Category Archives: Political Correctness

The world has spun on its axis since the last series of The Apprentice in October 2019, yet still I am watching a group of blank idiots in an airless, windowless boardroom giggling politely as Lord Sugar chucks out tired quips like: You dont get furloughed, you get fired. Reassuring? Or woefully out of date?

The Apprentice is formulaic, protracted, often dull and usually only really worth watching for the first half, in which the hapless candidates go full Young Enterprise to hustle on Londons most camera-friendly streets and vulnerable pedestrians. The second half as they sacrifice each other in the boardroom is never as interesting as the pantomime set-up would have us believe.

Obviously, Im going to watch the whole thing, because self-importance, pomposity, delusion, and fatal error are sadly very entertaining, and I love how big I feel as someone who has zero entrepreneurial nous, no evidence of business acumen nor any understanding of markets or indeed money knowing that I absolutely would do a better job than these bozos. In this case, though, I have to wonder whether I would also have done a better job than Lord Sugar himself.

If I had a long-running reality process centred around business, that was returning after more than two years to a society and market ravaged by a pandemic which has forced companies to close, employees to work from home, offices to be abandoned permanently and cost billions of pounds in government bailouts, I would not have chosen to herald businesss bounce-back with a task involving the launch of a luxury cruise ship.

It was a British cruise ship, lest we forget, the Diamond Princess, that in February 2020 was forced to dock and quarantine at Yokohama for a month, when an early coronavirus outbreak infected nearly a quarter of its 3,700 passengers, and killed nine of them.

Several cruise lines have been shut down in the years since, governments have advised against cruise travel because its conditions can facilitate the rapid spread of disease, and all travel now requires complicated, ever-changing and expensive testing requirements. Certainly, the travel industry needs a boost. If only this lot could have given it one.

As always, as the 16th series began, it was girls vs boys (and they do refer to them infantalisingly as girls or ladies and boys)

This immediately felt off. Not political correctness gone mad, before you protest, but because this device seems deliberately set up to prevent us regarding men and women as equals and simultaneously to encourage the candidates to play into the worst and laziest gender stereotypes: women with big blonde hair and bright bodycon dresses shouting over each other and bitching; gormless men suited up like theyre on the way home from a rugby club dinner and with about as much good sense.

Both endeavours were appalling. The women named their company Bouji Cruises quite cleverly with the idea of rebranding cruises for groups of young female friends. Unfortunately their seedy ad campaign boasted that the holidays would allow passengers to live the lavish lifestyle, and little concern was paid to the fact that nobody, including half the team, understands what Bouji means (different for everyone, but involves brunch!) nor that it brings to mind that grand tradition of the booze cruise which frankly would have been much more fun.

The men meanwhile also opted to cash in on the middle-age wellness market, but sadly Seaquility sounded far less like the title of a nautical yoga retreat and more like the name of a painful infection whose recovery requires the use of a pressure relief cushion.

This was only exacerbated by their logo, a brown turd with legs and a cresting wave for a head. There are reportedly dangerous quantities of raw sewage off the British coastline so I suppose it at least looked like an accurate representation of how a passenger might emerge from the Channel while swimming back to shore after throwing themselves overboard within 30 minutes of setting sail.

I was still rooting for Bouji Cruises to sink, though, but somehow, led by the entirely uncollaborative pyjama mogul Katherine, they won. Observing them throughout was Tim Campbell winner of the first series and Claude Littners replacement who spent much of this episode in dismay and seemed similarly shocked at the result.

The Apprentice is a comedy. Can we all just agree that now, so that the production team can inject a bit of life into the edit and really go to town with the asides, the eye-rolls, the cutaways and the mockumentary-style looks to camera, which more in this series than ever they threaten to do?

For too long weve let the BBC pretend this is a real business competition, but while I like my Tropic pillow mist (Susie Ma, third place, 2011) this is no longer about hapless candidates or innovation or even moneymaking at all. Its about watching the real-world horror of 16 LinkedIn profiles coming to life.

The rest is here:

The Apprentice, BBC1, episode 1, review: A return to the horror of watching LinkedIn come to life - iNews

By Rohana R. Wasala

The web portal reported Tuesday December 21, 2021: Riyadh holds 4-day EDM carnival. Commenting on the electronic dance music extravaganza, unprecedented in Saudi Arabia, the news anchor said, The de facto leader of the Islamic World, the Guardian of the two holiest sites in Islam, Saudi Arabia, did the unexpected this weekend. Its through a giant rave party, a four-day electronic music festival complete with psychedelic lights and international DJs .. With video footage of densely packed dancing men and women taken from the exhilarating event held two or three days previously flashing across the background screen, the newscaster continued: the images that you see are from Saudi Arabia (where) a giant party was held in the deserts of Riyadh with the blessings and money of the Saudi royal family, the House of Saud. They fully endorsed and sponsored this carnival. It was attended by artistes from all over the world. Tiesto, Martin Garrix, David Guetta, Afrojack you name them, the worlds leading DJs, performed at the rave. Their excitement was evident in their statements. One of the DJs was heard saying: It was the first time that there was going to be women and men being able to dance together, and there was also a very historical moment, and I am happy to be part of this . Of course, theres more things to be done to improve the country, but I think they are opening, are really going to the right direction, giving more rights to women, like four years ago women couldnt drive . they can come and dance. Its a huge evolution.

