, state corruption in 2016s Graduation with a calm, almost scientific precision.

Mungius latest, R.M.N., takes this scientific approach literally. The title is the Romanian acronym for an MRI, which one of the characters receives in the film, and the movie, which hits U.S. cinemas on April 28, is Mungius cinematic brain scan of his country, revealing the layers of illness racial, social, political, and above all emotional buried in the national psyche.

The plot, inspired by real events, takes place over the Christmas holidays in a small village in Transylvania. Matthias (Marin Grigore), a slaughterhouse worker, returns home from Germany and rekindles a relationship with old flame Csilla (Judith State), who manages the local bread factory. But the arrival of new factory employees from Sri Lanka disrupts the community. Tensions build as the locals most of whom are actually Hungarian, an ethnic minority in the country debate whether they should drive the foreigners out, as they did, several years previous, with the Romani families who used to live there.

For Mungiu, R.M.N. is an attempt to understand racism, xenophobia, and the rise of right-wing populism, from the inside: By looking, listening, but not judging, the people who spout heinous views. You cant start hoping to cure a public attitude until you name it and are willing to talk about it, to understand why it is happening.

The following interview was edited for length and clarity.

The so-called Romanian New Wave had already started by 2007 but it really blew up internationally after you won the Palme dOr for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a film that took not just your career, but sort of the entire movement, to a new level. 16 years on, how do you think the focus of Romanian cinema has changed? From an outsiders perspective, it seemed the first wave of films was dealing with the communist period of Nicolae Ceauescu. The new films from Romanian, including your latest, R.M.N., seem to be more concerned with current-day events.

Well, I dont think that we were speaking, even then, about communism in particular, I think that we were at that age, when you revisit your adolescence or, you know, your youth. And we were making films that had a kind of nostalgia for what we lived through. Of course, they had communism as a background, but we were talking about our experiences. And if you remember, Corneliu Porumboius first film, the one about the revolution [2006s 12:08 East of Bucharest], it wasnt so much about communism. Cristi Puius second film [2005s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu] wasnt at all about communism. They were quite contemporary, they were speaking about the long-term effects of communism on people, and the way the country was shaped and the people were shaped.

I dont think that the new wave got all this attention because it was speaking about communism. But mostly, because we were speaking in a different way, in a different cinematic way. I think it was a formal thing, which dragged this attention our way. This way of making films with very, very long takes, was deliberate. Behind the new wave, there was a lot of thinking about the limits of cinema as an art, and about its particularities. Thats why we were shooting in these long takes, not because we like master shots, but because theres this integrity of time, that cinema can preserve, on the condition that you dont use editing.

I think we were motivating one another to really think very deeply about cinema, to take this very seriously. There was no point at all for us in making popular films because, by that moment, the cinemas in Romania were gone, there was no audience whatsoever for us. So we focused directly on making films that would be important for the history of cinema, not for the present. And we felt the way you made a film is as important as the story that you wanted to tell.

I think the movement has evolved quite well. Its brought some filmmakers into focus that really had a point of view on cinema and had something to say. But, like any wave, time passes, and even this novel style gets old and becomes sort of a norm. It doesnt surprise anybody any longer. So now its important for each of these authors to reinvent himself and to find something fresh and new to say in terms of topic matter, and also in terms of style. Thats the fate of waves, what comes as a wave goes as a wave. And you know, therell be another wave coming, even if, right now, its not clear where it will come from.

But these filmmakers, these individuals, have survived. We were perceived as a wave because we all emerged at the same time, we were pretty much the same age, and we were the first group of filmmakers expressing themselves after the fall of communism in Romania. But now, so many years later, we see which voices are strong enough to continue telling something.

Thats the most difficult thing in cinema. Its not difficult to make a film that can surprise people once. But to make the next film, and eventually, to build this kind of personal take on cinema, this is very complicated. And I think Corneliu was telling me at some point he had checked and, apparently, statistically, most directors make two or three films in their entire lives. So if youve managed to make two or three films that actually got noticed, thats quite good.

