Category Archives: Transhuman News

They laugh a lot, they sing a lotalmost always in harmony, given their association with church choirsand they like to eat well and, well, eat a lot. All the Fernandeses, Saldanhas, Sequeiras, DSouzas, Goviases, Albuquerques and so many more with all those distinctively Iberian last names have enriched my life since I was a child.

Our neighbourhood, lives and food would be much poorer without the Mangys. That is the somewhat politically incorrect but droll term by which Mangaloreans, primarily of Roman Catholic persuasion, refer to themselves.

Our 12-year-olds felicity with the piano and her eight-year vocal training in a wonderful choir called the Bangalore Childrens Chorus are entirely the result of the Mangalorean Roman Catholic environment around her (the other dominating influence is Muslim, which allows her to partake not just of another marvellous set of cuisines but adapt easily to that culture as well). So, A flat and D major scales may be mysterious places for us but not for her. I am tone deaf, and her mother is given to Hindi or Urdu film songs of a certain provenance, mostly the 1950s-60sgive her a tune and she can sing the entire song, whether Lata Mangeshkar or Begum Akhtar.

But the most pernicious daily influence of the Mangys is on our food, for two reasons. One, it shares great similarities with my native Goan cuisine, but because the local stores stock Mangalorean spices and ingredients, some of which are distinct, I use them a lot. Two, there are just so many Mangy home chefs around that one cannot but help be influenced by, or order from, them.

Now, we have access to a variety of home-made cuisines, from Navayath Muslim to Punjabi to Ao Naga (and our favourite Parsi baker) but my go-to home chef is a calm Mangalorean, Lisa Govias, whose daily offerings show up in my WhatsApp almost every day.

My fridge is always stocked with her long-term offerings, including chicken, beef cutlets and meatballs, and I frequently order her specials, which range from prawn biryani to roast chicken. But her best offerings are the bafatspork, chicken and muttonespecially those made in roce, which in Konkani is coconut milk, used widely by Goans, Keralites, Maharashtrians and Mangaloreans. The bafat, or baffat, is a distinctively Mangalorean (and Goan) masala with Portuguese influences, used for meat, especially pork or dukramaas. As with so many Indian cultures, each house originally made its own bafat powder in bulk with its own mix of spices. There are now various brands available; Govias uses Savitha Bafat Powder.

Like many industrious Mangaloreans, she is so much more than her bafat. She is a baker, a Reiki and Akashic healer, a counsellor. She began baking at 7, cooking for her familymore than 25, typical of the Mangaloreansin her teens, catering for 100-plus dinners by 21. Home, she says, is where her hearth is, where five burners burn every day, fuelling her home-catering business Pepper That.

Govias doesnt offer bafat as often as I would like, so I asked for her recipe.

It wasnt nearly as good, but it was a good enough substitute. You can make bafat masala at home, using your own combination of dried Kashmiri chillies, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, black peppercorn, turmeric, cinnamon and cloves.

LISA GOVIAS MUTTON BAFAT ROCE CURRYServes 8

Ingredients1kg mutton, cut into medium pieces2 onions, chopped fine2 tomatoes, chopped fine2 medium-sized potatoes, cut into quarters2 slit green chillies1 tsp ginger paste1 tsp garlic pasteOne-third cup tamarind juiceJuice of 1 coconut (thin and thick milk) or 3 coconut milk powder sachets2 -3 heaped tbsp bafat powder3-4 cardamom pods3-4 cloves1-2 sticks of cinnamon2-3 tbsp coconut oilSalt to taste

MethodWash and put mutton to boil with water and salt for 30-45 minutes till tender. You can also pressure-cook it. Add the potatoes to parboil with the mutton about 10 minutes or so before it is done. In a vessel, heat oil, add in the whole spices, then saut the onions till they start turning brown. Add the ginger and garlic paste and fry well for a few minutes, add the tomatoes and let cook until they break down. Lower the heat and add the bafat masala. Fry for 30-40 seconds, then add the tamarind juice and mix well. Add the remaining water from the boiled mutton and let it come to a boil. Add the mutton and potatoes and let it boil for a few minutes.

You can now can add the thin coconut milk. If you are using the sachets, add one packet, mixed in one-third cup of warm water. Let it cook for about five minutes. Add in the sliced green chillies and salt to taste. Then add the remaining thick coconut milk or the two sachets mixed in warm water. Let it boil for a few minutes. Lastly, add a tablespoon of coconut oil and then take off the heat. Serve hot with rice as an accompaniment.

Our Daily Bread is a column on easy, inventive cooking. Samar Halarnkar is the author of The Married Mans Guide To Creative CookingAnd Other Dubious Adventures. @samar11

Also read | The magic of steaming food in a banana leaf

Originally posted here:
Mutton, music and those magnificent Mangys - Mint Lounge

Shobhaa De

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

I dont want to get into SRKs spitting controversy at Lata Mangeshkars funeralbut, at the risk of sounding flippant, I must say Shah Rukh Khan looked super hot with that low ponytail! That comment posted by a friend on Facebook made me revisit what I had dismissed as another nasty campaign orchestrated by Hate SRK troll armies. Let me clarify, I am neither a family friend of SRK, nor his PR manager, I am just a fellow Indian pained by what I see. This is not about SRK per se, it is about our double standards and collective ignorance as a people. The so-called spitting clips doing the rounds show SRK waiting patiently to pay his respects at Latajis funeral, small wreath in hand. Next, we see him offering prayers (12 seconds), palms open, as per Islamic practice. After that, he lowers his mask, bends low, gently blows air, replaces his mask, does a parikrama around the body, touches her feet, bows, joins his hands in a namaskar, before leaving. Both gestures reflect his heartfelt love for the legend who is no more.