That was what one of the DJs taking part in the massive musical show said about its underlying significance for a socio-culturally changed future for the kingdom, the birth place of Islam, with a previous reputation as the exporter of Islamic fundamentalism. The news presenter then dwelt on the fact that the exuberant Western type of music festival in the traditionally conservative Saudi Arabia did indeed symbolise a huge evolution. She went on:

(QUOTE) Saudi men and women dancing with abandon, swaying to the beats of Western music, no gender segregation, no full-length robes, no face veils, no any religious restrictions for that matter. All this was unthinkable in Saudi Arabia just a few years back. Now it is happening By the way, this rave party comes close on the heels of the Red Sea International Film Festival, the first of its kind to be held in Saudi Arabia. It was a star-studded affair with women walking the red carpet in sleeveless gowns, a woman film-maker winning the Best Director award, and an openly queer man winning the Best Actor award What do you make of these changes? The sands are shifting in Saudi Arabia, its evident. The socially conservative kingdom is trying to shake off its regressive image. Its limiting the rule of religion in public life and fitting itself as a modern liberal and tourism-friendly kingdom. And this, we say, is a welcome change. Although critics of Saudi Arabia say its a facade (and) insist (that) the Saudi society is not making any fundamental meaningful change., ever since Mohamed bin Salman was made the Crown Prince in Saudi Arabia, hes embarked on a liberalisation drive, with loosened gender segregation norms, hes reopened cinemas, allowed women to drive, to go to stadiums, take the haj without a male guardian.In a way MBS has defanged the countrys religious police that not too long ago would dictate every facet of daily life. And those are all remarkable reforms, they deserve applause. But, I have also to say they are only half-measures, and very late at that. Some very problematic issues persist in the Saudi society. Saudi Arabia continues to arrest dissidents, to extend prison terms of activists. It continues to detain the rich on allegations of corruption, a tinkering with power structures, arbitrary reshuffling whom the Crown Prince thinks are potential challengers. Political reform remains taboo (END OF QUOTE)

The foregoing is based on a news item from an independent online news source that represents the international free media. The comments on the piece of news are those of the newscaster, about which we listeners and viewers may or may not agree with her, or regarding which we may just remain neutral. But the piece of news is true, and so is what she says about the Saudi Crown Princes commitment to a liberalisation drive and his determination to rid his country of its regressive image. What it indicates is that the tide is turning against violent Islamic extremism. It is the same in other countries, too. Isnt this good news for people all over the world who are faced with forms of violent Islamism? For, against this global anti-extremist background, we need not entertain exaggerated fears about the menace or resort to measures that are likely to breathe new life into it, instead of letting it die a natural death.

The Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salmans brave initiative is an extremely praiseworthy example in a world where, in spite of the steadily rising awareness, particularly among the educated youth, of the dangerous insanity of excessive religiosity and the increasing rejection of its political backers and sympathisers by the civilised world, the backward ruling classes seem to believe that they are required to tolerate or even appease the few extremists in order to win the hearts and minds of the ordinary faithful. The Saudi leaders reformist gestures make good news for non-Muslim majority countries, including Sri Lanka, where a few opportunistic Muslim politicians maintain secret dealngs with extremists while pretending that they had nothing to do with them.

It was justly suspected by many around the time of the 2019 Easter Sunday suicide bombings (i. e., both before and after the unspeakable horror) that a handful of opportunistic Sri Lankan Muslim politicians with a communal mindset were maintaining treacherous links with suicide-bombing extremists for personal political advantage. It is now well known that these sham champions of Muslims try to create the illusion of a non-existent Buddhist-Muslim conflict or disharmony in the country through false propaganda, which is a part of their scheming to position themselves between foreign donors inspired to genuinely help their Sri Lankan co-religionists that, they have been persuaded to wrongly believe, are being persecuted by the Sinhalese Buddhist majority. All our political, civil and religious leaders need to unite to convince the leaders of friendly Islamic nations not to be misled by these duplicitous, self-seeking Muslim politicos who ultimately betray not only the interests of Sri Lankan Muslims whom they claim to represent, but those of the whole nation.

I dealt with this subject in MWL should separate the wheat from the chaff/The Island/ May 4, 2021), where I wrote: What should be of greater concern for the government is the fact that, by contriving to get themselves identified as constituting the whole Muslim community of the country, the handful of Islamist extremists who are widely believed to have provided tacit or explicit support for the suicide bombers are also foisting themselves on its (the MWLs) powerful patronage. By the wheat in the title I meant the traditional Sri Lankan Muslim minority who have co-existed peacefully with the majority Sinhalese Buddhists and other minority communities over the centuries; by the chaff I meant opportunistic Muslim politicos who secretly associate with extremists, while masquerading as champions of the generality of peaceful Muslims. These duplicitous Muslim politicos manage to enjoy the best of both worlds by making shrewd changes of their loyalty at the right time to join the incoming administration, under whichever major partys leadership it gets formed. Leaders of both major parties dont hesitate to cut deals with these communalist Muslim politicians at critical moments.

