Category Archives: Nihilism

The Roys have always been easy to read. Like all people with power, money, access, and privilege, they want to hang onto that power, money, access, and privilege. Whether they have any guiding moral truisms, tenets, or beliefs past maintain the status quo, and our role within it is hard to sayand often irrelevant. The politics they push on Waystar Royco maintain their popularity and please their shareholders. The cynicism and nihilism with which they approach every situation maintains their aloofness and perceived superiority.

The only true believer in Republican ideology for what it actually stands for might be Connor, and note how his political aspirations are met with mocking and sarcasm by his siblings and even his father. Why would you want to be a politician, someone who works for people? The real move is to be the person pulling the politicians strings, and thats always who the Roys have beenmade explicitly clear by What It Takes, the sixth episode of this third season of Succession and one of the series absolute best.

What an absolute tornado of an hour, full of the pointedly cruel, quiveringly pathetic, and amusingly melodramatic stuff that makes Succession great. For all the time we spend in Virginia at the secret weekend where powerful Republican influencers and donors get together to decide who theyre going to throw their weight behind in the next presidential race, what gives What It Takes its whiplash-inducing narrative speed is all the stuff that happens offscreen.

Kendall just fires Lisa after she rightfully calls him out for overplaying his hand to the government! Logan is definitely sleeping with Kerry, only weeks after having sworn to Marcia that hed stop being so inattentive and indiscreet! (I know that Marcia secured her bag, and good for her, but why are you going to embarrass her like this again, Logan?!) Greg gets a new lawyer who is already advising him about suing Greenpeace! Shiv accepts that Tom is going to prison, and it has made her husband such a nonplayer in her mind that she doesnt even seem to notice when he disappears to have a gigantic breakfast spread at a nearby diner with her backstabbing brother!

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All of this is in line with who these people areselfish, self-obsessed, self-absorbed. And what What It Takes does so well is remind us of how this ensconced toxicity spreads outward, how it enacts and enables, in all ways big and small. The greatest danger in Succession is to believe in anything; this show treats that extension of self as a kind of weakness. Kendall believes in his own martyrdom and trips over his own dick. Shiv believes in the American republic and gets laughed at. Connor believes in himself and gets shuffled offstage. The only truly powerful people right now are Logan and Roman, the latter reshaping himself fully in the formers image, because they care about nothing past themselves.

I always found it hard to care about politics, Roman says, because his life is utterly unaffected by it; I dont care about the resume or ideological purity, as long as they get it and they pop, Logan says. When youre that rich, what does it matter who the president is? Remember No amount of antibacterial gel is gonna be able to wipe the America off me? This is all a game, and the only thing Roman, acting as Logans shadow, wants to do is win. And, frankly, he is. Roman is firmly now Daddys No. 1 Boy, giggling over memes with Logan and giggling in bathrooms with the most appalling Republican candidate, the one who spells his first name Jeryd because of course he does.

The only person who seems really even close to the Logan/Roman untouchability is Tom, and for an oppositional reason. They have everything to lose and he has nothing, and if we all remember our Fight Club training, Its only after weve lost everything that were free to do anything. Tom truly believes hes going to prison, and he truly believes that Shiv is preparing to leave him (because how dare she use birth control!), and he truly believes that Greg is on an upward swing that leaves his onetime mentee/abusee behind, and yetand yethe still doesnt throw his lot in with Kendall. Matthew Macfadyen is a phenomenal actor who has consistently done amazing work on this series (just recently, with the pitch-perfect line delivery of Id castrate and marry you in a heartbeat!), but his work against Jeremy Strong is next-level stuff.

Macfadyen is a deeply empathetic mix of resigned and curious, resentful and dismissive, polite and aggressive, and his conversation with Strong is like a tennis match, with Kendall trying to whip aces past Tom and Tom lobbing back every single one. Tom might often seem like a bumbling fly on the wall, all bluster and acquiescence, but I truly do not think he is an idiot. He understands power, and he understands that Kendall doesnt have any. Macfadyens pitying tone when he tells Kendall, Do you know what theyre doing up in his suite? Theyre picking the next president, is melancholy, morose, and exceptional. Maybe Tom abandons the family, but hes not going to do it by joining Kendall. Kendall is a broken man, and Tom isnt broken yet. Hes hopeless, but hes not helpless.

What It Takes begins after the triumph of the Roys maintaining control of their company, coming to terms with Stewy, Sandy, and Sandi, and avoiding a vote at the recent shareholder meeting. Interestingly, although Gerri, Karl, and Frank were all pivotal at the shareholder meeting, none of them is in attendance in this episode, which begins with the Roy family en route to Virginia and the Future Freedom Summit. The reshuffled family dynamics remain here: Roman is closer to Logan, Shiv is on the outside, Logan is being kinder to Tom, and Connor is still low-key threatening everyone.

The Roys are waltzing into Virginia with the sense that theyre king breakers (President Raisin is definitively on the way out) and with the mission of being king makers. Alongside the White Houses Michelle Anne and Republican operative and donor Ron Pectis (the ever-delightful Stephen Root), the Roys arrive to figure out who ATN is going to support in the six months to the presidential election. (Interesting that this timeline situates us in May, because both Kerry and Shiv are dressing more like its autumn.) The Roys are still going after President Raisin so that he potentially eases up on the investigation into Waystar Royco, but, unsurprisingly, theres infighting between the family about which Republican wannabe should get their shine.

