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tinyshe · 4 years ago

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Interview with Alexander Dugin – ‘Welcome all newcomers!’

Prof. Alexander Dugin, philosopher and geopolitical expert from Russia, sees the world changing: the old liberalism is being replaced by a new, aggressive, globalist mutation. Manuel Ochsenreiter's interview with Dugin gives a fascinating insight into the globalist future.

Published: June 18, 2021, 11:42 am

Prof. Dugin, in your latest essay you wrote about “Liberalism 2.0”. Is liberalism changing?

Dugin: Of course! Every ideology is a subject to constant change, including liberalism. Right now we are witnessing a dramatic shift in liberalism. It is now becoming even more dangerous, even more destructive.

How do you even recognize such a change?

Dugin: We can observe a certain “rite of passage”. As such, I interpret the situation in which Donald Trump’s presidency culminated, namely in his fall by hand of the globalist elite, represented by Joe Biden. This is nothing more than a “rite of passage” – embodied by gay parades, BLM uprisings, imperialist LGBT + attacks, the worldwide uprising of extreme feminism and the spectacular arrival of post-humanism and extreme technocracy. There are profound intellectual and philosophical processes going on behind all of this. And these processes have an impact on culture and politics.

You write that liberalism has become “lonely”…

Dugin: Modern liberalism seems to have lost its enemies after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is fatal for this ideology, as it is primarily defined by its demarcation. In my “Fourth Political Theory”, liberalism is defined as the first theory to fight the two “main enemies” – communism (second theory) and fascism (third theory). Both had challenged liberalism: for liberalism claims to be the most modern and progressive theory. But both communism and fascism made the same claim. In 1990 communism and fascism were considered defeated.

This is usually called the “unipolar moment” (Charles Krauthammer) and it was prematurely, as we now know – even raised by Francis Fukuyama to the “end of history”. In the 1990s, however, it seemed that liberalism no longer had any opponents. Smaller burgeoning anti-liberal right, left, and “national Bolshevik” alliances were no real challenge. The absence of its “enemies” for liberalism also meant that it had lost its self-affirmation. Here we see very clearly the “loneliness”, which of course I don’t mean in a melancholy sense. Therefore, the transition to Liberalism 2.0 with a “new impetus” was almost inevitable.

How would you describe that?

Dugin: An opponent had to come back. But actually only the weak, illiberal alliances that can be described as “national Bolsheviks” were offered – even if the so-called movements themselves do not see it that way. Perhaps it is more understandable if one divides the new political camps into globalists (Liberalism 2.0) and anti-globalists. One must not forget: Liberalism 1.0 will not be “reformed”, it will also become the “enemy” of Liberalism 2.0. We can perhaps even speak of a “mutation”. Because there are also old-style liberals who are now more drawn to the camp of anti-globalists because they reject the limitless, hedonistic and total individualism of Liberalism 2.0.

So liberals against liberals?

Dugin: [laughs] Liberalism 2.0 can be seen as a kind of “fifth column” within liberalism. And the new liberalism is brutal and unyielding, it no longer discusses, it does not invite debate. It is a “cancel culture”, it stigmatizes its opponents, it excludes them. “Old” liberals also fall victim to this, as can be seen almost regularly in Europe today. Who are the victims of the “cancel culture”? Maybe fascists or communists? Most of the time it is artists, journalists and authors who have been completely in the mainstream waters – but who are now suddenly targeted. Liberalism 2.0 lets the hammer go round.

Your country, Russia, is seen today as a great opponent of globalism – especially under President Vladimir Putin…

Dugin: The resurgence of Putin’s Russia can be understood as a new mix of the Soviet-style strategy of anti-Western politics and traditional Russian nationalism. On the other hand, the Putin phenomenon remains a mystery – even to us Russians. Certainly, one can recognize “national Bolshevik” elements in his politics, but also a lot of liberal elements. Incidentally, this also applies to the Chinese phenomenon. Here we see again the special Chinese communism mixed with perceptible Chinese nationalism. The same can be said of the growth of European populism where the distance between the left and the right is increasingly disappearing to the point of the symbolic creation of the left-right alliance in the Italian government: I am talking about the agreement between the “Lega Nord” (right-wing populist) and the ��5-star” movement (left-wing populist). We see the same phenomenon prefigured in the populist revolt of the “yellow vests” against President Emmanuel Macron in France, in which the supporters of Marine Le Pen fought together with the supporters of Jean-Luc Mélenchon against the liberal center.

The “left-right” alliances you mentioned only existed for a certain period of time, often they fought each other again more than the liberal center…

Dugin: That’s a key point. Since the anti-globalist, right-left alliances are the greatest opponents of Liberalism 2.0, it must constantly fight them, keep them small and also infiltrate them. If anti-globalist left and right in Europe fight each other more than the center, then liberalism 2.0 is the laughing third party. What is more: there is even a certain tendency on the part of the fringes to make pacts with the center in the fight against the other fringe. I think you can see such a situation in all European countries. Thus, Globalism fragments the camp of its opponents and prevents a possibly powerful alliance.

What could such a “powerful alliance” look like?

Dugin: If Putin from Russia, Xi Jinping from China, the European populists and the anti-Western movements in Islam, the anti-capitalist currents in Latin America and Africa had been aware that they are opposing liberal globalism from a somewhat united ideological position and would have adopted left/right and integral populism as their basis, this would have increased their resistance considerably and even multiplied its potential. So in order not to let this happen, the globalists have left no stone unturned to prevent any ideological movement in this direction.

In your essay you refer to Donald Trump as the “midwife of Liberalism 2.0”. What do you mean?

Dugin: I have already said: a political ideology cannot exist if the “friend-foe antagonism” is erased. It loses its identity. To have no more enemy is to commit ideological suicide. So an obscure and undefined external enemy was not enough to justify liberalism. By demonizing Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China, the liberals could no longer be convincing. More than that: the assumption of the existence of a formal, structured ideological enemy outside the liberal zone of influence (democracy, market economy, human rights, universal technology, total network, etc.) after the onset of the unipolar moment in the early 1990s on a global level would have been tantamount to acknowledging a serious mistake. Logically, an enemy from within had to appear. This was a theoretical necessity in the development of ideological processes during the 1990s.

This enemy from within appeared just in time, at the exact moment when it was needed most. And it had a name: Donald Trump. He embodied the boundary between Liberalism 1.0 and Liberalism 2.0. Initially, attempts were made to establish a connection between Trump and “red-brown Putin”. This seriously damaged Trump’s presidency, but was ideologically inconsistent. Not only because of the lack of real relations between Trump and Putin and Trump’s ideological opportunism, but also because Putin himself is, in fact, a very pragmatic realist.

Much like Trump, Putin is a poll populist, and like Trump, he’s most likely to be an opportunist with no real interest in a worldview. The alternate scenario portraying Trump as a “fascist” is just as ridiculous. Because it has been used by his political rivals too often, it has caused trouble for Trump, but it has also been inconsistent. Neither Trump himself nor his staff consisted of “fascists” or representatives of any right-wing extremist tendency which had long ago been marginalized in American society and only existed as a kind of extreme libertarian fringe or kitsch culture.

How can you then ultimately classify Trump?

Dugin: Trump was and is a representative of Liberalism 1.0. If we put aside all foreign regimes that oppose liberal ideology in their political practice, there will only be one real enemy of liberalism left – liberalism itself. So in order to move forward, liberalism had to carry out an “internal cleansing”. And it is precisely this old liberalism that has been identified with the symbolic figure of Donald Trump. He was the ultimate enemy in the election campaign of Joe Biden, who stands for the new liberalism 2.0. Biden spoke of the “return to normal”. Liberalism 1.0 – national, capitalist, pragmatic, individualistic and to a certain extent libertarian – was thus declared an “abnormality”.

Liberalism focuses on individualism, that is, the individual human being. Other ideologies speak in terms of collectives like the people or the class. What does Liberalism 2.0 do?

Dugin: Right. The figure of the individual plays the same role in the social physics of liberalism as the atom in scientific physics. Society consists of atoms/individuals, who are the only real and empirical basis for subsequent social, political and economic constructions. Everything can be reduced to the individual. That is the liberal law. So the struggle against all kinds of collective identity is the moral duty of liberals, and progress is measured by whether or not this struggle is successful.

A look at Western societies shows that the struggle was largely successful…

Dugin: At that point, when Liberals began to realize this scenario, despite all their victories, there was still something collective, some kind of forgotten collective identity that also needed to be destroyed. Welcome to gender politics! To be a man and a woman means to share a collective identity which dictates strong social and cultural practices. This is a new challenge for liberalism. The individual must be liberated from biological sex, since the latter is still viewed as something objective. Gender must be purely optional and seen as a consequence of a purely individual decision. Gender politics starts here and changes the very nature of the concept of the individual. The postmodernists were the first to show that the liberal individual is a masculine, rationalist construction. Simply equalizing social opportunities and functions for men and women, including the right to change gender at will, does not solve the problem. The “traditional” patriarchy still survives by defining rationality and norms. Hence, it has been concluded that the liberation of the individual is not enough. The next step consists in the liberation of the human being or rather the “living entity” from the individual.

Now the moment is approaching for the final replacement of the individual by the gender-optional entity, a kind of network identity. And the final step will eventually be to replace humanity with creepy beings – machines, chimeras, robots, artificial intelligence and other species of genetic engineering. The line between what is still human and what is already post-human is the main problem of the paradigm shift from Liberalism 1.0 to Liberalism 2.0. Trump was a human individualist who defended individualism in the old style of human context. Perhaps he was the last of his kind. Biden is a representative of the arriving post-humanity.

So far, it all sounds like a smooth march for the globalist elite. Can one counter that?

Dugin: One cannot avoid the realization that both old-fashioned nationalism and communism have been defeated by liberalism. Neither right-wing nor left-wing illiberal populism can win the victory over liberalism today. To be able to do this, we would have to integrate the illiberal left and the illiberal right. But the ruling liberals are very vigilant about this and always try to prevent any movement in this direction in advance.

The short-sightedness of the radical left and radical right politicians and groups only helps liberals to implement their agenda. At the same time, we must not ignore the growing chasm between Liberalism 1.0 and Liberalism 2.0. It seems as if the internal cleansing of modernity and postmodernism is now leading to brutal punishment and excommunication of new species of political beings – this time the liberals themselves are being sacrificed.

Those of them who do not consider themselves as a part of the Great Reset strategy and the Biden-Soros axis, those who refuse to enjoy the final disappearance of good old mankind, good old individuals, good old freedom and the market economy. There will be no place for any of these in Liberalism 2.0.

It will become post-human, and anyone who questions such a new concept will be welcomed to the Unity of Enemies of the Open Society.

And then we, Russians, will be able to tell them: “We have been here for decades and we feel more or less at home here. So we welcome you to hell, newbies!” Every Trump supporter and ordinary Republican is now seen as a potentially dangerous person, just as we have been for a long time. So let Liberals 1.0 join our ranks! To do this, it is not necessary to become illiberal, philo-communist or ultra-nationalist. Nothing like that! Everyone can keep their good old prejudices for as long as they want. The “Fourth Political Theory” presents a unique position where true freedom is welcomed: the freedom to fight for social justice, to be a patriot, to defend the state, the church, the people, the family – and to remain a human.

Prof. Dugin, thank you very much for the interview.

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newstfionline · 3 years ago

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Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Hostile school board meetings have members calling it quits (AP) A Nevada school board member said he had thoughts of suicide before stepping down amid threats and harassment. In Virginia, a board member resigned over what she saw as politics driving decisions on masks. The vitriol at board meetings in Wisconsin had one member fearing he would find his tires slashed. School board members are largely unpaid volunteers, traditionally former educators and parents who step forward to shape school policy, choose a superintendent and review the budget. But a growing number are resigning or questioning their willingness to serve as meetings have devolved into shouting contests between deeply political constituencies over how racial issues are taught, masks in schools, and COVID-19 vaccines and testing requirements. In his letter of resignation from Wisconsin’s Oconomowoc Area School Board, Rick Grothaus said its work had become “toxic and impossible to do.” “When I got on, I knew it would be difficult,” Grothaus, a retired educator, said by phone. “But I wasn’t ready or prepared for the vitriolic response that would occur, especially now that the pandemic seemed to just bring everything out in a very, very harsh way. It made it impossible to really do any kind of meaningful work.”

California fire approaches Lake Tahoe after mass evacuation (AP) A ferocious wildfire swept toward Lake Tahoe on Tuesday just hours after roads were clogged with fleeing cars when the entire California resort city of South Lake Tahoe was ordered to evacuate and communities just across the state line in Nevada were warned to get ready to leave. The popular vacation haven normally filled with tens of thousands of summer tourists emptied out Monday as the massive Caldor Fire rapidly expanded. Vehicles loaded with bikes and camping gear and hauling boats were in gridlock traffic, stalled in hazy, brown air that smelled like a campfire. Police and other emergency vehicles whizzed by. “It’s more out of control than I thought,” evacuee Glen Naasz said of the fire that by late Monday had been pushed by strong winds across California highways 50 and 89, burning mountain cabins as it swept down slopes into the Tahoe Basin.

Hurricane Ida traps Louisianans, shatters the power grid (AP) Rescuers set out in hundreds of boats and helicopters to reach people trapped by floodwaters Monday, and utility repair crews rushed in, after a furious Hurricane Ida swamped the Louisiana coast and ravaged the electrical grid in the sticky, late-summer heat. People living amid the maze of rivers and bayous along the state’s Gulf Coast retreated desperately to their attics or roofs and posted their addresses on social media with instructions for search-and-rescue teams on where to find them. More than 1 million customers in Louisiana and Mississippi—including all of New Orleans—were left without power as Ida, one of the most powerful hurricanes ever to hit the U.S. mainland, pushed through on Sunday and early Monday before weakening into a tropical storm. As it continued to make its way inland with torrential rain and shrieking winds, it was blamed for at least two deaths. But with many roads impassable and cellphone service knocked out in places, the full extent of its fury was still coming into focus. The governor’s office said damage to the power grid appeared “catastrophic.” And local officials warned it could be weeks before power is fully restored, leaving multitudes without refrigeration or air conditioning during the dog days of summer, with highs forecast in the mid-80s to close to 90 by midweek.

Heavily armed criminal group ties hostages to getaway cars after storming Brazilian city (Washington Post) A heavily armed group of bank robbers wreaked havoc across a southeastern Brazilian city early Monday, striking several banks, setting fire to vehicles and tying hostages to their getaway cars, in an assault that left at least three people dead, officials say. Even in a country long accustomed to random spasms of violence, Brazilians reacted with shock and fear. The group stormed Araçatuba, a city of 200,000 in São Paulo state, around midnight to strike several city banking agencies. Gunshots punctured the early-morning quiet. Authorities asked residents to stay inside. Images on social media and local news reports showed at least 10 people clinging to getaway cars, apparently strapped there to deter fire from police. The hostages were reportedly released after the group escaped. The raid bore the characteristics of what criminologists have called a growing pattern: nighttime assaults on midsize Brazilian cities—often elaborate bank heists, intricately planned, well choreographed and executed by well-financed criminal groups equipped with the weaponry and gadgetry of war. The group flew a drone over Araçatuba during the raid, according to local reports, to track movements throughout the city.

EU travel restrictions (AP) The European Union recommended Monday that its 27 nations reinstate restrictions on tourists from the U.S. because of rising coronavirus infections there, but member countries will keep the option of allowing fully vaccinated U.S. travelers in. The EU’s decision reflects growing anxiety that the rampant spread of the virus in the U.S. could jump to Europe at a time when Americans are allowed to travel to the continent. Both the EU and the U.S. have faced rising infections this summer, driven by the more contagious delta variant. The guidance issued Monday is nonbinding, however. American tourists should expect a mishmash of travel rules across the continent since the EU has no unified COVID-19 tourism policy and national EU governments have the authority to decide whether or how they keep their borders open during the pandemic.

