Category Archives: New Utopia

In one tweet Jack was gone.Twitters chief executive Jack Dorsey resigned abruptly on 29 November, after months of pressure from investors who objected to his part-time approach to leading the social media company he founded.

His replacement, 37-year-old Parag Agrawal, the companys former chief technology officer, got straight to making changes. Overnight Twitter announced a new anti-doxxing policy, designed to remove unauthorised images of people.

Doxxing, the practice of revealing personal information such as address, phone number or bank details about a targeted individual was already banned, as were abusive messages and threats. Now the unauthorised posting of peoples photographs, with or without abuse, can lead to a users account being suspended and the material removed.

The American right, already outraged over Twitters permanent ban on Donald Trump early this year for inciting violence, is furious about the new measure. Anti-fascists also complained that accounts dedicated to tracking far-right extremists were immediately suspended.

But the move has a wider significance. Agrawal has made a more fundamental admission that could change the way all social media is regulated. If you read the new rules for posting content on Twitter, it is now beyond reasonable doubt that the company is a publisher with an editorial policy.

Sign up for The New Statesmans newsletters Tick the boxes of the newsletters you would like to receive. Morning Call Quick and essential guide to domestic and global politics from the New Statesman's politics team. World Review The New Statesmans global affairs newsletter, every Monday and Friday. The New Statesman Daily The best of the New Statesman, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. Green Times A weekly round-up of The New Statesman's climate, environment and sustainability content. This Week in Business A handy, three-minute glance at the week ahead in companies, markets, regulation and investment, landing in your inbox every Monday morning. The Culture Edit Our weekly culture newsletter from books and art to pop culture and memes sent every Friday. Weekly Highlights A weekly round-up of some of the best articles featured in the most recent issue of the New Statesman, sent each Saturday. From the archive A weekly dig into the New Statesmans archive of over 100 years of stellar and influential journalism, sent each Wednesday. Events and Offers Sign up to receive information regarding NS events, subscription offers & product updates.

It reserves the right to remove pictures of people. But if the pictures are of a public figure, or if they are of an ordinary person shared in the public interest or add value to public discourse they are exempt from removal. Likewise, if an image is already being used in the mainstream media, it could be exempt.

Who decides? Agrawal and his techbro employees in California. Based on what criteria? Twitters new policy says the misuse of photographs has a disproportionate effect on women, activists, dissidents, and members of minority communities. These are tough decisions to make, as every newspaper, magazine and TV news editor knows. But done right, they will make Twitter a more tolerable place for users, and presumably a more attractive space for advertisers.

[see also: Twitter could be better off without Jack Dorsey]

Agrawal signalled his desire for a tougher editorial policy last year: Our role is not to be bound by the First Amendment [which protects freedom of speech], but our role is to serve a healthy public conversation he told MITs Technology Review.

In addition to banning Trump, Twitter imposed during the 2020 US election an extra step in the process of retweeting someone elses content, which asked people to read before retweeting. It also routinely identifies alt media sites such as RT and Redfish as Russia state-affiliated media. The libertarian utopia of a global free-speech platform that Dorsey designed in 2006 is gone forever, destroyed by trolls, bots, governments and, arguably, by human nature. I do not lament its passing.

When I first joined Twitter in 2009, having been inspired by the Iranian democracy uprising, it was a liberating experience. We were at the height of horizontalist activism, of swarming, of ad-hoc alliances seeking the truth.

During the Libyan uprising of 2011, for example, activists would post requests for information on the weapons used against them by Gaddafis military, and within minutes expert voices from around the world would post details of weapons, calibres, suppliers and ranges.

Twitter and Facebook were such powerful tools for social justice movements that back then it seemed impossible that they would ever become weapons in the hands of dictators and oligarchs. The first attempts of the powerful to suppress social media failed. Egypts Hosni Mubarak tried to switch off Facebook, but was still overthrown. Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdoan, too, suppressed it repeatedly, but the activists found work-arounds.

It was only around 2013-14, after the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine and the suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, that elites around the world understood: the only way to take down a free information network is to fill it with noise. This noise proliferated in the form of troll farms, doxxing, hate speech, bots (fake accounts generated by artificial intelligence) and disinformation.

The algorithms of the social media giants did the rest. Report after report shows that Twitter, Facebook and YouTube deployed algorithms that rewarded outrage, hate and prejudice. Facebook has buried negative internal reports about its content. It still makes billions of dollars.

In the brief history of the contaminated social media contaminated by far-right activist groups, disinformation networks and states what were once dubbed networks of outrage and hope became the means of imposing despondency and despair.

When Facebook tested its own algorithm in India this year, by setting up a fake test user that simply followed recommendations generated by Facebook itself, the account was quickly swamped in anear constantbarrage of polarising nationalist content, misinformation, and violence and gore. The project manager reported: Ive seen more images of dead people in the past three weeks than Ive seen in my entire life total.

The solution has been staring us in the face for years. It is to regulate the social media platforms in the way we regulate newspapers, radio channels, movies and TV.

The tech giants argument was that they were only platforms for content generated by third parties. This was never true. Each of the platforms deploys decision-making algorithms that determine what content is prioritised, and its been repeatedly shown that the algorithms themselves are flawed.

Twitter, for example, admitted that its algorithm was automatically cropping photos of people in a racially biased way, and that it was amplifying right-wing politicians and media outlets more than left-wing ones. How and why it does so is complex a result of the way right-wing people use Twitter, the language of right-wing politics and probably flaws in the algorithm itself, reflecting the assumptions (and negligence) of the people who designed it.

The problem is further complicated by the fact that Twitter, like all social media companies, allows the algorithm to redesign itself using machine learning. Ultimately, it can take decisions no human being has mandated.

Regulators, with those in Europe taking the lead, have up to now focused on forcing the tech giants to publish details of the algorithms they use, and to conduct risk assessments of the content they are disseminating.

But its time to do more. Both in the UK and the European Union there is no First Amendment right to disseminate hate speech and incitement. That is why newspapers self-regulate and the government regulates both broadcast and film content.

Hence, if the Daily Mail publishes an article about refugees that generates an avalanche of racist abuse, it will often close its comments section rather than waste time policing the abusive content. And if the BBC finds itself with video of an atrocity, or a crime, or a moment of death, its own rules usually require it not to publish.

