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Youre such an a------. Larrys ex-wife to Larry in the Season 10 premiere of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Larry David is the worst.

THE WORST.

And in the premiere episode of the 10th season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, David acknowledges the love/hate relationship he has with his fans in a meta-fashion that would annoy the hell out of Larry David.

What a jerk.

Over the course of 10 seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO, spread out over some 20 years, David has created the most lovable misanthrope this side of the entire Seinfeld gang he co-created with Jerry Seinfeld.

Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season 10, Episode 1: 3.5 out of 4

The exaggerated version of Larrys real life has proven to be fertile ground for one of the greatest comedy series of the 21st century.

In the kickoff episode to the new season of Curb, Larry stars in a kind of greatest hits tribute to the show, as he offers a medley of offensive opinions in rapid-fire fashion.

My husband is African-American, says a white woman, and Larry calls her out, saying, You like saying that.

Observing a pregnant woman working out, Larry says, Youre jostling the fetus.

In order to avoid having lunch with television showrunner and liberal activist Phil Rosenthal, Larry wears a MAGA hat.

In the meantime, a slimmed-down, bearded Jeff all of a sudden happens to look just like Harvey Weinstein, which makes for some horribly uncomfortable situations.

Not that Larry cares. As ever, hes all about Larry.

The Season 10 premiere also includes myriad callbacks and tributes to previous recurring characters and storylines, delivered in a way only Larry David can deliver. Every moment of this episode is a kind of reward to those of us who have been there from the beginning.

Curb premiered with an hourlong mockumentary special on Oct. 17, 1999. The official debut of the episodic series was on Oct. 15, 2000, with The Pants Tent, which set the tone for the show when Larrys trousers bunched up in a way that made it appear as if he was enthusiastic in public.

The Season Eight finale aired on Sept. 11, 2011 the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, and just the kind of thing that would make for an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. It was a typically politically incorrect show, with Larry leaving New York City for Paris and immediately getting into a confrontation with a local over his sloppy parking job.

After a six-year hiatus, Curb returned for a ninth season in 2017 and now, a little more than two years later, its back for a 10th and final season.

Unless of course Larry decides to do another season or 10 at his convenience.

The rest is here:
Curb Your Enthusiasm review: Season 10 brings the best of the worst of Larry David - Chicago Sun-Times

As you enter the supermarket, an immaculate, beautifully dressed child approaches you with a smiling, pleading expression. You stop.

Please, she says, puppy dog eyes cast upward. Would you buy some Girl Scout cookies?

Its the third time today. You guess youll take four boxes.

So goes it this time of year, every year, from January through February. It is Girl Scout cookie season, when little girls in neighborhoods and in front of supermarkets and stores become junior entrepreneurs.

They will swarm you to sell a $5 box of Caramel Chocolate Chip, Caramel DeLites (Samoas), Girl Scout Smores, Lemonades, Peanut Butter Patties (Tagalongs), Peanut Butter Sandwiches. Shortbreads (Trefoils), Thanks-A-Lots or Thin Mints, and you will buy.

Look for Girl Scout cookies to be sold in front of grocery stores in January and February across the Space Coast.(Photo: JOE LAMBERTI/COURIER POST-USA TODAY NETWORK NJ)

There is nothing like Girl Scout cookies, and it has been that way since 1917, when a troop in Oklahoma baked and sold cookies as a service project.

Now about a million Scouts sell more than 200 million boxes of cookies every year, according to USA Today, and the kids who plead with you at the doors of Walmartand Publixmanage an $800 million business. What is taken in by Girl Scouts of Citrus (Citrus Council) stays within Girl Scouts of Citrus.

Its pusher, I mean Girl Scout cookie time, Peccina Pontremoli, a member of FLORIDA TODAYs Facebook group, 321 Flavor: Where Brevard Eats, said with a laugh. It really is (addictive). I'm over here like, I've been doing so good on my losing weight, new year, new year new me! And then they show right back up. Ha ha ha!

Girl Scout cookies have been an annual tradition since 1917.(Photo: JOE LAMBERTI/COURIER POST-USA TODAY NETWORK NJ)

Chef, former restaurant owner and consultant Kathy Fridl takes her love of the sweet treats to another level.

You know you're an addict when you have the Girl Scout cookie app on your phone, she said.

Ive got boxes and boxes at home to sell, said Girl Scout mother Suzan Marie. I never knew how crazy people are about these cookies.

Lindenwold Girl Scout Bryana Turner has been selling Girl Scout cookies for 10 years. Now she has her photo on the Shortbreads package. Cherry Hill Courier-Post

What cookies appeal most to Brevardians? If the 19,700-plus members of 321 Flavor are representative, Thin Mints are No. 1 by a large margin.

I cant bring them into the house, Linda Pincheck said.