Read full opinion on TOI+

Views expressed above are the author's own.

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SRK row shows how little we know about our fellow Indians - The Times of India Blog

Anti vaccine mandate protestors block the roadway leaving the Ambassador Bridge border crossing, in Windsor, Ont., on Feb. 8.GEOFF ROBINS/AFP/Getty Images

Daniel Panneton is a writer, educator and online hate researcher based in Toronto.

In their 2021 book You Are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Polarized Speech, Conspiracy Theories, and Our Polluted Media Landscape, scholars Whitney Phillips and Ryan M. Milner use hurricanes as a metaphor to explain an important dynamic of the QAnon meta-conspiracy theory.

Similar to how a hurricane can grow by consuming smaller storms, QAnon absorbed and rerouted existing conspiratorial narratives around Pizzagate and the murder of Democratic National Committee employee Seth Rich. Although each narrative was destructive in its own right, their absorption into a larger storm produced more devastating results than they would have alone. The power of a hurricane depends in part on the shape of the landscape that it hits, and in QAnons case, the COVID-19 pandemic helped shape an environment particularly vulnerable to radicalization and social fragmentation.

The United States is not the only country where the pandemic has frayed the shared sense of community and reality; Canadians are similarly vulnerable to radicalization. As with QAnon, the recent Freedom Convoy to Ottawa demonstrates how existing economic and political concerns are converging around and being sucked into larger conspiratorial narratives. Nominally protesting against vaccine mandates, the Freedom Convoy represented a medley of real, imagined and exaggerated issues bound together by a common sense of alienation and grievance. It created a context in which mainstream and fringe concerns could meld, merge and reinforce each other, and where extreme symbols and rhetoric could be normalized by association and adjacency with legitimate issues.

Marked by threats against journalists and lawmakers, the Freedom Convoy included a motley array of Western separatists, anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, antisemites, Islamophobes and other extremists. This wasnt a surprise to anyone whod been paying attention: Several of the convoy organizers have a history of white nationalist and racist activism, a fact that extremism experts such as the Canadian Anti-Hate Network emphasized repeatedly prior to the convoys arrival in Ottawa.

The Liberals should listen to their backbenchers plea to unwind COVID-19 pandemic measures

After a week of tightrope-walking, police in Ottawa must actively enforce the law

The Freedom Convoy was organized largely online, and within relevant Facebook groups there is meme after meme articulating the idea that Canada is suffering under a tyrannical government. The memes are evocative of a similar Canada is collapsing narrative that has existed for several years on the infamous 4chan, a fringe website whose cultural and political impact outweighs its relative size, and which often functions as a workshop and crucible for extremist propagandizing.

Since early 2018 there have been regular threads posted on the sites Politically Incorrect board promoting the accelerationist narrative aimed at undermining trust in existing institutions in service of societal collapse. Threads follow a similar sequence: The original poster shares images of astronomical food prices from fly-in communities or high-end grocery stores, often with comparisons to prices in other countries. Many of these images are made into memes with text such as, Canada under Trudeau. In response, other users post photographs of in-store prices from their own local stores to disprove the disinformation, often in typical online absurdist fashion alongside memes. Accusations and speculation about who is posting the fake information fly freely until people lose interest and move on to other threads. Rinse and repeat every few weeks. Repetition is key to normalization, and while a single grocery meme wont radicalize, it can contribute to a growing perception that drastic, even violent measures may be called for.

The threads have developed two functions: Spread the narrative that a collapse is imminent and promote conspiratorial speculation over who is to blame for it. Despite how often these misleading posts are disproven, such disinformation threads have been a consistent presence on 4chan for several years. They are common enough that users developed antisemitic conspiracy theories about their origins, claiming that propagandists were spreading lies to distract from imagined Jewish political machinations in Canada. The antisemitic conspiracies were then met with further antisemitism: Users posting accurate prices were accused of being part of the (made-up) Canadian Grocery Defense Force, a reference to the (very real) Jewish Internet Defense Force, implying yet again Jewish control.

There is an inherent risk in writing about hateful disinformation in a mainstream publication as it can amplify corrosive accelerationist narratives. However, when we look at existing discourse around food prices and inflation in Canada, we find that elements of the Canada is collapsing theory were already being normalized in the leadup to the Freedom Convoy.

In December, we saw a mainstream iteration of the meme on Reddit, which received a write up in the Toronto Star: A person posted a sparse grocery haul with the caption, This was $95. As with the debunking on 4chan threads, users quickly pointed out that the total had been inflated by relatively expensive items and an undisclosed delivery fee.

Elected officials have also posted similar content. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney recently tweeted photographs of empty shelves and described the situation as a crisis a move that a distribution expert said weaponized the unrepresentative images.

Although none of these examples have the same explicitly accelerationist intent as the material on 4chan, they reinforce a radicalizing narrative that is already prevalent in darker corners of the web and being normalized with troubling speed. The fact that these grievances appeared alongside other more extreme symbols at the convoy is cause for concern. The Canada is collapsing narrative has bled into the mainstream, and events such as the Freedom Convoy provide environments in which it can flourish among other conspiratorial and accelerationist theories.