Italy’s record droughts (La Stampa) The earth is cracking in Italy’s northwest region of Piedmont: the crops and the animals suffer. Italy has been ravaged by fires and storms, like Greece, Turkey and much of Southern Europe. Italy has recorded 1,200 “extreme” meteorological events—a 56% increase from last year. Wildfires ravaged the southern regions of Sardinia, Calabria and Sicily. The town of Florida, in Sicily, is thought to have recorded the hottest temperature ever recorded in Europe: 48.8 °C. Meanwhile, heavy rainfall devastated other parts of the country. Coldiretti, Italy’s largest agricultural association, has just summed up the bill for this Italian summer: The damages to agriculture, it says, amount to €1 billion. Wheat yields have fallen 10%; cherries 30%, nectarines 40%. Tomato and corn crops have also suffered heavy losses. Giovanni Bedino, a 59-year-old Italian farmer, has been working the land since he was 15. “I love this job, but a year like this takes away your love,” he told Turin daily La Stampa. “We couldn’t water the fields and nothing came down from the sky. I remember, the summer of 2003 was a very difficult one—but it wasn’t even close to this year. I have never seen such a drought.”

In India, a debate over population control turns explosive (Washington Post) Yogi Adityanath, a star of India’s political right wing, stood before television cameras in his trademark saffron tunic and dramatically introduced a bill pushing for smaller families—two children at most. In previous decades, this measure by the leader of the country’s most populous state might have been uncontroversial. Over the past month, it’s been explosive. Critics saw a veiled attempt to mobilize Hindu voters by tapping into an age-old trope about India’s Muslim population ballooning out of control. As India barrels toward a pivotal election in Uttar Pradesh early next year, population bills introduced by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have become a new flash point in the national debate, vividly illustrating how the issues of religion and identity, spoken or implied, form the most powerful undercurrent in the country’s politics. Since 2011, when official census figures emerged showing Hindus dipping to 80 percent of India’s population compared to 84 percent in 1951—Muslims increased from 10 percent to 14.2 percent during that same period—the question of how to maintain “demographic balance” has gained urgency for the Hindu movement’s leaders. A 2016 national survey finding that Indian Muslim women had, on average, 2.6 children compared to 2.1 for Hindus provoked more concern.

North Korea appears to have restarted Yongbyon nuclear reactor, U.N. body says (Washington Post) North Korea appears to have restarted its main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon in July, a “deeply troubling” sign that the country may be on track to expand its nuclear program, according to a new report by the United Nations’ atomic agency. The finding adds another challenge to the Biden administration’s goal of denuclearizing North Korea. Although Yongbyon is not the only site where North Korea has produced highly enriched uranium, its role at the heart of Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions made the facility a bargaining chip in previous negotiations. In 2008, North Korea ceremoniously blew up the reactor’s cooling tower in a largely made-for-TV event amid nuclear talks between the United States and former leader Kim Jong Il. (A new cooling tower was built after the negotiations fell through.)

Last troops exit Afghanistan, ending America’s longest war (AP) The United States completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan late Monday, ending America’s longest war and closing a chapter in military history likely to be remembered for colossal failures, unfulfilled promises and a frantic final exit that cost the lives of more than 180 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members, some barely older than the war. Hours ahead of President Joe Biden’s Tuesday deadline for shutting down a final airlift, and thus ending the U.S. war, Air Force transport planes carried a remaining contingent of troops from Kabul airport. Thousands of troops had spent a harrowing two weeks protecting a hurried and risky airlift of tens of thousands of Afghans, Americans and others seeking to escape a country once again ruled by Taliban militants. In announcing the completion of the evacuation and war effort. Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, said the last planes took off from Kabul airport at 3:29 p.m. Washington time, or one minute before midnight in Kabul. He said a number of American citizens, likely numbering in “the very low hundreds,” were left behind, and that he believes they will still be able to leave the country. The final pullout fulfilled Biden’s pledge to end what he called a “forever war” that began in response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and rural Pennsylvania.

Afghanistan’s ‘Gen Z’ fears for future and hard-won freedoms (Reuters) Almost two third of Afghans are under the age of 25, and an entire generation cannot even remember the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until it was toppled by Western-backed militia in 2001. During that time they enforced a strict interpretation of Islamic law, banning girls from school, women from work and carrying out public executions. Since 2001, the militants fought an insurgency in which thousands of Afghans died. Since re-taking power, the group has been quick to reassure students that their education would not be disrupted, also saying it would respect the rights of women and urging talented professionals not to leave the country. But used to a life with cellphones, pop music and mixing of genders, Afghanistan’s “Generation Z”—born roughly in the decade around the turn of the millennium—now fears some freedoms will be taken away, according to interviews with half a dozen Afghan students and young professionals. “I made such big plans, I had all these high reaching goals for myself that stretched to the next 10 years,” said Sosan Nabi, a 21-year-old graduate. “We had a hope for life, a hope for change. But in just one week, they took over the country and in 24 hours they took all our hopes, dreams snatched from in front of our eyes. It was all for nothing.”

They made it out of Afghanistan. But their path ahead is uncertain. (Washington Post) As the United States winds down its evacuation operation in Afghanistan, the Biden administration is accelerating efforts to resettle Afghans on U.S. soil, where they will be expected to apply for visas or humanitarian protection that could put them on a path to legal residency and citizenship. But the chaotic nature of the enormous airlift means that much is unknown: Officials have not said precisely how many Afghan evacuees have made it into the United States or whether all will be allowed to stay. More than 117,000 people had been evacuated from Afghanistan on U.S. and other flights as of Saturday, and Pentagon officials said the vast majority are Afghan citizens. Thousands have arrived in the United States, while thousands more are waiting in “transit hubs” in Europe and the Middle East. They are a mix of brand-new refugees and families with existing immigration applications that have been pending for months or years. Where the evacuees will end up is “a hard question to answer,” said Mark Hetfield, president and CEO of HIAS, one of the refugee resettlement agencies operating in the United States. “I don’t really know where they stand,” Hetfield said in an interview. “It’s chaos.”

#headlines #news

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dreamsofthescreen · 4 years ago

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The Debate On Life in La Grand Bellezza (The Great Beauty) - Analysis and Review

“Traveling is very useful: it makes your imagination work. Everything else is just disappointment and trouble. Our journey is entirely imaginary, which is its strength.”

Toni Servillo in ‘La Grande Bellezza’

Nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Paolo Sorrentino’s ‘La Grande Bellezza’ (The Great Beauty) can be seen as a stroke of real cinematic magic. Though blunt and simple it’s premise may appear, the Italian art-drama film mostly flourishes in it’s ability to communicate a profoundly deep and educational message on humanity today. And however much of a visual spectacle that it is, it is the change in one man’s lifestyle from decadently hedonistic to lavishly inspiring sweeps us off our feet, the romance of Rome following close behind. Direction by Sorrentino and cinematography by Luca Bigazzi, this work is seeped in richness and pure emotion, leaving many critics weak at the knees. Sprinkled with history and following a poetic undertone, the opening scene quotes Celine, stating “Traveling is very useful: it makes your imagination work. Everything else is just disappointment and trouble. Our journey is entirely imaginary, which is its strength.”

Set amongst the grandeur of the eternal city, Rome, we follow Jep Gambardella - a 65 year old acclaimed former writer and socialite who lives and breathes the superficial high life. It isn’t until after his lavishly outrageous 65th birthday party that he looks past the nightclubs to look inwards and find true meaning or ‘the great beauty’. Amongst all the frivolous glory that sex, drugs and rock & roll seem to provide, Jep is searching for truth. No doubt a shockingly stunning film that can be compared to the likes of European classics, Federico Fellini or Jean-Luc Godard, Bigazzi’s cinematography tends to focus on architectural pieces, bodies and classical art, thus following the culture of Rome closely. Appearing as though audiences follow the camera themselves, some of Jep’s closest friends are seen through freely moving shots, sometimes frantically following the beat of the pulsing club music. Flowing with history, operatic passion and grand emotion, some claim that it is the visual spectacle that creates the meaning of the film, rather than the meaning itself being striking. Yet, it is the mix of visuals, plot and the great characterisation of Jep as a person, as well as his change that creates the grand interest. From technicolour rooftop nightclubs to the silent streets of the eternal city, we get differing perspectives on modern Rome, and how it blends in with it’s ancient history. Sorrentino summed up the location in all it’s grandeur by stating ‘Rome has a beauty so large that one could die from looking at it for too long’. And Sorrentino seems to even portray Jep as the human embodiment of Rome, as he lives through the city’s highs and lows. I will say that, however much Jep seeks to find ‘the great beauty’, he is still surrounded by luxurious interiors and grand Roman palaces, not exactly aligning with his growing ideals and change in attitude. As if to make a point of his attempted normality and stripping of decadence, he still walks among it many times. Yet these environments do turn into something simple like a local coffee shop or a siesta in his apartment, thus showing his change.

Often compared to Fellini’s ‘La Dolce Vita’ because of it’s similar plot, Sorrentino’s film certainly seems inspired by that, but is not just a carbon copy of it. It does stand strongly on it’s own. ‘La Grande Bellezza’ seems to be a deeper character study of Jep. There is analysis in the plot, and there is the contrast between life and death, as well as the grandeur of simplicity & nostalgia. Where Jep fits in as a real socialite, mingling with other members of high Roman society, he is the standalone character who really looks within himself, rather than only around. And the film captures a generation caught up in facades, who do refuse to look inward. Struck by the death of a lover from the past, where Jep was once running around in fame and nightlife, he is motivated to look back on simplicity, rather than the excessive. This simplicity comes in appreciating the natural beauty and culture of Rome, swapping a strip club for a quiet afternoon in a historic vineyard or museum, reminiscing on his childhood. As someone asks Jep “what is it that you love the most?”, he responds with, “the smell of old people’s houses”, commenting on something so simplistic, but still beautiful in it’s age and nostalgia. This nostalgia beckons Jep following the death of Elisa, his first and only love. However romantic this may seem, it is more so philosophical in it’s approach. Searching for more meaning, having now reached 65, he however does at times seem more pessimistic as he looks into himself, stating ‘what’s wrong with feeling nostalgic? It’s the only distraction left for those who’ve no faith in the future’. Us as an audience can view this as either something quite pretentious and negative, or interpret it as a step towards appreciating what he once had, and can work towards.

And the film itself is at times quite pretentious, but it is floating around in philosophy, and still for sure packs a punch. The philosophy is in the ever-changing time and focus on nostalgia. In a scene where Jep ends up in a plastic surgeons office, he is surrounded by old hopefuls who long for their past & get it through pricey facelifts. A scene focusing on nostalgia, the surgeon asks the woman, ‘want to go back 30 years, to when it always rained in late August?’ The bell rings, calling customers again and again, this showing the repetitive and lifeless nature of these creatures desperate for the past, with no regard for their own happiness, but have decided to instead conform. Jep often has these moments of recognising and looking past this fakery, once the curtain of his lavish lifestyle drops. In terms of Jep’s change, there is the contrast between life and death, and having reached the age of 65, some cynicism is there, but it is all a grand reflection upon his own changing desires. The change from being the king of high society to settling down as he goes through life could be seen as just an exaggerated view on what happens as we grow older, but 'La Grande Bellezza’ strategically claims it to be more than that. Set in the eternal city, Jep sees the ephemeral nature of most things. Where there is celebration of life in parties, there is also tragic death, having those festivities seem pointless. He states, ‘this is how it always ends. With death. But first there was life.’ Pointing in the direction of existentialism, this is a fairly simple statement in the blunt writing of Sorrentino, but sums up Jep’s perspective quite successfully. Where death happens every day, the eternal city that is Rome continues to go on, it being a playground for those in it during their time.

Like exchanging a stack of cash for a chocolate gelato, the debate about what is most beautiful in life is subjective, but mostly easy to answer. This being love, family, cherished moments and happiness. Sorrentino’s film creates such a contrast between two great beauty’s, focusing on the lightheartedness and meaninglessness of life as something so grand, as opposed to the glamorous and superficial. This fairly simple point is communicated with wonderful execution, gripping audiences onto every moment and person that Jep encounters. The writing style and expression of the film itself is quite blunt, yet I so appreciated this & found that it only kept it more realistic. Seemingly straightforward in it’s approach, this bluntness did mean that emotions don’t flow as freely you’d expect and are not visibly fluctuating or dramatised.

Something important to note is that Sorrentino’s film is not only a comment on one mans story, but of course society today. He may have been trying to paint a picture of the differing perspectives of modern Italians, a take on modernity that anyone abroad can relate to and understand. Though to say that Italians are either loudly materialistic or quietly philosophical is an exaggerated view of the two extremes, rather than a summation of all Italian culture. Sorrentino too so cleverly comments on the history of Rome in a beautiful way, as he shows the change in and disregard for Rome’s epic culture. For someone like Jep who writes about the light and life that Rome offers, he hadn’t written a single thing in 40 years, pleading ignorance to these cultural writings, as he got caught up in the generic party scene. Rome seems to be the perfect place and most definitely not just a pretty setting, but a backdrop to represent the need for Jep to find himself again.

As modernity and the party scene greatly contrasts the beautiful history of Rome, Jep, though the ‘king of the highlife’, finds himself and ‘the great beauty’ whilst focusing on the historical beauty of the city. This could be as though to say that he went back to what was always there, after decades of relishing in the fakery of high society. This is a point familiar to many, that money or fame cannot buy happiness or love, and that the novelty of it does wear away for good reason. And this is a popular debate, as we as an audience can comment on what we find most beautiful, challenging us to question our place in the world & whether or not we should rely so much on ephemeral materialism. Following his revelation of change within himself following his birthday, he states that ‘the most important thing I discovered a few days after turning 65 is that I can’t waste any more time doing things I don’t want to do.’ Whilst he sits down to drinks with members of Italian aristocracy and engages in meaningless affairs over the years, none of that was what he wanted to do.

Jep’s mission to find the ‘great beauty’ stems from not only the shock of the death of his only love, but the fact that he has an unfulfilled career goal. He had wanted to make a film about ‘happiness & how difficult it is facing the passing of time’. To which, whilst at another seating with Italy’s cream of society, friend Gustave Flaubert comments, ‘the finest works are those that contain the least matter; the closer expression comes to thought’. Again, Jep is searching for meaning and passion, but this focus on nothing is greatly existential.

And the film itself is a bit pretentious at times, as much as critics do drool over it, as it could be noted as a European wonder, as it’s expression is quite different to any classic British or American feature. Sorrentino seems to attempt to make a big point about the fragility and fleeting nature of life, yet it is hard to ravel. Maybe tedious, it does still make an excellent point and, marking what makes a terrific film, it does still have us audiences in deep thought. Is the poetic and philosophical nature of Sorrentino’s writing provoking, or just confusing? As Jep is surrounded by hopeful authors, brooding thoughts tossed around in an attempt to create some depth. Yet these statements that seek to inspire can be deemed as only artsy and somewhat overblown. Though it is absolutely not without it’s great moments of reflection. As Jep visits a friends’ wedding, he tries to engage in a meaningful conversation with a priest, who instead fobs him off as he becomes distracted with the gossip and scene around him. This is a moment that is impactful, as it presents the grand change in society and even how established figures, such as a priest, have become caught up in the popular bustle of daily life, rather than their deep-seated faith or thoughtful meaning.

Sorrentino’s master work that is ‘La Grande Bellezza’ (The Great Beauty), is critically acclaimed for good reason, as within it’s gorgeous colour, life and grand visual spectacle, there is still a beautifully resonant message. A film or piece of art’s interest can be defined by it’s discussion, as Sorrentino does successfully get this ball rolling. The film so successfully does capture a society who refused to collectively look inward, to which audiences are vastly inspired in all it’s philosophical questioning. Though it can be deemed as a grandiose piece of work, it is still nothing short of exceptional, and does deserve the majority of the praise it has received over the years. As travel is an aspect in life that educates and changes us, Sorrentino’s ‘La Grand Bellezza’ is like a walk through Rome that has the potential to immeasurably shape us, making it one for the books.

Stars Out Of Five: 3.5/5

visit at: dreamsofthescreen.com

#cinema #italiancinema #paolo sorrentino #italianfilm #film #filmwriting #filmwriters #writersoftumblr #blogger #philosophy

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clouds-of-wings · 5 years ago

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How to have an argument without offending a Swede

Italians get worked up when discussing pasta sauces. The Brits and French have arguments for fun. But in Sweden, even raising your voice is like taking a glass and smashing it on the floor. Here is The Local's guide to the delicate art of having a discussion with a Swede.

This is interesting, I fully approve of point 4-6 actually, I could deal with 2 and 3, but 1..? That would be difficult for me.

Full text under the KR because Paywall…

How to have an argument without offending a Swede

If you're British or French, debate is almost a national sport. People play 'Devil's advocate' (or l'avocat du diable) just to stoke up the passion in the room. If someone loses self control and raises their voice a bit, that's OK, at least between friends. It's a sign of engagement, a sign that they care.