The three frontrunners are the ineffectual (and boring) Vice President Dave Boyer (Reed Birney), policy-focused (and seemingly middle-of-the-road, and therefore hype-lacking) Senator Rick Salgado (Yul Vasquez), and Proud Boy-adjacent fringe asshole Jeryd Mencken (Justin Kirk), who whips the base into a frenzy with his endlessly aggressive, totally empty stances. Connor sees an opportunity to put himself forward, but lets be real, thats not going to happen. (In a room full of Timothy McVeighs, does Connor suddenly look like a Roosevelt? Unfortunately, no, and I guess this means Connor didnt actually get that European job?)

Boyer, who licks his lips a little too often, is out as soon as Logan mocks him to assistant-turned-lover Kerry. Salgado tells Shiv that if she helps him become president, hell send Logan to jail so she can be in chargeand Shiv is down with it, but no one else is interested by Salgado as a candidate. Instead, it becomes clear that Mencken, with what Shiv calls his Its all red pill, baby ideology, is going to be the guy. Was there really any other way this could go? There was not.

It doesnt matter that Mencken mocks Logan and disrespects ATN; he certainly changes his tune once he realizes ATN is on the hunt for a candidate. What does matter is how quickly Mencken and Roman vibe, and Ill be honest: It was too sexual! I was almost uncomfortable! Has Roman ever been as flirtatious, coy, and coquettish as when he was talking to Mencken? Kieran Culkins full-court-press charm offensive as Roman was less direct than he is with Gerri, but it was more alluring: all winks and puckered lips and genuine smirks. I truly thought that Roman and Jeryd were going to kiss, and Im sure someone is already writing that fan fiction. Theyre just a couple of cool guys having some disgusting fun, and it didnt take long for Logan to be convinced, did it?

Climate said I was going down. Climate said I should just step aside. I guess Im a climate denier, Logan says before going off to bed with Kerry, and the next morning, when Shiv claims she wont be in the family picture with Mencken, he wears her down with just one line. Are you part of this family or not? he asks, and honestly, Shiv, what are you doing? You think standing three people away from Mencken is a victory? You win, Pinky. You win, Logan says, and thats such a snapshot into how this father shares power with his children: barely.

That seems like a natural transition to discussing Kendall, doesnt it? My man is losing it! He pisses off Lisa first by not taking their practice questioning seriously (I approved the illegal payments because I love sexual assault and I love to cover it up. Is that bad? Im not saying that, Im saying what you think I think, right?) and insulting her, then gets offended by Lisas warning that the papers hes provided lack some of the explosiveness it was suggested they might have. Does the fact that Mommy Caroline is getting married without telling him rattle Kendall enough (Ken bores the shit out of Mom) that he fails the sit-down with the U.S. government? Or did he blow it on purpose? I think theres a little of both affecting Kendalls actions, and when Lisa calls him out on acting high-handed and defensive wildly overfamiliar and glib, he cant handle it. Bye to Lisa, and hello, potentially, to Tom.

But Kendall, for all his attempts at being a righteous leader, is not a coalition builder. He basically offers Tom nothing in exchange for his cooperation, and while Kendall thinks hes being a martyr, Tom actually is. He offered himself up to Logan. He agrees to take on some of Gregs crimes: Load me up, you piece of shit. He is curious about how a toilet can be a bastard! (So am I!) And consider how Kendall and Tom both act during and after their sit-down: Kendall insults Tom and his marriage to Shiv, he calls him a country mouse, and then takes a picture of him as blackmail. Kendalls desperation is getting real bad, and Im going to go ahead and call Tom right-on with this analysis: My hunch is that you are going to get fucked. Because Ive seen you get fucked a lot. And Ive never seen Logan get fucked once.

Couple that line with what Shiv said earlier: Nothings more dangerous than a second-rate individual who sees his chance. The problem, of course, is that Shivs statement could apply to any of the kids. What will Kendall do? What will Roman do? What will Connor do? What will Shiv herself do? And what will Tomalways silently sitting, watching, and waitingwhat will Tom do? Cant let all that cake batter go to waste.

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Succession hits a new high as the Roys pick the next president and Kendall does some recruiting - The A.V. Club

Wait. Stop. This is not a medical article. I am not weighing in on pediatric medicine. I am not joining the ongoing pandemic arguing cycle. But please read on.

Heres the deal. As a pastor and preacher, I see a quite strong parallel between that current medical decision that parents are having to make at this time, and another even more important decision parents need to make, about which I am strongly opinionated.

With the simple definition that a vaccine is something that prevents a destructive disease or condition, I cannot help but look at our world and see the destructive non-medical diseases and conditions within our society which are waging a terrible war against us, trying to confuse us as to who we are and what we are meant to be as humans.

And in particular, I can see these evil forces having such a strong negative influence on our children and youth. You can probably name these evil forces along with me. They include loss of the knowledge of right and wrong, truth and lies, good and bad, fairness and cheating. They include the attitudes of utter selfishness and false self-identification as victims or oppressors.

These evils include judging people by the color of their skin instead of the content of their character. They include the tenets of nihilism, which means believing in nothingness, which leads one to believe that ones own life means nothing and so no one elses life means anything either, resulting in sexual immorality, deviant behaviors, violence and crime.