OMG, I pig out on those Thin Mints, Dolores McGlone Ryan wrote. Love them!

Second most favored are Peanut Butter Patties, otherwise known as Tagalongs: vanilla cookies topped with peanut butter and coated with chocolate.

Oh, the ones with the peanut butter! Lauris Cady wrote.

Peanut Butter Patties, chilled in the refrigerator and accompanied with a glass of Guinness Stout. Really. Try it, longtime radio man and member Gregg Wiggins added.

Third on the list, and not by much, are Caramel DeLites, the treats otherwise known as Samoas: cookie rings topped with caramel, coconut and stripes of fudge.

Samoa is the queen of all cookies, Robyn Green wrote.

Caramel DeLites, Joan Cerow Berrios said. Ive got mine stashed.

In fourth place among Brevardians are Lemonades, lemon-iced shortbread cookies, and Chris Romandetti is adamant about their goodness.

Lemonades: They are really underrated, he wrote. I mean Thin Mints and Samoas are good, but they are way overhyped, in my opinion.

Lemonades! added Elizabeth Weber Hermann. Can't buy them because they disappear before I can get out of the car.

Fifth are Thanks-A-Lots, shortbread cookies spread with fudge that bear the message Thank You in one of five languages. Rumor is, this will be the last year for the popular cookies

(We like) Thanks-A-Lot, but I was told by my dealer they didn't have them this year. Is everyone out? Kate Bell asked.

Incorrect, replied Kurt NgSaye. They do have them this year. I have some if you need them.

Brian Bomser is among the many who see Girl Scout cookies as keys to good recipes

Roast a marshmallow in the firepit you hastily put together last night cause it's cold, then put said roasted mallow between two Thin Mints. Enjoy one of the best s'mores you'll ever have, he wrote. Don't have Thin Mints? Substitute whatever non-sandwich Girl Scout cookies you have on hand. Samoas (aka Caramel DeLites) and Thanks-A-Lots also work quite well.

According to the Girl Scouts, Each Girl Scout council chooses a licensed baker, either ABC Bakers or Little Brownie Bakers. A cookie may be called Trefoils when baked by one baker and Shortbread when baked by the other. The two cookies look and taste similar, but the name of the cookie and the recipe may be different. The exceptions are Thin Mints and Girl Scout Smores, which are names used by both bakers. Even if Girl Scout Cookie names are the same, the recipes may differ.

Regardless, they are beloved.

Would it be politically incorrect to say that none is my favorite? asked non-cookie-lover Glenna Smittle Thomas. But I will buy some anyway.

Do you want to know where you can get Girl Scout cookies? Get in the conversation. Go to facebook.com/groups/321FlavorWhereBrevardEats.

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It's Girl Scout cookie time on the Space Coast; here's a look at our five favorites - Florida Today

Phil Collins recalled telling Pete Townshendhed quit Genesis in order to replace the late Keith Moon in the Who.

By the time he made the offer, Kenney Jones had already been hired as the Whos new drummer despite his initial reservations meaning Collins missed out. In the same interview with Classic Rockmagazine from 2017, Collins also recalled how he missed out on appearing on asong with George Harrison, which later resulted in the ex-Beatle playing a complex practical joke on him.

I played Uncle Ernie in Tommy[in a 1989 concert with the Who], which I loved doing, though it was very politically incorrect playing a pedophile, Collins said. But it was greatbecause I was with the Who. I was working with Townshend just after Moon died [in 1978], and I said to him, Have you got anybody to play the drums?Because Id love to do it. Ill leave Genesis. And Pete said, Fuck, weve just asked Kenney Jones.Because Kenney Jones, unbeknown to most people, played on stuff when Keith was too out of it. He was far too polite for the Who. But I would have done the job. I would have joined them.

Collins also remembered being asked to play bongos on Harrisons 1970 song All Things Must Pass. He found the experience so stressful that he resorted to cadging cigarettes off Ringo [Starr], even though he didnt smoke. By the timeCollins was asked to record his part, hed been playing the unfamiliar instrument for two hours.

"Everybody laughed, but my hands were shot," he recalled. "And just after that, they all disappeared someone said they were watching TV or something and I was told I could go. A few months later I buy the album from my local record shop, look at the sleeve notes and Im not there. And Im thinking, There must be some mistake! But its a different version of the song, and Im not on it.

Years later,Collins was told by race-car driver Jackie Stewart that his friend Harrison was remixing All Things Must Pass. "He said, You were on it, werent you?" Collins explained. "And I said, Well, I was there. Two days later, a tapes delivered from George Harrison with a note saying, Could this be you?

I rush off and listen to it, and straightaway I recognize it. Suddenly, the congas come in too loud and just awful. And at the end of the tape, you hear George Harrison saying, Hey, Phil, can we try another without the conga player? So, now I know they didnt go off to watch TV. They went somewhere and said, Get rid of him,because I was playing so badly.