The other thing which is good is that the new generation of Romanian filmmakers is deliberately trying to be as different as possible [from the New Wave]. Which is normal.

Where did the idea for R.M.N. come from?

It came from a real story. The real story is quite close to what you see in the film. There is this little village in an area inhabited mostly by Hungarians. And, youd imagine, in an area inhabited by a minority, that the people would be more empathic towards another minority coming in. But they were not. From their perspective, it was: We dont have anything against these people, but this is a very poor region, we have made a great sacrifice to stay here and try and grow this community, to preserve our traditions, and you the owner of the bakery have broken the rules by bringing foreigners into this community.

One of the reasons people behaved so badly, of course, was the color of their skin. But, its also true that when this scandal emerged in Romania, the wave of sympathy for these people was overwhelming. People and factory owners all over wrote and said: Well hire them, well take them into our communities, they can work here.

I thought the story of this film was very, very relevant to the state of the world today. Even if it happens in Transylvania in Romania, I had the feeling that it speaks about the way we behave today about these very hot issues of xenophobia, and the truth. Ultimately, its a film about this huge distance between what we think and what we say.

I presented this film at Cannes last year and in a lot of other places and so many people came up to me and said: This could have happened in my country, with us as well. Its just that people dont dare any longer to speak about such issues in public. It was important to me to see if there is still enough freedom in cinema, that we can speak about the elephant in the room, about the sense that we all know that a lot of people think like this, but we behave as if they dont exist. Unless we manage to tackle these issues directly, theres no way of hoping that we can cure them. You cant start hoping to cure a public attitude until you name it and are willing to talk about it, to understand why it is happening.

You have a very empathetic way of portraying all the characters in the film, even the ones who spout horrible, racist, or xenophobic views.

The most important conflict in the film, for me, is the internal conflict, not the external one, the conflict between the good part of us, that feels empathy for others, and the instinctual animalistic part in us, which makes us consider others potential enemies that have come to steal our world, our food, our horse or whatever. Thats fight that we need to try to win. But before winning it, you need to talk about it, expose it, see how much of it comes from your instinct and karma, how much of it is contextual.

One important step is to listen to the people who are displeased about what is happening today. Migration today doesnt look like it did 1,000 years ago, when a bunch of people on horseback would ride over the hill. Now they come by plane and try to get work. But for many people, the feeling is the same: Here is somebody who doesnt belong. Its a consequence of globalization. And many people living in tiny, very traditional communities feel: I didnt ask for this globalization, but I have to pay personally for decisions I had no say in. The speed of change is too great for them. They need more time. I think we need to have the patience to talk to them , to understand why they think like this, before branding them as sinners, xenophobic, or whatever.

In this particular case, the villagers were not, in their minds, xenophobic against foreigners. They thought it was alright to be xenophobic agains the local Romani. This is what they were trying to protect their community from.

This is why I thought the story was worth telling, because they did not see what they were doing as wrong. And, people dont say this, but nobody really wants to live in a community next to the Romani population. After Cannes I screened this film in 30 different villages in the region, in small towns, and people agreed, in principle, that its good to be tolerant. But when things get scaled down to you personally, everyone would prefer to live on a street where there are no Romani people. Theres such a big gap between the principles we all agree on, and what really happens. Its important to engage in this conversation and to see where these stereotypes are coming from.

You also point out the hypocrisy of the ostensibly good people like the factory owner, who is kind to the foreigners, but also, in a way, exploiting them for their labor.

Well, I think that theres a tendency, particularly in cinema, to oversimplify things. Theres a tendency of thinking filmmakers should include their position, as citizens, in the films they make. This is precisely what I think we shouldnt be doing. My position as a citizen on this issue is not in the film. I think films should bring forward issues that are important for society at this moment. But I also think filmmakers should abstain from pushing their own views on you. My effort was to try and understand why things happen the way they do, why people act the way they act, and to respect the integrity of the truth and the reality, in every way possible. Also formally, which is why I make this huge effort of shooting without cutting. But also ethically, the idea is that whoever you are, I dont want to be the judge, I want to bring forward these peoples arguments.