Rising food costs and supply chain issues were among the legitimate issues highlighted during the protests, but panic-shopping in the early days of the pandemic demonstrated how the prospect of empty shelves can easily induce irrational behaviour. Already, right-wing extremist activity has surged and increasing numbers of Canadians are thinking conspiratorially. Trust in institutions is failing, and its vital that journalists and particularly lawmakers recognize how extremists can opportunistically redefine and hijack existing issues, and hold their peers accountable when they amplify or normalize accelerationist narratives. Failure to do so, or worse, attempting to harness and manipulate them for political gain, will only pull Canada deeper into our present quagmire.

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Opinion: The trucker convoy shows how Canadians are being sucked into larger conspiratorial narratives - The Globe and Mail

Hershey's made a major grammar mishap when they featured "she" instead of "her" in their marketing move that was noticed in a recent Twitterpost.

According to PR Newswire, Hershey's will celebrate International Women's Day on March 8 by giving out limited edition milk chocolate bars to the first 1,000 visitors at its Hershey's Chocolate World locations in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Times Square in New York City, and Las Vegas. The company encourages consumers to honor the women in their lives by "celebrating she." Twitter wasn't pleased.

Many commenters follow each other down the politically correct rabbit hole, but grammar lovers stay focused on proper English. One follower has a grammatically correct solution and tweets that the company should've gone with "Celebrate her, she deserves it." Another person, annoyed by Hershey's marketing mistake tweets, "I hope whomever botched this is really proud of sheself and/or heself," and then goes on to critique the grammar in his own tweet. Incorrect grammar or not, Hershey's has everyone talking about their chocolate bar.

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Twitter Is Calling Out Hershey's For This Unexpected Reason - Tasting Table

The content family-friendly It is relegated by some of the series that we are going to break down for you below.

In this report you will find a list of the 8 outstanding series from the HBO Max, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video platforms. They are not afraid of being politically incorrect or offending viewers.

They are series that have made black humor, the most surreal situations and total chaos their flag. Y above there is for all tastes.

You can now try Amazon Prime Video for free for one month and with no commitment to stay. On this platform you can watch series like American Gods, Hanna and Jack Ryan, as well as hundreds of exclusive movies.

In the following list you will find superhero series such as The Peacemaker or Invincible, cartoons as mythical as Rick and Morty or comic situations such as The Office.

Selection of the 8 most naughty series that you can enjoy on Netflix, Prime Video or HBO Max:

We start this list with a bang. The latest series of DC Universe from HBO Max comes with the name of The Peacemaker and it is about a spin-off of The Suicide Squad.

Created by the films director himself, James Gunnin this series John Cena puts on a costume again to play, in this case, Christopher Smith, aka The Peacemaker.

We are talking about a man who believes in peace at any price no matter how many people he has to kill to get it. This antihero faces an identity crisis as he must team up with some old acquaintances to save the world.

These elements of the argument allow to claim as a truly adult series: violence, gore, nudity, drug use, swearing, murder

On January 13, 2022, he trained on HBO Max. Enjoy it from the following link and let yourself be surprised.

Disney + continues to release news, such as its STAR channel. If you sign up for the annual subscription, you will save the equivalent of two months compared to the monthly subscription.

We continue with the superheroes. And it is that Invincible arrived at Amazon with the label of the new series based on a comic by The Walking Dead author Robert Kirkman.

We find violence as the main theme, in which the creators have not spared the least when it comes to showing it graphically and in which a parody of other superheroes with a generous amount of gore scenes.

A kid with typical day-to-day problems is our protagonist. One morning he discovers that he has inherited some long-awaited powers, so he begins to train his new abilities with his father, Omni-Man (the strongest superhero on Earth).

However, not everything is so simple. The planet they inhabit is loaded with villains willing to destroy the city every two times three. A traumatic event will completely change an entire generation.

On March 25, 2021, it arrived on Amazon Prime Video. Do not miss it and drop by the following link.

You can now try Amazon Prime Video for free for one month and with no commitment to stay. On this platform you can watch series like American Gods, Hanna and Jack Ryan, as well as hundreds of exclusive movies.

Lets tone down the amount of violence and blood a little bit and go for something different. This report could not miss one of the great comic and acid series, in turn, of history.

office focuses on Michael Scott, played by an amazing and funny Steve Carrell, who is the head of a paper company located in Pennsylvania. His personality is so characteristic that one comes to feel embarrassed to see him, but you also manage to empathize with him.

This strange boss is accompanied by his employees, who are amazed at his behavior and make fun of it more than once.

The awkward silences, the complicit looks at the camera, the joke as a resource that is in continuous loop makes this series a masterpiece. And it is that episode after episode gets you hooked and want to see more.

On March 24, 2005, this series premiered in the United States. However, and despite the fact that it is already a few years old, you can see it on Netflix. If you havent seen them yet, what are you waiting for?

The best Netflix exclusive miniseries to watch in one sitting on a weekend

Lets go with a cartoon. We already told you that there was something for all tastes. In this case we have a series by Matt Groening himself creator of The Simpsons or Futurama.

(Dis)enchantment is set in a medieval fantasy world, where the protagonist is Princess Tiabeanie (Bean), a born non-conformist, who rejects the imposed marriage to generate alliances for the kingdom, who together with her two right-hand men, Elfo and Luci, embark on a quest to get the elixir of life.

Many times it is played with black humor, social criticism, small doses of drama and a lot of hooliganismin the purest Groening style.

Has been focus of great criticism perhaps because of the high expectations that a series by this great creator can generate. However, give it a try, you have it available on Netflix.