This reminded me of certain statements that businessman-turned-politician Shiraz Yunus made recently which were critical of the government, of which he is a partner. He attacked the government while claiming to be Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksas national coordinator for Muslim affairs. The PMs media division has since denied that Yunus holds any position in the government and that he was expressing his individual personal opinions.

This is according to a statement in Sinhala from the Prime Ministers Media Division published in the online news portal lankacnews on December 4, 2021 (a day after the Sialkot incident); it was signed by Rohan Weliwita, the PMs Media Secretary. The statement was carried under a headline that translates into English as Mr Shiraz Yunus has not been appointed to any post in the Prime Ministers Office:

QUOTE

I wish to announce that Mr Shiraz Yunus does not work as a coordinating secretary to the Prime Minister; such a position has not not been granted by the Prime Ministers Office.

This is to declare that the PMs Office has no connection with the statements that Mr Shiraz Yunus makes claiming that he serves as the PMs coordinating secretary.

Meanwhile, he has not been given a post of any description in the PMs Office.

I wish to further state that his statements are completely personal and that neither the Prime inister nor the Prime Ministers Office endorses those ideas.

END OF QUOTE

Why shouldnt we ask the PMs media unit to tell it to the marines? This is hardly more than mere wordplay. In the following YouTube interview published more than five weeks ago, Shiraz Yunus didnt ever once refer to himself as a coordinating secretary; he claimed to be the Prime Ministers National Coordinator for Muslim Affairs. This interview took place more than a month before Priyantha Kumara was lynched by an Islamist mob. By denying after more than one month what Yunus never claimed (he never said he is/was acting as PMs coordinating secretary for Muslim affairs), the PMs media unit seems to be trying to eat the cake and have it, too. Did it have to take a heinous crime, like beating to death an helpless man and desecrating his dead body by burning it on a main road in Pakistan on December 3, 2021, by a lynch mob for alleged blasphemy for the PM (who is also the Minister of Buddha Sasana) to dissociate himself at long last from Yunuss baseless attacks on the Gotabaya loyalist faction in the government? Yunuss criticisms include the false charge of anti-Muslim discrimination as allegedly exemplified in the mandatory burning of Covid-19 dead ignoring the religious sensitivities of the Muslims. Government and Opposition leaders have an unavoidable responsibility to ensure the protection of the non-Muslim majority of the population and the moderate Muslims from the excesses of Islamist extremists. Politicians, please dont sacrifice these innocents on the altar of political correctness to please the opportunistic ruling elite of the Muslim community.

Read more from the original source:

Towards a future free from fears of Islamism II - nation.lk - The Nation Newspaper

If youve ever spent time in a Facebook comments thread, its easy to be confused about whether being PC is a good thing or not. There are lots of people in either camp, all ready to passionately defend their positions. But what does it all mean? Has political correctness gone too far, or do we just need a reminder about what being PC actually means?

In a nutshell, political correctness means avoiding language and actions that insult, exclude or harm people who are already experiencing disadvantage and discrimination. Some everyday examples of politically correct behaviour include:

When people complain about political correctness gone mad, its usually because they associate being PC with being unable to act and behave as they please. Oftentimes, people who practise political correctness are accused of denying other people the right to free speech, or of sucking the fun out of everything.

The argument that being PC prevents freedom of speech is flawed. Freedom of speech gives a person the right to say what they feel, but it also gives other people the right to point out if they are being offensive. Freedom of speech doesnt mean your words cant be criticised; it just means you cant be silenced.

Some people also ignore political correctness for the sake of having a laugh. When someone jokes about a group theyre not a part of, their words can contribute to discrimination against that group. The person who is making the joke doesnt have a lot to lose, but the people who are the butt of the joke often do.

Political correctness is an important idea that protects people who are vulnerable to discrimination, but it can be misunderstood.

When model Kendall Jenner did a photoshoot for Vogue magazine dressed as a ballerina, it ruffled a few feathers. There were complaints that the photoshoot was offensive because it appropriated the ballerina culture. Some people felt that the photoshoot robbed ballerinas of work they were more qualified for than Jenner.

This incident wasnt a case of cultural appropriation, because dancers and ballet culture werent being discriminated against, and ballerinas arent an oppressed group of people, unlike groups whove experienced discrimination and disadvantages in many ways, such as Aboriginal Australians or women.

Political correctness is intended to help us use language that helps instead of harms. Whether the discrimination comes from racism, homophobia, sexism or transphobia, the bottom line remains the same. Being PC just means you understand that your actions affect people who are vulnerable to discrimination. While things can occasionally get out of hand when people forget what certain concepts such as cultural appropriation mean, its important that were all aware of the effects of our actions and words.

Read the original here:

What's the deal with political correctness? | The big ...

Chinas Global Times, a state-controlled publication, asserted this week thatHollywood will destroy itself as it continues to embrace political correctness with an increasingly lunatic fervor.