Collinssaid Stewart called andtold him, "Ive got someone here to speak to you, and puts George on, and he says, Did you get the tape? And I said, I now realize I was fired by a Beatle. And he says, Dont worry, it was a piss-take. I got Ray Cooper to play really badly and we dubbed it on. Thought youd like it! I said, You fucking bastard!

Reflecting on the amount of effort Harrison out into the practical joke, Collins concluded, It was lovely, wasnt it?

See the article here:
Phil Collins Recalls Offering to Quit Genesis to Join the Who - kool1079.com

Reply to @MaxBnb:Hi Max. You are correct. A Milankovitch warming cycle began 18000 years ago. At that point, there was a mile of ice over New York. This warming progressed and peaked 10000 years ago. At that point the ice had melted back to roughly where it is today.

I have talked about Milankovitch cycles many times on this blog.

Of course every warming cycle ends and a new cooling cycle begins.

We have been in a cooling cycle for about 6000 years now. This cycle should continue for another 80000 years (give or take 10000).

You can see it in the long term average temperature records. The worlds average temperature was on a long slow decline for 6000 years. You can see that in the chart that Scoot provided earlier.

If it wasn't for man, the temperature would continue to decline for another 80000 years due to this natural cycle. The glaciers would grow, and 80000 years from now there would be another mile of ice over New York.

But that all changed when man began deforestation, agriculture, and producing greenhouse gasses like CO2 and CH4.

As a result, in 200 years we have completely reversed the previous 6000 years of cooling.

Which would be okay if could figure out how to stop it before it becomes a serious problem.

You are partly right when you say some of the warming was good. If it wasn't for mans influence, , the planet would be a bit cooler now, heading towards much cooler in the future.

The reason why man made global warming is becoming bad, is because the changes are so rapid. I know that 200 years sounds like a long time, but nature is used to those changes taking place over 6000 years.

Plus, the changes are accelerating. Nature can respond to long slow changes, but struggles to adapt to fast changes. That is why we are losing so many species to extinction. Every single day the planet loses 150 species of plant, bird, animal, insect, fish, amphibians etc to extinction.

You are also correct when you say it has been much warmer (and much cooler) in the past. The reason you know this is because of science. Scientists can explain the entire 4.5 billion year history of climate on earth. They can tell you when it was warm, when it was cool, and why. They can identify every single time ice was over New York. They can tell you when there was no ice at all and why. When there was no ice, the oceans we're 600 feet higher, by the way.

So you rely on science to tell you about past climate, yet you reject science when it tells you about climate today and where it is going.

I appreciate that you decided to talk about the science.

Please continue this discussion. Tell me where I am wrong. Tell me where I am right. But please show me some science to back up your claims.

Thanks.

Realist

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Greta to the World: Immediately and Completely Divest From Fossil Fuels - MishTalk

by Dr Fred Kniffin, former president of Porter Medical Center In late November, I was interviewed by a reporter who asked for my perspective regarding the topic of hospital consolidations, and to discuss some national studies that indicate that hospitals coming together means higher prices for patients. The reporter wanted to hear about Porters experience as an affiliate of the UVM Health Network since we joined the Network in early 2017.

I am not a healthcare finance expert nor a student of national trends. I am, however, intimately familiar with our finances here at Porter and what is happening locally and in our region.

Each of the three years since affiliation, Porter has had a zero percent increase in price for patients. The rates that we have negotiated with third-party insurance payers have been in the range of 2.5% to 3% well below the rate of medical inflation. Our budget, which includes both the Price and Rate, has been within the guidelines laid forth by the body charged with containing health care cost in Vermont, the Green Mountain Care Board. I cannot prove that a 0% price increase is a direct consequence of affiliation but I am confident that our relationship within the UVM Health Network played a significant part. So, from a Porter perspective, the premise of the interview did not align with our actual experience.

To be sure, driving down the cost of healthcare for patients is essential and is in fact a strategic priority of the UVM Health Network. Porter is a Critical Access Hospital leader in payment reform initiatives and in the efficient delivery of clinical services, and we are proud of that. But there is even more to affiliation than dollars and cents.

Porter has been an independent, nonprofit healthcare organization since our beginnings in 1925. William Henry Porter, a trustee of Middlebury College, established Porter Hospital as a resource to provide much-needed medical care for the citizens of Addison County. We were an independent hospital for more than 90 years and the decision to give up our independence and join UVM Health Network was not taken lightly. On the contrary, we went through an extensive and inclusive process, engaging our staff, providers and community. In the end, we determined that affiliation, rather than independence, would provide three key benefits to the people we serve: improve local access to necessary healthcare services, improve integration of healthcare services in our region and improve clinical facilities for our patients. Two and a half years into our experience as a UVM Health Network affiliate, we are recognizing progress on all three fronts.