The best series starring women from Netflix, HBO and Amazon Prime Video

Perhaps, of the entire list, it is the least known. And it is that the animated series from the creators of Gravity Falls was sneakily released on Netflix. But its really worth it.

This series was born to laugh at all the conspiracy theories that swarm with laughter when we talk about them, because here they are shown to be true.

This animated series is a satire for adults that ridicules the whole world in which nothing is what it seems. The control of the planet Earth will be in the hands of six quite strange figures and that you can see in the image that we show you.

And it is that the plot focuses on the existence of a government that acts in the shadowsdevoting himself to designing and disseminating all kinds of secret societies, cover-ups, masked orgies, making the viewer wonder how the world really works.

Well, see it through the Netflix platform.

If you like series like Friends, The Sopranos or Game of Thrones, HBO Max has these and many more in its catalog.

Happy! is a comic born from the mind of the great Grant Morrison, one of the great writers of DC. Outbreaks of hysteria, scenes of excessive violence, effects of drugs, depravity and a strong smell of whiskey is the cocktail of this great series.

As for the plot, Nick Sax is an ex-cop who is now a thug for the mob. After one of his assignments, he will suffer a heart attack because his only goal was to end his life as soon as possible based on huge amounts of alcohol and drugs.

in the ambulance will start to see Happy, a flying blue unicorn who is an imaginary friend of Hailey, a girl who has been kidnapped and who seeks Nicks help to rescue her.

The first episode is a festival of blood, violence and offal as rarely seen in a series. We can say that they put all the meat on the grill. In the following ones, they will gradually delve into the dark psyches of the main characters of Happy!.

Clear up a little and enjoy it on Netflix from the following link.

The last 10 winners of the Goya for Best Film: what are they and on what platforms can you see them

The Boys was Amazon Primes big bet and they werent wrong. This series will teach us the darker side of the most beloved superheroes.

The world in which this series takes place is based on the control of superheroes by a large corporation that is in charge of their image, product and presentations at events, in addition to receiving the treatment as authentic celebrities, since their popularity is the heavens

Superheroes who lose interest in saving the world, greedy, interested, capitalistsa satire of what the Justice League could really be like if we brought it into the real world.

Were talking about a very punk philosophy, with high-quality special effects and production design, but one that also hits the nail on the head and invites us to reflect on the present in which we live and the future we want.

Dont miss it on Amazon Prime Video.

6 comedies that are shot as false documentaries and that you can find on Netflix, HBO Max, Disney + and Filmin

Last but not least, we found a mythical cartoon series that could not be missing from this list. this series It is against everything politically correct.

Rick is the perfect definition of wacko. He is alcoholic, irresponsible, but a genius. This one, who has just moved in with his daughters house, remembers that he has a grandson named Morty and decides that he will take him on all his adventures in order to turn him into another genius and prevent him from falling into the idiocy of life. father of him

This is how both will begin to live experiences through the quite bizarre galaxies.

We find all kinds of topics: alcoholism, drugs, relationships, suicide, depression, violence and, above all, black humor. So beware of the extremely touchy.

The first season came out in 2013 and has continued until 2021 with number 5. Its next season, despite the fact that it does not yet have a date, has been confirmed. Meanwhile enjoy the rest, through the following link.

Link:
8 hooligan series that you can find on Netflix, HBO Max and Prime Video - Then24

POP stars continuously shock and impress crowds at the Super Bowl Halftime Show each year.

From wardrobe malfunctions to controversial dance moves and surprise special guests, the Super Bowl Halftime Show is an American tradition that gives its 110million television viewers entertainment to talk about.

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Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J Blige, and Kendrick Lamar are set to headline the flashy gig this year and carry on the legacy of the showstopping, career-defining performances from prior years.

Before Katy Perry's 2015 halftime show at the University of Phoenix Stadium, no one could have guessed that a dancing shark could have stolen the show from the international pop star.

The iconic singer started the show with a jaw-dropping entrance on a 20-foot-tall robotic lion, followed by dance numbers and outfit changes before the show-stopping sharks appeared in a beach-themed number.

One of Perry's backup dancers dressed as a shark, deemed "left shark" by fans, became an internet sensation for dancing in a seemingly clueless manner with different dance moves than the rest of the crew.

Fireworks came during the finale as Perry was lifted at least 50 feet into the air while singing her hit song Firework.

Janet Jackson became exposed to the world in an embarrassing "wardrobe malfunction" while performing in the 2004 Super Bowl's halftime show.

Read our Super Bowl LVI blog for the latest updates

The infamous nip slip came in the middle of Jackson's performance with Justin Timberlake.

Many viewers wondered if it was a publicity stunt due to the lyrics Timberlake was singing at the time of the mishap: Gonna have you naked by the end of this song."

The Federal Communications Commission received 200,000 complaints. Broadcasters CBS attempted to cut away from the incident but were still fined $550,000.

Singer M.I.A.outraged viewers when she flashed her middle finger and mouthed an expletive during Madonna's 2012 halftime show as a guest performer.

Over 200 complaints flooded into the Federal Communications Commission, and the NFL and NBC made a public apology for the slip-up.

The singer initially called the politically incorrect gesture a "display of female empowerment through being punk rock" before claiming that it was a religious symbol after facing legal action from the NFL.

The League sought over $16million in damages from the Sri Lankan performer, but they ultimately reached a confidential settlement.

In 1989, the NFL decided on a 1950s themed halftime show for the 23rd Super Bowl.

The League hired an Elvis Presley impersonator and magician named Elvis Presto.

The man attempted to do the "world's largest card trick" while performing a song-and-dance routine while also trying to include audience participation.