The state-run media outlet cited the recent decision to exclude author J.K. Rowling from the Harry Pottermovie anniversary celebration due to her comments on transgender individuals, as well as the Academy Awards new diversity quotas, which require ethnic minority representation for best picture consideration.

If Hollywood continues down this road, it will dig its own grave and destroy its reputation one day, the Global Times predicted.

The scathing article comes as Beijing is blocking more Hollywood blockbusters from being released in Chinese cinemas in a bid to boost the domestic movie industry. Movies including Disney-Marvels Black Widow, The Eternals, and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings still do not have release dates in China at press time.

China has surpassed the U.S. as the largest movie market in the world, thanks in large part to the coronavirus pandemic. The top two biggest grossing movies worldwide this year are both from China: the Korean War epicThe Battle at Lake Changjin which promotes anti-American sentiment while lionizingCommunist dictator Mao Zedong and the time-traveling comedy Hi, Mom.

Other Hollywood movies are flopping at the Chinese box office, with Disneys Jungle Cruise andWarner Bros. Wonder Woman 1984failing to generate much interest with local audiences.

The Global Times noted that Chinese netizens are mocking the J.K. Rowling controversy as a joke.

Yes, this is ironic: a writer who created the great IP was expelled by those who adapted her work, the article said.

The outlet also noted that embracing wokeness hasnt helped movies at the box office, citingThe Eternals, which features a gay kiss.

Many countries have banned the release of Eternals, the article said. They made the decision not to achieve a better performance both in reputation and market, but mainly due to political correctness.

China has a long history of banning or censoring movies that negatively portray the CCP or address controversial subjects, including religion and sexuality. Communist censors have banned best picture Oscar winner Nomadland reportedly for director Chloe Zhaos negative comments about growing up in China. (Zhao also directed The Eternals.)

Bohemian Rhapsody was censored upon its Chinese release, with scenes of gay intimacy and drug use excised from the movie.

Follow David Ng on Twitter@HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me atdng@breitbart.com.

Here is the original post:

China Predicts Hollywood Will 'Dig Its Own Grave' with ...

SEOUL They have shown up whenever women rallied against sexual violence and gender biases in South Korea. Dozens of young men, mostly dressed in black, taunted the protesters, squealing and chanting, Thud! Thud! to imitate the noise they said the ugly feminist pigs made when they walked.

Out with man haters! they shouted. Feminism is a mental illness!

On the streets, such rallies would be easy to dismiss as the extreme rhetoric of a fringe group. But the anti-feminist sentiments are being amplified online, finding a vast audience that is increasingly imposing its agenda on South Korean society and politics.

These male activists have targeted anything that smacks of feminism, forcing a university to cancel a lecture by a woman they accused of spreading misandry. They have vilified prominent women, criticizing An San, a three-time gold medalist in the Tokyo Olympics, for her short haircut.

They have threatened businesses with boycotts, prompting companies to pull advertisements with the image of pinching fingers they said ridiculed the size of male genitalia. And they have taken aim at the government for promoting a feminist agenda, eliciting promises from rival presidential candidates to reform the countrys 20-year-old Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.

South Korea is reckoning with a new type of political correctness enforced by angry young men who bristle at any forces they see as undermining opportunity and feminists, in their mind, are enemy No. 1. Inequality is one of the most delicate issues in South Korea, a nation with deepening economic uncertainty, fed by runaway housing prices, a lack of jobs and a widening income gap.

We dont hate women, and we dont oppose elevating their rights, said Bae In-kyu, 31, the head of Man on Solidarity, one of the countrys most active anti-feminist groups. But feminists are a social evil.

The group spearheads the street rallies and runs a YouTube channel with 450,000 subscribers. To its members, feminists equal man haters.

Its motto once read, Till the day all feminists are exterminated!

The backlash against feminism in South Korea may seem bewildering.

South Korea has the highest gender wage gap among the wealthy countries. Less than one-fifth of its national lawmakers are women. Women make up only 5.2 percent of the board members of publicly listed businesses, compared with 28 percent in the United States.

And yet, most young men in the country argue that it is men, not women, in South Korea who feel threatened and marginalized. Among South Korean men in their 20s, nearly 79 percent said they were victims of serious gender discrimination, according to a poll in May.

There is a culture of misogyny in male-dominant online communities, depicting feminists as radical misandrists and spreading fear of feminists, said Kim Ju-hee, 26, a nurse who has organized protests denouncing anti-feminists.

The wave of anti-feminism in South Korea shares many of the incendiary taglines with right-wing populist movements in the West that peddle such messages. Women who argue for abortion rights are labeled destroyers of family. Feminists are not champions of gender equality, but female supremacists.

In South Korea, women and feminists are two of the most common targets of online hate speech, according to the countrys National Human Rights Commission.

The backlash represents a split from previous generations.

Older South Korean men acknowledge benefiting from a patriarchal culture that had marginalized women. Decades ago, when South Korea lacked everything from food to cash, sons were more likely to be enrolled in higher education. In some families, women were not allowed to eat from the same table as men and newly born girls were named Mal-ja, or Last Daughter. Sex-preference abortions were common.