With regard to access, simply maintaining access to services in a small community hospital is a challenge. Keeping the doors open and the lights on is not a simple task. There are eight critical access hospitals in Vermont and most are facing serious financial challenges, most notably Springfield Hospital. And yet since affiliation, we have lost no clinical services and have actually added or expanded services while meeting our budget targets. We have been able to leverage UVM Health Network expertise in palliative care to bring this important service to our community. Also, many Addison County patients were traveling to Burlington for cardiac rehab or simply forgoing this important care. Working with our Network cardiology colleagues, we have built a successful cardiac rehab program here, locally. We have added a new ExpressCare service and are exploring Telemedicine initiatives for primary care. Losing a specialty physician a surgeon or a cardiologist on short notice can be devastating to a community hospital and its ability to serve its community. The Network has worked with us to fill these sorts of needs faster than we could do it alone.

In terms of clinical integration, until very recently the average complex patient in Addison County had five separate medical records an ER record, a Porter Hospital record, a provider office record, a record at Helen Porter and a record at the UVM Medical Center and these records did not communicate. This is not an uncommon scenario for a community hospital, but the fact that it is common does not make it right. We are currently implementing the Epic electronic health record, and going forward, our patients will have one medical record providing seamless communication between various sites of care. The benefit this advance provides for patients cannot be overstated and we could not have done this without Network support.

Additionally, the UVM Health Network made it clear to us that if they were going to put their sign on our door, our patient care facilities need to be respectable and we want great facilities for our patients. Since affiliation, we have worked together to create a Master Facility Plan for our Porter campus to address our most pressing facility upgrades together in the coming years.

The last point I will make is in regard to the efficiencies we have gained at Porter through affiliation. We have saved significant dollars on medical supplies through Network purchasing. We share back office administrative functions in a way that allow us to have lower, not higher, administrative overhead. The savings go to our bottom line, allowing us to reinvest in our people, our facilities and our clinical services. We are a more stable organization our entire community is more confident we will be here to provide crucial healthcare services when the need arises.

As stated earlier, Porter joined UVM Health Network in 2017 to improve access, integration and facilities for our patients. This will sound politically incorrect, but it is true we did not affiliate to simply reduce the cost of healthcare. But now that we are part of the Network, I can say that focusing on the cost of healthcare is a top Network priority. We understand the spiraling cost of care is unsustainable. We are committed to driving cost down through collaboration and efficiencies.

I cannot explain why our experience here in Addison County with affiliation is not the nationwide experience. Is it because we are nonprofit? Is it because what we are doing here in our region is on a smaller scale? Many think of the UVM Health Network as a behemoth but in reality, compared to national health care systems, we are small. The UVM Health Network is our local effort to create efficient, high quality, integrated care locally, Vermont-style, and avoid national chains. Is the national data based on mergers and not affiliation-type relationships? Im just not sure. But of this I am sure as a result of the affiliation with the UVM Health Network, we are providing better access to care for our community, integrating care and stabilizing our finances. And the data shows that these benefits are coming at no additional cost to our patients. As a Network, we are stronger together and better able to meet our mission of improving the health of our community.

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Kniffin: UVM Health Network affiliation boosting Porter - Vermont Biz

(l to r) Anna Kostakis and Nikita Burshteyn in Romeo and Bernadette. (Photo: Russ Roland)

By Samuel L. Leiter

With a radical revival of West Side Story just over the Broadway horizon, it seems like hubris to challenge that musicals updated take on Romeo and Juliet with yet another one. But thats just what producers are doing in Romeo and Bernadette: A Musical Tale of Verona and Brooklyn, a far-too-cheesy slice of Italian-American stereotypes set primarily in 1960 Brooklyn and featuring a score based on classic Italian tunes. (In one of the best comic moments, though, it also gives a nod to West Side Story.)

Youd think that, by now, it would be politically incorrecteven in a spoofto keep harping on the mobster connections and ethnic patois of people baked in the same brick oven that produced the The Sopranos, the Coppola and Scorsese movies, Jersey Shore, and countless others. That, though, is the raison dtre of Romeo and Bernadette, which, despite a few chuckles and some quality singing, is trite, clichd, and nonsensical, offering little of value to the recipe. Serrano, a Los Angeles show that tried the same thing with Cyrano de Bergerac, was only marginally better.

The inane premise begins within a framing device in which a slick Brooklyn guy (Michael Notardonato, shadowing John Travoltas Tony Marino) struggles to impress his English-major date (Ari Raskin) by sitting through a community theater production of Romeo and Juliet, singing:

I know the show ends with disas-tuh.But cant they do disastuh fastuh?