But its true that in the end, theres a lot of hypocrisy, even in the way the film was discussed. Id have two kinds of Q&As: The official ones on stage talking to people, and the conversations Id have when I left the cinema, where people would talk to me personally. Suddenly, they started really saying what they think.

And you can see what this hypocrisy does to us. In France or in Italy, you see the effects of this hypocrisy, how populists are exploiting it for their own benefit. Theres no point in trying to ignore what people think or claiming that they shouldnt be thinking like that. The problem is not going to be solved that way.

Thats why we end up having all these big surprises when people vote. When the populist parties and the extreme right are successful, people go: Oh my God, how is this possible? Its possible because you havent listened to these people, you havent engaged in a real conversation. A conversation starts when you listen to the other person. Before explaining to him that his arguments are not valid, you need to listen to him. If you prevent him from talking, if make all these kinds of rules, telling him Shut up, that is politically incorrect, you cant say that, it wont change what he thinks. And the moment he has the freedom to express himself, he will just vote accordingly.

I dont think the film is polemic, but the conversation it has started has been very polemic. And it should be, because this is what cinema can do.

It seems many people now view art as an expression of the personal opinions or views of the artist. Has it become more challenging for you to say: This is my work, its not my opinion?

I choose to present the reality as objectively as I can. This is my position as an artist. Im not following this trend of saying my own personal view and opinion is all that matters.

I think its more important to bring forward issues, personal stories, where you have to have an opinion, where you have to take a stand. Thats what Matthias understands, by the end of the film, that he cant stay neutral, he has to take a side. You are responsible even if you try to avoid the situation. You have a personal responsibility. As a filmmaker, Im trying to signal to you as a spectator: You have this responsibility. You cant just say: I dont agree with the filmmaker, I dont have the same view. The issue is: What is your position? Do you dare to have a position and express it in public?

This kind of personal, critical judgment, is very difficult for people to develop today, because the Internet, all this fake news, this avalanche of information makes it hard to understand, hard to listen, hard to question yourself, and to think: What would I do?

Very often, people are so used to saying the correct thing, they wont even acknowledge, in public, what they really think. Its a kind of schizophrenia. This was the response that I got from so many people: This big difference between what people say publicly, and what they think, privately. I think its interesting in cinema to bring forward what people really believe, to show what they say privately when theres nobody around. Because thats the truth.

What was different for you in the making of R.M.N., then, stylistically, compared with 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days?

The way Ive told the film isnt that different. My style hasnt changed much. The principle I use for 4 Months, one shot per scene, is still the same. Here a lot of the scenes are shorter, the film isnt just composed of very long moments. But then, because I really wanted to respect this style, I also have the longest scene Ive ever shot in a film, about 17-18 minutes without a cut. What is also different is that I think Ive become a master of my own style, so what I do now is to try and make sure the style isnt visible. Im trying to make sure that the style doesnt distract you from really watching the story. Because finally, what matters is the impact of this story on you as a spectator. So Ive tried to shoot in such a smooth way every shot leads into the next so that people dont notice how the film has been made.

How did you compose that incredible, 17-minute scene, of the town hall meeting, where the two women, the factory owner, and the manager, are arguing in favor of the migrants, and the other villagers are getting more and more aggressive towards them?