We can debate where the line should be drawn. But in a civilised society it will always be drawn through a debate between journalists, politicians, consumers and lawyers. In the rules-free world of social media, it is being drawn arbitrarily, reluctantly, by unaccountable executives according to principles that remain opaque.

Britains forthcoming Online Harms White Paper takes a light-touch approach, designating Ofcom as the social media regulator but requiring companies merely to introduce procedures and risk assessments to prevent harm. But it maintains the fiction that there is a distinction between platforms serving third party content and media organisations that publish content they have created.

Once you understand what algorithms do, the fiction evaporates. The algorithms currently deployed create a toxic user experience, amplify hate and prejudice, and make decisions beyond human control. Any corporation using such algorithms, especially where there is no transparency and no public change log, should be designated as content producers.

The executives at Facebook and Google know this moment is coming, which is why theyre making so many concessions and apologies. Jack Dorsey, in his own way, was one of the last believers in the fiction of the neutral platform protected by Americas First Amendment.

Now Dorsey is gone, Twitter needs to get real. It is surely one of the biggest purveyors of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia and sheer toxicity in history. It could shed millions of fake accounts tomorrow. It could publish its algorithms. It could require all users to have real identities, even while some might legitimately maintain pseudonyms.

It could, in short, mature into the kind of platform that helps maintain democracy, civility and truth. Instead, it is one weaponised to destroy them.

[see also: What the Online Safety Bill means for social media]

Read the original here:

It is time to regulate Twitter and other social media platforms as publishers - The New Statesman

Miguel OHara made his comic book debut in a preview backup in Amazing Spider-Man #365 in 1992, followed shortly after by Spider-Man 2099 #1. He was created by Peter David and Rick Leonardi and was the beginning of the Marvel 2099 line of comics.

In the initial comics, records of the Marvel Universes present were rare and mostly missing. The gist of it was that some big civil war happened, the age of superheroes ended, society collapsed, society cleaned itself up, and thenthe future! While superheroes were a thing of the past, 2099s society worshiped Thor as a religious figure, with many believing he would one way make his big return and save them all.

Miguel was a scientist working for a corrupt corporation called Alchemax, located in Nueva York. They were so corrupt that his boss got him hooked on a highly-addictive drug that only they had legal access to just to keep him from quitting. Miguel was already messing with genetics in a failed attempt to recreate the accident that caused Peter Parker to become Spider-Man, so he figured hed just rewrite his addicted biology with a DNA backup of who he used to be. Due to sabotage, Miguels DNA was merged with spider DNA and he grew talons, fangs, and so on.

During his origin, Miguel ran into what was essentially a cross between a Thor cosplayer and a street prophet, who believed Miguel to be the second coming of Spider-Man. This stranger saw this as a major development, as it was the beginning of a foretold new age of heroes. Heroes from the past would be reintroduced, leading to the prophesied return of Thor!

He wasnt wrong. Over time, there was a Fantastic Four 2099, Hulk 2099, Ghost Rider 2099, Doom 2099 (who became President of the United States!), Punisher 2099 (age 36caliber!), X-Men 2099, Moon Knight 2099, and so on! When Thor did seemingly return, it was just a guy given Thors powers and brainwashed to believe himself to be the real deal.

46 issues of Spider-Man 2099 later, the 2099 imprints existence initially came to an end. In 2099: Manifest Destiny, Spider-Man 2099 begets Thors return was revealed to mean that Miguel was worthy to lift Mjolnir. Using the hammer to slow his aging, Miguel spent the next thousand years creating a galactic utopia, bringing a fitting end to his story arc.

Follow this link:

Across the Spider-Verse: Who is Spider-Man 2099 and How Does He Fit In? - Den of Geek

Are You Ready To Seek Your Fortune?

Seek your fortune and leave your mark on the map in the UNCHARTED: Legacy of Thieves Collection. Uncover the thrilling cinematic storytelling and the largest blockbuster action set pieces in the UNCHARTED franchise, packed with all the wit, cunning, and over the top moments of the beloved thieves Nathan Drake and Chloe Frazer.

In an experience delivered by award winning developer Naughty Dog can, the UNCHARTED: Legacy of Thieves Collection includes the two critically-acclaimed, globe-trotting single player adventures from UNCHARTED 4: A Thiefs End and UNCHARTED: The Lost Legacy. Each story is filled with laughs, drama, high octane combat, and a sense of wonder remastered to be even more immersive.

UNCHARTED 4: A Thiefs End

Winner of over 150 Game of the Year awards.

Several years after his last adventure, retired fortune hunter Nathan Drake, is forced back into the world of thieves. Fate comes calling when Sam, Drakes presumed dead brother, resurfaces seeking his help to save his own life and offering an adventure Drake cant resist. Drakes greatest adventure will test his physical limits, his resolve, and ultimately what hes willing to sacrifice to save the ones he loves.

On the hunt for Captain Henry Averys long-lost treasure, Sam and Drake set off to find Libertalia, the pirate utopia deep in the forests of Madagascar leading to a journey around the globe through jungle isles, far-flung cities, and snow capped peaks on the search for Averys fortune.

A globe-trotting adventure with the largest and most detailed environments in the UNCHARTED franchise

A more personal story for Nathan Drake, raising the stakes for the award-winning storytelling of Naughty Dog.

Fluid combat and traversal with the use of the grapple hook creates even more dynamic and thrilling action set pieces.

UNCHARTED: The Lost Legacy

In order to recover an ancient artifact and keep it out of the hands of a ruthless warmonger, Chloe Frazer must enlist the aid of renowned mercenary Nadine Ross and venture to Indias Western Ghats to locate the Golden Tusk of Ganesh. In Chloes greatest journey yet, she must confront her past and decide what shes willing to sacrifice to forge her own legacy.

An all-new setting for adventure in the south western coast of the Indian peninsula, featuring an exotic mix of urban, jungle, and ancient ruins environments.

The action-packed set pieces and captivating narrative that fans have come to expect from Naughty Dog and the UNCHARTED series.

Builds on the acclaimed UNCHARTED franchise gameplay with updated systems and refinements, including cinematic combat, exploration, and traversal of jaw-dropping environments, complex puzzles and more.