The extravaganza also fell short due to technical difficulties -- millions of 3D glasses were distributed to the audience at the big game, but the glasses ended up not working.

Legendary pop star Michael Jackson opened his 1993 halftime performance at the Rose Bowl by landing on top of the stage's huge TV monitor and striking a couple of his classic dance moves before being somehow ejected onto the center of the field.

As fans were blown away and hundreds ran to greet him, the King of Pop simply stood there stoically and silently.

Jackson stood still for almost two minutes, despite only having 12 minutes to perform.

Some have called this freeze a "power move" showing off Jackson's eccentricity and his hold over people.

Jackson's performance changed the course of the halftime show by proving that a show with star power can broaden the Super Bowel's audience by attracting new viewers who wouldn't normally watch football.

In a show produced by Disney, an Indiana Jones homage took the stage for the 1995 halftime show.

A Harrison Ford impersonator and an army of male dancers wearing grass skirts danced and honored the game's trophy.

Patti LaBelle and Tony Bennett also made special guest appearances in the cringe-worthy spectacle that featured a theme park voiceover and a crowd singalong.

The promotional performance came right before the grand opening of Disney's Indiana Jones theme park ride.

Singer Diana Ross made quite an exit from the Sun Devil Stadium in 1996 while singing I Will Survive and Take Me Higher.

The 12-minute performance included four outfit changes and songs from Ross's solo career as well as from The Supremes.

Ross looked up to the sky at the end of her performance and said, "Oh my -- here comes my ride!" as the helicopter flew into the stadium.

In recent years, The Weeknd has credited the soul diva's stylish performance as his favorite halftime show.

Triple-threat Lady Gaga started her mesmerizing performance at the 2017 Super Bowl by seemingly singing on the roof of the Houston stadium with hundreds of drones forming an American flag behind her.

Gaga then jumps awkwardly from the star-spangled backdrop with her arms and legs outstretched to land in a fly system on the stage.

It was later revealed that the jump was prerecorded, but that didn't stop the hilarious moment from going viral as Gaga strikes a funny pose before jumping.

After dancing all over the stage throughout the show, Gaga ended her performance by catching a football and jumping off the stage.

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Inside the most SHOCKING Super Bowl Halftime Show moments ever from Janet Jackson to Lady Gagas drop-in... - The US Sun

MONROVIA The standard bearer of the opposition Alternative National Congress, Alexander Cummings, has said the fundamental principle of law of Liberia is being misapplied after Judge Roosevelt Z. Willie last week upheld the ruling of the Magistrate of the Monrovia City Court.

The Criminal Court A Judge compelled Cummings and co-defendants to produce a subpoenaed document listed by the prosecution as the primary evidence they intend to use in proving their charges against us.

Cummings said it sounds strange after the Judge asked he and his co-defendants to strangely and forcibly produce evidence against themselves, particularly in a trial of this nature.

He said despite the preponderance of legal citations, precedents and authorities provided to substantiate this right, including the clear and straightforward language of the 1986 Constitution of the Republic of Liberia, he and his co-defendants were surprised and disappointed by the incorrect and prejudicial ruling of the judge.

We are aware of our rights to seek a review of the ruling, including for the benefit of posterity. However, we are also mindful of the nature of our judicial system, and especially the ploy of the prosecution to seek refuge in procedural and other delays so as to conceal their obvious inability to prove the crime politically charged against us, he said.

Given all of the considerations, Cummings said, they are reviewing all of the options, promising to make a decision shortly on the way forward.

As always, we will continue to be transparent and provide the truth in this matter based on the facts, he added.

We are undeterred and remain determined to change the system and bring real change to our country for the benefit of all Liberians.

Yesterday, His Honor Judge Roosevelt Z. Willie upheld the ruling of the Magistrate of the Monrovia City Court compelling me, and my other falsely accused co-defendants, to produce a subpoenaed document listed by the prosecution as the primary evidence they intend to use in proving their charges against us. The Judge appeared to rely on the unverified and unsubstantiated claim of the prosecution that the subpoenaed document exists, and somehow came into my possession. The Judge claimed incorrectly that the existence of the subpoenaed document has not been contested.

Our appeal, which is public record, was not only based on the legal right of all defendants at trial not to be compelled to furnish evidence against themselves, but also stated repeatedly, truthfully and consistently that the subpoenaed document does not exist, and has never ever existed. As such, what never existed cannot ever come into our possession.

The rest is here:
Liberia: ANC Appalled by Judge Willie's Ruling Compelling Its Political Leader to Produce Document Listed by His Prosecutor as Main Evidence - Front...

The times have definitely changed.

I remember during the first few months of this coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic the Department of the Interior and Local Government would not allow husband and wife to ride a motorcycle together.

It was only after a public outcry that the agency had a change of heart and said couples riding in tandem were okay as long as there was a barrier between them.

Bohol Gov. Arthur Yap, with his degree in economics from the Ateneo de Manila University, even came up with a prototype for the shield.

Probably not wanting to appear politically incorrect, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority also lifted the ban against live-in partners provided that the passenger could show proof that he or she lived in the same house as the driver.

Ah, those were the days when common sense reigned supreme. Which brings me to the point of this column.

Tomorrow is Valentines Day.

You know, when many couples, married or otherwise, would go on a date at restaurants or cinemas or at the Plaza Independencia, depending on their social status, and then head on to hotels, motels or lodging houses, depending on how much money they had left, to consummate their love.