In this case, it was easy for me. The long shot at the end of the film is almost a replica, a reenactment, of the real town hall meeting. Its on the Internet. It was where the scandal started. The people in this small village thought this was a private conversation but somebody filmed it and posted it on the Internet the same day. And, all of a sudden, we had access to people saying what they actually thought in private, in public. I translated it because it was in Hungarian but I didnt need to invent too much. You can just watch, and you notice and understand. It was important for me to present these peoples arguments, their point of view, directly. Theres something about a lot of the cinema of today, that I really, dislike, which is that it has a kind of politically-correct agenda. By this, I mean that filmmakers of all ages are talking about the important issues of the day, diversity say, but being sure that everything is presented in the right way, that there is a positive stance on how to tackle these issues. This goes against my idea of creativity.

Of course, these films should be done too, but for me, artistic freedom means expressing things in a personal way. So there cant be just one point of view, one political perspective. There are a million other points of view that should be brought forward by art. I come from a country where censorship was very strong. Today, its difficult to speak about censorship, but I think there is a kind of positive discrimination, positive discrimination about very ethically-important issues. This positive discrimination comes from the bodies which finance films, it comes from the personal consciences of the filmmakers themselves. Everyone begins to agree on what stories should be told and how they should be told. But this is, in my view, against what cinema should be. Cinema needs to be creative and fresh. It needs to have a diversity of points of view. We have to have to strength to bear the political incorrectness of people we disagree with, and the strength to listen to all kinds of points of view. Thats where arts true strength resides.

The scene before the town hall expresses this. The townspeople are coming out of the church. They start walking towards the town hall. By the end, they are marching in lockstep. The marching marks this transformation from being an individual with your own position and opinion, and being part of the group and conforming to whats safe to think socially in a given moment. Thats why the characters of the two women are so important. They represent this need of talking about your own point of view, even if it is against everybody else.

IFC Films is releasing R.M.N. in the U.S. in select theaters on April 28.

Originally posted here:
R.M.N. Director Cristian Mungiu on Xenophobia and the Dangers of Politically Correct Filmmaking - Hollywood Reporter

One of the most common questions, Im asked is how I transitioned from my tastefully furnished, softly lit east coast office working for a Christian organisation to a diesel, dust and sweat infused life driving trucks in one of the nations most dangerous, politically incorrect work environments.

Short answer it was a baptism of fire!Casting my mind back a decade, Im still traumatised by an early encounter I had with two women local Pilbara identities who still to this day- are the roughest, toughest truckies Ive ever met!

Later, I learned Rose and Ranga both thought I was the most princessy, ditzy female theyd ever met!Both seasoned drivers, I first set eyes on these ladies at a do at a local Karratha watering hole.

I still remember being stunned at the level of profanity in red dog country!Pilbara swearing is hard core and pervasive.Not for these souls, the odd bugger or shit. Profanities are used as greetings, insults, exclamations, adverbs, nouns, adjectives and verbs in fact in any grammatical sense the user sees fit and these two ladies had their swearing down pat.

Introduced as the towns newest truckie, I remember standing there in awkward silence enveloped in a haze of cigarette smoke. Both women dressed in matching flannos and ugh boots gave me the once over taking in the baby blue cashmere sweater Id carefully teamed with a soft pink pashmina, designer jeans and suede boots.

Rubbing my sweating palms together, I tossed some witty repartee into the uncomfortable silence which was met with deadpan gazes through simultaneous plumes of White Ox smoke expelled in my face.How longve you been drivin for? these goddesses asked in unison.Three weeks I muttered struck by the stark realisation that these ladies viewed me as the funniest thing theyd ever seen.

A momentary diversion allowed me the grace to slink away however like two school bullies I could see both sniggering at my expense from across the room.Clearly, I was obviously a complete failure as a truck driver before Id even started!

Undeterred, I decided I just might be able to alter their misguided view of me as a suede and lace aberration with a few strategically dropped F bombs a technique Id found quite effective breaking the ice in this no-frills environment the idea being that even though I mightnt look the part, I could certainly sound the part!

Soon after, I saw my opportunity when they headed over to order dinner, so I quickly made my way across the crowded bar arriving just as they were being served. Howd you like your steak? I heard the bistro lady ask Rose.Just knock its horns off and wipe its fucken arse and shell be good to go thanks mate, she replied.