See the rest here:

Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection Steam Page Now Live - MP1st

|

Dear readers, it's Friday night, and as promised in the sacred covenant between Bleeding Cool and you, we bring you Friday Night Previews, a marathon of previews of all the DC and Marvel comics coming out next week that screams: "Jude Terror will have to write fewer articles during the week thanks to this." A clickbait headline here, a snarky SEO-keyword-rich sentence or two there, and these previews are ready for your reading pleasure. World of Krypton #1 is in stores from DC Comics on Tuesday and we've got a preview below, though we're not sure why you'd want to read it when you're currently living it.

WORLD OF KRYPTON #1 (OF 6)DC Comics1021DC0391021DC040 WORLD OF KRYPTON #1 (OF 6) CVR B A DAMICO CARD STOCK VAR $4.99(W) Robert Venditti (A) Michael Avon Oeming (CA) Mico SuayanA modern telling of one of the most storied periods in comics! Krypton is a utopia admired across the universe for its achievements in science and culture, but its shining towers and regal people conceal a planet rotting at its core. When a catastrophic event befalls Krypton's natural world, it points toward a mass extinction in the making. Jor-El, head of Krypton's revered Science Council, embarks on a mission to save a world that may already have passed the point of no return. Shining new light on the famous characters of Krypton's pastincluding Jor-El, General Dru-Zod, and even a young Kara Zor-ElWorld of Krypton combines action, cosmic wonder, and political intrigue in a story as much about our world as the one on the page.In Shops: 12/7/2021SRP: $3.99

Click here to read more previews of upcoming Marvel and DC comics. Solicit information and cover images taken from PreviewsWorld for Marvel Comics and from Lunar Distribution for DC Comics. New Marvel Comics are released to comic book stores each Wednesday and DC Comics on Tuesdays. Books are available the same day on digital services like ComiXology and the Marvel and DC digital comics stores. Locate a comic shop near you with the Comic Shop Locator.

More here:

World of Krypton #1 Preview: Now They've Gone Too Far - Bleeding Cool News

Brian Sheltons life was ruled by Type 1 diabetes.

When his blood sugar plummeted, he would lose consciousness without warning. He crashed his motorcycle into a wall. He passed out in a customers yard while delivering mail. Following that episode, his supervisor told him to retire, after a quarter century in the Postal Service. He was 57.

His ex-wife, Cindy Shelton, took him into her home in Elyria, Ohio. I was afraid to leave him alone all day, she said.

Early this year, she spotted a call for people with Type 1 diabetes to participate in a clinical trial by Vertex Pharmaceuticals. The company was testing a treatment developed over decades by a scientist who vowed to find a cure after his baby son and then his teenage daughter got the devastating disease.

Mr. Shelton was the first patient. On June 29, he got an infusion of cells, grown from stem cells but just like the insulin-producing pancreas cells his body lacked.

Now his body automatically controls its insulin and blood sugar levels.

Mr. Shelton, now 64, may be the first person cured of the disease with a new treatment that has experts daring to hope that help may be coming for many of the 1.5 million Americans suffering from Type 1 diabetes.

Its a whole new life, Mr. Shelton said. Its like a miracle.

Diabetes experts were astonished but urged caution. The study is continuing and will take five years, involving 17 people with severe cases of Type 1 diabetes. It is not intended as a treatment for the more common Type 2 diabetes.

Weve been looking for something like this to happen literally for decades, said Dr. Irl Hirsch, a diabetes expert at the University of Washington who was not involved in the research. He wants to see the result, not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal, replicated in many more people. He also wants to know if there will be unanticipated adverse effects and if the cells will last for a lifetime or if the treatment would have to be repeated.

But, he said, bottom line, it is an amazing result.

Dr. Peter Butler, a diabetes expert at U.C.L.A. who also was not involved with the research, agreed while offering the same caveats.

It is a remarkable result, Dr. Butler said. To be able to reverse diabetes by giving them back the cells they are missing is comparable to the miracle when insulin was first available 100 years ago.

And it all started with the 30-year quest of a Harvard University biologist, Doug Melton.

Dr. Melton had never thought much about diabetes until 1991 when his 6-month-old baby boy, Sam, began shaking, vomiting and panting.

He was so sick, and the pediatrician didnt know what it was, Dr. Melton said. He and his wife Gail OKeefe rushed their baby to Boston Childrens Hospital. Sams urine was brimming with sugar a sign of diabetes.

The disease, which occurs when the bodys immune system destroys the insulin-secreting islet cells of the pancreas, often starts around age 13 or 14. Unlike the more common and milder Type 2 diabetes, Type 1 is quickly lethal unless patients get injections of insulin. No one spontaneously gets better.

Its a terrible, terrible disease, said Dr. Butler at U.C.L.A.

Patients are at risk of going blind diabetes is the leading cause of blindness in this country. It is also the leading cause of kidney failure. People with Type 1 diabetes are at risk of having their legs amputated and of death in the night because their blood sugar plummets during sleep. Diabetes greatly increases their likelihood of having a heart attack or stroke. It weakens the immune system one of Dr. Butlers fully vaccinated diabetes patients recently died from Covid-19.

Added to the burden of the disease is the high cost of insulin, whose price has risen each year.

The only cure that has ever worked is a pancreas transplant or a transplant of the insulin-producing cell clusters of the pancreas, known as islet cells, from an organ donors pancreas. But a shortage of organs makes such an approach an impossibility for the vast majority with the disease.

Even if we were in utopia, we would never have enough pancreases, said Dr. Ali Naji, a transplant surgeon at the University of Pennsylvania who pioneered islet cell transplants and is now a principal investigator for the trial that treated Mr. Shelton.

For Dr. Melton and Ms. OKeefe, caring for an infant with the disease was terrifying. Ms. OKeefe had to prick Sams fingers and feet to check his blood sugar four times a day. Then she had to inject him with insulin. For a baby that young, insulin was not even sold in the proper dose. His parents had to dilute it.

Gail said to me, If Im doing this you have to figure out this damn disease, Dr. Melton recalled. In time, their daughter Emma, four years older than Sam, would develop the disease too, when she was 14.

Dr. Melton had been studying frog development but abandoned that work, determined to find a cure for diabetes. He turned to embryonic stem cells, which have the potential to become any cell in the body. His goal was to turn them into islet cells to treat patients.