In reserved, conflict-shy Sweden, however, things are very different.

You only have to compare the angry jeering in the UK's Houses of Parliament to the staid Swedish party leader debates on TV, or seminars at Swedish universities with the way UK students are trained to to argue for positions they disagree with. You could also study Sweden's softly spoken court lawyers with their bombastic, adversarial UK and US equivalents.

Swedes hate to express disagreement and after eight years living here, I feel that they don't, or perhaps can't, separate intellectual disagreements from actual personal conflict (as I instinctively would as a Brit). For a Swede a disagreement is a disagreement, and therefore unpleasant, no matter what it is about.

There's also less of a tradition of argument as competitive sport. There are no winners once a debate gets heated. People just feel upset. The Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgård describes going to bed after a boozy supper with literary Swedes thinking he'd had a great evening, only to wake to find his hosts feared relations had been irreparably broken.

The positive aspects of all this can be seen in the lower levels of hypocrisy in Swedish national life. A figure like UK PM Boris Johnson is so steeped in Oxbridge debating culture that he can breezily dash off articles both for and against leaving the European Union. In Sweden, this would be almost unfeasible.

So how should you approach holding discussions with a Swede?

1. Know the consensus

Swedes hate people talking about it, but as a foreigner in Sweden it's fairly clear that the fabled 'opinion corridor', or åsiktskorridoren, is no myth. There is a span of acceptable opinions and people start to feel uncomfortable if you move outside them.

For big topics, it's quite easy to learn where the boundaries lie.

For the vast majority of Swedes, whether on the left or right, you probably can't get away with, for example, expressing your admiration of US President Donald Trump, arguing that it's bad for children to go to daycare before they're three, arguing that children don't need bicycle helmets, or that it's OK to drink moderate amounts of alcohol when pregnant. For reasons I don't fully understand, it's also appears unacceptable to argue that the state alcohol monopoly Systembolaget has a woefully poor selection of wine. At least, no one will agree with you if you do.

Once you know where the boundaries lie, don't cross them. People won't think you're controversial or interesting, they'll think you're an ass.

As it happens, the corridor can shift. Eight years ago, it was absolutely not OK to discuss setting concrete limits for immigration or the ethnicity of criminals. In 2015, that dramatically changed, with politicians of both left and right suddenly competing to tighten up border controls, and the media pumping out stories of sexual harassment by asylum seekers.

2. Let the Swede lead

The demand for consensus is not limited to the big political issues, but runs deep into things like house decoration, music taste, food and films. Swedes have a natural instinct for knowing what any group thinks about any topic, and assessing what the bounds of opinion are likely to be. This is tricky for a newcomer to grasp, so the best advice is to let the Swede lead. Wait until you have a good idea about what the people you're with think before storming in with your own opinions.

3. Expand and reinforce, don't contradict

Say the discussion gets into what a horrific let-down the last series of Game of Thrones was, and you thought it was well-written, with imaginative plot twists and a satisfying end. Don't contradict your companions head-on. Instead think of something you also felt was a weakness, or add details and new observations to the discussion of the shortcomings advanced by others in your group.

Conversation in Sweden is about arriving at a richer, more nuanced picture of what it is assumed everyone present agrees to be the case, not deciding who or what is right and wrong.

Swedes pride themselves on their ability to ask searching questions, and you can see why, as it is one of the best ways to safely engage in discussions when you disagree with the majority position. Ask your friends what they thought was the worst let-down, or why it is that this or that plot decision was so wrong-headed.

4. Don't interrupt (or do so very sparingly)

Conversation in Sweden doesn't have the same cut and thrust as it does in the UK and some other countries, where it is more common to interrupt, talk over others, or slip in quick details or additional facts that support or contradict what the speaker is saying.

In Sweden, interrupting others is seen as rude, and talking over them ruder still, particularly if you raise your voice to do so. If you've ever been to a Swedish work leaving do, or wedding, you'll have seen how everyone in turn stands up to make a short speech. Imagine group conversation as a less formal version of the same thing.

When someone is speaking, let them finish. The group will then naturally look around for the next speaker, which is your time to make your contribution.

This means of course that when you do speak, you shouldn't go on too long, as there's no way for your companions to shut you up without being rude. Swedes have a natural sense of how much social space each member of a group is getting and will try to make sure it's as evenly shared as possible.

5. Don't raise your voice

It's perhaps telling that the word 'skrika' in Swedish doesn't distinguish between 'shouting', 'screaming' and 'shrieking'. There's a level of raised voice which Swedes experience as aggressive which some other cultures would see as only a sign of mild agitation. If you raise your voice during a discussion, it's almost as if you are banging your hands on the table, so if you can possibly keep yourself under control, don't do it.

If you actually are angry and want to actively offend or put down another person, it's still wrong to raise your voice. It is socially acceptable in Sweden to be quite direct and even rather unpleasant (more so indeed, than in the UK, where it is bad form to drop the pretence of bonhomie and having a 'sense of humour').

If you raise your voice, you lose. A Brit or American might secretly congratulate someone who stands up and loudly but brilliantly tears strips off someone whose behaviour has been out of order. A Swede would be crippled with embarrassment. Swedes have a reputation for passive aggressiveness for a reason.

6. Don't fall back on lazy stereotypes

Perhaps the best way to annoy a Swede as a foreigner is to bang on incessantly about the "opinion corridor" and "Swedish passive aggressiveness". Don't do it.

Some of the least reserved people I know are Swedish. I know Swedes who revel in controversy, compulsively interrupt others, and get overly heated and shouty at the drop of a hat. I do feel though, that Sweden isn't perhaps the easiest country for them to live in.

Ironically, in the parts of Malmö I live in, where nearly half the population voted for the Left parties in the last election, talking about the opinion corridor is itself outside the opinion corridor.

So if you don't want people to think you're a closet Nazi, pretend it doesn't exist. Everybody else does.

https://www.thelocal.se/20190821/how-to-have-a-discussion-without-offending-a-swede

#sweden #swedish #svensk #swedish culture

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jorgedrt221-blog · 5 years ago

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proposal

Immigration has been a very big topic in the United States for the past couple of years whether we should allow more immigrants to come in or what the United States should do about the current immigrants living here illegally. I believe that it has become a bigger issue recently with the election of president Donald Trump. Personally, I tend to lean on the more liberal side of immigration. I think we should make it easier for people to be able to acquire a visa and come legally to the united states rather than have them sneak in thru other methods that just makes it dangerous for them. On the other hand, I can also see why people are cautious about letting in just anybody they can affect things like terrorism the economy or the criminal activity in the current communities. That can cause many more problems. But there is proof out there that immigrants have way less criminal activity than legal born citizens. Immigration is a very difficult topic on one hand you don’t want to refuse safety to someone who is a refugee attempting escape the horrible conditions of their country but on the other hand while bringing in those refugees you might accidently bring in some of the people that are causing the problem’s in their country. Immigration is a very personal topic to myself I come from a family of immigrants. I see a lot of the good that immigration brings to the united states but I am not blind to the fact that not all immigrants who come into the united states come in with the good intentions that my family has come here with. This is why I want to focus on immigration there is so much information out there and there are so many points of view. People don't want to just turn down all immigrants and not allow them to come into the united states and pursue a future that they would not be able to achieve in their home country. The debate of immigration in the United States is a very difficult one. People in politics tell drastically different stories when it comes to immigration whether they lean left or right. The left argues that immigration benefits the United States and only improves our economy and culture. While the right argues that immigration while sometimes good should be monitored with much more authority and that we should not allow as many people as we usually have in the past to continue to come in. The right argues that it doesn’t always benefit the American people to let these immigrants into the country they broke the law to get here and they're bringing all their relatives. There are good arguments for both sides whether we should allow more immigrants to come into the United States or if we should be more cautious with allowing them to come into the States.

The issue of immigration has become a lot more prominent and is being driven more and more into the daily discussions of your average American. In Trump’s first year of being president he signed an executive order (Trumps travel ban) that would restrict travel from certain countries this was met with a lot of controversy. People argued that this travel ban was racially driven. In the same year (2017) Trump and Attorney general Jeff sessions announced their moves to end Obama’s DACA program. DACA protected many young immigrants that were brought to the United States without them being able to have a choice. These immigrants have been living in the United states from a very young age and have been raised here. They don’t know another way of life besides the way that they have been raised here. These are only some of the many topics regarding immigration that have been covered by the media in these recent years now the question is how The United States should deal with the immigration problem they currently have. Should these immigrants that are coming and living in the United States be accepted with open arms integrated into the American culture or should we be conscious about the fact that they can affect the way Americans live their day to day lives.

America is built on immigrants. When the United States began the majority of the immigrants were European Irish, Italian etc. we also saw a big wave of Asian immigrants. To deny immigrants today the opportunities that previous generations were allowed is not only hypocritical but wrong. Early on in the united states history we welcomed immigrants into the country. Why because we needed the people to provide the country in order to develop into what it has become today.

A very low percentage of American citizen are concerned with allowing immigrants into the united states because they are afraid they’ll bring crime, take jobs from American citizens, or damage the budget and overall economy. The majority of American citizen are for immigration and believe that they are not only a good for this county but they also believe that they will strengthen the country with their hard work and talents. I want my research to point in the direction of what would be the smartest thing for the USA to do based on research and studies whether immigrants benefit the American society or if they have a bigger negative effect over positive.

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davidfostercomedyblog · 5 years ago

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My Trip to Paris: A Review

Like any typical heterosexual male the idea of engagement photos seemed as appealing to me as that of a fantasy football league might to most heterosexual women. Nevertheless, I am happily engaged to the latter, and in cliché fashion conceded to said photo shoot, and have never been so grateful for a decision.

It was a week before our European vacation, and our (French) photographer asked us: “Where will you be staying when you go to Paris?”

“We got a hotel in Nice, Airbnb in Paris.”

“Oh, you better make sure they have air conditioning,” she informed us. “Most Parisians don’t have A/C’s. The units are considered ‘unsightly.’”

Umm… seriously?

The forecast for our upcoming trip was to reach record highs in temperature. Not record highs for July or our particular dates. Record highs. It was going to be 109… degrees! The hottest two days in the history of Paris, on which we’d scheduled a walk to the Louvre, then down the Seine River, and up the gabillion steps of Sacre Couer, at the end of which I’d implicitly scheduled a good night’s sleep, which would be impossible without air conditioning.

I reviewed our booking on Airbnb, and sure enough there was no A/C. When I emailed our would-be host to confirm this preposterous notion she responded: “I have a great fan though.”

Good for you.

Our late cancellation was the happiest we’ve ever been to eat $240. We had a hideous air conditioner in our otherwise lovely, entirely red suede hotel room in Villa Opera Drouotin Montmartre. There was red everywhere. Red wallpaper, red blankets, even a 360 red velvet seat in the red lobby. But it was cool, literally. It was the greatest continental breakfast we’ve ever had in our lives, and we were happy.

The first thing I noticed upon arrival at the airport was the urinals. I’ve never seen bulls’ eyes of such small diameter. Do the French have better aim?

Second was the plethora of friendly assistants at the train station, all of them fluent in English, all eagerly awaiting the opportunity to help even the most dumbfounded of tourists, which pin-pointedly described us. Can you imagine such an experience with a New York MTA worker? They look at you like instead of “Excuse me,” you opened with a derogatory slur and are requesting they literally carry you on their back to your desired destination. Paris: 1. NYC: 0

Next we sat on the train, which was faster and cleaner than New York’s, though that goes without saying, as every train on the planet, I imagine including those of third world countries, is much cleaner than New York’s. Paris: 2. NYC: 0.

We sat next to college kids, two French and one British, who were making fun of American tourists’ stereotypical ideas of Paris being this “romantic town, where everyone just gets cheese and wine and a baguette and eats it all on the streets.” When we got off the train I swear to God all I kept seeing were locals walking along the sidewalk eating baguettes or sitting at outdoor restaurants drinking wine and smoking cigarettes.

Baguettes were everywhere. I saw old men walking along the street chewing away at them, sometimes plain, others with ham and/or cheese stuffed inside. I saw young girls with grocery bags full of baguettes, others with just the one long one they’d need for that evening, way too large to fit in the designer pocketbook held in their other arm. Older women, young men, apparently poor people, rich people, black, white and Hispanic people (just kidding, there’s no Hispanics in Europe) – it seemed everyone had a baguette. I digress.

We weren’t sure if the cliché college kid pontifications were for our benefit, but I chose not to respond, a) becausewe weren’t sure, b) engaging in philosophical debate with college kids makes as much sense as engaging in confrontation with the schizophrenic homeless guy on the 6 train, and c) I was so jetlagged that they probably could have spread brie cheese all over my face and put their cigarette butts out in the mush and I would have let it slide. Whoever can get more than a few hours sleep on those red eyes are as gifted in my mind as Michael Jordan or David Blaine. Finally, the kids’ insults were at “Americans,” which I don’t identify as anyway. We’re New Yorkers - not Americans. There’s a difference.

We were two hours early for check-in, so decided to maximize our tourist time by taking the 20-minute walk from Montmartre to Sacre Couer.

Jesus, was it hot. It was 105 degrees. The walk was perpetually uphill and when we finally arrived there were more staircases than in the MTA’s latest atrocity, the 86thSt. Q train. What a moronic architectural disgrace that is.

We bought water from a local store and the lady didn’t even offer us a plastic bag. None of the stores did for entire whole trip. They all had them behind the counter if you needed, but I never saw anyone take one. Paris: 3. NYC: 0.

I could feel sunburn setting in. I took off my long sleeve shirt and threw it over my head to protect myself. The Asian tourists kept their umbrellas up for protection (though when do they not?), and the Italians were next to naked (though when are they not?). The heat was inescapable. It felt like the temperature was climbing along with us up the steps. Instead of a church, it was as if we were making the pilgrimage in Egypt. We had to take regular breaks and be mindful to breathe and stay hydrated, and constantly remind ourselves: “This is vacation, we’re having fun. This is fun. It’s vacation. This is… this is… this hot as fucking hell. Let’s take a lap around this church and go home.”

Sacre Couer is gorgeous: Incredible view of the city outside, and even better art inside. A local came over and requested I remove my hat, and I wasn’t sure whether my Americanism or Judaism was more apparent. We put hats on intentionally in our place of worship.

Finally checked in the hotel, we passed out for two hours in the coolest bedroom in Paris and woke up rejuvenated. We had dinner reservations at Derriereat 19:30, which was the earliest possible reservation because 19:30 is what time Derriere opens, which is just about the fanciest thing I’ve ever heard of.

Our table wasn’t even ready yet, but the maitre’d was friendly.

“Please, have a seat, we’ll get you a glass of wine and let you know when the kitchen’s open.”

Lovely!

Even my fiancée, who is rouge-exclusive, opted for white because of the climate, and it was the best white wine either of us had ever tasted in our pathetic American lives. Pouilly Fumé, crisp, minerally, dry and perfect and it was 6 euro, half what it would be back home.

We waited and waited, watched a few other parties get ushered into the restaurant ahead of us, and wondered if we should say something. I got up to remind the host of our presence, and he was flamboyantly sweet, super pleasant and matter-of-factly excited to seat us.

Ahh, Europe. Is it possible for a constant intake of alcohol, tobacco, bread and cheese to be physiologically offset by a complete lack of urgency and adherence to time?

When we finally got inside we found an adorable, almost hipstery chic spot that had apparently been someone’s home converted into a restaurant. We each sat in our own cushiony love seat across from one another in a spread out living room/library/game room as an active ping pong table was set about three feet behind my head.

Our waiter, Tyler, was from Canada, hence boasted the perfect hybrid of debonair French style with a western work ethic. We were relieved that he spoke English, but soon discovered so does 90% of the country. Tyler was jovial and handsome and encouraging of our order choices. The duck was insane – the best we’d ever had – the braised beef with zucchini was even better.

“Fuck you,” my fiancée kept exclaiming at how blown away she was by the food. I was happy we were able to show the local Parisians how New Yorkers applaud quality – by cursing it out.

We could have returned the knives, as the meats would have fallen off their bones with even the side of the same soup spoon we used to eat the best Gazpacho I’d ever tasted. With dinner we had the best rouge in the house for only 14 Euro per glass, and as a reward Tyler and the sommelier came over and insisted we all do a shot of rum. We were adequately buzzed with bellies full of beef… and bread. The whole experience was magnefique.