As the country has grown richer, such practices have become a distant memory. Families now dote on their daughters. More women attend college than men, and they have more opportunities in the government and elsewhere, though a significant glass ceiling persists.

Men in their 20s are deeply unhappy, considering themselves victims of reverse discrimination, angry that they had to pay the price for gender discriminations created under the earlier generations, said Oh Jae-ho, a researcher at the Gyeonggi Research Institute in South Korea.

If older men saw women as needing protection, younger men considered them competitors in a cutthroat job market.

Anti-feminists often note that men are put at a disadvantage because they have to delay getting jobs to complete their mandatory military service. But many women drop out of the work force after giving birth, and much of the domestic duties fall to them.

What more do you want? We gave you your own space in the subway, bus, parking lot, the male rapper San E writes in his 2018 song Feminist, which has a cult following among young anti-feminists. Oh girls dont need a prince! Then pay half for the house when we marry.

The gender wars have infused the South Korean presidential race, largely seen as a contest for young voters. With the virulent anti-feminist voice surging, no major candidate is speaking out for womens rights, once such a popular cause that President Moon Jae-in called himself a feminist when he campaigned about five years ago.

Yoon Suk-yeol, the candidate of the conservative opposition People Power Party, sided with the anti-feminist movement when he accused the ministry of gender equality of treating men like potential sex criminals. He promised harsher penalties for wrongfully accusing men of sex crimes, despite concerns it would discourage women from speaking out.

But Mr. Yoon also recruited a prominent 31-year-old leader of a feminist group as a senior campaign adviser last month, a move intended to assuage worries that his party has alienated young female voters.

By law, Mr. Moon cannot seek re-election. His Democratic Partys candidate, Lee Jae-myung, has also tried to appeal to young men, saying: Just as women should never be discriminated against because of their gender, nor should men suffer discrimination because they are men.

Mr. Lee sees the gender conflict largely as a problem of dwindling job opportunities, comparing young South Koreans to chicks struggling not to fall off a crowded nest. We must make the nest bigger by recovering growth, he has said.

It is hard to tell how many young men support the kind of extremely provocative and often theatrical activism championed by groups like Man on Solidarity. Its firebrand leader, Mr. Bae, showed up at a recent feminist rally dressed as the Joker from Batman comics and toting a toy water gun. He followed female protesters around, pretending to, as he put it, kill flies.

Tens of thousands of fans have watched his stunts livestreamed online, sending in cash donations. During one online talk-fest in August, Mr. Bae raised nine million won ($7,580) in three minutes.

Womens rights advocates fear is that the rise of anti-feminism might stymie, or even roll back, the hard-won progress South Korea has made in expanding womens rights. In recent decades, they fought to legalize abortion and started one of the most powerful #MeToo campaigns in Asia.

Lee Hyo-lin, 29, said that feminist has become such a dirty word that women who wear their hair short or carry a novel by a feminist writer risk ostracism. When she was a member of a K-pop group, she said that male colleagues routinely commented on her body, jeering that she gave up being a woman when she gained weight.

The #MeToo problem is part of being a woman in South Korea, she said. Now we want to speak out, but they want us to shut up. Its so frustrating.

On the other side of the culture war are young men with a litany of grievances concerns that are endlessly regurgitated by male-dominated forums. They have fixated, in particular, on limited cases of false accusations, as a way to give credence to a broader anti-feminist agenda.

Son Sol-bin, a used-furniture seller, was 29 when his former girlfriend accused him of rape and kidnapping in 2018. Online trolls called for his castration, he said. His mother found closed-circuit TV footage proving the accusations never took place.

The feminist influence has left the system so biased against men that the police took a womans testimony and a mere drop of her tears as enough evidence to land an innocent man in jail, said Mr. Son, who spent eight months in jail before he was cleared. I think the country has gone crazy.

As Mr. Son fought back tears during a recent anti-feminist rally, other young men chanted: Be strong! We are with you!

Go here to read the rest:

The New Political Cry in South Korea: Out With Man Haters - The New York Times

We attempted to write a letter in support of Dr. Craig Doc PJ Perrinjaquet and Jeff Bergeron, but upon reading letters from Sandi Bruns and Jane Hamilton, we felt humbled. Thank you for stating the obvious of what most longtime residents know about these guys much more eloquently than we would have!

PJ is a beloved, giving doctor to many of us who always works toward the greater good. Though Jeffrey may have a filter that frequently lets only the boulders through, he has taken more positive actions for the community than most. Hes an entertaining writer who also feels strongly about issues challenging our unique town and, along with the Breckenridge Town Council, has the fortitude to work for improvement.

As for the Ullr event itself, it has gone through many iterations since the first event in 1963, and I dont think any of them are family friendly. As it was, and hopefully continues, the Ullr parade (typically in January) allowed us to blow off steam after a crazy holiday season, pass bottles of Schnapps with town friends (pre-COVID), woot at humping sled dog floats and fur bikinis, and watch old Christmas trees blow up.

Condoms have been a ritual for years (and are still fun to blow up to float above the bonfire). Ullr has the reputation of fun, debauchery and questionable political correctness, so why not let the unvaccinated be included in the fun! And if thats you, you took a stance against whatever and will have to put up with the verbal jabs from those of us trying to support the move to stop this pandemic.