One problem was the source of the cells they came from unused fertilized eggs from a fertility clinic. But in August 2001, President George W. Bush barred using federal money for research with human embryos. Dr. Melton had to sever his stem cell lab from everything else at Harvard. He got private funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard and philanthropists to set up a completely separate lab with an accountant who kept all its expenses separate, down to the light bulbs.

Over the 20 years it took the lab of 15 or so people to successfully convert stem cells into islet cells, Dr. Melton estimates the project cost about $50 million.

The challenge was to figure out what sequence of chemical messages would turn stem cells into insulin-secreting islet cells. The work involved unraveling normal pancreatic development, figuring out how islets are made in the pancreas and conducting endless experiments to steer embryonic stem cells to becoming islets. It was slow going.

After years when nothing worked, a small team of researchers, including Felicia Pagliuca, a postdoctoral researcher, was in the lab one night in 2014, doing one more experiment.

We werent very optimistic, she said. They had put a dye into the liquid where the stem cells were growing. The liquid would turn blue if the cells made insulin.

Her husband had already called asking when was she coming home. Then she saw a faint blue tinge that got darker and darker. She and the others were ecstatic. For the first time, they had made functioning pancreatic islet cells from embryonic stem cells.

The lab celebrated with a little party and a cake. Then they had bright blue wool caps made for themselves with five circles colored red, yellow, green, blue and purple to represent the stages the stem cells had to pass through to become functioning islet cells. Theyd always hoped for purple but had until then kept getting stuck at green.

The next step for Dr. Melton, knowing hed need more resources to make a drug that could get to market, was starting a company.

His company Semma was founded in 2014, a mix of Sam and Emmas names.

One challenge was to figure out how to grow islet cells in large quantities with a method others could repeat. That took five years.

The company, led by Bastiano Sanna, a cell and gene therapy expert, tested its cells in mice and rats, showing they functioned well and cured diabetes in rodents.

At that point, the next step a clinical trial in patients needed a large, well financed and experienced company with hundreds of employees. Everything had to be done to the exacting standards of the Food and Drug Administration thousands of pages of documents prepared, and clinical trials planned.

Chance intervened. In April 2019, at a meeting at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Melton ran into a former colleague, Dr. David Altshuler, who had been a professor of genetics and medicine at Harvard and the deputy director of the Broad Institute. Over lunch, Dr. Altshuler, who had become the chief scientific officer at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, asked Dr. Melton what was new.

Dr. Melton took out a small glass vial with a bright purple pellet at the bottom.

These are islet cells that we made at Semma, he told Dr. Altshuler.

Vertex focuses on human diseases whose biology is understood. I think there might be an opportunity, Dr. Altshuler told him.

Meetings followed and eight weeks later, Vertex acquired Semma for $950 million. With the acquisition, Dr. Sanna became an executive vice president at Vertex.

The company will not announce a price for its diabetes treatment until it is approved. But it is likely to be expensive. Like other companies, Vertex has enraged patients with high prices for drugs that are difficult and expensive to make.

Vertexs challenge was to make sure the production process worked every time and that the cells would be safe if injected into patients. Employees working under scrupulously sterile conditions monitored vessels of solutions containing nutrients and biochemical signals where stem cells were turning into islet cells.

Less than two years after Semma was acquired, the F.D.A. allowed Vertex to begin a clinical trial with Mr. Shelton as its initial patient.

Like patients who get pancreas transplants, Mr. Shelton has to take drugs that suppress his immune system. He says they cause him no side effects, and he finds them far less onerous or risky than constantly monitoring his blood sugar and taking insulin. He will have to continue taking them to prevent his body from rejecting the infused cells.

But Dr. John Buse, a diabetes expert at the University of North Carolina who has no connection to Vertex, said the immunosuppression gives him pause. We need to carefully evaluate the trade-off between the burdens of diabetes and the potential complications from immunosuppressive medications.

Mr. Sheltons treatment, known as an early phase safety trial, called for careful follow-up and required starting with half the dose that would be used later in the trial, noted Dr. James Markmann, Mr. Sheltons surgeon at Mass General who is working with Vertex on the trial. No one expected the cells to function so well, he said.

The result is so striking, Dr. Markmann said, Its a real leap forward for the field.

Last month, Vertex was ready to reveal the results to Dr. Melton. He did not expect much.

I was prepared to give them a pep talk, he said.

Dr. Melton, normally a calm man, was jittery during what felt like a moment of truth. He had spent decades and all of his passion on this project. By the end of the Vertex teams presentation, a huge smile broke out on his face; the data were for real.

He left Vertex and went home for dinner with Sam, Emma and Ms. OKeefe. When they sat down to eat, Dr. Melton told them the results.

Lets just say there were a lot of tears and hugs.

For Mr. Shelton the moment of truth came a few days after the procedure, when he left the hospital. He measured his blood sugar. It was perfect. He and Ms. Shelton had a meal. His blood sugar remained in the normal range.

Mr. Shelton wept when he saw the measurement.

The only thing I can say is thank you.

More:

A Cure for Type 1 Diabetes? For One Man, It Seems to Have Worked. - The New York Times

Cryptos represent the sort of absolute freedom that emerges now and then from the West. Specifically from a Western system that converts thought experiments into human rights. Cryptos are encrypted digital currencies that users can exchange among themselves with no need for a government, a king, a central bank or commercial banks, or even courts and law enforcement. Why must the Indian government diminish itself by allowing a competing currency? The only anarchy India permits are protests and driving.

Cryptos have sophisticated technological foundations, like blockchain, which creates an eternal record of a given process that is extremely difficult to tamper. India wants to adopt such technologies, and some people tell me that it may even accept some cryptos as legitimate investments, but cant permit an alternate usable currency, that too one which lends anonymity to users. India does not see all absolute freedoms as human rights.

Like cryptos, there are many freedoms that emerge from Western politics, thought experiments, melancholia, and often common sense. I like to call these freedoms cryptomorals. They are not only freedoms, but freedoms that challenge the state, or aim for some utopia that takes the logic of democracy to absurd ends. In any case, they are all inventions that became religions. Here are some of the most popular cryptomorals: cryptocurrencies, of course; electoral democracy; direct democracy; privacy; freedom of expression; feminism, free trade; globalization; secularism; climate activism, human-rights activism; borderless internet; net neutrality; the right to be forgotten.