Hoping to lure her to his place, he tells her theres more to Shakespeares story that she doesnt know, thus launching the show within a show. In it, Brooklyn girl Bernadette (Anna Kostakis, the Juliet of the opening scene), visits Verona with her father, a mini-Don Corleone named Sal Penza (Carlos Lopez), and her beehive-coiffed mother, Camille (Judy McLane). The Romeo of Scene One (Nikita Burshteyn) spots her, falls in love, and follows her to Brooklyn, dressed in his Shakespearean garb and spouting ear-wrenching pseudo-Elizabethan dialogue. (The rationale? Dont ask me.)

There ensues a ridiculous series of events as Romeo, wooing Bernadette, contends with his nasty love rival, Tito Titone (Zack Schanne), while getting involved in a gangster-family feud between Bernadettes father and Don Del Canto (Michael Marotta). Del Cantos son, Dino, portrayed by the storytelling guy, becomes Romeos mentor in how a Brooklyn guy speaks and acts, while himself pursuing Donna Dubechek, played by the English major actress.

Threats, violence, guns, and romance give way to familial rapprochements and a wedding. After two hours of farcical idiocy, the action returns to the original girl and guy, the latter now ready to explain Hamlet to his date.

The cast of Romeo and Bernadette. (Photo: Russ Rowland)

Justin Ross Cohens menza menza direction and choreography do little to elevate the show. His actors are all game but, with a couple of exceptions, like Ari Raskins Sandi, few carry off the Bensonhurst accents and swagger without strain. Several sing better than they act. Nikita Burshteyn, a handsome young tenor, has a lovely voice, but hes unlikely to be cast as Romeo in a serious production.

If youre familiar with the melodies of Cannio, Falvo, Tosti, Giordani, Rossini, Bellini, and others, youll appreciate how theyve been transformed into period-appropriate pastiches, fitted by Saltzman with lightly amusing lyrics. The music can be distracting, however, as when I kept trying to nail a particularly catchy tune called Theres Moonlight Tonight over Brooklyn. Only after I finally remembered it as 1948s much-recorded Youre Breaking My Heart did I learn of its origin as an early 20th-century tune by Ruggero Leoncavallo.

Walt Spanglers abstract, one-set-serves-all design of white piping satisfies except for when a black curtain is clumsily introduced to separate one locale from the others. Ken Billington adds bright colors to the cyclorama, and Fabio Toblini and Joseph Shrope dress the actors with 1960 flair. But the zippers on Romeos boots are as anachronistic as Dinos use of Guido.

Even granted some license, Romeo and Bernadette never justifies its lapses. This show is just asking to be whacked.

Romeo and Bernadette: A Musical Tale of Verona and BrooklynAmas Musical TheatreA.R.T./New York Theatres502 W. 53rd Street, NYCThrough February 16

Samuel L. Leiter is Distinguished Professor Emeritus (Theater) of Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. Sam, a Drama Desk voter, has written and/or edited nearly 30 books on Japanese theater, New York theatre, Shakespeare, and the great stage directors. His reviews for 2012-2013 and 2014-2015 are available in theTheatres Leiter Sideseries on Amazon.com. For more of his reviews, visitTheatres Leiter Side,Theater Pizzazz,andTheater Life.

Married to the Mob: Romeo and Bernadette was last modified: January 23rd, 2020 by Matthew Wexler

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New Delhi: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is all set to arrive in New Delhi as chief guest for Indias 70th Republic Day. But several critics have alleged that the Narendra Modi government decided to invite Bolsonaro nicknamed Trump of the Tropics because US President Donald Trump had refused an invitation extended to him by India last year.

Bolsonaros anti-establishment populist style and social media presence has often been compared to that of Trump. Critics of the Brazilian president have pointed at how both leaders had campaigned as nationalists and focused on a deteriorating law and order situation in their respective countries.

Much like Trump, Bolsonaro also uses Twitter to make unusual and unprecedented statements. Both men have also been accused of nepotism owing to the appointment of close family members in their administrations.

The Brazilian president also has had a long history of making controversial statements. In only the last few months he has publicly insulted French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron, referred to judges of the Brazilian Supreme Court as hyenas, called the countrys top news broadcaster scumbags and dismissed the raging Amazon fires as a part of the Marxist plot.

ThePrint takes a look at the controversial life of Indias Republic Day chief guest, Jair Bolsonaro.

Also read: Brazil looks to India as trade ties with Argentina deteriorate

A former military officer, Bolsonaro came into the limelight for the first time in 1983 when he wrote an article for the Brazilian magazine Veja where he complained about lower salaries for military personnel. Although this article landed him with 15 days of imprisonment, it also helped kick-start his political career.