We followed Tyler’s recommendations for the night (we would have followed Tyler into the gates of Hell), on to cocktails at The Little Red Door, and although neither my fiancée nor I are very much into cocktails you couldn’t help but trust in the elitist mixology menu. Drinks were fantastic. We ended up yukking it up with some gay New Yorkers coincidentally seated next to us on the couch, mostly over how superior the culture everywhere else in the world is to America, with the exception of New York – one of my favorite topics of conversation.

We walked the mile home because time flies while walking through any city. We stopped twice for some nightcaps and allowed the city lights to fuel our way. Although New York is the “city that never sleeps” Paris is apparently the city that always eats. 1:00 in the morning on a Wednesday night and it seemed almost every restaurant with outdoor seating was not only open, but practically filled with locals literally and figuratively chewing the fat. Any potential for jet lag and heat exhaustion had been instantly healed by meat and alcohol, but still we were spent, and a had a long next day ahead planned.

It’s possible I was woo’d by the air conditioning as I’m not much of a museum guy, but the Louvrewas great, definitely our favorite tourist attraction of the trip. We’d bought tickets beforehand and it took about 60 seconds to enter. Almost everyone there was quite pleasant, though the best part was the security guards at the Mona Lisa who were anything but. Groups of us at a time were being yelled at for not moving fast enough – like waiting on line to view the classic piece of art was a local crime and we owed a cowering apology while running and ducking for cover. They could have been instantly beamed to the central bookings jail in downtown Brooklyn and not missed a beat. One of them was the first white guy I’d seen in France with that pathologically rosy facial complexion that screamed alcohol, hypertension and New Jersey; and although it was clearly his job there to be an asshole we believed it to be a case of chicken or the egg.

I’d love to tell you it was beautiful, that Monawas beautiful and a magical experience of tourism, but I don’t think I ever got a good look. It was pure chaos, herded into a swarm of fellow tourists, and one of the only contexts where typical Asian good manners actually fell by the wayside as they refused to be denied the perfect photographs. Spun into confusion and shitted out the other side of the room we much preferred the rest of the less popular parts of the museum.

Before leaving my fiancée insisted on taking pics by the Pyramid outside and I… I just cannot tell you how hot it was. There were other people out suffering as well, but most were huddled in the shade, massaging their skulls with frozen water bottles and drinking from another. We muscled through it, took photos with fake smiles, feigning joy or even comfort so that everyone on social media could see that we had fun at the Louvre. Indoors we did. Outdoors was about survival.

Next door we passed by the other popular museum, D’Orsay (What is this, the museum district?), and fiancée asked if I wanted to go in. As I generally visit one museum per decade at home, my rule overseas is one per trip.

We walked along the Seine River,which was beautiful and I imagined on any day under 109 degrees would have been crowded with other cute couples cut from similar cloths. They’d be eating cheese and baguettes, as everyone had instructed us to do, but ours was a different kind of trip, and I’d surely have jumped into the river before sitting along it with quickly melting brie. There were benches where I could picture us sitting, but even the mental effort of creating said picture was burning calories at an alarming pace. We passed through the Tuileries Garden, got a croque monsieur and more gazpacho.

On the way home I bought a suit for our wedding! It wasn’t the plan, but hey… we’re just some hot shot New Yorkers flying by the seat of our pants in Paris. Beautiful pants as it were, as I never thought I could make such a baller move.

Of course going into the store was wifey’s suggestion, but I went along with it. “Should we go in and see if they have any nice suits?” she asked.

“We should go in and see if they have any nice air conditioning.”

They did.

And before we knew it we were whisked away into the back room as if we had a reservation for two. Everyone there’s faces were beautiful and their outfits even more beautiful. I felt a bit underdressed in my Marcus Camby Knicks’ throwback jersey (while sweating like Patrick Ewing) and my crooked Yankees cap, but before I knew it I was Julia Roberts with Roy Orbison blasting in my head, as one of the most charming men on the planet, Tomas, put together ensemble after ensemble, creating his own Mona Lisa out of me.

Me, the sweaty asshole who just walked in the door in his gym clothes. Instead of angry security guards yelling at us, Tomas took his time with me, like a true gentleman, never allowing me to put any of the jackets on myself. His assistant brought us bottles of water and suddenly I began to suspect I was on a hidden camera show and Richard Gere was going to come out of the back room and ignore my sexual advances.

One fabulous suit I tried on was apparently made of some high-quality but more delicate fabric that Tomas warned me of: “A suit like this – you can only wear this to work maybe two or three times a week… otherwise it will not last.”

Two or three times a week? Who the fuck does this guy think I am? I’m sorry, Tomas, I love you, but in case you haven’t heard it’s only about 1% of the professions in New York these days that even require a suit at work… and those guys can afford enough suits to wear them two or three times a year. I’m not worried about it.

After about an hour of trial and error, mixing and matching and texting photos across the pond to Mom and others for feedback, finally we came to a unanimous decision. Tomas even threw in the pink tie from his own personal stash, and when we said Au revoirI could feel that none of us really wanted to. What we really wanted was to buy four more suits, then two giant homes in New York and Paris respectively where we could all live out the rest of our years together as the most stylish commune of love. Unfortunately that’s not how life works. But I found more than my wedding suit in the Paris SuitSupply. I found one of my favorite people, one of my fondest memories from the trip, and finally, a hell of a deal! Weeks later my (Jewish) fiancée did her research and discovered after the conversion rate I’d gotten a $1000 suit for almost half the cost. Paris: 4. NYC: 0.

When we got outside it was still 109 degrees. We went home and hosed down in preparation for another night on the town…

Bofingerfor dinner: An apparently pork forward venue that seemed to specialize in shellfish and sauerkraut dishes. I’d never had to de-shell my own snails before, and if you would have told me at any point in life I would twice in one day feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman I would have at least figured one of the two would involve prostituting myself on Hollywood Blvd. Thankfully, none of the “slippery little suckers” went flying across the room into any waiters’ hands. A now experienced acupuncturist I figured I could successfully navigate this previously foreign task and eventually I was right (although two of them were stuck super deep inside and I resorted to simply brutally cracking them open). Absolutely drowned in the plate’s bath of garlic and oil they were delicious!

The chilled cream of asparagus soup with mascarpone was the best I’ve ever had in my life. I understand this superlative is beginning to sound like a broken record, but hey, we’re discussing food and wine in Paris. It isn’t like I’m telling you I heard the greatest hip hop song of my life there.

Unfortunately the sauerkraut dish was anti-climactic in taste, overwhelming in size. A beast of a platter, and we figured the reason the runner brought burners to light underneath it must have been because no one could possibly finish this plate in less than three hours. Most of my family has hefty appetites and within my family I am generally the one most derided for overeating; but my fiancée and I couldn’t even make a visible dent in the dish. We left full sausages just hangin’ and neither of us even broached the monstrous pork knuckle that looked like too much to tangle with. What was most fascinating was the gentleman next to us ordered the same dish, had it arrive after ours, and absolutely demolished it before we’d thrown in our towel. “Was he overweight?” you ask.Absolutely not, he was handsome and slim, fit. This is Wonderland.

We had nowhere to take our leftovers, but figured better to gamble on running into a homeless person then just throw it out. We saw some poor man seated on the train station floor on our way to Latin Quarters, and bestowed him with what I assume was the best meal he’d had in years.

We passed by Notre Dame, and I felt kind of like an asshole - like the tourists in NYC taking pictures in front of Ground Zero before the new tower was built: Odd locational tone for a photo opp.

Latin Quarters sucked. Think Bleecker Street meets Time Square, and in case you thought bro-douchery didn’t exist outside of America think again. Lots of pubs and sports bars, novelty shops and loud partyers, and you could skip it. A friend of us warned it would be like this but was worth seeing once. Another friend told us of a cocktail bar there on the Holiday Inn rooftop, from which you could see the whole city. Sounds lovely!We passed by only to be told the roof was closed as a result of the heat. Night Deux was a bit of a letdown.

The next day was a more of the same, only to reinforce a lesson that as New Yorkers we should have already known: Avoid tourist traps. The elevator at the Eiffel Towerwas broken which greatly appeased my fiancee’s terrific fear of heights, however I’m still awaiting my refund for the aloof purchase. Champs Elysseswas… ehhhh… like Fifth Avenue meets Soho, but not even the nooks and cranny side streets of old Soho of the 1990’s – more like vomit-up-your-ass chain retail, Broadway Soho of 2019. My fiancée got to take some nice pics of that other humongous fuckin’ old thing, but besides that the marathon distance walking through the desert level heat was beginning to wear on me… and by this time my neurology had shifted to a degree of alcohol dependency which is not my norm. It was time to call it a day and begin the night.

We closed more similarly to how we opened, in a more cultured reverence for gluttony in a local spot we’d been recommended that happened to be right down the block from our red suede hotel room.

Le Bouillon Chartierdidn’t take reservations and had not one, but two lines wrapped on to the sidewalk of mostly locals waiting to get in. We wondered, with gratitude, why our wait was only about ten minutes, and were inadvertently given our answer once inside. It was packed and fast-paced, pretty noisy, though not much to look at. It had the gritty feel of Katz’s Deli or Barney Greengrass and the waiters were curt and void of pleasantries. Ahhh… we felt right at home.

The most expensive bottle of wine on the menu was 23 euro. And it was great! The prices of everything were dirt cheap – like fast food cheap - which only partially explained the line around the block. The duck confit was excellent, as was the whole sea bass (I felt I needed something just a touch lighter than incessant pork and red meat), and I think the whole meal with the full bottle of wine came out to 58 euro. I think it was during this meal that my fiancée began suggesting another “quick trip back” next month. “We can just come for a few nights and eat in places like this!”

We closed the night as we had every other, with drinks on the sidewalk at Café Le Brebant, which faced out on to the corner of the main strip, Poissonniere Blvd., constantly serving us a nice hybrid of the authentic Paris experience with familiar comfort of New York. Also, constantly serving us lovely wines until the early morning hours, though I always closed with a nice, cold IPA in a chilled glass, as I now suffer from alcoholism. The servers were still mostly God-awful and we always had to walk over to place orders, but they were all pleasant and we rationalized it was worth it to be absolved of gratuity.

The next day we took the train seven hours to Nice. It should have been six but Mercury was retrograde and shit was fucked. Nice was OK. Glad we did it – would never do it again. It’s a beach town, which in spite of its historically fancy reputation means the same thing it does anywhere in the world: More plastic surgery, less culture and nuance. Saw some boobs on the beach, but as is customarily the case, none of the boobs you wish to.

The water was beautiful but the rocks were painful and expensive. We had to buy special mats and shoes in order for the beach experience to be at all relaxing and I highly doubt I’ll ever use either again. From now on I’m sand exclusive.

We saw a great band one night, coincidentally named Bofinger, and had one amazing meal at Terres de Truffes, which translates as Truffle Land where they (predictably) put truffles on everything! White truffles over burrata cheese and sundried tomatoes as a “caprese,” summer truffles on the lamb confit and black truffles littered across the porcini mushroom ravioli! We downed a bottle of our new fave, the Margaux, and finished with the crème brulee with truffle infused caramel drizzle. It was fucked. Up.Suddenly we suspected maybe there was reason to come back to Nice after all. That was until my fiancée searched and found the spot had another location in Paris. So like, why ever go to Miami for a restaurant that exists in NYC?

To exhaust a cliché, we loved Paris. Who wouldn’t? Who doesn’t? I’ve literally never heard a negative report. It’s like New York but with its own twist and flare, and without our recently vampired cultural extraction by transplants only to be replaced with the vapidity of chain stores and pharmacies that once were implicitly prohibited from the once greatest city in the world.

It took me a full week to recover from the neurological storm of jet lag and alcohol withdrawal, though having to spend double the price for half the quality wine eventually ensured my sobriety. Sadly the same can be said for our food quality… even in New York! It’s an awful shame the farming practices our government permits in this country, and in my opinion reason enough to kneel for the Star Spangled Banner should you feel indifferent around the racial issues. Never say never, though I still doubt I could ever make a home across the pond, as I just don’t think anywhere in the world can offer the vibe of New York, nor our diversity. It’s possible that Paris and many other cities may come close in cultural diversity, though never in variety of style, subcultures and psychology. This was my one critique from an admittedly brief first visit – that Paris appears a bit more of a one-trick pony than NYC. In fairness, where doesn’t? They probably do their one trick better than anywhere in the world but it’s just not New York. The weekend after I came home I went out to dinner at Kyklades Greek restaurant in Astoria, then took the train uptown to the EPMD concert in the park in the South Bronx, where my boy, Ed and I were two of seven white people of the 800-1000 there. We watched the legends and devoured some dope, authentic Jamaican food for 8 euro (J/K, it was $10). Afterwards we got drunk at a bar by Yankee Stadium and watched the Yanks beat Boston. The next morning my fiancée and I had the best bagels, lox and cream cheese in town at the Upper West Side institution, Barney Greengrass. Our city is dirtier, as is our food. Our leader is dumber, our drinks are pricier. Still it’s always nice to come home.

#paris #france #nice #americans #newyorkers #tourism #travel blog

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pokechars · 7 years ago

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[EXCLUSIVE MATERIAL] Pokemon Anime Translation Glossaries (with trivia/beta stuff)

[Veeeery long post, but believe me, it's worth it]

Alternatively, just scroll to the download links and see the thing for yourself.

So, you are probably used to the fact that this blog is strictly themed, sharing pictures of various (but always official) representations of human characters from Pokemon series, especially the lesser-known or forgotten characters from the games.

This update, however, will be a bit out-of-theme, but still strictly Pokemon-centered. Lately, we’ve had much stuff revealed about Pokemon beta versions. We learned more about Pikachu’s origins and the manga about Satoshi Tajiri revealed some previously-unknown early Pokemon designs... Because of this (added with the fact that my blog has recently hit 300 followers), I think it is good time to publish something that has been in my files for years and which you surely have never seen and which may feature some (usually minor and trivia) facts that are not widely known to Pokemon fans.

These are two Translation Glossaries that were provided to the official translators of the Pokemon anime. I got that years ago from my friend, who was among the people working on the Polish dub of Pokemon DP anime series (not really sure what year was that, but if the file metadata is right, then it must have been 2008). He asked me to be quiet about that, but years have passed, I have pretty much lost contact with that guy (I’m not even sure if he’s still into Pokemon but I believe he’s “beyond repair” like me). I also doubt that he’s still involved in making of Polish anime dubs (same goes for the studio that he cooperated with), so I think I’m not getting anyone in trouble for that anymore (but I’ll keep his identity secret, just to stay on the safe side).

As I said earlier, these glossaries were provided to the anime dubbers, but judging from their content, I believe they originally served the game localizers and then were forwarded to anime translators and amended with some anime content (which is rather incomplete, as opposed to game content).

The files may be downloaded from here: Glossary “A”: [Download Link] Glossary “B”: [Download Link]

I know that all this stuff may seem fishy to you - some random guy from Tumblr jumps off with some “insider info” all of sudden. But believe me, even I don’t have THAT much free time to fabricate such extensive and detailed files. Also, the info contained in those files is rather unspectacular compared to what you usually see in various “fake leaks”. But it’s up to you, whether you deem these real or fake. I know I’m not shitting anyone.

So, as you can see, those are two .xls files with the names of various characters and aspects of Pokemon series, divided into many sections and sheets.

The first glossary (which I named “A”, but the actual name is “Master TV Glossary”) lists all possible names from the first three generations (a couple of last sheets, likely added later, have some Gen IV stuff too) translated into the European languages that the games are available in (German, French, Spanish, Italian), as well as Dutch, Portuguese and Greek (transcribed to Latin alphabet). It generally doesn't use Japanese names, except in few cases. There is also another version of that glossary (an exact copy, just with all that multilingual stuff replaced by draft Polish translations) but since it doesn’t feature any additional interesting info, I didn’t upload that.

In this glossary, we can find a bunch of interesting things. I'll list the ones that are less-known or completely unknown to facts (the list may be incomplete, so I encourage you to seek through these files, maybe you'll find something interesting):

Not much interesting or new stuff in the "Places" section, but some of the anime-only locations (especially the Hoenn ones, listed on the very bottom) sound strange or unidentifiable.