This all sounds pretty bad, doesnt it? Well, it is. And it is present and prevalent in every corner of society and in every community, including ours.

So, here is the first question for you parents and grandparents: If you could get your kids vaccinated against such diseases, would you? Would you sacrifice whatever it took and invest yourselves to the fullest in the safety and life-long security of your children and grandchildren against such evils? I will go ahead and answer that question for you. Of course you would!

O.K., here is the second question, and its a very good and important one. Is there truly such a vaccine? Is there in reality something which could keep our children and youth on the right path now and send them into adulthood as successful, productive, contributing members of society, and even give them assurances of blessings beyond this life?

I will definitely answer that question. Oh, yes! And I will share the bare bones of it right here, and I hope you will pursue it further in the near future.

That vaccination which will guard, guide, and protect is simply this: A Biblical World-View. What does that mean, what does that entail, and how and where do you get it?

Obviously, a Biblical World-View comes from the Bible. We sing, The B-I-B-L-E, yes thats the book for me. Having a Biblical World-View is the only way our children can accurately understand who they are, where they came from and where they are going. It is the only way they can correctly identify what their Problem and Solution are, and what their problems and solutions are. It is the only way they will be able accurately to know the difference between what is right and what is wrong, what is truth and what are lies, what is good and what is bad, what is fairness and what is cheating.

This knowledge and living by it are not natural human qualities and behaviors for us or for our children. They must be found outside ourselves. They must be found and lifted up and taught from the Bible. They must be reinforced by repetitive experiences with the Bible and with those who share the same quest and knowledge of The Truth.

Of course, the center of a Biblical World-View is Jesus. In the Bible the Old Testament tells of the centuries leading up to Jesus presence on our earth. In it we see the reality of our sin, which would separate us from God our Creator. In it we see Gods mighty acts of salvation and restoration of His people as He forgives their sins and failures, and restores them into relationship with Him. In it we constantly hear His Promise to send a Savior who would provide the ultimate restoration between God and humans. We see ourselves in all these stories as well.

Then in the New Testament of the Bible we see Gods Promise fulfilled in the birth of His own Son, Jesus, who came to teach and heal, to give His life on the cross to forgive all sin, and to be raised that we too might have eternal life. We have in Jesus teachings the foundation for the absolute best way to live our lives.

A few years ago the phrase was popular, W.W.J.D? What would Jesus do? The call was to live our lives the way Jesus lived His. However, I have often thought that we also need to ask, H.C.Y.D.W. J.W.D.U.Y.K.W.J.D? What? We need to ask, How can you do what Jesus would do unless you know what Jesus did?

Thats why we need to teach our children the Bible stories, read them the Childrens Bible, tell them of Gods love for them, tell them Gods Way for their lives, and let them grow up with people who are examples of Jesus kind of love and living.

All this must happen in our homes. This is where the vaccine starts and works most effectively to keep our children safe and secure from the evils of the world.

And all this good vaccine is found in our local churches, which faithfully and tirelessly teach the Bible, this Biblical World-View, to our children in Sunday School classes, Vacation Bible School, Youth Ministry Groups, and ministries of all kinds. So, go to your church regularly, taking your children. Find a church home and be faithful there. Our community has many, many Christ-centered churches. Whether close by your house or a bit of a drive, itll be worth it.

In these crazy days of the Covid-19 pandemic, we can feel relatively safe and protected and good-to-go with what is now tabbed, the Triple Vax. I declare to you again today that there is also a Triple Vax that will keep you and your children absolutely safe, protected, and good-to-go in life itself: Jesus, the Bible, and the Church.

The vaccine your kids need the most! Amen!

[Kollmeyer, a Fayette County resident for 35 years, is Pastor Emeritus at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Fayetteville. Follow Pastor Scott Ness and this great church at http://www.princeofpeacefayette.org. Kollmeyer until recently was Interim Pastor at Word of God Lutheran Church in Sharpsburg. Find some of his video recorded sermons at http://www.woglutheran.org and follow Pastor Jason Dampier and this great church on this site.]

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The vaccine your kids need the most - The Citizen.com

On the Shelf

The Sinner and the Saint: Dostoevsky and the Gentleman Murderer Who Inspired a Masterpiece

By Kevin BirminghamPenguin: 432 pages, $30

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Burdened by gambling debts so onerous he feared imprisonment (again), suffering debilitating epileptic seizures and reeling from the deaths of his wife and his brother, Fyodor Dostoevsky in 1865 began what would be a masterpiece. Nothing of this kind has yet been written among us, he told a friend. I guarantee its originality, yes, and also its power to grip the reader.

Crime and Punishment would live up to its authors hyperbole, though only after a difficult and agonizing birth. Written rapidly, in panic, to stave off his creditors, the 90-page story he planned morphed into the hefty novel that, though dismissed by Vladimir Nabokov as so crude and so inartistic, earned its place in the canon of world literature.

The creditors whom Kevin Birmingham relied on to write The Sinner and the Saint a dexterous biblio-biography about how Crime and Punishment came to be born include a formidable array of scholars as well as Dostoevsky himself. Yet the biographer betrays no sign of panic. The tale he tells is rich, complex and convoluted, and though he must have struggled in constructing it, Birmingham writes with the poise and precision his subject sometimes lacked. (Though it worked out all right for him.)

A portrait of Fyodor Dostoevsky from Kevin Birminghams book The Sinner and the Saint: Dostoevsky and the Gentleman Murderer Who Inspired a Masterpiece.