The Brazilian leader was first elected a legislator in 1991, but all his hopes of becoming a recognised national political figure remained elusive until 2017. So much so that when he had contested for the position of speaker at Brazils lower house, he managed to secure only four votes.

While Bolsonaro really rose as a political force in 2018 when he decided to contest the presidential elections as an anti-establishment candidate, all his years in political wilderness didnt go to waste.

Since the late-1980s, Brazilian politics was dominated by Left-leaning parties and there had been a general lack of Right-wing alternatives. In such a setting, Bolsonaro managed to develop the reputation of a conservative politician in a broadly left-of-centre political system.

A major part of Bolsonaros image as the poster-boy for Brazilian conservatism was driven by his statements, that were mostly politically-incorrect and often deemed outrageous.

In 1999, critiquing former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Bolsonaro had said that voting in the elections wont change the country. Genuine change can only come through a civil war that will kill 30,000, including FHC (Fernando Henrique Cardoso), he had said.

He had also expressed his liking for Brazils military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1964-85. Talking about the military regime, he had once said its only flaw was that the system tortured people instead of killing them.

Bolsonaro had also expressed a liking for assault and jails. In a statement made in 1999, he had said: I am in favour of torture, you know that. And the people are in favour as well.

Again in 2014, the leader had said: Brazilian prisons are wonderful placesthey are places for people to pay for their sins, not live the life of Reilly in a spa.

But some of the most controversial statements made by the Brazilian leader are on the countrys social issues. In 2003, he faced a major backlash when he told a fellow woman legislator that he wont rape her because she doesnt deserve it.

When talking about homosexuality once, Bolsonaro had said that he would not be able to love a gay son, and he would rather have him die in an accident.

But Bolsonaros statements have not been limited to just public affairs. During a 2018 interview, he had revealed that he used to spend his housing allowance as a congressman when he was still unmarried to have sex with people.

Also read: Amazons gold, military legacy fuel Brazilian President Bolsonaros rainforest rage

Much like Trump, there were expectations that after assuming office, Bolsonaro would become more presidential and adopt more moderate rhetoric. But the Brazilian president has done no such thing.

Since assuming office in January 2019, Bolsonaro has courted controversy with his statements and actions. Soon after becoming the president, he had posted some sexually-explicit pictures on social media. Later, he also posted a video on Facebook where he claimed that certain malevolent forces were trying to assassinate him.

Although the most controversial episode of Bolsonaros presidency came in the wake of the raging Amazon fires.

His government had faced international backlash for enacting policies that not only exacerbated the environmental crisis but also made managing it much harder. Amid such rising global criticism, Bolsonaro had turned down the offer of help extended by the G7 countries and blamed them for their colonial mindset.

The hostile rhetoric coming out of Brazil didnt stop here. Bolsonaro entered into a public row with French president Macron. When Macron criticised the Bolsonaro governments inaction during the Amazon fires, the Brazilian president said that France should stay out of Brazils domestic issues.

Bolsonaros aides also took on Macron Brazils Tourism Ambassador Renzo Gracie reportedly threatened to choke Macron.

Again, when one of Bolsonaros supporters posted a picture on Facebook contrasting the appearance of Macrons 66-year-old wife with the 37-year-old first lady of Brazil, the president posted a comment saying, Do not humiliate (him)man, ha ha.

The French president had reacted by calling his contemporarys comments extraordinarily rude and disrespectful.

Several major European powers had later also made an unanimous threat to wield economic punishment on Brazil, in case Bolsonaro didnt fall in line.

Also read: Citizenship law internal issue, India will deal with it in interesting way: Brazilian envoy

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Why Indias Republic Day chief guest, Jair Bolsonaro, is called Trump of the Tropics - ThePrint

Its been a busy, PC-baiting week for Laurence Fox. The actor and,ahem, singer has kept himself in the news with his crusade against woke culture. On Question Time last week, he told an audience member race and ethnicity researcher and woman of colour Rachel Boyle what is and isnt racist; then he boasted that he doesnt date woke women, enjoys drinking leftist tears, and called out black and working class actors for complaining about the industry once they're successful.

Laurence best known for playing DS Hathaway in Inspector Lewis also criticised the casting of a Sikh actor in movie 1917 as forced diversity, apparently unaware that 140,000 people from the Indian subcontinent served in the First World War.

But, as a member of the Fox Acting Dynasty including legendary agent Robin, his sons Edward, James, Robert, and next generation actors Emilia, Freddie, and Jack Laurence is hardly an anomaly. In fact, he comes from a long line of entertainingly outspoken and divisive eccentrics.

The Fox dynasty began with Laurences grandfather,Robin Fox, a dashingly formidable theatrical agent and impresario (Robin was himself the grandson of a hugely successful man Samson Fox, an industrialist and philanthropist and it was revealed on the Emilia Fox episode of Who Do You Think You Are? that Robins mother, Hilda Hanbury, great grandmother to Emilia and Laurence, was a stage performer).