"People" section is where it gets interesting. First of all, among the Red/Green in-game trade mons, there is a "Bob", which replaces Terry from the final game. I guess they realized their mistake that "Bob" isn't the best name for a Nidorina? Or maybe it has something to do with the Nidoran trade, where the Nidorans had switched genders compared to the Japanese version?

Just below the names of the Red/Green (English Red/Blue) trademons, we find names of what seem to be Japanese Blue in-game trade Pokemon (never available in English, as the trademons in English Red/Blue are based off Japanese Red/Green and not JP Blue) among the RGB characters. These names are as follows: Michelle, Wagster, Swanny, Fluffy, Mymo, Jimbo, Jenny, Shane and Valerie. I have been able to identify Wagster as Poliwag, Mymo as Mr. Mime and Michelle as Haunter (since the French localization of that name plays on the word cauchemar "nightmare"). The rest are up to debate. Maybe we can work them out?

Among the anime characters, we find some characters whose names were never told on-screen (such as Dick and Phillip, who had the same names in Japanese version, or Lacy, confirmed also by closed captions). Furthermore, Dr. Proctor is known as "Doc" (his Japanese name). Also, the order of listing of late-Kanto characters is unchronological (may it have something to do with the fact that some episodes were aired out of order after the Porygon incident in Japan)?

There are three Kanto anime characters, whom I can't identify - Billy, Barry and Bobby. Note that those could be Pokemon nicknames, but I have no freaking idea who are those.

Among the Gold/Silver game characters, we find two mysterious names - Kaz and Audrey. Who are those? I've no idea. I haven't found any references to them in the game data. Some cut beta characters?

Some of the GSC Trainer Classes have different names than in the final game, e.g. Guard (Officer), Thinker (Sage).

Some of the regular Trainers had their names changed to fit in the limitations of the Game Boy screen. Those changes are indicated in the file. Notable examples include Kimono Girls, whose names were shortened. Sayo was originally Sayoko, Kuni was Kunimi and Zuki was Hizuki (note that they're still different from their Japanese names).

Speaking of Kimono Girls, this file list an additional Kimono Girl named Kyoko. Could she be intended to be the Eevee user?

The RS character listing notes Mr. Stone twice - first as Mr. Stone (as he's usually called in-game) and secondly as Stanwick Stone. This is interesting for two reasons. Firstly, the name "Stanwick" was actually used in Polish dub (I remember it), although as his last name (consequently, Steven Stone was named as Steven Stanwick in Polish). Secondly, in ORAS he was known as Joseph Stone, so I guess "Stanwick" counts as scrapped material. His first name is localized to all four game languages.

The “B” glossary (PKMN DP TV Glossary) lists names from Generation IV (Diamond and Pearl), only game stuff. Unlike the first glossary, it does include Japanese names. However, it doesn't have all those international translation, just preliminary Polish translation (I believe that the other version of this glossary, with all that multilingual stuff like the first one does also exist, but my friend never sent me that [or he never had that]).

This glossary is much less extensive, but it also have some interesting trivia stuff.

Japanese name etymologies for human characters and some locations are listed, although the fields mentioning them are hidden.

In a commentary (probably left by original Japanese creators, as they're written in rather bad English), Byron is referred to as "Peter's father". I guess Peter is an English name suggested for Roark by the Japanese creators, but they didn't use it in the end.

The "Goods" sheet is when the fun begins. We have the names of the Secret Base decorations there, with the Japanese names of certain dolls seemingly revealing the beta Japanese names for those Pokemon!

Glameow Doll is リズミィドール (Rhythmie Doll)

Buneary Doll is ミミットドール (Mimitto Doll)

Magnezone Doll is デカコイルドール (Dekacoil Doll)

Drifloon Doll is フーセンドール (Fuusen Doll)

Happiny Doll is コラッキードール (Kolucky Doll)

Pachirisu Doll is パチリッスドール (Pachirissu [with a doubled "s"] Doll). Compare these Japanese names to their final versions and see that they’re different! In all other places of the glossary, all Pokemon names are just normal.

So yeah, that's all interesting stuff that I found in these two glossaries. Perhaps there's something more that I didn't notice. I hope that you enjoyed all those little trivia bits contained in them, even though they may not be that spectacular. I especially loved the fact that JP Blue trademons did get English nicknames. I can only assure you that I really got those from my friend and never edited or changed anything in them. But I'm not really sure how can I prove that, you basically have to believe my words. And I hope that you do.

Uh... that's a long entry. I hope you don't regret reading it. Please reblog and spread the word about these glossaries. They are really valuable material, especially to those who collect little-known Pokemon trivia facts, so I hope this entry gets popular. That's it for now. I don't plan more of such unusual updates (unless I find something worth it) and now we'll be back to our usual updates, with Pokemon character pictures.

#pokemon #unusualupdate #outoftheme #translationglossary #insiderstuff #lostpokemonstuff #obscurefacts

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classyfoxdestiny · 4 years ago

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Covid Updates: Italy Restricts Access to Restaurants and Museums for the Unvaccinated

Here’s what you need to know:

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The Italian government announced that it would now require people to show a so-called green pass or proof of vaccination in order to participate in a broad range of social activities, including indoor dining.CreditCredit…Remo Casilli/Reuters

The Italian government announced on Thursday that it would require people to show proof of vaccination or a recent negative test in order to participate in certain social activities, including indoor dining, visiting museums and attending shows.

The move follows a similar announcement made by the French government last week and comes as the debate in Western nations heats up over how far governments should — or can — go in circumscribing the life of the unvaccinated.

In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said this week that his government planned to insist on proof of vaccination to enter nightclubs and similar venues by the end of September, but the idea was met with a swift political backlash and is not yet certain to go ahead.

The expanded use of Italy’s health pass, which Italian authorities are calling “green certification,” is meant to both encourage more vaccination and blunt the spread of the Delta variant, which is already causing an increase in coronavirus case numbers across the continent.

“The virus’s Delta variant is menacing,” Italy’s prime minister, Mario Draghi, said during a news conference on Thursday night. “We must act on the front of Covid-19,” he added, to continue to allow Italy’s economy to recover. A spokesman for the prime minister said that businesses would have to enforce the requirements and would be punished if caught violating them.

Without these measures, the Italian government said it could be forced to reintroduce new restrictions in a country that endured the first and among the strictest lockdowns in the West. The Italian government is particularly concerned about the spread of the virus among the two million people over the age of 60 who are still completely unvaccinated.

Just above 50 percent of Italians over the age of 12 — about 28 million people — are fully vaccinated, according to the Italian government.

But the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has said that the spread of the Delta variant is on the rise. The organization projected that by the end of August, the Delta variant would account for 90 percent of coronavirus infections in the European Union.

Talks about introducing the vaccine requirement in Italy followed the announcement of a similar measure last week by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who said a proof of vaccination or negative test would be mandatory to access cultural venues, amusement parks, restaurants, shopping malls, hospitals, retirement homes and long-distance transportation.

According to several polls, about 70 percent of Italians favored following France’s lead but the discussion this week around introducing similar requirements created deep fractures within Italy’s coalition government, which includes Italy’s Democratic Party but also Matteo Salvini’s nationalist League party.

Mr. Salvini — who said he hasn’t been vaccinated yet — opposed what he referred to as “excluding 30 million Italians from social life.” During a rally on Sunday he said he “refused to see someone run after my son who is 18 years old with a swab or a syringe” while migrants docked “by carloads in Sicily” without any proof of negative swab or vaccination.

Starting on Aug. 6, Italians will be required to show proof of having received at least one dose of the vaccine, having taken a recent negative swab or having recovered from Covid in the past six months in order to sit at indoor tables in bars and restaurants; access museums, swimming pools, gyms and theme parks; and attend sports competitions and other events, including public exams.

“The appeal to not getting vaccinated is an appeal to die,” Mr. Draghi said on Thursday. “Without vaccinations we must close everything again.”

Italy’s health minister, Roberto Speranza, said the state of emergency will be extended to Dec. 31 and that numbers of hospitalizations, and not coronavirus case numbers, will now be the prevailing criteria to evaluate restrictions in Italian regions.

Two thirds of Italy’s population — about 40 million Italians — have already downloaded the pass, Mr. Speranza said, which had previously been required to attend weddings or visit nursing homes.

He said the pass is a condition to “allow economic activities to stay open” and for Italians to continue sitting at restaurants and bars “with the guarantee of being surrounded by people who are not contagious.”

In April, as outbreaks surged in hospitals where health care professionals had chosen not to be vaccinated, Italy became the first country in Europe to make vaccinations mandatory for medical workers. About 15 percent of Italy’s teachers are still unvaccinated, and the government is now debating whether to also extend the mandate to school staff.

“School is an absolute priority,” Mr. Speranza said. “We have to evaluate all the available tools to catch the 15 percent that’s left.”

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House Republicans Use Call for Vaccinations to Push Inquiry

House Republican leaders gathered in Washington, D.C., to urge Americans to get the coronavirus vaccine and accused Democrats, without proof, of covering up the virus’s origins.

“If we’re ever going to be able to get through this, and especially to prevent something like this from happening again, we need to at least find out how it really did happen. And while Speaker Pelosi refuses to investigate this, many of us have taken action on our own to start digging in to the facts, to try to get the facts as best we can. We know that the Chinese Communist Party won’t release the background, the data, the facts. Won’t let us talk to those people that worked in that Wuhan lab — was there American tax dollars that went directly or indirectly to the Wuhan lab to perform gain-of-function research. A lot of evidence indicates there was — all of these questions deserve answers.” “The question is: Why are Democrats stonewalling our efforts to uncover the origin of the Covid virus? Why are Democrats not investigating the growing list of evidence that leads us directly to the Chinese Communist Party and their cover-up? And why is this administration refusing to hold China accountable? Our Republican members will continue to work to demand answers and accountability and transparency for the American people.”

House Republican leaders gathered in Washington, D.C., to urge Americans to get the coronavirus vaccine and accused Democrats, without proof, of covering up the virus’s origins.CreditCredit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

House Republican leaders and doctors gathered Thursday morning for a news conference ostensibly to urge Americans to get vaccinated against the coronavirus amid rising infections across the United States, but they used the event to attack Democrats who they said, without proof, had dissembled about the origins of the virus.

The appearance by the second and third-ranking House Republicans, Representatives Steve Scalise of Louisiana, and Elise Stefanik of New York, alongside a dozen doctors suggested that a resurgence in the spread of the virus, driven by the more contagious Delta variant, had not prompted the party to change its tone. Mr. Scalise and Ms. Stefanik instead blasted Democrats for what they called a cover-up on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.

Only when pressed by reporters did the leaders address vaccination.

“I would encourage people to get the vaccine,” Mr. Scalise said near the end of the event, when pressed about his position on it. “I have high confidence in it. I got it myself.”

He and other Republicans spent most of their time on Thursday discussing unproven claims that the Chinese had released a virulent, human-made virus on the world and charging that Democrats had ignored it.

The event in front of the Capitol had been billed as a “press conference to discuss the need for individuals to get vaccinated, uncover the origins of the pandemic, and keep schools and businesses open.” Yet Republicans who attended, many of whom represent constituencies that have refused to get the vaccine, could not seem to bring themselves to hammer home the importance of doing so.

Even the doctors who emphasized vaccinations, Representative Andy Harris of Maryland and Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas, soft-pedaled and qualified their statements.

“If you are at risk, you should be getting this vaccine,” Dr. Harris said, adding, “We urge all Americans to talk to their doctors about the risks of Covid, talk to their doctors about the benefits of getting vaccinated, and then come to a decision that’s right for them.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that anyone age 12 or over — not only those at higher risk — get vaccinated against the coronavirus as soon as possible.

When pressed, Representative Greg Murphy, Republican of North Carolina, demurred: “This vaccine is a medicine, and just like with any other medicines, there are side effects and this is a personal decision.”

The emphasis on the so-called lab leak theory was something of a surprise given the surge of infections concentrated in rural, strongly Republican regions of the country.

Nationally, the average of new coronavirus infections has surged 171 percent in 14 days, to more than 41,300 a day on Wednesday, and deaths — a lagging number — are up 42 percent from two weeks ago, to nearly 250, according to a New York Times database. Still, new cases, hospitalizations and deaths remain at a fraction from their previous devastating peaks.

Vaccines remain effective against the worst outcomes of Covid-19, including from the Delta variant. Experts say breakthrough infections in vaccinated people are so far still relatively uncommon. The Delta variant is estimated to account for 83 percent of new cases in the United States, the C.D.C. said earlier this week.

The Kaiser Family Foundation reported at the end of June that 86 percent of Democrats had at least one shot, compared with 52 percent of Republicans. An analysis by The Times in April found that the least vaccinated counties in the country had one thing in common: They voted for Mr. Trump.

But Dr. Murphy said the notion that conservatives are hesitant to receive the vaccine “is not only disingenuous; it’s a lie.”

As for the lab leak theory, one after another, Republicans framed the issue as virtually settled: Research at a virus laboratory in Wuhan, China, created the novel coronavirus through risky “gain of function” experiments, then leaked it into the world.

“Criminals have been convicted on less circumstantial evidence than currently exists, and every day more evidence has revealed,” Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa said.

Recently, some scientists have urged that the possibility of a lab leak be taken seriously, alongside the possibility that the coronavirus emerged naturally, most likely from an animal. But they are mostly looking at the possibility that a naturally evolved virus was present in the lab and escaped, not that the virus was created deliberately. Even some of the most vocal scientific supporters of a lab leak possibility do not claim that there is definitive evidence of the origin of the virus.

Rather than cover up the matter, President Biden ordered U.S. intelligence agencies in late May to investigate the origins of the coronavirus and to report back in 90 days.

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C.D.C. Urges Americans to Get Vaccinated Amid Virus Surge

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned that the U.S. is at “another pivotal point in this pandemic” as the infectious Delta variant continues to drive the majority of new Covid-19 cases.

“The Delta variant is spreading with incredible efficiency, and now represents more than 83 percent of the virus circulating in the United States. Compared to the virus we had circulating initially in the United States at the start of the pandemic, the Delta variant is more aggressive, and much more transmissible than previously circulating strains. It is one of the most infectious respiratory viruses we know of, and that I have seen in my 20-year career. We are yet at another pivotal moment in this pandemic, with cases rising again and some hospitals reaching their capacity in some areas.” “Unvaccinated individuals account for virtually all 97 percent of the Covid hospitalizations and deaths in the U.S. The data is clear. The case increases are concentrated in communities with low vaccination rates.”

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Thursday that the United States was “not out of the woods yet” on the pandemic and was once again at a “pivotal point” as the highly infectious Delta variant is ripping through unvaccinated communities.

Just weeks after President Biden threw a Fourth of July party on the South Lawn of the White House to declare independence from the virus, the director, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, called the now dominant variant “one of the most infectious respiratory viruses” known to scientists.

The renewed sense of urgency inside the administration was aimed at tens of millions of people who have not yet been vaccinated and therefore are most likely to be infected and become sick. Dr. Walensky’s grim message came at a time of growing anxiety and confusion, especially among parents of young children who are still not eligible to take the shot. And it underscored how quickly the pandemic’s latest surge had unsettled Americans who had begun to believe the worst was over, sending politicians and public health officials scrambling to recalibrate their responses.

“This is like the moment in the horror movie when you think the horror is over and the credits are about to roll,” said Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland. “And it all starts back up again.”

The choice by millions to reject the vaccine has had the consequences that public health officials predicted: The number of new cases in the country has shot up almost 250 percent since the beginning of the month, with an average of more than 45,000 infections being diagnosed each day during the past week — up from 12,800 on July 1.

The disease caused by the virus is claiming about 250 lives each day — far fewer than during the peaks last year, but still 42 percent higher than two weeks ago. More than 97 percent of those hospitalized are unvaccinated, Dr. Walensky said last week.

Vaccines remain effective against the worst outcomes of Covid-19, including from the Delta variant. Experts say breakthrough infections in vaccinated people are so far still relatively uncommon.

The public health crisis is particularly acute in parts of the country where vaccination rates are the lowest. In Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, the number of daily new cases is up more than 200 percent in the past two weeks, driving new hospitalizations and deaths almost exclusively among the unvaccinated. Intensive care units are filled or filling in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas.

The turnabout is forcing both political parties in Washington to grapple — so far in halting and tentative ways — with questions about what tone they should strike, what guidance they should provide and what changes they need to make to confront the latest iteration of the worst public health crisis in a century.