Stunned, I looked round expecting equally shocked looks from nearby patrons, but no one batted an eyelid as the two Rs ignoring me completely brushed past me to go for a smoke outside before tea.

Returning from the bar, I was gutted to find the only available seat at the dinner table was straight across from these two lovelies.Taking a deep breath, I put my lemonade in front of me in between their schooners of beer and sat down pushing my food around my plate wishing the floor would open up and swallow the both of them.

Over the coming months and years, I worked with these incredible women on a regular basis and eventually earned the of respect of both if only for not having turned tail and run back to the eastern states when the going got tough.

Whilst Id never admit it, there were days working in that unimaginable heat and red dust that all I could see through the blood, sweat and flies were tears, but I was determined to earn my truckie stripes so pushed on.

In looking to raise money to fund a road-safety campaign some months later, local truckie gals decided to pose for a calendar.Running into the two Rs one morning out at the Dampier wharf, I broached the possibility of them posing together as Miss July.Their reply predictably in unison was Yea, but were not wearing any f**ken make-up!

After much discussion, both agreed on some extensive top lip and chin hair-removal work and a dab of light foundation to even out the redness and sunspots.Both decided on dual, sultry pouts to hide the cavernous gaps in their lovely smiles.

Excerpt from Lyndal Dennys Book Stilettos to Steelcaps

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My baptism of fire into trucking - Big Rigs

The crimes against humanity committed by China in the Uyghur homeland call for a firmer reaction by the international community.

by Ayjaz Wani

In the holy month of Ramadan this year, the ethnic Uyghur Muslims of China faced a ban on fasting and practicing their religion, just like during the previous years. The Chinese police reportedly deployed spies, officially referred to as ears, to prevent Uyghur Muslims from fasting. From the year 2017, China has started banning fasting during the holy month, even as it is incumbent on every Muslim, as per the five pillars of Islam, to fast during Ramadan. The religious autonomy of the Uyghur people has been interfered with through repressive state intervention over the years. The Human Rights Watch report of 2017 quoted a Chinese official in charge of religious affairs as saying that it was imperative for the Chinese state to completely shovel up the roots of two-faced people, dig them out, and vow to fight these people until the end. That is exactly how the Chinese have been dealing with the Uyghurs for a long time now.

Since 2017, the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) has been detaining Uyghurs and other minorities arbitrarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), called East Turkestan by its non-Han inhabitants. The Chinese government has been subjecting the Uyghurs to forced labour, sexual assault, torture, and forced sterilizations and abortions as a counter-terrorism and re-education strategy. More than two million Uyghurs have been held up for harboring politically incorrect views since then. Several Muslim religious practices have been banned, and mosques and tombs have been pulled down.All this is aimed at wiping Islam out of Xinjiang.

Uyghurs are a Turkic minorityethnically close to Central Asian nations, with their language and culture. They make up about half of the population in Xinjiang, a major cotton producer and huge supplier of materials for solar panels in the world. XUAR is rich in oil and natural gas and has a geographical proximity with Central Asia and Europe. Hence it is seen by China as an important trade link, which has to be kept under absolute control of the state.

The suppression of Uyghur religion and culture in Xinjiang disguised as an anti-terrorism and anti-secessionist measure began with the introduction of the Strike Hard Campaign Against Violent Terrorism in 2014. Mass surveillance tools were used to scan everything, from vehicle number plates to individual faces. According to Human Rights Watch, the police are also using a mobile app tomonitor peoples behaviour, such as how much electricity they are using and how often they use their front door.