Once, the Wests ability to transmit ideas was so strong and influential Indians were so in awe of the West that India adopted some of these abstractions as unquestionable ideals. But now, as the nature of influence in India has changed and the village takes back control from cultural orphans, modern India has relegated cryptomorals to the status of mere ideas, some of them even bad ones.

At the time of freedom, India had no choice but to accept the wisdom of democracy, which remains the most influential cryptomoral to come from the West. Even today, outside China, an overwhelming majority of people consider democracy the only moral form of government. Not the most moral, but the only moral form.

India does not seriously challenge the goodness of democracy. But our nation is not a proper democracy. We are a good electoral democracy, if you do not believe the lament about faulty voting machines. But India has rejected many other subsidiary cryptomorals of democracy. For instance, in India freedom of expression is conditional. Your right to be hurt by just about anything is greater than someones right to tell a joke. India is a paradise for the offended. Typically, our lower courts deny you freedom and higher courts express grand ideals in poor English.

Whatever freedom of speech that exists in India emerged not from any Nehruvian magnanimity; rather, it emerges from the practicality of Indias rustic electoral democracy where politicians trash-talk their rivals and the news media reports their campaigns.

India does not take seriously the cryptomoral of direct democracy, which requires referendums on major legislative moves. The main argument of direct democracy is that parliaments are obsolete intermediaries, an invention of a time when there was no way people in Madras could be heard in a building in Delhi where laws are made. Today, anyone anywhere can be heard. Blockchain technology can be used to make voting so secure that no one can allege fraud. But India, like many nations, feels that just because something is easy, it does not mean it is better.

The US evangelical mechanism once succeeded in making free trade and globalization sacred ideas in India. Any politician or intellectual who questioned these risked being portrayed as a socialist simpleton. But modern India challenges all these concepts now in its search for its best interests. The cryptomoral of secularism, too, was sacred until Hindu nationalism showed it up as a useless word for atheism. In India, secularism does not mean a godless state; it means all gods have equal rights to torment you.

The idea of privacy is a relatively recent invention. It is not hard to see the connection between privacy and dignity; but the self-importance and paranoia that accompanies all talk of it today is a part of contemporary urban megalomania. Privacy is a cryptomoral that Indias government wants others to respect even as it spies on its citizens with no consequences for those who enable this.

The internet came to India as an unstoppable borderless force that was designed to survive a world war". But India now regulates the internet and controls its gateways. Net neutrality was a major cryptomoral just a few years ago. According to it, a service provider should be barred by law from giving faster or cheaper user access to software applications willing to pay more. But today this neutrality is violated routinely and few seem to care.

In some parts of the world, many of these freedoms grew so popular that it was difficult for governments to deny them to people. This happened with the internet across the world. Even so, many beautiful things begin as freedoms and end up heavily regulated. In the new world, freedom is never taken, it is granted.

Subscribe to Mint Newsletters

* Enter a valid email

* Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.

Never miss a story! Stay connected and informed with Mint. Download our App Now!!

Read more:

Cryptos of the mind that New India no longer accepts - Livemint

Rebecca Mack was working as a reporter in the late 1990s when she heard about a local public defender whod inherited a lot of money and was going to invest it in buildings on the first western block of Main Street.

If you know this particular block these days, you might be forgiven for not understanding what it was then a dirty, intimidating jumble of derelict buildings and dark alleys, as Mack puts it.

What that public defender, Jim Sheehan, intended to do at the time was start a nonprofit law firm and create a hub for other entities with a focus on addressing inequality, supporting environmental sustainability and building community.

Mack set up an interview with Sheehan on a radio show, whose producers were skeptical, to put it mildly.

Why didnt this lucky heir take his money and go buy a yacht or something? was the tenor of their attitudes, Mack wrote in a new essay about the project. There was a lot of eye-rolling in the studio.

These days, the transformation of that block of West Main, driven by and centered around Sheehans six-building Community Building Campus, is so complete that the former vision sounds like ancient history. The block has become home to a constellation of nonprofits, activist groups, businesses and other enterprises built around Sheehans idea of fostering a healthy, just community.

A part of that vision is centered on activism and politics, but part is focused on art and beauty and food, as well a realization of Sheehans belief that creating a strong community involves nourishing people in many ways.

As he put it last week, A healthy ecosystem is really biodiverse. A healthy social system is also diverse, and thats what weve tried to put together here.

The eyes stopped rolling long ago.

A new anthology edited by Summer Hess, One-Block Revolution: 20 Years of Community Building, tells the story of the CBC project and its transformative effects. One of the goals of the book project is to create a template that other communities might follow.

Macks essay is one of 19; she works for CBC as a jack-of-all-trades, and shes more than sold on what Sheehan did investing his wealth in a way that prioritizes community and sustainable operations over profit.

As the block evolved, its clear that its not the product of a strategic real estate investment designed to make money for investors, Mack wrote. Rather, it is people working together to create community.

The story of Sheehans inheritance and the creation of the building is well-known, though in his essay he delves into more detail about those events and the personal philosophies that underlay his decision including his time defending a man who was convicted, unjustly in Sheehans view, in a sensational murder trial, and his work over many years to get him off death row.

The book also brings to the fore stories from a wide range of people who have been a part of the community. This includes Patsy OConnor, the architect who has designed each of the buildings with Sheehan; Austen White, who directs green-building initiatives; Warrin Bazille, the relationship steward of the project; and Anita Morgan, who operated a pre-school inspired by the Reggio Emilia model out of Italy. (My son attended this school.)

It includes pieces by Jims son, Joe Sheehan, who runs the Magic Lantern theater, and his daughter, Katy Sheehan, who leads the projects foundation and writes about how others might create, maintain and build a legacy along similar lines as the CBC.

Hess worked for five years as Sheehans assistant, and now works for Measure Meant, a social impact consulting firm located in the CBC. She and Sheehan have long had the idea of a book about the CBC in mind, and over time, the anthology format emerged as the suitable format.

It became clear there was a story here in terms of Jim, and who he is, and far beyond that, she said. What weve tried to do is show the hard work of building the community.

In 2009, she was a graduate student in creative writing at Eastern Washington University when she encountered the block around the Community Building for a work-study position.

I still remember my first time coming into the Saranac building and going up the stairs to the Center for Justice, Hess said. It had such a different vibe from anyplace else in Spokane.

That vibe the community-building-as-both-noun-and-a-verb vibe was already well-established, and it continued to evolve. Many of the cultural and political changes in the city over the past two decades have their foothold there.