The surge in infections and hospitalizations in some parts of the country, even if limited mostly to people who have chosen not to be vaccinated, has presented Mr. Biden with an evolving challenge that could threaten the economic recovery and his own political standing.

The COVID-19 contact tracing smartphone app of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is displayed on an iPhone in this illustration photograph taken in Keele, Britain, last year.Credit…Carl Recine/Reuters

LONDON — Gas stations closed, garbage collection canceled and supermarket shelves stripped bare of food, water and other essential goods.

In a week when Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised England a return to normality after the end of months of lockdown rules, a coronavirus-weary nation has instead been battered by a new crisis.

This one is being called the “pingdemic.”

With virus case numbers surging again, hundreds of thousands of people have been notified — or pinged — by a government-sponsored phone app asking them to self-isolate for 10 days because they were in contact with someone who had tested positive.

In the week of July 8 to 15, more than 600,000 alerts were issued by the app, putting acute strain on many businesses and public services.

Supermarkets have warned of staff shortages, as have trucking firms, and the British Meat Processors Association said that 5 to 10 percent of the work force of some of its companies had been pinged. If the situation deteriorates further, some will be forced to start shutting down production lines, it said.

So many workers have been affected that some businesses have closed their doors or started a desperate search for new staff, and a political battle has erupted with the opposition Labour Party warning of “a summer of chaos” after contradictory statements from the government about how to respond if pinged.

Those notified by the app are not required by law to isolate but the government’s official position is that it wants them to do so. On Thursday, it was planning to publish a list of critical workers to be exempted from self-isolation in order to keep things running.

That followed a warning from the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, of possible disruption to the capital’s transportation network, food supplies and refuse collection services. A police force in the West Midlands said it had been hit by staff shortages. Stores have appealed to customers not to indulge in panic buying, and there have even been calls for the government to consider using the military to help fill a shortfall of truck drivers.

“There does seem to be utter chaos at the heart of government at the moment: You have ministers not speaking from the same script, and that suggests that there isn’t a script,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, adding that it was obvious that a rise in case numbers — which the government itself predicted — would mean more people being pinged.

This was not what the government was hoping for when it lifted most coronavirus legal restrictions in England on Monday, a moment hailed as “Freedom Day” by the tabloids.

Camp Pontiac in Copake, N.Y.Credit…Cindy Schultz for The New York Times

The outbreak at Camp Pontiac, a sleep-away camp in upstate New York, started in the girls’ dormitories. Nurses, worried that young campers were showing symptoms of Covid-19, began administering tests. Last Saturday, one came back positive.

More followed: As of Thursday morning, 31 of the camp’s 550 campers had tested positive for the virus, said Jack Mabb, the health director of Columbia County, where the camp is located.

All 31 children are under the age of 12 and none of them were seriously ill, Mr. Mabb said.

The New York outbreak is one of a spate of recent camp-related Covid-19 clusters across the United States this summer. In Texas, more than 125 teenagers and adults at a church-run camp tested positive after an indoor event. Kansas’s health department has reported multiple outbreaks tied to camps in and around the state. Illinois reported more than 80 cases, most of them among teens, at a summer camp there.

Those outbreaks, by and large, have come in states with lower vaccination rates than New York State, where 74 percent of adults and 62 percent of all residents have received at least one dose of a vaccine.

Camp Pontiac, located in Copake, N.Y., sits about 110 miles north of New York City on 150 acres at the foot of the Berkshires.

The camp will not close despite the outbreak, Mr. Mabb said.

A healthcare worker administered a coronavirus test last week in Los Angeles.Credit…Mario Tama/Getty Images

As the Delta variant surges across the United States, reports of so-called breakthrough infections in vaccinated people have become increasingly frequent — including, most recently, when at least six Texas Democrats and an aide to Speaker Nancy Pelosi tested positive.

The highly contagious variant, combined with the near absence of preventive restrictions, is fueling a rapid rise in cases in all states, and hospitalizations in nearly all of them. It now accounts for about 83 percent of infections diagnosed in the United States.

But as worrying as the trend may seem, breakthrough infections in vaccinated people are still relatively uncommon, experts said, and those that cause serious illness, hospitalization or death even more so. More than 97 percent of people hospitalized for Covid-19 are unvaccinated.

“The takeaway message remains, if you’re vaccinated, you are protected,” said Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York. “You are not going to end up with severe disease, hospitalization or death.”

Reports of breakthrough infections should not be taken to mean that the vaccines do not work, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the Biden administration’s top pandemic adviser, said on Thursday.

“By no means does that mean that you’re dealing with an unsuccessful vaccine,” he said. “The success of the vaccine is based on the prevention of illness.”

Still, vaccinated people can come down with infections, overwhelmingly asymptomatic to mild. That may come as a surprise to vaccinated Americans, who often assume that they are completely shielded from the virus. And breakthrough infections raise the possibility, as yet unresolved, that vaccinated people may spread the virus.

Given the upwelling of virus across much of the country, some scientists say it is time for vaccinated people to consider wearing masks indoors and in crowded spaces like subways, shopping malls or concert halls — a recommendation that goes beyond current guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recommends masking only for unvaccinated people.

The agency does not plan to change its guidelines unless there is a significant change in the science, said a federal official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter.

The agency’s guidance already gives local leaders latitude to adjust their policies based on rates of transmission in their communities, he added. Citing the rise of the Delta variant, health officials in several California jurisdictions are already urging a return to indoor masking; Los Angeles County is requiring it.

“Seatbelts reduce risk, but we still need to drive carefully,” said Dr. Scott Dryden-Peterson, an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. “We’re still trying to figure out what is ‘drive carefully’ in the Delta era, and what we should be doing.”

The uncertainty about Delta results in part from how it differs from previous versions of the coronavirus. Although its mode of transmission is the same — it is inhaled, usually in indoor spaces — Delta is thought to be about twice as contagious as the original virus.

Significantly, early evidence also suggests that people infected with the Delta variant may carry roughly a thousandfold more virus than those infected with the original virus. While that does not seem to mean that they get sicker, it does probably mean that they are more contagious and for longer.

Dose also matters: A vaccinated person exposed to a low dose of the coronavirus may never become infected, or not noticeably so. A vaccinated person exposed to extremely high viral loads of the Delta variant is more likely to find his or her immune defenses overwhelmed.

The problem grows worse as community transmission rates rise, because exposures in dose and number will increase. Vaccination rates in the country have stalled, with less than half of Americans fully immunized, giving the virus plenty of room to spread.

Ali Allawi and his daughters Lana and Mila Allawi wore protective face masks as they fed birds on the Georgetown waterfront during a Sunday afternoon outing in Washington, D.C., last week.Credit…Sarah Silbiger for The New York Times

As the Delta variant spreads among the unvaccinated, many fully vaccinated people are also beginning to worry. Is it time to mask up again?

While there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to the question, most experts agree that masks remain a wise precaution in certain settings for both the vaccinated and unvaccinated. Here are answers to common questions about how you can protect yourself and lower your risk for a breakthrough infection.

When should a vaccinated person wear a mask?

To decide whether a mask is needed, first ask yourself these questions.

Are the people I’m with also vaccinated?

What’s the case rate and vaccination rate in my community?

Will I be in a poorly ventilated indoor space, or outside? Will the increased risk of exposure last for a few minutes or for hours?

What’s my personal risk (or the risk for those around me) for complications from Covid-19?

Experts agree that if everyone you’re with is vaccinated and symptom-free, you don’t need to wear a mask.

“I don’t wear a mask hanging out with other vaccinated people,” said Dr. Ashish K. Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. “I don’t even think about it. I’m going to the office with a bunch of people, and they’re all vaccinated. I’m not worried about it.”

Is it safe for vaccinated people to go to restaurants, museums, the movies, a wedding or other large gatherings?

The answer depends on your personal risk tolerance and the level of vaccinations and Covid-19 cases in your community. The more time you spend with unvaccinated people in enclosed spaces for long periods of time, the higher your risk of crossing paths with the Delta variant, or any other variants that may crop up.

But even with the Delta variant, full vaccination appears to be about 90 percent effective at preventing serious illness and hospitalization from Covid-19. If you are at very high risk for complications from Covid-19, however, you should consider avoiding risky situations and wearing a mask when the vaccination status of those around you is unknown.

If breakthrough infections are rare, why do I keep hearing about them?

Breakthrough infections get a lot of attention because vaccinated people talk about them on social media. When clusters of breakthrough infections happen, they also are reported in science journals or the media.

But it’s important to remember that while breakthrough cases are relatively rare, they can still occur no matter what vaccine you get.

“No vaccines are 100 percent effective at preventing illness in vaccinated people,” the C.D.C. states on its website. “There will be a small percentage of fully vaccinated people who still get sick, are hospitalized or die from Covid-19.”

A security agent checked visitors’ health passes in front of the entrance of the Louvre museum in Paris on Wednesday.Credit…Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters

With the Delta variant of the coronavirus spreading rapidly and the pace of vaccinations slowing, France and now Italy have chosen to turn to a new tool: ordering people who seek to enter most public venues — including restaurants, movie theaters and sporting venues — to provide health passes.

To participate in public life, people in those countries must prove they have been vaccinated or had a negative test within the last 48 hours.

France’s system is yet to come fully into force, and Italy just announced its decision Thursday, so it is hard to know how it will work in practice or what impact it will have.

But the mere announcement of the new measure in France led to a rush of people getting their shots.

More than 3.7 million people booked a first-injection appointment in the week after the country’s president, Emmanuel Macron, announced the plan in a July 12 address. Nearly 50 percent of the population is now fully vaccinated.

The move has also been met with a backlash, as more than 100,000 people marched in the streets last weekend to protest what they say is government overreach.

Still, as the United States confronts its own increase in coronavirus cases driven by the Delta variant, local, state and federal authorities are looking for ways to increase the uptake of the vaccine.

A national policy relying on vaccine status to circumscribe behavior would be difficult for the United States to adopt. The country’s approach to the pandemic has always been highly decentralized. From mask mandates to testing requirements, there has never been a universal federal policy that was mandated across the 50 states. Likewise, America has no nationally recognized standard proof of vaccination.

The European Union, on the other hand, recently unveiled a “Digital Green Pass,” which shows a person’s vaccination status. It is recognized by all the nations in the bloc and has already eased travel between nations, allowing vaccine status to play a role in restrictions upon entry.

In Britain, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently reversed what had been a hard-line stance against making people prove their health status for entry to social and cultural venues, there is a nationally recognized app from the National Health Service that can be used to quickly check vaccination status.

But there is fierce political resistance to the idea of adopting mandatory rules around a health pass when it comes to social and cultural life in Britain. Mr. Johnson’s talk of a reversal sparked outrage from many lawmakers and any new program is unlikely to be considered until September, when all adults will have had the chance to be vaccinated.

For months, U.S. states and local governments have been offering a panoply of incentives to get people to take the shot.

By May, Ohio, Colorado and Oregon were among states offering $1 million lottery prizes for people who got the jab. Prizes large and small — including free beer in Erie County, N.Y. and dinner with the governor of New Jersey — may have driven some to be vaccinated, but the average pace of vaccinations has decreased by more than 80 percent since mid-April.

Attempts at mandates by private industry have been met with court challenges.

A federal judge upheld Indiana University’s requirement for vaccination, rejecting arguments from students who contended the mandate was unconstitutional.

The C.D.C.’s attempt to impose mandates on the cruise industry is now being fought in federal court after the state of Florida challenged the rules.

Even efforts by private hospitals to require health workers to get vaccinated have been challenged.

But while a national policy similar to those in France and now Italy may be unlikely, it remains to be seen if states will look to find their own ways to increase vaccination rates — not by the prospect of prizes but with threats of making life harder for those who do not want to be vaccinated.

People walked past a sign telling customers that masks were required for entry on Sunday, on the first day the mask mandate was reintroduced in Los Angeles.Credit…Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York Times

Last week, exactly a month after Californians exalted in the state’s grand reopening, Los Angeles County officials announced that masks would be required, once again, in indoor public settings.

The move, which came in response to the explosive spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus, was an emotional setback for Angelenos, who lived with stringent pandemic restrictions for more than a year.

I spoke with Barbara Ferrer, the county’s public health director, about what’s ahead and why her office decided to return to mandatory indoor masking. Here’s our conversation, lightly edited and condensed.

First, Dr. Ferrer, can you explain why it was necessary to put in place the mandate rather than continuing with mask guidance?

We were hopeful that more people would mask indoors with the recommendation. With the Delta variant, the situation has changed. I don’t think we’d see a surge in cases without the Delta variant.

All along, this department has been very clear we’re recommending masking indoors because of what we’ve been seeing in other countries with this variant.

Now that we know more, it’s time to mandate masks indoors.

How much is the indoor masking mandate meant to prevent the virus from spreading among unvaccinated Angelenos versus preventing those who’ve been vaccinated from getting sick?

I think it’s both. You don’t want a lot of community transmission because it leads to more mutations. As we’ve seen with the Delta variant, while vaccines are super powerful, they’re reduced. But the loss of life and the most severe health consequences are experienced by far by unvaccinated people.

Are you concerned at all about undermining trust in the vaccine or trust in public health officials?

This is a new virus. Every time we have a new explosion attributed to the new variant, we’re kind of starting over in the sense that we have to assess how it’s interacting with human beings.

A lot of folks hang onto the optics: Take off your mask, to show we’re really safe again. That was never true. Absolutely, people who are fully vaccinated have much more protection, but we’re going to continue to have variants. That is our reality.

President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil has disparaged vaccines and the use of face masks.Credit…Adriano Machado/Reuters

YouTube removed videos from President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil on Wednesday for spreading misinformation about Covid-19, becoming the latest internet platform to act against a leader whose country has one of the world’s highest death counts, but who has disparaged vaccines and the use of masks and called governors “tyrants” for ordering lockdowns.

YouTube, which played an important role in Mr. Bolsonaro’s rise to power and says it is more widely watched in Brazil than all but one television channel, said in a statement that the president had violated the company’s policies about vaccine misinformation, including the promotion of unproven cures.

“Our policies don’t allow content that claims hydroxychloroquine and/or Ivermectin are effective to treat or prevent Covid-19, claims that there is a guaranteed cure for Covid-19, and claims that masks don’t work to prevent the spread of the virus,” YouTube said in a statement. “This is in line with the guidance of local and global health authorities, and we update our policies as guidance changes.”

Like former President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Bolsonaro has tested the tendency of social media platforms to allow major political figures to make claims that would be likely to get other users censured.

Last year, Facebook removed statements by Mr. Bolsonaro after he promoted hydroxychloroquine as a cure for the virus. Around the same time, Twitter deleted posts from the far-right Brazilian president for pushing false remedies and calling for an end to social distancing.

YouTube said it applies policies consistently across the platform, regardless of the person or political view.

The video-sharing service has faced pressure throughout the pandemic to do more to limit the spread of Covid-related misinformation. In November, it issued a one-week suspension of One America News Network, a right-wing news channel, after removing a video it said violated its Covid misinformation policies.

Criticized at home and abroad for his response to the coronavirus pandemic, Brazil has suffered some of the worst effects of the pandemic. While more than 545,000 people have died from the disease, Mr. Bolsonaro has continued to play down its significance, ridiculing people for wearing masks and declaring he did not plan to get a vaccine.

Mr. Bolsonaro’s YouTube channel is a popular outlet for the president to share his views about the pandemic. In a weekly program in which the president takes questions from viewers, the president has blasted lockdown orders and praised unproven cures.

As of Thursday, the channel had 3.44 million subscribers.

A shipment of AstraZeneca vaccines that arrived under the Covax initiative was unloaded at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in March. The E.U. has promised to donate vaccines to low- and middle-income countries.Credit…Tiksa Negeri/Reuters

The European Union pledged on Thursday to double the amount of Covid vaccines it will donate to low- and middle-income countries to 200 million by the end of the year, officials said.

“Vaccination is key,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said in a statement. “That’s why it is essential to ensure access to Covid-19 vaccines to countries worldwide.”

However, so far the E.U. countries donated only 4.9 million doses out of 500 million that were delivered for the bloc’s population of 450 million, according to the commission’s spokesman on health policy. 1.9 million were donated through Covax, the World Health Organization initiative for sharing vaccines with the developing world.

To date, only 1.1 percent of people in low-income countries have received at least one shot of the vaccine, according to data from the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford.

After initially lagging behind other developed parts of the world, Europe’s vaccination campaign gained considerable speed in recent weeks.