(Corbis via Getty Images)

Dostoevsky struggled to craft an account by Raskolnikov, a brooding law school dropout, of how he killed a pawnbroker and her half sister with an ax. At a crucial point, he grew disgusted with what he had written, discarded it all and started from scratch. What enabled him to find traction was his decision to switch from first-person narration to an intimate third-person perspective, a vantage point that would, he said, be invisible but omniscient. As Birmingham asks, Why not peer over Raskolnikovs shoulder while hes face-to-face with the stupid, deaf, sick, greedy pawnbroker, waiting for his moment?

Birmingham himself applies this approach to Dostoevsky, peering over the Russian masters shoulder as he peers over Raskolnikovs. The result is a book about a book, an inside look at literary creation. The reader becomes a spectator to the construction of Crime and Punishment while learning a great deal along the way about the criminal justice system in 19th-century Russia, temporal lobe epilepsy, promissory notes, phrenology, gold mining, nihilism and much else.

A man would turn over half a library to make one book, claimed Samuel Johnson. The principle is no less true for those who write one book about one other book. Michael Gorras Portrait of a Novel (2012) and Rebecca Meads My Life in Middlemarch (2014) both benefit from their authors extensive acquaintance with more than just The Portrait of a Lady and Middlemarch, respectively. John Livingston Lowes filled more than 600 pages of The Road to Xanadu (1927) while documenting the books Samuel Taylor Coleridge read before writing two poems.

This is not even Birminghams first book about a book; In 2015s The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyces Ulysses, he did for the quintessential modernist novel what he now does for Dostoevskys quintessential Russian novel. However, while much of the earlier volume focuses on efforts to ban and even burn Ulysses after it was published, The Sinner and the Saint concludes when the final paragraphs of Crime and Punishment are written. It is less interested in the reception of Dostoevskys novel than the experiences including a commuted death sentence and four years of hard labor in Siberia for socialist sympathies that led him to write it.

A page from one of Dostoevskys notebooks, 1865, when he was trapped in his German hotel unable to pay his bill the beginnings of his notes toward Crime and Punishment.

(NIOR RGB / RGALI / Penguin Press)

One crucial influence was the case of Jean-Franois Lacenaire, a sociopathic French poet who was executed in 1836. Dostoevsky translated and published an account of Lacenaires sensational crimes, including an ax murder, in Vremya, a magazine he edited. Birmingham braids together chapters paralleling Lacenaires trajectory toward the guillotine, Raskolnikovs toward imprisonment and Dostoevskys toward completion of his book. Though Lacenaire is not always as interesting as Raskolnikov or Dostoevsky, the crosscutting is generally effective at suggesting similarities and sources. As Birmingham notes, the failed attempt on April 4, 1866 by a young revolutionary to assassinate Tsar Alexander II also inspired Dostoevsky during the final stages of composition.

For all the research Birmingham brings to bear, Crime and Punishment is not thinly veiled true crime. Nor is it a whodunit, because it is clear from the outset that Raskolnikov is the perp. Instead of teasing the reader with the question of who is guilty of two grisly homicides, the novel entices us to turn its pages to find out why. And yet, Raskolnikov remains confused about his own motives: Does he kill the old pawnbroker to appropriate her valuables for himself or for others? Or is the killing an experiment to test his theory that ordinary moral constraints do not apply to superior individuals?

So it is with Birminghams mystery: We already know Crime and Punishment was written and published. Instead, the questions that drive this book are: How and why?

Kevin Birmingham. the author of The Sinner and the Saint.

(Liz Linder)

Birmingham contends that Dostoevsky wrote a novel about the trouble with ideas. It is not a novel of ideas. The ideas that collide in Raskolnikovs fevered mind are never resolved, in part because of how the novel was constructed in haste and in chapters that appeared serially. While working on the opening section, Dostoevsky did not anticipate that the benevolent prostitute Sonya and the scoundrel Svidrigailov would later seize control of the narrative. The novels power derives from its anxious incoherence.

Birmingham has a different task in this book about a book. In contrast to the untidy brilliance of its subject, The Sinner and the Saint is an admirably lucid distillation of hundreds of other texts, including Joseph Franks monumental five-volume biography of Dostoevsky. And yet, in its category, it is an audacious effort especially given that Birmingham was dependent on others to translate sources from Russian and French for him. Not by or for an academic specialist, his book instead invites any English-language reader to peer over a famously tormented Russian authors shoulder while his deathless novel comes to life.

Kellmans most recent books are Rambling Prose: Essays and Nimble Tongues: Studies in Literary Translingualism.

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Review: Kevin Birmingham's book "The Sinner and the Saint" - Los Angeles Times

U2s Bono and The Edge wrote classic rock songs on many topics including Spider-Man. During the creation of the song, Bono said he wanted it to be akin to one of the greatest songs ever written. In addition, he said he wanted the song to make people cry.

Broadway has given the world many shows that are based on popular characters like Superman, Mary Poppins, and Lestat. In the same vein, popular musicians have composed musicals for Broadway. These two trends collided with Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Based on the beloved comic book character, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark featured original songs from Bono and The Edge. The co-writer of the musical, Glen Berger, wrote a book about it called Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History.