However, since we are still living amid the pandemic, theyll have to exercise extra precautions. And Im not just talking about a Durex Close Fit to avoid any unwanted, ah, accidents. They will also have to wear a face mask at all times while in public because the practice has obviously proven to be effective in keeping Covid-19 at bay.

But once in the privacy of hotels, motels or lodging houses, they can surrender to their passion with reckless abandon and give thanks to Saint Valentine for his martyrdom for allowing them a moment of amorous congress.

Theyll just have to watch out for police personnel who will be monitoring their comings and goings at these establishments.

Apparently, our men and women in blue will be on the lookout for underage girls and not male minors because its okay for the latter to have carnal knowledge, while it is strictly a no-no for the former.

Of course.

By the way, did you know that Valits okay to call him that, right?also happens to be the patron saint of epilepsy and beekeepers?

Go figure.

See the article here:
Briones: Love is in the air| SUNSTAR - SunStar Philippines

Brian Anderson: Welcome back to the 10 Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal. Joining me on today's show is Eric Kaufmann. He's an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a professor politics at Birkbeck College, University of London and the author of several books. He's been on the podcast before. His work focuses on demography, religious and national identity and cultural politics.

In a recent report for the Manhattan Institute, "The Politics of the Culture Wars in Contemporary America" he quantifies the nature and extent of the political divides over free speech, cancel culture and race essentialism in the US. It's a massive document with a ton of original research and analysis in it. And we're very glad to run a synopsis of its basic argument in City Journal and to have Eric on the podcast again, so Eric, thanks very much for joining us.

Eric Kaufmann: It's great to be back, Brian.

Brian Anderson: Your report contains some very striking findings. For instance, when they're asked what they consider the most important problem facing the United States, 10% of the survey respondents chose cultural war, cultural war issues. So political correctness, cancel culture as we've come to call it, wokeness, people falsely accused of racism and sexism. They ranked culture wars third just below COVID-19 and the economy and healthcare and ahead of other issues like immigration and the environment. So could you talk about some of the most significant top line results of your research?

Eric Kaufmann: Yeah, I mean, this is, I think quite important because there is a debate over how important the culture wars are to the average person, to the average voter. And often it's suggested that this is just something that pointy-headed academics and journalists think about or think tank people think about. And actually what this sort of analysis, which is pretty standard in political science shows is that actually these issues are now actually have quite a bit of cut through for the average voter.

If I ask sort of people, their talk issue from a list of nine baskets, one of which was about culture wars issues to do with political correctness, cancel culture, wokeness and so on. And I think you need to have as many words in there as possible to sort of trigger that association for people. And what you see is essentially for Republican voters, 50% of them ranked it as a top three issue.

And that's just below, I mean, it's somewhat below immigration, but it's above religion and moral values. It's above things like foreign policy and so on. It's quite high ranking and even for Independents about a third of them put it in their top three and for Democrats about 15%.

So this issue is now above the midpoint and it is for Republicans a leading issue. And I think that starts to mean that it's going to swing elect, it's going to start swinging elections. This is not just an intellectual consideration. So I think that was the first thing that I was really trying to establish is to use this standard, most important issue question and try and put the culture war issues, which are very rarely included. Now they have been included on the Harvard Harris poll, which I cited, which shows a pretty similar result from a longer list of 24 issues. Political correctness, cancel culture was right in the middle. So this is actually quite an important issue now for US politics.

Brian Anderson: Very interesting. In your study, you identify cultural socialism and cultural liberalism as the rival forces in our current Western cultural conflicts. So how do you define these concepts? Because they're, especially when one talks about cultural liberalism in an American context, you're using that in a slightly different way or a very different way. And what does the survey tell us about these two categories you identify?

Eric Kaufmann: Yeah, I think this is just a way of kind of making sense of all the results and putting them into a sort of larger frame. And I think what this is suggesting is that this newer, a newer culture war division is opening up that is somewhat of a shifting of the political access in American politics. And what this means is that you have on the one side, what I would call cultural liberals and liberalism used more in the sense of classical liberalism.

And this means support for due process for free speech, for equal treatment under the law, for scientific reason, scientific method, et cetera. And things which at one time might have been more associated with the left or with what Americans would think of as the term liberal, which reflects that idea of being politically on the left.

If we go back to the 1950s and 60s, for example, some of those issues are now kind of more associated with the right, something like free speech, equal treatment under the law, science and so on. So what we have is on the one side, people who are supporting free speech positions and sort of more scientifically rational positions.

And on the other side, we have what I'm calling cultural socialism, which is instead of equal treatment equality of outcome between identity groups. Instead of due process a presumption of guilt against members of an oppressor group, and also not necessarily support for the scientific method, so perhaps standpoint epistemology or feelings or other forms of knowing elevated above evidence and analytic logic.

So what we have is that juxtaposition, which I think is becoming increasingly central, and I think we'll define actually the politics of the US and other Western countries going forward.

And so instead of thinking about the Cold War, which was really a struggle between economic socialism or communism on the one hand and economic liberalism, the idea of a free market on the other, what we have is a cultural version of this Cold War, which is emerging. On the one hand, cultural freedom, on the other hand, cultural equality of outcome and protecting subaltern minorities from harm is juxtaposed against free speech and other kinds of freedoms.

So yeah, I think that's sort of how I make sense of a lot of the results is. And I think that this is going to be an emerging issue in particular because of the views of those under 30, which incline slightly more, I would argue in favor of cultural socialism than in favor of cultural liberalism.