Live and let live, laugh when you can and just relax.

As a Summit Daily News reader, you make our work possible.

Now more than ever, your financial support is critical to help us keep our communities informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having on our residents and businesses. Every contribution, no matter the size, will make a difference.

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Letter to the editor: Ullr has the reputation of fun and questionable political correctness - Summit Daily

California's population stagnation is tied to its ever-higher housing costs, driven by years of not ... [+] building new housing.

Myprevious blog documented Californias 2020 population loss, the first time thats happened since the state was founded.Billionaire Elon Musk has moved to Texas, but the biggest worry for the state is the loss of lower and middle-income residents, likely driven by Californias high housing costs.The state must fix its housing affordability problem for a more secure future.

Some media coverage claims the losses are among the wealthy.AYahoo finance storyclaimed millionaires and billionaires have fled California in droves, driven not only by high taxes but political correctness.

But thePublic Policy Institute of Californiashows thats not the real problem.Rather, the Institute finds thatCalifornia has been losing lower- and middle-income residents to other states for some time while continuing to gain higher-income adults.

The Institute, like other analysts, sees the states high cost of living, driven almost solely by comparatively high housing costs as a major culprit in the outmigration story.Without a bigger supply of more affordable housing, moderate income families will continue to be pushed out while new immigrants wont be able to afford life in California.

Californias demographic troubles were highlighted by the 2020 loss of a House seat, based on the Census, although the states delegation of 53 Representatives remains the nations largest.We had become accustomed to California gaining seats because of population growthfrom 1950 onwards the state added 29 seats as it grew to be the largest state.

But as the Institute shows, population growth had been slowing for several decades, especially after 2000.Although births and international migration kept the population growing, the state began to see net outmigration, with a net outmigration of around 1.2 million people during the 2010s.

The state also has gained higher educated adults.Between 2010 and 2019, California had a gain of 154,600 adults with a college degree, while 777,400 with less than a B.A. moved out.

A primary culprit?High housing costs.Economists have puzzled for years how parts of California, especially the Bay Area, Silicon Valley, and Southern California continued growing while their housing prices rose inexorably.

Between October 2012 and October 2021, theall-transactions house price index for Californiamore than doubled, rising by 105%.The Case-Shiller index for Los Angeles rose by 73% in that period, while the index for San Francisco skyrocketed by 140%.

And those housing costs are driven by a lack of supply.California (like many other jurisdictions) has made it progressively harder to construct new housing, through a combination of single-family zoning, homeowner opposition to new development, and suburban resistance to allowing multi-family housing.

All of this happened while the economy was growing and jobs were being created. But new housing supply, especially multi-family and affordable housing, is essential for working families to live in a region. California, like other places, has fostered job growth while not producing enough housing to accommodate working families.

By analyzing building permits relative to job growth,analysts at Stessaranked states on their housing production.And between 2010 and 2020, California was the nations worst on this measure.The state added 2.54 new jobs per new housing unit, so even as the economy expanded, housing prices rose faster.

Economists puzzle over how regions can grow even in the face of ever-higher housing prices.In places like Silicon Valley,Enrico Moretti found that the continuing in-migration of highly skilled technical labor creates what he calls a brain hub.

Firms need highly skilled workers, while workers seeking tech jobs are drawn to the region, allowing firms to grow, specialize, and keep expanding, luring in new workers, etc. Meanwhile, support services like research and venture capital lure entrepreneurs. Rising incomes and wealth can, for a time, support ever-rising home prices.

But that process cant continue indefinitely, especially for lower and middle-income households.And Californias population troubles reflect Californias years of inadequate housing development, which has disproportionately harmed people of color and lower-paid workers. But the lack of adequate housing supply may now be hamstringing the states entire economy.

See the original post here:

Californias Housing Costs Threaten The States Future - Forbes

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As usual, the staff ofMother Jonesis rounding up theheroes and monstersof the past year. Find all of 2021s heroes and monstershere.

Not since the days of watching Comedy Centrals Crank Yankers as a teen have I enjoyed the simple art of the prank call as I didin 2021.Every week this year, the Canadian comedian Chris James streamed The Not Even a Show and I watched him put a thumb to the eye of the most revered figures within MAGA-land.

James is a stand-up comedian who lives in Vancouver. Making a living doing shows is difficult in Canada, and James didnt want to move to the states, so he had the idea to host a show online. But it wasnt untilhe came across the radio show of former Boston Red Sox Ace turned Breitbart hack Curt Schilling, found his calling. From there, the prank calls became an art.Instead of the hapless unknown targets we chose as teens, James victims are a whos who of grifters, bigots and liars of the right wing political scene.

In the four years since Schilling, hes pranked Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ben Shapiro, Brian Kilmeade, Mike Lindell, Sebastian Gorka, Dennis Prager, Nigel Farage,and Rudy Guiliani, among many others. He has a few particularly entertaining ongoing bits with lesser known radio cranks like JJ McCartney and Ed Tyll. If McCartney hears the word shirt, it triggers a full-blown meltdown, and Tyll is locked in a blood-feud with a character James plays named Roy, who at some point called to start a fight with Tyll. Both predate my watching of the show, and its fun to go back through the catalog and track the evolution of James claiming real estate in his victims brains.