In his book, Berger revealed Bono and The Edge wanted to write an anthem for Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Bono and Edge had pinpointed a mood for the song they were going to write that would carry an audience from the nihilism sparked by Uncle Bens death toward the musicals defining moment when Peter vows to fight in the name of love and justice as Spider-Man, Berger said. Rise Above, suggested Bono. Rise above the difficulties around you. Above the sadness within you.Beyourbetterself.'

RELATED: The Beatles Song That May Have Given Bono a Messianic Complex

Bono and The Edge created a song about Spider-Man called Rise Above and Bono had high hopes for it. If Imgonna actually plop something like that onto a f****** page, it better be somethingthat people will sing infootball finalsin 10 years and make everyone cry, Bono said. I just mean it has to be a classic. In the rising-above-it-type genre, if you follow me.'

Bono wanted the song to be as good as another song from a Broadway musical. It better be as good as Youll Never Walk Alone, which is one of the greatest songs ever written, Bono said. For context, Youll Never Walk Alone is a song from Rodgers and Hammersteins musical Carousel. In Ireland, Youll Never Walk Alone is commonly used as a football anthem.

RELATED: Why U2s Bono Thinks Lady Gagas Born This Way Is a Perfect Song

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark featured two versions of Rise Above. Rise Above 1, a conventional power ballad, and Rise Above 2, a version of the song with vocals from a choir. Bono and The Edge released Rise Above 1 featuring vocals from actor Reeve Carney as a single. It peaked at No. 74 on the Billboard Hot 100, remaining on the chart for a week. Rise Above 1 wasnt much of a hit; however, maybe fans will someday use it in sporting events as Bono hoped.

RELATED: Bono Didnt Want to Sing This Lyric from Do They Know Its Christmas?

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U2's Bono Wrote a Song About Spider-Man That Was Supposed to Make Fans Cry - Showbiz Cheat Sheet

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York warned Sunday that congressional Democrats risk depressing turnout in upcoming elections if they further weaken their flagship reconciliation package, which right-wing lawmakers have already stripped of popular programs and cut by roughly $2 trillion overall.

In an interview with the New York Times, Ocasio-Cortez said that the stakes are really, really high as the reconciliation bill known as the Build Back Better Act heads to the evenly divided Senate, where Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and other conservative Democrats will have additional opportunities to erode the packages investments in climate action, housing, child care, and other key areas.

I think that if we pass the Build Back Better Act as the House passed it, that we have a shot to go back to our communities and say we delivered, said the New York Democrat. But thats not to say that this process has not been demoralizing for a lot of folks, because there were enormous promises made. Not just at the beginning, and not just during the election, but that continued to be made.

And this is where I have sounded the alarm, because what really dampens turnout is when Democrats make promises that they dont keep, she added. With the bipartisan infrastructure plan, theres all of these headlines going around. And I understand the political importance of making a victory lap. But I think that the worst and most vulnerable position we could be in is to over-promise and under-deliver.

Ocasio-Cortez pointed specifically to the lofty promises that accompanied enactment of the $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure law, which includes $15 billion in funding for lead pipe remediation about $30 billion less than what President Joe Biden originally proposed. The law also includes $25 billion in potential subsidies for the fossil fuel industry.

Lets not go around and say, Were going to replace every lead pipe in this country, because according to the bipartisan infrastructure plan, that is not going to happen, Ocasio-Cortez said. That has not been funded. And if the Build Back Better Act gets cut even further, then thats definitely not going to happen.

The New York Democrats remarks came days after the House of Representatives passed the Build Back Better Act, which in its current form would invest around $1.75 trillion over ten years in clean energy development, public housing, early childhood education, hearing benefits for Medicare recipients, and other programs.

To fund its investments, the bill proposes a surtax on millionaires, a 15% minimum tax on large corporations, and a plan to lower sky-high prescription drug prices that was significantly watered down by pharma-friendly Democrats.

In the Senate, where Democrats cant afford to lose a single vote, Manchin is expected to force the removal of a paid leave plan that progressive policy analysts have said is deeply flawed. Its unclear which other programs Manchin backed by the fossil fuel industry and GOP donors may target.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), meanwhile, is vowing to strengthen the package in the upper chamber by reincluding vision and dental benefits for Medicare and removing the bills large tax cut for rich households.

Speaking to the Times, Ocasio-Cortez said that failure to deliver a robust bill as well as voting rights legislation and other Democratic priorities could fuel political nihilism and reinforce the idea that nothing we do matters.

Democrats have a trifecta and have been unable to pass voting-rights protections, she said. People can wring their hands and say but Manchin all they want, or but the filibuster all they want, but at the end of the day, what people see are the results of their actions and the results of investing their time.

In addition to Democrats legislative efforts in Congress, Ocasio-Cortez also urged Biden to make use of his executive authority to broadly cancel federal student loan debt a step the president has thus far refused to take, intensifying fears that youth voter turnout could collapse.

There is an enormous amount of executive action that theyre sitting on that I think is underutilized, the New York Democrat said. Weve got executive action on the table with respect to climate. There are certainly things that we can do with immigration. So why are we taking this as a legislative compromise, when the opportunity is so much greater, or when Biden could do this stuff with a stroke of a pen, and is just reminding us that hes choosing not to?

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AOC Warns of Political Disaster for Democrats If They Under-Deliver on Promises - Truthout

Systemic racism and healing from the trauma of oppression are the focus of the 25th annual Festival of Faiths, which kicks off in Louisville Thursday and runs through Saturday.