Over 67 percent of the population is now inoculated with at least one dose, and 53 percent are fully immunized, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

After struggling with supply issues this winter, the European Commission said earlier this month that member states will all now have enough doses to reach the goal of fully immunizing 70 percent of all adult residents by the end of July.

The administration of vaccines remains dependent on each national government, and there are considerable divergences between vaccination levels in the E.U. member nations, ranging from 65.5 percent of residents who are fully inoculated in Ireland, to 16.5 percent in Bulgaria.

A woman got a haircut at a salon in Glasgow after Scotland eased some coronavirus restrictions in April. Scotland is taking a conservative approach and keeping many restrictions in place despite the lifting of all restrictions in England as of Monday.Credit…Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

EDINBURGH, Scotland — “Freedom Day” means something different north of the English border, so it was perhaps not surprising that independence-minded Scotland declined to fall in line earlier this week when Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain lifted virtually all remaining coronavirus restrictions in England.

While the Scottish authorities did follow England in relaxing curbs — the British tabloids proclaimed it “Freedom Day” — nightclubs in Edinburgh and other cities remain closed; face masks are compulsory in pubs and shops; and the government has told people to stay one meter apart from one another and keep working from home.

It is the latest example of a divergence that stretches back to the start of the pandemic. Scotland’s nationalist leader, Nicola Sturgeon, a politician whose rallying cry is freedom from the United Kingdom, has frequently taken a more cautious, deliberate approach to the virus than the more freewheeling Mr. Johnson.

This time, though, it may prove to be a decisive fork in the road. In a relationship in which so much is refracted through the prism of Scottish nationalism, Ms. Sturgeon’s conservative stance could pay off politically, especially if Mr. Johnson’s experiment backfires.

Credit…Getty Images

Yes, the summer cold and cough season really is worse than usual.

“I’ve had bad colds, but I’ve never experienced a virus like this,” said Holly Riddel, 55, an entrepreneur in Redondo Beach, Calif., who has been suffering from congestion, clogged ears and a raspy throat for about two weeks. “I want this gone. I haven’t been able to work out. I’m just not feeling like myself.”

Months of pandemic restrictions aimed at Covid-19 had the unintended but welcome effect of stopping flu, cold and other viruses from spreading. But now that masks are off and social gatherings, hugs and handshakes are back, the run-of-the-mill viruses that cause drippy noses, stuffy heads, coughs and sneezes have also returned with a vengeance.

“It was a bad chest cold — chest congestion, a rattling cough,” said Laura Wehrman, 52, a wardrobe supervisor for film and television, who caught a weeklong bug after flying to New York from Austin in late June to visit friends. Although she’s fully vaccinated against Covid-19, she took multiple tests to be sure she wasn’t infected. Eventually a doctor confirmed it was a rhinovirus, a common cold virus. She said several of her other friends also have been sick with colds and coughs as well.

Infectious disease experts say there are a number of factors fueling this hot, sneezy summer. While pandemic lockdowns protected many people from Covid-19, our immune systems missed the daily workout of being exposed to a multitude of microbes back when we commuted on subways, spent time at the office, gathered with friends and sent children to day care and school.

Although your immune system is likely as strong as it always was, if it hasn’t been alerted to a microbial intruder in a while, it may take a bit longer to get revved up when challenged by a pathogen again, experts say. And while some viral exposures in our past have conferred lasting immunity, other illnesses may have given us only transient immunity that waned as we were isolating at home.

Among the biggest increases:

2019 2020 Telephone calls 5 min. 8 min. Lawn and garden care 12 min. 16 min. Relaxing and leisure 3.9 hr. 4.6 hr. Sports, exercise and recreation 19 min. 22 min. Housework 32 min. 36 min. Food preparation and cleanup 37 min. 40 min. Animal and pet care 7 min. 8 min. Sleeping 8.8 hr. 9 hr.

Among the biggest decreases:

2019 2020 Household management 11 min. 11 min. Caring for children in household (as primary focus) 20 min. 19 min. Working 3.2 hr. 3 hr. Grooming 41 min. 36 min. Travel related to consumer purchases 14 min. 12 min. Socializing and communicating 36 min. 30 min. Shopping 21 min. 17 min. Travel related to work 16 min. 11 min.

The pandemic upended every aspect of daily life last year — work, leisure, even sleep. New government data paints the most detailed picture yet of just how fundamental those disruptions were.

Americans spent nearly 10 waking hours a day at home in 2020, compared with less than eight hours a day in 2019. They commuted less (11 minutes a day in 2020 on average, down from 16 minutes a day in 2019), shopped less (17 minutes in 2020, down from 21) and worked out more (22 minutes, up from 19).

And, perhaps unsurprisingly in a year of canceled vacations and government-mandated lockdowns, they spent a lot more time alone — nearly an hour a day more than in 2019. Seniors, in particular, spent more than eight hours a day alone in 2020.

Those numbers are from the American Time Use Survey, which every year asks thousands of people to track, minute by minute, how they spend their day. Normally, the changes are small from one year to the next. Not this time.

Some of the most telling changes are the ones that reflect the unique nature of the pandemic. People spent more time talking on the phone last year, and less time socializing outside their homes. They spent more time taking care of their lawns, and less time taking care of their personal appearance. And, of course, they spent far more time working from home: About 42 percent of employed adults were working at home on a given day in 2020, nearly double the share in 2019.

For some people, the disruptions were far more fundamental. Mass layoffs meant that millions fewer people had jobs in 2020, pushing down the average time spent working by 17 minutes on average. (Among those who kept their jobs, there was little change in the amount of time they worked.)

Parents with school-aged children spent an average of 1.6 hours more a day providing “secondary child care” — time spent taking care of children while also doing other things, such as working. (“Primary” child care, the time spent taking care of children while not engaging in other activities, was little changed.) Women shouldered more of that burden than men: Women with school-age children spent more than seven hours a day with children in their care, compared to less than five hours for men.

The pandemic even affected the data itself: The government put the survey on hold from mid-March until mid-May, so the numbers don’t reflect the most intense period of lockdowns and business closings last year. (The report released Thursday compares the period from mid-May to the end of the year in 2020 to the same period in 2019.)

A gravedigger rested after the burial of a Covid victim in Bogor, West Java province, Indonesia, earlier this month. Indonesia is struggling to cope with a devastating wave of cases driven by the Delta variant.Credit…Willy Kurniawan/Reuters

The spread of the super-contagious Delta variant has prompted new restrictions around the world and spurred stark new warnings from public health officials.

Here are some of the questions people have raised about the variant.

Why are people worried about the Delta variant?

Delta, formerly known as B.1.617.2, is believed to be the most transmissible variant yet, roughly twice as contagious as the original virus. Other evidence suggests that the variant may be able to partially evade the antibodies made by the body after a coronavirus infection or vaccination.

But much is still unknown or unproven, including whether this variant may cause more severe illness.

Where is it spreading?

Delta has been reported in 124 countries, and is now the most common variant in many of them.

It first appeared in the United States in March and spread quickly. In early April, Delta represented just 0.1 percent of cases in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency now estimates that the number has hit 83.2 percent.

Does the Delta variant cause different symptoms?

It’s not clear yet. “We’re hurting for good data,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. In Britain, where the variant is widespread, reports have emerged that Delta may cause different symptoms than other variants do.

If I’m vaccinated, do I need to worry?

Although there is not yet good data on how all of the vaccines hold up against Delta, two doses of several widely used shots, including those made by Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca, appear to retain most of their effectiveness against the Delta variant, research suggests.

Even with Delta, breakthrough infections, or infections in people who have been fully vaccinated, remain relatively rare, scientists believe, and tend to be mild or asymptomatic.

Will Delta return us to last year’s pandemic peak?

After a long and steady decline, cases are on the rise again in the United States, likely fueled by Delta.

But the numbers remain far below last winter’s peak, and experts do not expect them to rise that high again. “I think we are not going to see another big, national surge in the United States because we have enough vaccination to prevent that,” Dr. Michael Osterholm said last month.

What can I do?

Get vaccinated. If you’re already vaccinated, encourage your family, friends and neighbors to get vaccinated.

Face masks, which remain a particularly important tool for those who are ineligible for or do not have access to vaccines, can provide additional protection.

Maria Rapier with her husband, Beau Rapier, and their child Guinevere at home in Oakland, Calif., on Sunday. Ms. Rapier left her job during the pandemic to take a lower-level, less demanding position.Credit…Carolyn Fong for The New York Times

Millions of parents, mostly mothers, have stopped working for pay because of the pandemic child care crisis. But for many more who have held on to their jobs, child care demands have also affected their careers, often in less visible ways. They have worked fewer hours, declined assignments or decided not to take a promotion or pursue a new job.

“I think a lot of women who weren’t forced out count themselves lucky — but they were forced to be quiet,” said Maria Rapier, a mother of three who left a job where she ran a department and contributed to board meetings to take a lower-level, less demanding position. “Even if they did get to keep their job, they couldn’t participate fully because half the time they were looking over their laptop at their kids and the laundry piling up.”

In a survey by Morning Consult for The New York Times during the school year, of 468 mothers working for pay, one-third said they had worked fewer hours during the pandemic because of child care issues, and an additional one-fifth had moved to part time.

Twenty-eight percent declined new responsibilities at work. Twenty-three percent did not apply for new jobs, and 16 percent did not pursue a promotion.

The American territory of Guam is offering visitors vaccinations as it attempts to restart its struggling tourism industry.Credit…Mar-Vic Cagurangen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

TAMUNING, Guam — As countries around Asia struggle to swiftly vaccinate their populations against Covid-19, the American territory of Guam has an offer: Come get your shots here, and enjoy a beach vacation while you’re at it.

The economy of Guam, an island in the Western Pacific about the size of Chicago, is driven mainly by tourism, which was all but wiped out by the pandemic. Its “Air V&V” program is an effort to bring travelers back.

But few have trickled in, and those who do are finding that it’s not quite business as usual.

Near a popular beach and across from a complex of big-brand hotels, a McDonald’s remains closed, as do several bars and clubs. A large shopping center has yellow tape across its doorways. Some visitors have struggled to find taxis at the international airport, and the local ride-hailing app, Stroll Guam, sometimes says that it has no drivers. Without tourists, business owners say it costs too much to stay open.

“I plan to have fun here, but I see that a lot of stores are not open. I wanted to go shopping,” said Wang Hao-en, an 18-year-old vaccine tourist from Taiwan.

In the 2019 fiscal year, Guam received 1.63 million visitors — almost 10 times its population. The number of incoming travelers dropped more than three-quarters from January to October 2020.

With nearly 80 percent of its 120,000 adult residents vaccinated, Guam is offering shots to visitors from anywhere. The program offers a choice of the three vaccines authorized for emergency use in the United States — made by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — for $100 or less per dose.

Japan and South Korea, Guam’s two biggest sources of tourists, have both been slow to administer vaccines. But testing costs, the curtailment of flights and stringent quarantine requirements upon returning home have made even a four-hour flight undesirable to many.

At least 1,000 vaccine tourists, mostly from Taiwan, have arrived so far, according to Gerald Perez, vice president of the Guam Visitors Bureau, who said the numbers would increase.

“These local businesses probably haven’t seen the full impact because we haven’t scaled up yet. We are just tip-toeing into restarting tourism,” Dr. Perez said.

Jason Cheng, an elevator company worker from Taiwan and a father of two, booked a 21-day trip for his entire family to get vaccinated.

“My daughters have to go to school in September, and I have no confidence that they will have a chance to get the shots before then” in Taiwan, he said. “We plan to go swimming, to go diving, to play golf and go snorkeling — there are many things to do.”

Yet even with the slight increase in visitors, officials say tourism may not return to prepandemic levels for at least a couple of years. Some car rental shops have sold off inventory or begun leasing to locals, and several hotels said that their rooms remained mostly unoccupied.

“If we compare it to normal times, it’s not a lot,” said Jason LaMattery, a marketing and customer service coordinator at the Guam Reef Hotel. “But it’s slowly starting to recover.”

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Australian Prime Minister Apologizes for Delayed Vaccine Rollout

Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia took responsibility for the country’s vaccine program, and apologized for the population’s low vaccination rate. One month ago, only 5 percent of those over age 16 were fully vaccinated.

Now, as I said yesterday, I take responsibility for the vaccination program. I also take responsibility for the challenges we’ve had. Obviously some things within our control, some things that are not. And I’m keen to ensure, as we have been over these many months, that we’ve been turning this around. I’m certainly sorry that we haven’t been able to achieve the marks that we had hoped for at the beginning of this year. Of course, I am. But what’s more important is that we’re totally focused on ensuring that we’ve been turning this around. That’s the sort of country we live in. People make their own decisions about their own health and their own bodies. That’s why we don’t have mandatory vaccination in relation to the general population here, because people make their own decisions. And we encourage people to make those decisions. We make as much information available to them as is possible. We all understand that with any vaccine, there are risk factors, and they’re enumerated and they’re made available to people and people make decisions about that.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia apologized on Thursday for delays in the country’s vaccine program, amid mounting pressure to take responsibility with half the population in lockdown because of outbreaks driven by the Delta variant.

“I’m certainly sorry we haven’t been able to achieve the marks we had hoped for at the beginning of the year, of course I am,” Mr. Morrison said at a news conference. “But what’s more important is we’re totally focused on ensuring we’ve been turning this around.”

At the beginning of the year, Mr. Morrison had said that he aimed to vaccinate everyone who wanted the shots by the end of October. The target has since been pushed back to the end of the year.

One month ago, only 5 percent of Australians over age 16 were fully vaccinated, one of the lowest rates among rich countries. Mr. Morrison said the program had picked up pace and that rate was now 15 percent, with 36 percent having received at least one dose, according to government statistics.

Mr. Morrison’s comments as New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, reported 124 new community cases — its highest daily total so far — in its fourth week of lockdown. The state’s premier, Gladys Berejiklian, warned that she was “expecting case numbers to go up even higher” because many people had been infectious while in the community.

The state of Victoria, also in lockdown, recorded 26 daily cases, its highest this year.

On Wednesday, Mr. Morrison had refused to apologize for the vaccine rollout during a radio interview on the commercial station KIIS. The host, Jason Hawkins, asked him to apologize repeatedly, at one point saying: “Scott, I’d even take a ‘My bad, Jase.’”

The prime minister replied: “We’re fixing the problem and getting on with it.”

The United States and other governments have pressed China to share more information, especially from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, above.Credit…Ng Han Guan/Associated Press

Chinese officials said on Thursday that they were shocked and offended by a World Health Organization proposal to further investigate whether the coronavirus emerged from a lab in Wuhan, exposing a widening rift over the inquiry into the origins of the pandemic.

Senior Chinese health and science officials pushed back vigorously against the idea of opening the Wuhan Institute of Virology to renewed investigation after the W.H.O. director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, laid out plans to examine laboratories in the central city of Wuhan, where the first cases of Covid-19 appeared in late 2019.

Zeng Yixin, the vice minister of the Chinese National Health Commission, said at a news conference in Beijing that he was “extremely shocked” at the W.H.O. plan to renew attention on the possibility that the virus had leaked from a Wuhan lab.

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Zeng Yixin, the vice minister of the Chinese National Health Commission, dismissed the theory that the coronavirus was man-made in a lab after the World Health Organization proposed to further investigate the labs in Wuhan.CreditCredit…Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press

“I could feel that this plan revealed a lack of respect for common sense and an arrogant attitude toward science,” Mr. Zeng said. “We can’t possibly accept such a plan for investigating the origins.”

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said on Thursday that “we are deeply disappointed” with China’s response, calling it “irresponsible and frankly dangerous.”

“Alongside other member states around the world we continue to call for China to provide the needed access to data and samples, and this is critical so we can understand to prevent the next pandemic,” she continued. “This is about saving lives in the future, and it’s not a time to be stonewalling.”

A joint investigation by the W.H.O. and China found that said it was “extremely unlikely” that the coronavirus escaped from a Wuhan lab, according to a report released in March. Many scientists say that the virus most likely jumped from animals to people through natural spillover in a market or a similar setting.

But some scientists have said that the initial inquiry was premature in dismissing the lab leak idea. The United States and other governments have pressed China to share more information, especially from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

At the news conference on Thursday, several Chinese officials asserted that the W.H.O. inquiry got it right the first time, and that there was no evidence to justify renewed checks of the labs. The W.H.O. investigators should instead focus their search on signs of natural transmission, they said, and the possibility that the virus may have first spread outside China.