Under Chen Quanguo, the then Party Secretary of Xinjiang, the grid management system was used to ensure security in the region. Under this system, cities and villages were divided into smaller squares of about five hundred people each, where a police station was setup to closely monitor the inhabitants. The Uyghurs were checked regularly and their identification cards were scanned, photographs and fingerprints taken, and cell phones were monitored. In cities such as Kashgar, there are police checkpoints every one hundred yards or so withthe ubiquitous cameras for face-recognition. The biometric data of all citizens have been obtained by the state through a programme advertised as Physicals for All, which in reality gives the state a handle to monitor each and every Uyghur in the region.

Since 1949, the Chinese government has encouraged the Han ethnicmajority from other parts of the countryto settle down in Xinjiang. Such was the migration of the Han into Xinjiang that the Han Chinese, who constituted just about 6.7 percent in 1949, grew to about 41.6 percent by 1978. At present, the Han population constitutes the majority ethnic group in many cities of Xinjiang, including in the capital city of Urumqi. As per some estimates, between 2015 and 2018, more than two million new Han residents moved to the Xinjiang.

In Xinjiang, Uyghur families are fined for having too many children and hundreds of thousands of Turkic Muslim women have been either forced to use intrauterine devices (IUD) or abort for restricting population growth. Many Uyghur men and women have been sterilized. Though the Xinjiang region hosts just 1.8 percent of Chinese population, it accounted for 80 percent of all IUD insertions in the country for the year 2018. According to a report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the average rate of sterilization per 100,000 inhabitants in China as a whole was just over 32, whereas for the Xinjiang it was 243.

The Chinese government has not been content with such measures to cut down Uyghur population and in 2014, it advocated inter-ethnic marriages in XUAR.A report titled, Forced Marriage of Uyghur Women: State Policies for Interethnic Marriage in East Turkistan, examined the role of Party State in promoting, incentivising, and coercing interethnic marriage between Uyghur women and Han men in Xinjiang.

The provincial government of XUAR enacted a law in 2017 prohibiting any expressions of extremism and placed restrictions upon the style of dress the Uyghurs would wear. In violation of traditional Uyghur customs, it also put curbs on adherence to Islamic dietary laws (Halal). Over one thousand mosques in Xinjiang were either closed or demolished. Those who wanted to escape such a fate had to Sinicize themselves and remove Islamic motifs and Arabic writings from their mosques. Nearly half a million children were put in state-run boarding schools where the use of the Uyghur language was banned. No stone is being left unturned to turn it into an oral language only.

The Chinese government has also forced many Uyghurs, including former detainees, to accept employment in textile, apparel, agricultural, consumer electronics, and other labour-intensive industries in Xinjiang and other areas, with many factories having links to global supply chains. Those refusing to accept such employment have been kept under detention. Many Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims have been given long prison sentences for trivial reasons. Some of them have been detained just for either possessing or sharing religious recordings or even for downloading Uyghur language e-books!

The former UN human rights commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, a former Chilean president, has said that China had committed serious human rights violationsagainst Uyghur Muslims in theXinjiangRegion, which may amount to crimes against humanity. A 45-page report by the OHCHR concluded: The extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity. The report also mentions the allegations of forced birth control, in particular, forced IUD [intrauterine device] placements and possible forced sterilization of Uyghur and ethnic Kazakh women.

The United States partially boycotted the 2022 Winter Olympics hosted by China in Beijing, citing egregious human rights abuses and atrocities in Xinjiang. Although American athletes did compete in the Games, the absence of government officials from the US, as well as Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada, even though symbolic, drew the attention of the world to the issue of oppression of the Uyghurs in China.

On 8 and 9 January 2023, a World Muslim Communities Council(WMCC) delegation consisting of more than 30 noted Islamic scholars and intellectuals from 14 countries participated in a visit to Xinjiang/East Turkestan organized by the Chinese government. The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) strongly condemned thevisit which amounted to an indirect support of the Chinese government in perpetuating crimes against humanity and genocide committed against the Uyghur people.