This was the most dynamic block in the city, and not just for social enterprises and nonprofits, she writes in her introduction, referring to 2013 but also capturing the current spirit of the place.

Several other committed business owners operated eateries and unique shops. There was a constant refresh of energy on the block as students flowed in and out of bars and cafes and activists trotted back and forth from public meetings or one-on-one brainstorming sessions.

Not every change has been a happy one, necessarily. The initial flagship of the project, the Center for Justice which former executive director Breean Beggs, now the president of the City Council, described in its early days as a cross between a utopia and the island of misfit lawyers grew into an absolutely vital institution in the city.

It took on important civil-rights and environmental cases, and its work on the Otto Zehm case was transformational in terms of moving Spokane forward on hard-fought issues of police oversight and reform.

But the center closed after an attempt to move it away from an angel-funded project with Sheehan as the angel toward a broad-based foundation of donors, a transition that didnt take. The center closed in 2020. Beggs writes frankly about some of the reasons that happened, while arguing that others in the community have picked up that baton.

The book is sort of framed around the centers 20th anniversary, though that technically came last year. In its collection of voices and collaborative spirit, it is an ideal reflection of the past and the vision for the future of the CBC.

Its about community, Sheehan said, and we wanted the people in the community to tell us what that meant.

Excerpt from:

Shawn Vestal: New book tells the many stories of the Community Building project - The Spokesman-Review

Here at the tail end of 2021, Times Squares legendary vivacity all right, madness is back. Yes, some storefronts remain darkened, a persistent reminder of the pandemics toll. But from Broadways return to the opening of a spate of new hotels and attractions, the city that never sleeps and Midtown Manhattan in particular is reawakening. Its full of adventures for the winter visitor, whether youre here for a week or a 24-hour jaunt.

My weekend adventure starts at the corner of Seventh Avenue and West 40th, the site of Margaritaville Resort Times Square (rooms from $195 per night; margaritavilleresorts.com, 212-221-3007), a gleaming 32-story tower that opened in the spring. Festooned with fake palm trees and all manner of amenities, the resort is the perfect welcome mat for tourists especially families seeking a tropical-themed respite, especially in the colder months.

At the ground-floor entrance, people take selfies in front of a giant blue flip-flop (just shy of 14-feet high), a nod to the laid-back style of Jimmy Buffett, who inspired the brands concept. The resorts five restaurants and bars offer Tex-Mex comfort food and, of course, margaritas. During the early evening, the two-tiered rooftop 5 oClock Somewhere Bar, spanning the 31st and 32nd floors, draws a steady trickle of guests coming out of their rooms for a drink before hitting the town. Later, it beckons folks in from the street for late-night carousing, complete with thumping beats from a DJ and glittering views of the bright city skyline.

In a few weeks time, of course, Times Square will host New Years Eves fabled ball drop, but that televised spectacle isnt the beating heart of Times Square. Rather, its the bravado of Broadways theaters that makes this area tick and with their return this fall, the citys pulse quickened.

Be aware: Most restaurants, bars, theaters, and museums require proof of vaccination, so keep it handy; and masking is mandated indoors at most venues. For COVID updates and information on events and happenings, the best place to check is NYCGO.com.

At the Shubert Theatre, Jeff Daniels stars in To Kill a Mockingbird, Aaron Sorkins lauded adaptation of Harper Lees timeless novel. The production stars Daniels as Atticus Finch, though Greg Kinnear is set to take over the role at the beginning of January. Nearby, at the St. James Theatre, the marquee announces David Byrnes American Utopia, which reopened mid-October and runs until March (for all show tickets, go to broadway.com).

At the back of a packed St. James, as I enter a little late, an usher dances in sync with Byrne and his fellow gray-suited performers, as does the sound man in the booth next to her. Indeed, the Afro-Caribbean rhythms parlayed by the all-singing, all-playing, all-dancing cast are infectious. The rousing, consciousness-raising show built around Byrnes songs already ran in Boston during its national tour. But seeing Byrne on Broadway, a stage he inhabits with great purpose, is alone worth braving the Midtown crowds for.

Its late Sunday morning in the city, and the frenzied night life has given way to a mellower rhythm. Certainly thats the vibe at Nearly Ninths streetside lounge-cafe on West 38th, where a crisp salad brightened with chicory and pear and a grilled eggplant sandwich, tangy with balsamic vinegar all washed down with gingery kombucha make for a tasty brunch.

Nearly Ninth is tucked inside the recently-opened Arlo Midtown, a spacious boutique hotel with wild-looking hanging greenery in its towering atrium lobby (rooms from $179 per night; arlohotels.com/arlo-midtown, 212-343-7000). The 26-story hotel is the third New York location for a brand that offers great social-culinary spaces such as Nearly Ninth, which expands into a full restaurant with a plant-lined courtyard, and continues upward to a rooftop bar with views of the Empire State Building. That grand old icon, by the way, celebrated its 90th birthday (esbnyc.com) this past spring, but it is Midtowns stunning new, super-tall observation decks that are grabbing the most attention these days.

In Midtown East, SUMMIT One Vanderbilt (summitov.com), by Grand Central Terminal, opened in October atop the new 93-story One Vanderbilt office tower. The attraction combines sleek art installations with breathtaking views at dizzying heights.

SUMMIT is an incredibly shiny, multiroom experience. Its Levitation section has glass-floored skyboxes that extend from the building and look down on Madison Avenue far below. For the brave, theres SUMMITs all-glass elevator, Ascent, which runs up the side of the building from the main viewing point (1,063 feet) to 1,200 feet, giving visitors the highest views in Midtown.

After waiting in a lengthy line, I make it up to SUMMITs glass chambers. The Transcendence section is a mirrored-gallery-turned-playroom where people view themselves among reflections of the skyline; in Affinity, children and adults delight in batting silver balloons about; Reflect features pop artist Yayoi Kusamas silver, cloud-like globules, which themselves reflect the actual clouds outside; it feels peaceful.

In Midtown West, meanwhile, theres Edge (edgenyc.com), an outdoor viewing platform that extends 65 feet from the 100th floor of 30 Hudson Yards and features a thrilling glass section in its floor. At 1,131 feet, its the highest outdoor sky deck in the Western Hemisphere.