While James has signature digs, like making fun of the size of Gorkas head or asking Guiliani about his cousin, this year James took his show to a new level. He began to appear on video programs, or hosted his own fake talk-shows booking guests like Roger Stone, Richard Spencer, Joe Arpaio, who he either torments until they leave the call, or breaks the fourth wall and outright tells them theyre a piece of shit to their face.

But his most brilliant bits are when he portrays characters that are able to push the sycophancy and dishonesty of the right to its most hilarious limits.

Officer Steve, a law enforcement officer, expects the utmost deference from the hosts and misconstrues everything they say as evidence of their insufficient respect for police. Patriot Pete demands that every self-identified Patriot immediately commit to move to Washington D.C and challenges hosts to turn up their shirt tags to prove they only buy clothing manufactured in the U.S.A. Darryl Craft is a comedian who cant get any gigs anymore because of cancel culture and political correctness, and then shows how far people will go along with a bit if its supposedly being suppressed by social justice warriors.

There is a sobering fact hovering in the background of The Not Even a Show. These people have big audiencesbigger than Jameswhich gives the show a laugh-to-keep-from-crying quality that feels right at home in 2021. James targets may have a depressing amount of money, power and influence on the state of majoritarian Democracy, but at least he can make them look like absolute idiots on a regular basis.

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Hero: Chris James, the Canadian Comedian Triggering Right-Wing Talk Radio Hosts Mother Jones - Mother Jones

Leave it to Americans to spoof their scary disease du jour.

Several viral videos have satirized the coronavirus and the vaccines and other woke adaptations in dark if also hilarious ways. But the one that made me laugh out loud was Coming Next Year, by comedian and viral-content creator (yes, there is such a thing) Tyler Fischer.

I recommend it for your sanity and edification. What better way to wrap up another dreary year than with a humorous look at our increasingly absurd expressions of political correctness or, in todays vernacular, wokeness?

The coronavirus vaccine is just one of Fischers targets. In brief, a guy trying to earn passage into an unidentified building must provide proof that he has submitted to a laundry list of government mandates. His proof of having received numerous booster shots consists of multiple Band-Aids crossing his arms and torso.

Suffice to say, Fischers view of our future is full of busyness attending to socially approved and government-enforced commandments and an inevitable loss of freedom. This slide into servitude began with the vaccine and escalated with the various employment-based mandates that followed. Some people feel so strongly about not requiring a vaccine that the Supreme Court plans to hold a special hearing Jan. 7 to consider the legality of two White House initiatives to curb the pandemic.

The court has promised to move quickly on the two questions a vaccine-or-testing mandate for larger employers of more than 100 people and a vaccination requirement for health care workers in institutions that receive federal funding. Government projections are that 22 million people would get vaccinated and prevent 250,000 hospitalizations if both are allowed to stand. Mores the haste given recent predictions that 60% of Americans will be infected with the dominant omicron variant by March.

For the record, Im all shot up two vaccines and a booster. The first injection gave me a sore arm; the second kept me in bed for 10 hours. When my body aches suddenly ceased close to cocktail hour, I popped out of bed, said, That was weird, and poured myself a glass of wine. The booster? Nada.

Its abundantly clear that vaccines at the very least help reduce the intensity of covid-19. The booster helps even more. Most vaccinated people evade infection entirely, probably in part because they also take other precautions, such as distancing and masking. Those whove died of covid over the past several months were almost exclusively unvaccinated.

All of this is known to nearly everyone by now and the scientific evidence has been convincing enough for me to endure a few hours of inconvenience. Beats dying. Yet, only 62% of Americans are fully vaccinated, and many are rabidly opposed to getting a shot. This is war, Ive heard people say on both sides of the issue.

Sensibly speaking, are you people insane?

Still, I do understand the revulsion toward government mandates. Were all a bit anti-establishment, arent we? Americans didnt become obstreperous just recently. Our warring spirit and a predilection to oppose authority precedes our arrival to these shores. Were all rebels by virtue of most of us having crossed the pond, so to speak. Saying no may not be wise in some circumstances, but as a countercultural posture, we customarily view dissent as a basic right.

To the anti-vaccine contingent, a vaccine mandate is tantamount to a violation of ones autonomy. Our bodies, ourselves is more than a book title. No one is entitled to enter my temple without my permission. Case closed. And yet: How can some people see the vaccine as a gift and others view it as a toxin contrived for dubious purposes? How do we bridge this gap?

It appears that we need a new tack. Convincing others to follow the majoritys lead requires diplomacy and empathy rather than finger-pointing and shaming. President Joe Bidens recent warning to the unvaccinated as more or less deserving to get sick is hardly helpful.

The challenge for 2022 is how to reconcile these two opposing views. One requires a united front against a potentially deadly disease (which could be with us forever), the other demands respect for individual rights. Philosophically, I support both views, but practically, I come down on the side of unity for the common good. Voluntary vaccination seems to me the only avenue for reconciliation.