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Crazy like a Fox: Laurence, James, and the history of a very un-PC acting dynasty - Telegraph.co.uk

When Bolsonaro was running for President, he had lashed out at China. However, within months of coming to power, he travelled to Beijing, signed a string of pacts and exempted Chinese nationals from visa requirements to visit Brazil. New Delhi expects that just as in Beijing, Bolsonaro will see Indias potential on his first visit.

KP Nayar

KP NayarStrategic Analyst

THERE are two reasons why Jair Messias Bolsonaro, President of Brazil, has been invited as the chief guest at the upcoming Republic Day. One, Indias once-thriving relations with Brazil hit a plateau after Dilma Rousseff replaced the charismatic Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, an acknowledged admirer of India, as Brazils President in 2011.

Bilateral engagement was reduced to platitudes and became perfunctory after Brazil was embroiled in domestic political crises leading to Rousseffs impeachment in 2016. Vice-President Michel Temer, who became President, did not share Lulas passion for engaging India, with predictable results.

The second reason for inviting Bolsonaro is that India and Brazil continue to be key ingredients in an alphabet soup of IBSA, BRICS, G-4, G-20 and many other multilateral platforms. Yet, this strength in plurilateral engagement was not matched by the substance of their bilateral relations. The hope within the Narendra Modi government is that by acknowledging Brazils special place on Indias horizon, bilateral ties, which once showed promise, can be revived.

Bolsonaro is often called the Trump of the Tropics because, like the present occupant of the White House, Brazils equally controversial head of the state can be unpredictable and capricious. Bolsonaro is not seeking to triumph in any international popularity contest. His politically incorrect positions on the environment, his dismal record in deforestation of the Amazon and his cavalier attitude to rainforest fires have made him a man whom liberals all over the world love to hate, although he has been in office only for a year.

Soon after arriving in the United Arab Emirates on a state visit three months ago, Bolsonaro, sprang a surprise when he told the UAEs national news agency, WAM, that Brazil should be considered as an Arab country. We have more than five million people of Arab descent in our country, which is more than the total population of some Arab nations.

So now, we have come to the Arab world, starting in the UAE. This is the first time I am visiting an Arab country and I am treated very well. Like Trump, whose reactions to situations are intensely personal rather than presidential, Bolsonaro continued: Yesterday, when I went to a shopping mall in Abu Dhabi, some shoppers recognised me and I felt at home.

When Bolsonaro was running for President, he railed at China. His most memorable criticism was that China was not just buying from Brazil, but buying Brazil itself. In what was meant to be a red rag aimed at Beijing, Bolsonaro visited Taipei and turned his back on China.

Within months of becoming the President, he travelled to Beijing and signed a string of agreements with China and exempted Chinese nationals from visa requirements to visit Brazil. In a complete turnaround last November, when Xi Jinping went on a return visit to Brasilia, the capital, Bolsonaro effusively received the Chinese President and announced that China is an ever greater part of Brazils future.

The expectation on Raisina Hill, the seat of power in New Delhi, is that just as in Abu Dhabi and Beijing, Bolsonaro will see the potential of India on his first visit. Policy-makers hope that he will be swept off his feet by Indias grand Republic Day parade many world leaders have in the past been impressed and that Bolsonaro will reinvigorate the bilateral relationship. If the Capitals notorious China-baiters believe that Brazil can be counted on in any anti-China alliance that they are constantly fantasising, they will be sorely disappointed.

A dose of Brazil is just what Indias frayed polity needs. Brazil has a society whose mission is to have a good time and make the most of it even in adversity: this is true of all of South America, but more so in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and other fountainheads of fun and enjoyment.

If Bolsonaros programme is not all serious business and allows for public engagements such as when George W. Bush and Barack Obama were chief guests on January 26, it will provide a welcome diversion from the fraught nerves at all levels since the Citizenship Amendment Act shut the doors on amiability, especially among the political leaders of different persuasions.

The Brazilians turned protocol on its head when Manmohan Singh and other BRIC (it was BRIC then, without the S) leaders gathered at Brasilias famed Itamaraty Palace in April 2010 for the second such summit of leaders from Brazil, Russia, India and China. There was no sit- down banquet and President Lula pulled Singh and Hu Jintao, then Chinese President, by their arms towards a long buffet table where the leaders served themselves.

Such informality, Brazilian style, helped and several contentious issues such as Irans nuclear programme and the expansion of BRIC to include South Africa were handled in a spirit of cordiality.