In 2021, Canada was among the fist countries to label the Chinese government treatment of Uyghur people as genocide.The Canadian Parliament, supported by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, unanimously passed a motion in the legislature in January 2023, allowing the resettlement of the in Canada over a period of two year starting in 2024. The Canadian lawmakers in the House of Commons voted in favour of the proposal 322-0 with the chamber erupting into applause as the motion was carried.

US President Joe Biden has also expressed solidarity with the Uyghur minority in a recent message to Muslims around the world, as they celebrate the holy month of Ramadan. Together with our partners, the United States stands in solidarity with Muslims who continue to face oppression, including Uyghurs in the Peoples Republic of China, Rohingya in Burma, and other Muslim communities facing persecution around the world, Biden said in a statement.

Such expressions of solidarity would hardly deter the Chinese governments efforts to further Sinicize and hegemonize the Uyghur culture, and gradually coerce an entire population to forget their language, religion, and customs, setting a disturbing precedent for the world. Should we all be then mute spectators? What is required today is to create a world public opinion against such measures, which amount to quiet ethnic cleansing, and discover ways of criminalizing such acts and impose a cost on the perpetrator which could go a long way in deterring such state behaviour.

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Sinicization of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang: An Indian View - Bitter Winter

Shobhaa De

One of India's most popular writers, Shobhaa De has seen it all: life as a model, a copywriter, a journalist, a socialite, a scriptwriter, a bestselling novelist and a busy mother of six children. "Politically Incorrect", which has been appearing as a column in The Times of India, carries her sharp observations on politics, society, economy and relationships. LESS ... MORE

Legit question for anybody over thirty: Who or what is Coachella? Something to eat? An Italian designer brand? Perhaps a new train in Europe? Ask the bacha log andthey will sigh: Coachella is dope! No, its not a drug or maybe it is, but not a chemical substance. Heres a primer for non-initiates: It is an annual music & arts festival held at the Coachella Valleys Empire Polo Club in the Californian desert and enjoys global cult status as much for the flamboyant fashion as for the music.

Read full opinion on TOI+

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

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Diljit da jawab nahin: Why the munda made us go balle, balle - Times of India

The same day that right-winged journalist Tucker Carlson parted ways with the conservative news giant FOX News, CNN decided to end its relationship with Lemon. The TV veteran announced his departure on Twitter:

I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been terminated by CNN. I am stunned. After 17 years at CNN I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly. At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network. It is clear that there are some larger issues at work.

CNN announced the dismissal of Lemon on their Communication Twitter account by thanking him for his service over the 17 years he was with the media corporation.

But after Lemon posted his tweet, claiming he was in shock and had no news or contact from management, the CNN Corporate account answered by saying: Don Lemons statement about this mornings events is inaccurate. He was offered an opportunity to meet with management but instead released a statement on Twitter.

Well have to see how this plays out, but for now it looks like Lemon is not happy about the way his employer has handled the situation.

Although, apparently Lemon didnt see the firing coming, others in the industry have hinted that some of his remarks lately regarding female politicians may have been considered appropriate and even politically incorrect.

In February Lemon had made a comment about Nikki Haley, the 51-year-old Republican presidential candidate, who he claimed wasnt in her prime. He later agreed to a corporate training session aimed at working on his behavior while in front of the camera.

The New York Times reports that tension began to grow in the CNN newsroom between Lemon, corporate executives and fellow journalists. That, added to the fact that his popularity had dropped, point to a possible makeover in CNN news ahead of the 2024 presidential campaign that is slowly, but surely, ramping up.

NYT mentions this interview as well, in which things get personal between Lemon and his guest. The argument is cringe-worthy and makes viewers uncomfortable as the CNN anchor vehemently disagrees with the on-air guest.

The conditions of Lemons exit from CNN are not available at the moment, but it looks like no golden handshake was made between the two parties. Ironically, the CNN host and his Fox News competitor, Tucker Carlson, have hired the same attorney to handle the terms and conditions of their respective departures.

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Why was Don Lemon fired by CNN? Veteran news anchor let go after 17 years - AS USA