The Center for Interfaith Relations organizes the event, which this year is titled Sacred Change: Essential Conversations on Faith and Race. Its framed as a response to the police killing of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black emergency room technician, and the protests in the city following her death.

I think the Breonna Taylor situation was a microcosm of larger issues, said Lewis Brogdon, who directs the Institute of Black Church Studies at the Baptist Seminary of Kentucky and will present during the festival.

Were really in a period of reckoning, he continued. So one of the ways you produce change is challenging the way people think, to help them to understand the history. And thats what were trying to do.

Brogdon said the festival will dedicate the next several years to addressing systemic racism.

We know you cant have a singular conversation and change anything, but we want to educate, educate, educate, agitate, advocate, so that we end up with structural change, he said.

The lineup for the 2021 festival features theologians, speakers and artists discussing topics such as the racial reckoning in the United States and Louisville, intersectionality and a session called Black Trauma, Pain and Nihilism.

Below are excerpts from Brogdons conversation with WFPL News, edited for length and clarity.

Racism is really the product of religion, especially Christianity, in America. It has played an integral role, whether its been using passages out of scripture to justify why Blacks are enslaved, cursed, etc. There have been churches who have turned a blind eye to the enslavement, to lynching even today, mass incarceration, some of the issues we have with policing. So you have churches who are advocating, but you have a lot of churches and religious institutions and entities that are trained to look the other way. So its our responsibility to sort of own our own history. But we also dont want to keep repeating those things.

What were doing is we are creating space for truth-telling, space to be honest about the pain, the trauma, the nihilism Were not going to shy away from those hard conversations. But the faith tradition has also been a great asset, whether its resistance, whether its healing, whether its justice claims, which helps us move towards some semblance of reconciliation. Were going to do both of those things.

For one, it can actually be a tool to correct when religion goes wrong So the irony of being a part of the Black Christian tradition is that some people in the Black community believe you actually betrayed Black people; you have adopted the religion of your oppressors. Our response is, No, we did not appropriate white Christianity, that actually the reason theres a Black church today is because of a thing called slave religion. Enslaved Africans encountered God in the bushes on their own terms, and found God to be a resource of hope, who instilled a sense of somebodiness in them, that they were more than just slaves, that they were Gods children, and that they will be able to work towards something better Religion is more than just praying and singing songs, and silent meditation and thinking about God. Its really thinking about how God wants us to organize the world So if we care about God, then we are also going to care about our neighbors.

The Festival of Faiths runs in Louisville Nov. 18 20, 2021. You can view the full schedule here. Some of the programming will be streamed online.

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Festival of Faiths examines religion as something that can divide and heal - 89.3 WFPL News Louisville

Photo: Gareth Gatrell/ HULU

The Great is a show perpetually hanging on a precipice of its own making, although its astoundingly good at hiding how hard it works to keep its balance. Even more than in the first season, Hulus occasionally true drama about the Russian monarch is contained within a fairly small world, with almost all of its action happening inside the palace where Catherine (Elle Fanning) has seized power from her husband Peter (Nicholas Hoult). So it doesnt feel like a show stretched thin across a sprawling map, and its also blessedly free from timeline hopping, currently the most obnoxious trend in streaming drama. Season two is just as lush as the first season, though the wigs tower high and the only expanses consistently left bare of silk and fur are the bosoms, which heave regularly. Theres excess, excess everywhere, and its incredible that something so flowery and deliberately overwrought could also feel almost fragile.

But that is the magic of The Great, a show that jokes and fucks and lops peoples heads off incessantly while simultaneously performing painstaking, subtle emotional calculus. Sometimes it loses its way a little, particularly on the margins. Its hard for the whole ring of secondary characters to live up to the wild, monstrous, often heartbreaking depiction of the shows central duo, and it means that occasionally someone like Count Orlo (Sacha Dhawan) or Velementov (Douglas Hodge) has to become palpably mechanical. Their anger or hidden motivations pop out at sudden moments to steer the plot to where it needs to be. On a different show, though, I doubt something like that would even stand out. Its only because Catherine and Peter are both so finely, minutely drawn. Everyone else is bound to look a little underdeveloped by comparison.

To some extent, that sense that somewhere there are arms windmilling frantically to keep from falling over an edge does bleed into the mood of the show. Season two, debuting in full on November 19, takes place in a weird liminal moment: Catherine has wrested power from Peter, convinced that hes a violent, amoral nightmare person and that she, Catherine, can be a humane dictator who improves life for everyday Russian citizens. But also, she neglected to kill Peter. And furthermore, shes pregnant. As a result, all of Catherines power is provisional, or ill-defined, or based on facts that are about to shift, or built on a foundation that could crumble in an instant. Peter needles and threatens her, but is also simply flabbergasted by the idea that she might not love him. Does he want to regain her love because its a form of power over her? Does he actually have feelings for her? Who can say! (Certainly not Peter or Catherine, who are ill-matched in some ways but are twins in solipsism.)