Similarly, when Lula visited New Delhi in November 2012 as former President to receive the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize, the then Brazilian Ambassador to India hosted a dinner at his residence to celebrate the Award. In the middle of the function, Lula went missing. Those who searched for him looked everywhere except the place where he was eventually found: the Ambassadors kitchen. There, he was found cosily chatting with the cooks and the envoys household staff, who were, of course, delighted by Lulas unconventionality.

Brazilians also have a great sense of humour, which derives from their natural joie de vivre that Indians could emulate, especially in these troubled times. A memorable recent example was when huge deep sea reserves of oil were discovered by Petrobras, Brazils publicly held oil conglomerate.

The windfall discovery led to a popular saying that God is Brazilian. So, when Pope Francis, who is Argentinian by birth, began his papacy, it was added to that wisecrack that the Pope may be Argentinian, but God is still Brazilian. That is how Brazilians deal with their traditional and historical rivalry with Argentina, not with guns or abuse. There is much to learn from Brazils experience.

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Why India is keen to bond with Bolsonaro - The Tribune

To my fellow prisoners both male and female, especially blacks of African descent. I recently read an article in Inside Voices written by Mr H Relf of HMP Oakwood. I suspect he is a sensitive person and it is quite obvious from the article that he feels for the Jewish peoples plight.

All the same, I was quite in agreement with his writings until I read that he believes its an unpalatable truth for you to accept that no group of people [s] has seen more death, torture and misery come their way than the Jews

This is complete nonsense and I am sure that this can be disputed by anyone with an open mind that know their history at all, and it is no use starting at 1406 when the slave trade per se, started to the Europeans, because the Arabs were trading in black flesh and humanity long before that date.

History teaches us that the white skinned peoples learned and decided to organise the African slave trade from the mess the Arabs were already engaged in for generations before them. By doing so, the Europeans legitimised and took it to new and higher proportions and thereby making the largest financial benefits.

History also teaches us that the Americas was built and made financially independent from the enslavement of Africans. When I say Americas, I include not only the USA but also Central, South America all the way down to Chile and the whole of the Caribbean area of the world also.

While on the subject, some of the most profitable founders of the international slave trade were the said same Jews. Yet, these same Jews have consistently claimed billions in compensation from the German state and others since 1945. In modern times the mere utterance of anything politically incorrect or even negative about the Jews is cited as anti-Semitic. Lots of people around the world are sick of the Jews crying wolf when they are systematically pursuing a case of quiet, state-sponsored, extermination of the Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The whole world watches on quietly and does nothing, says absolutely nothing. Yet, when it was 6 million Jews during the European World War the whole of the white-skinned world cried foul.

Hypocrites is what I say. These same Jews have done very little whatsoever to help and or aid their fellow Falasha Jews who inhabit East Africa, oh, but wait, they are black skinned peoples, could that be the reason, I wonder?

By the same token, the white-skinned quarter of the world that oversees this behaviour remains silent. Again, I wonder why? Could it be that colour thing yet again? Can you imagine how much compensation Africans and/or their descendants would be entitled to if only the so-called United Nations or International Court of Human Rights would act in the best interests of every nation and hear the case of the Africans in diaspora?

To give some indication of the numbers involved, between 1406 up until the abolishment of slavery per se in the Americas, there were a minimum of three-hundred-million Africans taken from the motherland to the Western Hemisphere and Europe. At the time of the abolishment of the international slave trade there were only twenty-five-million peoples of African descent alive in the Western Hemisphere from Canada down through the USA, the Caribbean, through Brazil and all the way down to Argentina and Chile.

I would also beg to differ with Mr Relf and argue that most spurious and ludicrous of reasons to hate, or worse still to enslave another race or group of human beings is the colour of their skin or the texture/look of their hair.

As to the compensation that the Jews claim as their right until the world is no longer in existence for the six-million that died in the holocaust. How about the minimum 275-odd millions of Africans that died during slavery or the European enslavement era? What exactly of their plight which is still being brushed under the carpet and is only spoken of in very quiet whispers.

Another point is, there are whole swathes of the worlds community that detest the way in which the Jews cry foul and regurgitate their anti-Semitic claims at the slightest provocation, on the slightest anti or negative comment. Yet, with the same by the same token the anti- African or anti-black position is silently pushed aside as if it is unimportant. Well, black lives matter, as do Muslim/Arab lives, or aboriginal lives, so why should only Jewish lives get compensated for?

If African lives can be laid to rest, the same as aboriginal lives have been laid to rest, then so too should the Jewish lives be laid to rest in peace and the compensation paid for this should be a peace symbol in that regard. At least the Zionist State has had recompense for their souls. Unlike the North American Indian lives, nor the aboriginal lives, nor the Arab lives and finally, nor have the 375million African lives that have not even had one penny and seem to have been lost in vain.

Peace unto all, I say. However, if Jewish lives deserve compensation then so too does every life lost deserve compensation too.

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The slave trade - InsideTime