This fall, Edge introduced City Climb, said to be the highest external building-climb in the world. Climbers can scale a staircase on the outside of the building (a harness and instruction is involved) and lean out from the outdoor platform at the top of the skyscraper.

If cocktails or dinner is more your speed, head up to Peak (peaknyc.com, 332-204-8547), the gorgeous restaurant and bar above Edge on the 101st floor of the building. Tip: Guests at Peak can access Edge for free through a private door.

Cozied-up inside, youll swear a seat at Peaks sky-level bar has the best views of the city and to the great glittering yonder. Great drinks aside, chef Chris Cryers superb flavor pairings, such as tender, golden scallops with a sweet grape juice reduction and a dollop of caviar, or the rich celery root Wellington with portobellos and Swiss chard, add to the bliss of the soothing, silvery interior designed by renowned architect David Rockwell.

Theres plenty to explore at Hudson Yards, a towering West Side office and luxury apartment development thats been slowly growing since 2019. Below Edge, posh shops are paired with seemingly countless eateries. At ground level, chef Jos Andrss Mercado Little Spain (littlespain.com, 646-495-1242), is a wander-able 35,000-square-foot market with colorful food stalls and restaurants, all centered around La Barra, which is the place for great Spanish wine and authentic tapas.

The towers surround an open-air courtyard facing West Street and the Hudson River. The space is dominated by British architect Thomas Heatherwicks Vessel, a 150-foot-tall, copper-clad, basket-like sculpture. (Its 154 labyrinthine staircases and 80 viewing platforms remain closed, however, after four people died by suicide from its heights.)

Nearby, another major development is unfolding by the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. The 8-acre Manhattan West development (manhattanwestnyc.com), which incorporates new towers with older buildings, has ground-level shops, restaurants, and cafes clustered around a public concourse. Currently, Manhattan Wests neighborhood square is home to Citrovia, an Instagram-friendly outdoor installation that features a light-programmed fabric canopy and over 700 hand-painted lemons. Walk through the surreal scene it has the feel of a fairy-tale glen and even play an interactive game by using a QR code.

Since opening in September, Manhattan West now includes a location of Daily Provisions (dailyprovisionsnyc.com, 646-747-8610), an all-purpose cafe chain with seriously good coffee, baked goods, and lunch; an NHL store (Madison Square Garden is a block or so east); and Midnight Theatre (midnighttheatre.com), a comedy and cabaret theater set to open early next year that will also feature live music and other performing arts.

The food scene is also taking shape with the recent opening of restaurateur Danny Meyers Ci Siamo (cisiamonyc.com, 212-219-6559), an Italian ristorante with an outdoor terrace. Zou Zous (zouzousnyc.com, 212-380-8585), an Eastern Mediterranean-inspired restaurant from chefs Madeline Sperling and Juliana Latif that opened earlier this month, has long been a highly anticipated addition to the area.

Zou Zous will be the signature restaurant of the sublime new luxury boutique hotel Pendry Manhattan West (rooms from $591 per night; pendry.com, 212-933-7000). The 23-story towers glass exterior, which resembles gently rolling waves, adds a soft curviness to the neighborhood. If a stay here is not in your budget, drop into the hotels signature cocktail bar, Bar Pendry, for a sip of the glamour. On this Sunday evening, the bars caramel-colored couches are packed with joyous, chatty folks whose faces are bathed in the glow of the glimmering gold leaves lining the walls and ceiling. Pendry also includes Vista Lounge, a Havana-chic restaurant and bar lined with palms, and real ones at that.

A feat of engineering ingenuity, the developments on Midtowns western edge are built in part on a platform over the train tracks coming into Penn Station. Bostonians can step onto an Amtrak southbound train at Back Bay or South Station and step out at Penn Stations handsome new Moynihan Train Hall (amtrak.com), which was unveiled earlier this year.

With winters chill, classic seasonal pleasures return to Midtown: Skating has returned at The Rink at Rockefeller Center (rockefellercenter.com, 212-771-7200) under the signature giant spruce and, nearby, the Bryant Park Holiday Shops (bryantpark.org), and its southern neighbor, the Union Square Holiday Market (nycgo.com), are once again rallying shoppers.

Soaking up the waning moments of my trip, I think of David Byrne singing the night before at the St. James Theatre. Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, he yelped during a performance of Talking Heads rousing 80s hit Once in a Lifetime. Same New York City? Yes, and no, but it remains a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Linda Laban is a freelance arts and travel writer who splits her time between Boston and New York. Send comments to magazine@globe.com.

See the article here:

Return to New York: Broadways back and the city is humming - The Boston Globe

New Delhi

A form of art that almost instantly lends meaning to spaces is a sculpture. Even a slight variation in the expression adds another perspective to these three dimensional pieces of art. And thats why the 35 contemporary sculptures by 18 artists at this show in the city entice the viewer to look and absorb the many ways in which art can be interpreted.

Ranging between abstraction and figuration, the exhibition titled 18 Dimensions: Sculptural Manifestations, pairs upcoming contemporary sculptors along with the established ones, and also provides four new sculptors with a platform to showcase their work. Curated by gallerists and fashion designers Rahul Khanna and Rohit Gandhi, this collection spanning across artistic thoughts, materials and methods features works of Arunkumar HG, Ashiesh Shah, Gigi Scaria, GR Iranna, LN Tallur, Narayan Biswas, Mrinalini Mukherjee, Manjunath Kamath, Pooja Iranna, Himmat Shah, Jagannath Panda, Rajesh Ram, Riyas Komu, Sangam Vankhade, Sumedh R, Subodh Gupta, Sudarshan Shetty, Valay Shende, Vibha Galhotra and Vipul Kumar.

Our focus was on curating a show dedicated to sculpture because we felt sculpture has been ignored in the art space, explains Khanna of Palette Art Gallery, adding, In fact Indian art started with sculptural art. Today, there are so many sculptors doing contemporary and modern sculpture in the 21st century. And this show explores the kind of art we like as collectors, and what we grew up seeing. The idea behind this show was to showcase sculptural expressions to a bigger audience in a physical space, as compared to an online show.

Each artist presents his/her individual voice that exudes their interest and concerns in the contemporary context. Take for instance artist Pooja Iranna, whose work Still Standing Strong is taken from monuments across the globe that have a distinctive character to them, with stories behind them all. Iranna says, It reflects architectural spaces that have been there for long and their presence is still felt; which is something that cannot be said about modern constructions.