Catherine spends a good portion of the season pregnant, and its one of the most idiosyncratic and tonally effective TV pregnancies in recent memory. The Great is food-obsessed: Every scene is laden with elaborate spreads, and if you were to count up every single line of dialogue Peter has in the show, a significant portion of it would be descriptions of food. But Catherine, pregnant and encouraged to give in to her whims, licks metal and eats dirt. Her advisers put frogs on her belly, and her friends encourage her to have frequent orgasms in order to regulate her bodily humors. Pregnancy and all of its attendant absurdities are an excellent opportunity tolean into The Greats favorite things: frank depictions of bodies, sex, food, and a looming awareness that something eventful is coming and it might be catastrophic. Catherine lumbers around the palace with a belly that gets larger and larger, and theres just no getting around the feeling of portending doom. The show is regularly distracted by other things Catherines improvement projects, Peters attempts to woo her, the shifting allegiances of all the courtesans and advisers but Catherine knows that once the baby is born, Peter might kill her. Or she might die in childbirth. Or the baby might be dead. Catherine is a human time bomb.

That feeling of oncoming doom is done so well: present but not too overbearing, and always leavened by the shows wickedly dark sense of humor. Whats even more impressive is how well season two turns the doom into something poignant and delicate by the end. The Greats default mode is something close to nihilism, with violence and despair running hand in hand with opulence. Catherines wild sincerity, her true optimism that things could actually get better, is often played as a joke. In spite of that, The Great somehow pulls its lead characters into a place of implausible but fully convincing humanity. At the beginning of the season, its difficult to imagine taking any of them seriously. By the end, the idea that one of them might betray the other is honestly devastating.

I have no idea whether viewers watch The Great and are frustrated or fascinated by its playful semi-historical mode, or whether they mostly ignore it. Particularly by season two, The Great has to diverge even further from historical record, and sometimes watching the show comes with a faint sense of itchy fingers, reaching for the Wikipedia page just to check. But its also grown more confident in its diversions, and as the shows Catherine and Peter veer further from their historical analogs, they become more themselves. Huzzah.

The rest is here:

The Brutal, Bloody, Bawdy, Beautiful Return of The Great - Vulture

Carolina Journal reporter and former North Carolina Republican Party executive director had a remarkable piece in Art Popes magazine today. It could only be described as a hatchet job aimed at Congressman Madison Cawthorn, Republican of NC-14. In one brutal swing after another, Woodhouse eviscerated Cawthorns pretensions as a Republican hero and, seemingly, set the stage for an establishment revolt against this 26-year-old fascist phenom.

Establishment Republicans have proven throughout the Trump era that they have a high tolerance for the clowns in their ranks. This nihilism runs all the way to the top, with even the most staid establishmentarians paying tribute to Donald J. Trump. In North Carolina, GOP leaders have long tolerated the rhetorical excretions of state Representative Larry Pittman, who has sponsored bills to institute a state religion in North Carolina and to authorize the state to secede from the Union. It looked at first like Madison Cawthorn would receive the same gentle treatment.

Then Cawthorn got in Tim Moores way. The Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representative had cooked up a nice, juicy congressional district for himself so he could grift on the larger stage of Washington, D.C. Cawthorn, however, coveted the district with its penetration of the Charlotte media market. So the young man went east, announcing plans to run in Moores new 13th district. Republicans may have found Cawthorns clowning around to be a bit amusing heretofore, but this time, when he asked them Are You Not Entertained, they answered a firm and bitter No.

Cawthorns lobster-like plop into hot water is not the first time a political clown from the Mountains has outlived his usefulness for a party establishment. In the Depression and World II, U.S.Senator Our Bob Reynolds from Buncombe County put on a ridiculous show for North Carolinians, roaming the state in a clattering jalopy (even though he was wealthy) and kissing movie star Jean Harlow on the lips. (Consensually.) The ruling Democratic establishment rolled their eyes at him for the most part. But like Cawthorn, Reynolds proved himself to be a Nazi sympathizer, and on the eve of World War II it was time to dispose of a populist demagogue who had clearly become a fascist. An establishment politician, Governor Clyde Hoey, challenged Reynolds in the primary and dispatched this Hitler fan with ease.

Is Cawthorn the next Bob Reynolds? He certainly resembles him. Both are authoritarian thugs with yahoo trappings and a dubious affinity for National Socialism who have worn out their political welcome. Dallas Woodhouse has long been the enforcer of the NCGOP. Well see if this mornings takedown in Carolina Journal is the beginning of the end of Madisons short career.

Alexander Jones is an original contributor to PoliticsNC.

Continued here:

Has the GOP Had Enough of Madison Cawthorn? - PoliticsNC

The Wombats have shared a new single called Everything I Love Is Going To Die listen below.

Premiering on BBC Radio 1 last night (November 15) as Clara Amfos Hottest Record, the track serves as the latest preview of the bands upcoming fifth album Fix Yourself, Not The World, which arrives on January 7 via AWAL.

It follows the previous songs If You Ever Leave, Im Coming With You, Method To The Madness and Ready For The High, the latter of which came out last month.

The song is about the impermanence of life, and with that in mind, the beauty of each passing second, Matthew Murph Murphy explained of Everything I Love in a statement.

Key line for me is Icarus was my best friend, so Im gonna make him proud in the end, which I guess is a playful take on living life to its fullest even though the consequences of that might be dire.

He continued: Certainly not a call to Nihilism, however, but perhaps a call to being present and the joy that can be found in appreciating each moment we find ourselves in.

Everything I Love Is Going To Die arrives with an accompanying video-game inspired official lyric video.

The Wombats are set to take Fix Yourself, Not The World out on a UK headline tour next spring. Kicking off in mid-April, the stint includes a three-night billing at Liverpools Mountford Hall. European dates will follow between April 29 and May 19.