Brian Anderson: About a quarter of Americans have had direct exposure to what we could call critical social justice ideology at work. Younger employees are most likely to have gone through various training programs in this area and support as you just suggested, what I would call illiberalism, progressive illiberalism and what you're calling cultural socialism.

Your data show that diversity training is linked both to being in favor of cancel culture and also having a greater fear of being subjected to cancel culture. So what explains that particular tension and what does this kind of youthful endorsement of what we're calling cancel culture these days mean for the future of free speech in America?

Eric Kaufmann: I think it's a very negative finding in a way for the future of free speech. It suggests there is a sort of package of beliefs, which fit under the label cultural socialism, which a large number of millennials have bought in into millennials and Gen Z. And that sort of deal if you like, that social contract is one that says, I am scared of being canceled, so I'm fearful of losing my job or reputation for something I've said online.

This is one of the questions that I put in this, and this question has been asked, a different version of it has been asked by the Cato Institute and similar kinds of findings, levels have been reported. Roughly 35, 36% of Americans are afraid of losing their job or reputation for things they've said or posted online in the past or in the present. It goes up to close to 50% amongst those under age 40, so it's higher.

But what's interesting is those younger people are much more likely to say, "Well," in fact, a majority of those under age 25 would say, "Well, this is an acceptable price. My fear of being canceled is more or less an acceptable price to pay to protect minority groups." So they're buying into an ideology, which is a pretty sort of, it's a pretty tough ideology that they're willing to accept the risk of being canceled in order to uphold what they see as social justice.

So they're buying the loss of freedom. They're willing to sacrifice their own freedom to uphold their vision of cultural socialism. And that's quite interesting to me, it kind of shows. Because a lot of the questions in the past have simply shown that yeah, people are scared of being canceled and yes, that they support free speech and they're against hate speech, but none of these questions really force people to choose and make trade offs between these values. And when you do that, what you really see is that the older generations tend to prioritize free speech over cultural socialism. The younger generations, if anything, put cultural socialism slightly above free speech.

So I think as that generation enters organizations, they enter that become the median voter. They're going to change the culture of organizations and probably even law to make it essentially to restrict free speech in the name of social justice.

Brian Anderson: And where are, I guess they're absorbing these values from their education from growing up with like-minded friends? Where is this stuff coming from?

Eric Kaufmann: Well, it's interesting. I mean, you can see the use of a lot of these critical social justice terms begins in the academy. And I've seen other data, which is not in this report, which shows that as early as the 1980s, we start to see an uptick and rise, steady rise in the use of these terms in academia.

And then sort of starting in around 2010 to 2015, you start to see what's called the great awokening, a big spike in the use of these terms in the media. And I think it's really the media, social media influencers. That's really where this influence is coming from for younger people. It's also true. They're getting it to some degree in school and they're getting it at university, but a lot of the research does sort of suggest that people's views aren't shaped that much by schooling and university.

So it's heavily through peers, which is in turn heavily influenced by social media and pop celebrity culture and so on. So I think that's, it's really that sort of elite pop culture that's kind of shaping the information environment that's giving rise to these beliefs. And of course, if you look at the views of American students as outlined in other surveys by FIRE, for example, I mean, something on the order of 70% of students think that if a professor says something that offends them people should report, the students should report the professor to the authorities.

You've got something like between 70 and 85% of students say that students who say that Black lives matter is a hate group. I think it's like 85% say that such a person shouldn't be allowed on campus to speak. You can very, very, on some questions, almost overwhelming support for the cultural socialist position. And so yeah, I think really the free speech culture as Greg Lukianoff would say is very much on the back foot amongst this generation.

Brian Anderson: Now people tend to choose where to live and work in a way that results in a significant political segregation, what you term the big sort. So according to your survey data, more than 50%, 56% of Trump and Biden voters are employed in workplaces that are dominated by people who generally share their own political views, their political tribe. And this may account for the fact that Trump voters worry about being politically discriminated against at the rate of 27%, which isn't as high as you might think it.

As those in ideologically homogeneous areas and workplaces, they're not as worried about being canceled because they're surrounded by their friends. So does this herald a future in which the only way to really obtain the freedom of speech is to surround yourself with the like-minded people? What might this imply for the nation's civic and social health?

Eric Kaufmann: Well, I think you're right that to some degree, and particularly for Republicans and Trump voters being in a milieu where I say a workplace which is majority Republican, is going to increase your freedom substantially maybe by up to 20 points. And when I say freedom, your freedom to, for example, express your political views to a colleague. That is, it's under 30% in a left leaning or yeah, left of center leaning workplaces, a Trump voter fewer than 30% would express their political views, whereas in a Republican majority workplace, 75%.

So that's a 45 point gap. If we take Biden voters in Republican leaning institutions and Biden voters in Democrat leading institutions, that gap goes from 45 points to something like 20 something point. In other words, they feel a lot less constrained. They are still somewhat constrained, but they're less constrained.

And yeah, I think the pattern of, it's like the geographic sorting, what Bishop and Cushing called the big sort where central cities and urban areas are increasingly Democrat and exurban and rural areas, increasingly Republican and congressional districts the same. That pattern we also see with workplaces so there are most Republicans are working in Republican workplaces to the extent as well, that people are older are working in smaller firms are more rural. All of those things correspond to a more Republican workplace.

And because Republicans tend to fit those categories, older, more rural, smaller size of organization, more Republican organization, they tend to be insulated to some degree from the speech restrictions and chilling effects that exist in the larger, more Democrat leaning organizations. Now, what that means, one of the things that that means is that this is actually, we saw that statistic about 36% of both Biden and Trump voters saying they're worried about being fired or having their reputation lost due to things they posted.