Whether we can be a unified country again on any subject is a coin toss. But one thing we can agree upon is that laughter is good for body and soul. To that end, Tyler Fischer for one has provided a public service. Laughing at oneself, after all, is a sign of intelligence. Sort of like voluntarily getting vaccinated against a disease nobody wants to get.

Link:

Please get the vaccine. And try to understand those who won't. - Bowling Green Daily News

E.O. Wilson was an extraordinary scholar in every sense of the word. Back in the 1980s, Milton Stetson, the chair of the biology department at the University of Delaware, told me that a scientist who makes a single seminal contribution to his or her field has been a success. By the time I met Edward O. Wilson in 1982, he had already made at least five such contributions to science.

Wilson, who died Dec. 26, 2021 at the age of 92, discovered the chemical means by which ants communicate. He worked out the importance of habitat size and position within the landscape in sustaining animal populations. And he was the first to understand the evolutionary basis of both animal and human societies.

Each of his seminal contributions fundamentally changed the way scientists approached these disciplines, and explained why E.O. as he was fondly known was an academic god for many young scientists like me. This astonishing record of achievement may have been due to his phenomenal ability to piece together new ideas using information garnered from disparate fields of study.

Big insights from small subjectsIn 1982 I cautiously sat down next to the great man during a break at a small conference on social insects. He turned, extended his hand and said, Hi, Im Ed Wilson. I dont believe weve met. Then we talked until it was time to get back to business.

Three hours later I approached him again, this time without trepidation because surely now we were the best of friends. He turned, extended his hand, and said Hi, Im Ed Wilson. I dont believe weve met.

Wilson forgetting me, but remaining kind and interested anyway, showed that beneath his many layers of brilliance was a real person and a compassionate one. I was fresh out of graduate school, and doubt that another person at that conference knew less than I something Im sure Wilson discovered as soon as I opened my mouth. Yet he didnt hesitate to extend himself to me, not once but twice.

Thirty-two years later, in 2014, we met again. I had been invited to speak in a ceremony honoring his receipt of the Franklin Institutes Benjamin Franklin Medal for Earth and Environmental Science. The award honored Wilsons lifetime achievements in science, but particularly his many efforts to save life on Earth.

My work studying native plants and insects, and how crucial they are to food webs, was inspired by Wilsons eloquent descriptions of biodiversity and how the myriad interactions among species create the conditions that enable the very existence of such species.

I spent the first decades of my career studying the evolution of insect parental care, and Wilsons early writings provided a number of testable hypotheses that guided that research. But his 1992 book, The Diversity of Life, resonated deeply with me and became the basis for an eventual turn in my career path.

Though I am an entomologist, I did not realize that insects were the little things that run the world until Wilson explained why this is so in 1987. Like nearly all scientists and nonscientists alike, my understanding of how biodiversity sustains humans was embarrassingly cursory. Fortunately, Wilson opened our eyes.

Throughout his career Wilson flatly rejected the notion held by many scholars that natural history the study of the natural world through observation rather than experimentation was unimportant. He proudly labeled himself a naturalist, and communicated the urgent need to study and preserve the natural world. Decades before it was in vogue, he recognized that our refusal to acknowledge the Earths limits, coupled with the unsustainability of perpetual economic growth, had set humans well on their way to ecological oblivion.

Wilson understood that humans reckless treatment of the ecosystems that support us was not only a recipe for our own demise. It was forcing the biodiversity he so cherished into the sixth mass extinction in Earths history, and the first one caused by an animal: us.

A broad vision for conservationAnd so, to his lifelong fascination with ants, E. O. Wilson added a second passion: guiding humanity toward a more sustainable existence. To do that, he knew he had to reach beyond the towers of academia and write for the public, and that one book would not suffice. Learning requires repeated exposure, and that is what Wilson delivered in The Diversity of Life, Biophilia, The Future of Life, The Creation and his final plea in 2016, Half-Earth: Our Planets Fight for Life.

As Wilson aged, desperation and urgency replaced political correctness in his writings. He boldly exposed ecological destruction caused by fundamentalist religions and unrestricted population growth, and challenged the central dogma of conservation biology, demonstrating that conservation could not succeed if restricted to tiny, isolated habitat patches.

In Half Earth, he distilled a lifetime of ecological knowledge into one simple tenet: Life as we know it can be sustained only if we preserve functioning ecosystems on at least half of planet Earth.

But is this possible? Nearly half of the planet is used for some form of agriculture, and 7.9 billion people and their vast network of infrastructure occupy the other half.

As I see it, the only way to realize E.O.s lifelong wish is learn to coexist with nature, in the same place, at the same time. It is essential to bury forever the notion that humans are here and nature is someplace else. Providing a blueprint for this radical cultural transformation has been my goal for the last 20 years, and I am honored that it melds with E.O. Wilsons dream.

There is no time to waste in this effort. Wilson himself once said, Conservation is a discipline with a deadline. Whether humans have the wisdom to meet that deadline remains to be seen.

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E.O. Wilson's lifelong passion for ants helped him teach humans about how to live sustainably with nature - Longview News-Journal