You can find the full schedule and ticket details here. The Wombats 2022 UK tour dates are as follows:

APRIL14 First Direct Arena, Leeds15 The O2, London16 Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff18 Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow19 Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow21 Mountford Hall, Liverpool22 Mountford Hall, Liverpool23 Mountford Hall, Liverpool26 Open Air Theatre, Scarborough

Meanwhile, The Wombats have been announced for next years Tramlines festival in Sheffield. Sam Fender, Kasabian and Madness will headline the event, which is due to take place between July 22-24.

Speaking to NME at Reading Festival 2021, Murph said of The Wombats new LP: With our fourth album, I put a lot of pressure on it and I knew I had to do something really great, and so for me this album was just to focus on the energy that we were given from the fourth album and just shift it across a few more years.

And if its better than that, then so be it and it might just be, actually.

You can watch NMEs full video interview above.

Originally posted here:

Listen to The Wombats new single Everything I Love Is Going To Die - NME.com

Who said rock'n'roll was dead? Watching Brass Againsts frontwoman Sophia Urista urinating over a fans face, you could be forgiven for wishing it was, however.

In case you missed it (and I envy anyone who has been spared the footage), Brass Against who cover protest songs by rock bands such as Soundgarden were performing over the weekend at Welcome to Rock festival in Florida. During the show, singer Urista was heard saying she needed to relieve herself before inviting a fan onstage. Ima piss in this motherf****ers mouth, she apparently said. I gotta pee, and I cant make it to the bathroom. So we might as well make a show out of it.

Make a show she did, though it certainly wasnt the one fans or Uristas bandmates thought they were getting. Video footage of the incident shows her pulling down her trousers, squatting over the fan as he lies on his back, and relieving herself directly onto his face. Audience members are heard either cheering or exclaiming in horror, completely thrown by what is taking place. It also seemed the band were unaware of what Urista was about to do, with one member appearing to temporarily walk offstage.

Shortly after the stunt, they issued a statement saying the singer had got carried away.

Thats not something the rest of us expected, and its not something youll see again at our shows, they said.

The mixed reactions to Uristas venture into water sports show just how conflicted music fans still are about what we perceive as rock'n'roll behaviour. On social media, many have drawn comparisons with her behaviour to that of GG Allin, the self-mutilating, faeces-smearing punk rocker whose despicable antics overshadowed any actual music he happened to make. Its a bit of a stretch. A 2008 Guardian article described Allin as the Charles Manson of rock, who delighted in intimidation and who frequently physically or sexually assaulted his audience members. His live shows were more crime scene than crowd pleaser; for Allin, The Guardian piece noted, rocknroll translated to no rules and was a place where nihilism reigned supreme, and nothing was taboo.

Urista has some ways to go before truly reaching Allins levels of depravity, although its easy to see why Uristas bodily excretions made fans think of him. Incidents like this are rare, thankfully, hence why it's caused such an almighty ruckus. Some might argue Urista's antics sparked more fuss because she's a woman, but replacing her with a man in that scenario, you imagine the reaction would be pretty much the same. Yet there are still people who watched the video of Urista and mourned the days where things like that were more commonplace in music.

Brass Against frontwoman urinates on fans face during live show

The interpretation of rocknroll behaviour is generally accepted to be an action that serves as a protest against the system or The Man. Something that rails against traditional polite society and unsettles the status quo. A middle finger to common decency. There are plenty of examples to draw on in the rocknroll timeline: Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a bat; Led Zeppelin destroying hotel rooms; Oasis brawling on a ferry to Amsterdam; Guns n Roses frontman Axl Rose sinking his teeth into a security guards leg... Pretty much anything Keith Moon did.

Now, though, that kind of thing is typically met with an eye-roll. Why? Because weve seen it all before. You could cut off your arm and eat it on stage and it wouldnt matter, Alice Cooper told The Independentearlier this year. The audience is shock proof.

The other reason artists steer clear of truly bad behaviour is that they are, mostly, aware that there is almost always a victim of their actions. Someone always has to clean up the mess in the hotel room. Actively encouraging violence at live shows can, unsurprisingly, lead to people getting hurt. Travis Scott, whose Astroworld festival is the subject of an investigation after 10 people died and hundreds more were injured during his set, has a history of egging on his fans. Its not a show until someone [passes] out, he bragged in a 2018 Instagram post.

Then theres Marilyn Manson, currently the subject of several lawsuits and a new Rolling Stone investigation that explores how his own rocknroll behaviour disguised the alleged real-life abuse of multiple women. The Monster Hiding in Plain Sight, read the headline, as the article describes how he was able to hide his abuses in plain sight behind the Marilyn Manson character he created and the music industry that supported, and profited from, his living-demon shtick. Meanwhile, his lawyers, through whom Manson has denied all allegations made against him, insist his accusers are trying to conflate that controversial shock rocker image with fabricated accounts of abuse.

In the case of Urista, it appears she was not thinking about the victims created by her on-stage actions. Among them are the fans who had no wish to witness such a spectacle, and her bandmates, apparently appalled by her behaviour. Her stunt was infantile, grotesque, and out of step with what most modern rock artists have come to accept. That its best to let the music do the talking.

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The Brass Against urinating incident was everything wrong about rocknroll behaviour - The Independent