One of the highlights of the show include a selection of the rare hemp works by Mrinalini Mukherjee, and works by Sudharshan Shetty and Narayan Biswas. There are also two exhibits by Vibha Galhotra, which contemplate on the human impact on the planet. These are part of my larger practice addressing the question of Where are we Going? says Galhotra, explaining, Ephemeral Utopia projects a hypothetical scenario of environmental collapse of the Earth and a subsequent uncovering of the globe as an archaeological remain, an evidence of a past time when Earth existed with all its geographical borders and divisions. Similarly the work Presence of an Absence - Debris addresses the state of the co-habitors of the planet and their extinction.

Catch It Live

What: 18 Dimensions: Sculptural Manifestations

Where: Bikaner House, Pandara Road

When: November 28 to December 6

Timing: 10am to 6pm

Nearest Metro Station: Khan Market on the Violet Line

Author tweets @siddhijainn

Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter

Read this article:

Admiring art in the third dimension - Hindustan Times

Huma Abedin hadnt been working in the White House long when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke. Although she would eventually become like a second daughter to Hillary and Bill Clinton most visibly as the formers right-hand woman during the 2016 presidential election campaign she was then just a distant junior aide to the first lady. Perhaps that explains why, as she writes in her new memoir, she initially assumed the rumours couldnt possibly be true. Everyone in politics was young and starry-eyed once.

Unusually, however, Abedin seems to have stayed that way. Even when the president actually confesses to the affair she was sure hadnt happened, she resolves sternly to put my judgments and emotions aside and focus on the bigger picture. Hadnt she been taught as a child that slander, gossip and exploiting peoples personal weaknesses are among the worst forms of conduct for any Muslim?

Its at this point well before the story of the older senator who lunged when she went back to his place for what she genuinely assumed was coffee, or the husband who betrayed her that some readers may wonder whether the author is almost too pure for her chosen world. But then, in her telling, so is half the White House. Bill Clinton comes across as thoroughly avuncular. The first ladys office is a sisterly utopia where the boss instantly apologises for getting even mildly tetchy under pressure. Hillaryland is how is your mom feeling? and you should talk to my allergist, Abedin writes. Hillaryland is Happy birthday! and amazing job! and get some rest! Hillaryland is all of those things because Hillary Clinton is all of those things. Working up close with politicians means getting to know them warts and all, and most aides have their moments of doubt or despair. But either Clinton is uniquely inspirational or Abedin uniquely generous. Its the dynamic between the two women that makes this book compelling.

It opens with a fascinating exploration of a childhood spent between two worlds. Abedin is the daughter of two professors: an Indian-born father, and a mother whose family moved from India to Pakistan after partition. They emigrated to the US separately on academic scholarships before meeting and starting their family in Michigan. When Abedin was a toddler, the family took what was meant to be a sabbatical in Saudi Arabia, and ended up staying.

She had to get used to covering up, and watching her mother relinquish the right to drive. Yet in the book, Abedin argues that growing up overseas in a culture supportive of her familys Muslim faith built her confidence: Id never had to be the brown kid in an American school who was teased for bringing weird ethnic food in my lunchbox I was never the other and I found I could fit in everywhere. Returning to New York for university, she slips comfortably enough back into American life, though she steers warily clear of dating. Its this ability to move between cultures the most obvious both/and of the title which makes her stand out, first as an intern at the White House, and later in her first big job organising foreign travel for the globe-trotting first lady. What also sticks in the mind, however, is her promise at the job interview to do whatever it takes to help the woman she idolised succeed.

The next section of the book is the only one that drags a little. More glorified bag-carrier at this stage than strategist, Abedin offers little deep insight into the Clinton presidency or Hillary Clintons subsequent career as a New York senator, despite some intriguing glimpses behind the scenes. (At one point she overhears Clinton calling home, telling the now ex-president where to find cleaning materials under the sink.) The story crackles back to life, however, when Anthony Weiner enters it.

He is a confident, and suspiciously smooth, young congressman a decade her senior; she is a virgin with a tendency to see the best in everyone. Reading about their courtship is like watching a horror film and screaming at the heroine not to go into the haunted house, while knowing that, of course, she will.

When Abedin finds a flirty email from a stranger on Weiners phone not long before their wedding, she accepts his explanation readily enough. Even when her husband is caught sexting other women, having accidentally posted an indecent photo on social media, a newly pregnant Abedin initially believes that his account must have been hacked. Besides, having lost her own father young, she desperately wants their baby to grow up with a daddy. Thus begins a painful spiral recognisable to anyone ever sucked into a toxic relationship.

Abedin is often asked whether, in standing repeatedly by her sexually transgressive man, she was simply copying Clinton. Yet the book suggests that is too reductive an explanation. Weiner was her first ever lover, and she believed he could change. By the time she realised he wouldnt, she had a toddler to consider and a job reliant on a spouse taking care of everything at home. (After his political career ended in scandal, Weiner became a house-husband.) The final chapters see her worlds colliding messily as she attempts to reconcile being both vice-chair of Clintons 2016 presidential campaign and a wife embroiled in a scandal.

Despite pressure to fire Abedin and protect her own career from the fallout, Clinton resisted. She stood by her closest aide even when Weiner did it again, this time in such grim circumstances sending indecent photographs of himself with their sleeping son in shot that Abedin finally filed for divorce. Both Clintons emerge from this episode as unfailingly kind, particularly to Abedins son, and true to the feminist principle that a woman shouldnt pay for her husbands crimes. (A year after the election, Weiner was jailed for sending explicit pictures to an underage girl.) But this story raises the haunting, hard-nosed question of just how wise that was.

True to form, Abedin apparently didnt see her bosss defeat coming. She understood some voters didnt warm to Clinton; she knew how damaging an eve-of-election FBI investigation into her bosss use of a private email server was, having been dragged into it after her own emails were discovered on Weiners laptop for reasons she cannot explain. Yet she still couldnt quite believe Donald Trump would beat a better-qualified woman. Does that make her naive, or merely human? Perhaps for Huma Abedin, its always a case of both/and.

Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds by Huma Abedin is published by Simon & Schuster (20). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

More here:

Both/And by Huma Abedin review an innocent at the heart of power - The Guardian