It's not a difference between the two sets of voters. And I think one of the reasons for that is because Republicans are somewhat insulated in workplace that very only about a quarter of them work in Democrat majority workplaces. And so for that reason, I think, there's a big debate over how, again, how important is cancel culture and the culture war?

I think it's less important than some think, particularly those of us who work in heavily left-leaning sectors such as academia or media. We think that everybody feels what we feel and I don't think that's actually correct. I think to some degree, the skeptics are right, that a lot of Republicans are insulated from cancel culture to some degree, but on the other hand, 36% of people worrying about their jobs is also quite a significant number, and just for reference in certain sectors. So for example, amongst Trump academics fewer than one in 10 would actually reveal their political views to a colleague. So in some sectors, there is a very high degree of self censorship, but in general, more Republicans are, because they're working in Republican workplaces they're not as chilled. They're expression is not as restricted as it might otherwise be and that might be one of the reasons why personal experience of being canceled is not really a very good predictor of the vote in this sample.

Brian Anderson: Your report is based on original data from a large scale survey. It provides a kind of grounding for some of the more philosophical discussions about the culture wars, which have really, of course been going on for decades now. What in your view should lawmakers and politicians take away from this research and more specifically, what kind of recommendations that the policy or political level do the results you've uncovered council?

Eric Kaufmann: Yeah, I mean, I asked quite a number. I polled quite a number of policy questions as well. And what you really see is more people support restrictions on, for example, university's ability to fire professors for politically incorrect speech, or even the ability of tech firms to sort of ban people for legal speech. I mean, those sorts of things if you look at the data, more people would support government regulations preventing that kind of behavior by these organizations that are either public or monopoly.

So that's one public policy takeaway. I mean, here in Britain, we have the Academic Freedom Bill, which again, would very strongly regulate university's ability to engage in those actions. So that seems to have support. The other thing in terms of political diversity, I asked about academia and media, which have both gone from a ratio of about one and a half left to one right in the mid sixties to about between four and six to one left to right today.

And what you saw was kind of bipartisan consensus that actually in favor of as much, if you like emphasis on political diversity as on racial and gender diversity. So as, or more emphasis should be placed on political, getting more political diversity as is placed currently on gender and racial diversity in academia and the media, so that got bipartisan support.

And again, so there's some indication in both the regulation of organization's ability to cancel and also support for political diversity alongside, that you should be emphasizing political diversity as much or more than race and gender diversity in these organizations. I mean, that was getting much more support than the other. And I think that's kind of telling because these are both directions that I think in my view anyway, I think that governments need to be moving in because I guess I'm less of the view that the marketplace is going to sort of drive out the universities that are canceling people and support the universities that back free speech.

I'm more skeptical that that process can happen in a lot of spheres in society. I'm sort of more of the view that governments need to take an active role in regulating what certainly public institutions are allowed to terms of canceling and disciplining people for speech or some of the equity and diversity policies, which pay absolutely no attention to viewpoint diversity allow for political discrimination and only focus on race and gender. So I think those takeaways, I think, are important for policymakers.

Brian Anderson: Yes, I remember we discussed some of these issues the, the last time you were on 10 Blocks. A final question. The report's been out for a little bit now. I'm wondering what kind of feedback you're getting, what kind of reaction it has provoked? What has the social media response been like?

Eric Kaufmann: Yeah, I mean, I think that the City Journal piece certainly got picked up very widely and commented upon. And I think that was sort of the, that piece, which was really talking about the idea that cancel culture is not going away. That actually we're just at the beginning because the younger generation is really significantly more supportive of cultural socialism and less supportive of cultural liberalism that we need to be prepared for a future in which there is much more of a battle over the entire liberal system which underpins the law, that that is actually something that we're going to have to fight for.

And I think that is sort of something that got picked up the most and people commented on the most. I didn't get a whole lot of pushback. I mean, there is always the game of trying to interpret the meaning of words like free speech that people who are kind of more of the cultural socialist bent will try and interpret liberalism as meaning smuggle in a lot of egalitarianism.

In other words, well, if people don't feel safe, then they don't feel free, therefore we have to prioritize safety of minorities over the freedom of majority. I mean, that kind of logic, which I think is actually a distortion of the meaning of the terms liberalism and so on.

So I think actually that is the only push back I had but I wouldn't say that there's been a ton of pushback and also likewise, the findings that, and which we didn't go into as much, that these issues split left wing or Democrat voters and unite Republican voters, meaning that this is a very good wedge issue for the Republicans and a very dangerous issue for the Democrats. I think that also has not received a great deal of pushback. So I guess broadly I'm encouraged by that. I haven't heard a whole lot of arguments trashing it, so I guess that's a good thing.

Brian Anderson: Okay. Well, that's good to know and it's really a terrific piece of work, Eric. It's called, the report is called "The Politics of the Culture Wars in Contemporary America." Very interesting discussion today. Don't forget to check out Eric Kaufmanns's work on the City Journal website, http://www.city-journal.org. Will link to his author page in the description, and you can find all sorts of fascinating material there.

You can also find City Journal on Twitter @cityjournal and on Instagram @cityjournal_MI. And as always, if you like what you've heard on today's podcast, please give us a nice ratings on iTunes. So Eric, great to have you on again, and thank you very much for your time today.

Eric Kaufmann: Thanks very much, Brian.

Read this article:
The Future of the Culture War - City Journal

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