In recent days, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry and Global Times, a news outlet overseen by the Chinese Communist Party, have gone even further in pushing back against the demands on Beijing. They have reiterated claims — widely dismissed by scientists — that the coronavirus may have escaped from a U.S. military laboratory. A petition organized by Global Times calling for an inquiry into the American facility claims to have collected nearly six million signatures.

Daniel E. Slotnik contributed reporting.

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filmstruck · 7 years ago

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Gaze Deeply into THE EVIL EYE (‘63) – If You Dare! by Nathaniel Thompson

Well, it's the day after Halloween. This year's great monster mash is over, and hopefully you've gotten to see at least a few scary movies to enhance the mood. But now what? How can you keep that chilly spirit going? Here's a suggestion: watch an Italian thriller.

Chances are if you’ve ever chatted with someone who’s into European horror films (or better yet, if you’re a fan yourself!), the word giallo has popped up at some point. A subgenre of Italian horror and mystery films, it literally means “yellow,” so named for the covers of paperback thrillers that were all the rage for decades. The term has since become a cult term indicating a film containing things like black-gloved killers, possible supernatural elements, striking and often insidiously catchy soundtracks, dollops of eroticism and of course, insane plot twists. Many directors offered significant contributions to the giallo over the years, most notably Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Sergio Martino and Umberto Lenzi, while American films like KLUTE (‘71), CRUISING (‘80), BASIC INSTINCT (‘92) and RAISING CAIN (‘92) all borrow heavily from the giallo playbook.

However, if you want to see how it all started, look no further than Mario Bava, a director who’s been getting some much-needed love around FilmStruck lately. For decades American critics snootily proclaimed that he was a one-shot wonder who never topped his auspicious debut, BLACK SUNDAY (‘60), but that’s been discredited many times over since around 1999 or so as we’ve gotten to see pristine, uncut versions of his films pouring onto these shores and solidifying his reputation as a world-class filmmaker regardless of genre. So here we have THE EVIL EYE (‘63), which is ground zero for the feature-length giallo and a testing ground for visual ideas Bava would further explore in his later gialli, all of them highly recommended: BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (‘64), FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON (‘70), HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON (‘70) and A BAY OF BLOOD (‘71), plus one segment of his classic anthology, BLACK SABBATH (‘63). Seriously, check ‘em all out. You won’t regret it.

Nobody – and I mean nobody – could light a scene quite like Bava (a cinematographer in his own right) or move a camera in quite the same way. For proof in this film, look no further than the scene early on in which starry-eyed American tourist and whodunit aficionado Nora Davis (Leticia Roman) finds her first night in Rome turned upside down when her ailing aunt expires. Troubled by this discovery, Nora runs into the street in a panic only to be mugged and knocked unconscious. When she wake up dazed and confused, she witnesses a murder. It’s all shot in disorienting, beautifully exaggerated angles and moody lighting that put you squarely in Nora’s shoes as her delirium escalates to a fever pitch, leaving us unsure quite what we’ve seen and what it all means. From there the film manages to balance red herrings, genuine thrills and romantic banter as Nora teams up with a friendly doctor (John Saxon) to uncover a mystery tied to the strange Alphabet Murders plaguing the Roman street (with no direct relationship to Agatha Christie’s book of the same name).

It’s worth pointing out that the exact meaning of what Nora does see on her first night varies depending on which version of this film you see. Personally, I’m really partial to the one you can see here, a longer edition prepared for American distribution via legendary drive-in company American International Pictures (who also released several other Bava films). AIP was fond of lining Bava’s films with American-friendly scores by easy listening legend Les Baxter, and this one was no exception; however, this cut also adds quite a bit of footage you won’t see in the Italian-language version (called La ragazza che sapevva troppo, or The Girl Who Knew Too Much), including a goofy little cameo by Bava himself (as a leering portrait on a wall!), a nifty opening sequence with Nora reading a mystery novel on a plane and a hilariously perverse closing sequence, not to mention some nice little travelogue bits showing off ‘60s Rome in all its glory. The Italian version is much more serious and streamlined, plus it introduces a plot element involving a packet of marijuana cigarettes that explains part of Nora’s wild first night out on the town.

At this point it’s probably worth explaining that the vast majority of Italian films from the ‘60s onward were at least partially shot in English, often without live sound recorded on set and the soundtracks created later by either the original voice actors or dubbing voice artists. This film is a good example of how that process worked, with Saxon and Roman obviously delivering their lines in English (with their natural voices intact) while other supporting characters had to be dubbed to cover up their thick, often impenetrable accents. This wasn’t something limited to Italian genre films, either; many films by Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti and Bernardo Bertolucci were shot with their stars speaking in English, even if the Italian-dubbed version with English subtitles was what audiences in America, Great Britain and so on ended up seeing on the big screen. Don’t believe me? Take a look at films like SATYRICON (‘69), FELLINI’S CASANOVA (‘76) or THE LEOPARD (‘63), whose stars clearly spoke English on camera. Now, whether the Italian and English track is more professionally mixed and effective overall is very much up for debate, but it’s fun to compare how a familiar actor like Burt Lancaster fares when he’s using his real voice instead of tracked with an Italian dubber. What that boils down to here is that I love the English track for THE EVIL EYE, and while it’s fun to watch the Italian version (which also features a killer theme song called “Furore”), it’s the one you’ll find here that I keep going back to the most. It’s not only a creative and visually inventive love letter to the popular pulp thrillers but a highly influential, innovative chapter in the evolution of Italian filmmaking whose full impact took decades to be fully realized. If you’re new to this whole giallo thing, or new to the colorful, phantasmagoric world of Mario Bava, here’s a perfect place to start; just be sure to keep going. You have no idea what kind of wonders await you.

#FilmStruck #The Evil Eye #Mario Bava #Nathaniel Thompson #StreamLine Blog #Italian Cinema #horror #Italian horror

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bending-sickle · 5 years ago

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Let’s have a rant about a thing.

The Fuckery of the Image

“A prestigious Dutch weekly, Elsevier Weekblad, has branded Spaniards and Italians “lazy" on the front cover of its magazine which shows a man with a moustache drinking wine and a woman in a bikini, alongside two blonde-haired Dutch people in suits work moving the financial machinery of the European Union.” – EU Headlines

Sickle’s note: Magazine was on the stands May 30, 2020. – El Confidencial

The Fuckery of the Article - EU Headlines

“The cover screams "Not a penny more to the south of Europe," and the magazine article sets out the reasons "why the Franco-German plan to give away 500 billion euros is not a good idea” and claiming that the Netherlands will have to shell out around 30,000 million euros.”

“The article slams the proposal tabled by German Chancellor, Angela Merkel and French President, Emmanuel Macron as "perverse" because it purports to be "an unconditional donation" to the countries most affected by the epidemic, which means "a transfer of money from northern to southern Europe" and bemoans the fact that Merkel is "willing to transfer cash" to countries like Spain and Italy.”

“The facts show that the countries in Southern Europe are not poor and have enough money, or have access to money and can improve the purchasing power of their economies quite easily, with reforms such as those already implemented in the north,” the article says, which refers to the reforms implemented in the Netherlands after the 2008 financial crisis.”

“The Dutch far-right has harshly criticised the EC's plan for a recovery fund offering subsidies, and Geert Wilders has accused Italy and Spain of being "bottomless pits that abuse the EU in every financial crisis.””

Affiliated Fuckery

“El propio ministro de Finanzas holandés, Wopke Hoekstra, ya levantó la indignación de sus socios meridionales durante la pandemia al señalar que habría que investigar a España e Italia por no haber sido capaces de prepararse mejor financieramente durante los tiempos de bonanza económica y así tener más margen para hacer frente a las consecuencias económicas de la pandemia. Más tarde, afeado por sus socios, admitió que sus comentarios habían tenido "poca sensibilidad".” – El Confidencial

[The Dutch Minister of Finances himself, Wopke Hoekstra, had already raised indignation from his southern collegues during the pandemic when he said Spain and Italy would have to be investigated for not having been able to prepare themselves better financially during the times of economic bonanza and therefore have a larger margin by which to face the pandemic’s economic consequences. Later, shame by his collegues, he admitted that his comments had had “little sensibility”. ]

Sickle’s note: It took Spain until 2020 to just barely return to unemployment rates before the crash of 2008.

“The ex-president of the Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, caused an earthquake when he affirmed that the inhabitants of the south were spending the money “on wine and women to later ask for help.” And more recently, the Dutch Minister of Finance, Wopke Hoekstra, was involved in another controversy from which he tried to leave apologizing, after suggesting, with the pandemic causing hundreds of deaths every day, that Brussels should investigate countries that do not they had kept sufficient reserves in good times, referring to Spain and Italy. Hoekstra thus became for a few days a villain for southern Europe. And the Portuguese Prime Minister, Antonio Costa, in his counterpart when he described his statements as “repugnant”.” – Global World Blog, Explica

The Backlash

“The artist Insónias em Carvão has published a tweet in which he writes “Chupa, Elsevier Weekblad” [Suck it, Elsevier Weekblad] and attaches an illustration in which he places citizens of the South working and the Dutch sunbathing on the beach with flip flops and socks.” – Global World Blog, Explica

^ Insónias em Carvão

Text, top left: Fashion: Jesus sandals, autumn/Winter.

Text, top right: Opinion: Hand, burnt, not tanned.

Text, middle: Dudes that wear white socks on the beach like FDX Winning Ideas

Sickle’s Note: Not too clear on the translation/reference of “ganhem noção FDX”

“The image ran on social networks generating thousands of critical comments, and alternative versions circulated in which they can be seen occupying the opposite roles: southern citizens working hard while the Nordics toast in the sun with flip flops and socks and signs of having burned [their skin], a possible nod to the hundreds of thousands of emigrants from southern countries settled in the north for work reasons, and to the Nordic tourists who travel to the beaches of Spain, Italy or Greece every year.” – Global World Blog, Explica

The Consequences

“Beyond the cartoon, the controversy has even leaped into real politics. The far-right formation Frattelli d’Italia has asked the foreign minister, Luigi di Maio, to summon the Dutch ambassador in Rome to demand immediate apologies. And in the Netherlands, where there is debate about whether or not the country should support the ambitious reconstruction plan approved by Brussels this week, the cover has also come in for criticism and has been branded as racist.” – Global World Blog, Explica

EU Economic Recovery Fund: The Fuckery Continues

“But officials said a thrifty camp of wealthy northern states led by the Netherlands stood its ground on access to the recovery fund, in the face of opposition from Germany, France, southern nations Italy and Spain, and eastern European states.” – Global News

“But the main stumbling block was over vetting procedures to access aid, an EU official said, with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte demanding that one country could block payouts from the fund if member states backslide on economic reform.” – Global News

Netherlands continues to demand EU aid conditional on reforms, says Rutte – Web24 News

Some Perspective on the Fuckery Being, Indeed Fuckery

“El FMI cree que España será el país desarrollado más golpeado por el virus. […]España será, junto con Italia, el país desarrollado más castigado por la pandemia: el PIB caerá un 12,8%, el mayor retroceso desde la Guerra Civil, según el Fondo Monetario internacional (FMI). […] Para España, se trata de la mayor caída en casi un siglo, desde la Guerra Civil —entonces fue del 26,8%—, incluso superior al desplome acumulado en un lustro de Gran Recesión.” – El País

[The IMF believes Spain will be the developed country most hit by the virus. […] Spain, along with Italy, will be the developed country most punished by the pandemic: the GDP will fall by 12.8%, a major step back since the [Spanish] Civil War [1936-1939], according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). […] For Spain, this is the worst fall in almost a century, since the Civil War – then it was by 26.8% - and even larger than the fall accrued during the Great Recession.]

“El FMI [Fondo Monetario Internacional] estima que el impacto del coronavirus en la economía es peor que el sucedido en la crisis de 2008. […] Y es que se espera que nuestro país sufra la mayor caída del PIB desde la posguerra, según un informe de Freemarket. […] Nuestro país sufrirá para recuperarse debido a su alta dependencia al turismo y al sector servicios, […]. – ABC

[The International Monetary Fund estimates that the coronavirus’ impacto on the [Spanish] economy is worse that that of the crisis of 2008. […] The GDP is expected to suffer its greatest fall since the postwar, according to a study by Freemarket. […] Our country would have difficulty recovering due to its high dependency on the tourism and service sectors, […].]

“El Banco de España lo dejó claro en un documento que publicó la semana pasada, en el cual estimaba que la caída de la actividad en las primeras dos semanas de confinamiento fue del 34%, frente a la media del 21% de la eurozona. El sector servicios —que tiene un peso superior al de la media de los países de la moneda común— retrocedió un 50%, y la categoría que agrupa a comercio, transporte y hostelería se hundió un 71%. […] Este hundimiento de la actividad dejará una factura mastodóntica para las futuras generaciones. El FMI estima que la ratio de deuda sobre el PIB, que en 2019 cerró en un 95,5%, escale casi 30 puntos a lo largo del año, hasta el 123,8% —frente al 115,5% estimado por el Gobierno—, para elevarse al 124,1% en 2021.Se trata de cotas nunca vistas desde finales de 1800, que alejan aún más la posibilidad de volver a los guarismos anteriores a la crisis de 2008, cuando el volumen de pasivo se encontraba en un holgado 35%.” – El País

[The Bank of Spain left it clear in a document it published last week, in which it estimated that the fall in activity in the first two weeks of quarantine was of 34%, versus the average of 21% in the Eurozone. The service sector – which has a larger role than the average of Euro countries – fell by 50%, and the category grouping commerce, transport, and hostelry sank by 71%. […] This fall in activity will take a mastodonic toll on future generations. The IMF estimates that the debt vs GDT ratio, which in 2019 was 95.5%, will grow by almost 30 points throughout the year, up to 123.8% - compared to the 115.5% estimated by the government – and will reach 124.1% in 2021. These are numbers never seen since the end of1800, which makes the excesses prior to the crisis of 2008 even more remote, when the liability volume was a grand 35%.]

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elizabethenroute-blog · 7 years ago

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Coming face-to-face with the refugee crisis

Living so close to the Brenner Pass, it was inevitable that I was going to come into contact with the refugee crisis at some point this year. However, I never thought that it would genuinely involve me.

Last week there was a parent-teacher day at school, which meant I got the day off. Making the most of this free time, I got on the train and casually popped over the border to Innsbruck for a bit of exploring (and shopping!). It was my first time benefitting from Schengen, and I loved it. I got on the train, halfway through the journey a police officer popped his head into the carriage and asked to see my passport, he handed it back, and I carried on my merry way.

On the way back, I had to change at Brenner and had a half an hour wait. I was surrounded by snow that must have been at least ankle deep, so made it my mission to find some form of warmth in the form of a waiting room. When I got there, I saw there were three Alpini (Italian army soldiers) waiting in there as well. This is nothing unusual, you see the odd soldier on most days around here, and I was stood at the nearest Italian train station to the Austrian border, after all.

It wasn’t until I sat down that I realised there were two more people in this room; a Muslim woman and a man about my age who appeared to be her son. The soldiers were attempting (and I mean attempting) to question this pair in English, but to no avail. I realised the best thing I could do was keep my head down, so I buried my nose in my Facebook newsfeed at the earliest opportunity.

After a couple of minutes, one of the soldiers started to make his way over to me. My first thought was that he was going to ask me to leave, but no. In Italian, he asked me if I spoke German. I responded yes, I did. He asked me if I understood Italian. Again, I said that I could. Then, he asked me if I could translate for them. This definitely wasn’t included in any of the millions of university pre-departure talks or handouts.

I tried my best. I’ve done English-Italian and English-German translation before, it’s one of the core parts of my degree, but I’d never had to completely get rid of my mother tongue and try to go back and forth between my two weaker languages. Nevertheless, I persevered, with one of the Italian soldiers feeding me questions, which I would then have to translate into German for the lady. She would respond to me, and I’d have to turn that into Italian for the soldiers to continue.

It’s only describable as an incredible experience. I physically felt myself block the English part of my brain, and for the next half an hour, my only thoughts were German or Italian. Just at the point when I was wondering if this whole year abroad thing was actually doing my languages any good.

I don’t know where they were from, but my first guess was Syria. The woman told me that she’d been living in Germany for the past three years. Her son had now come over, and she was trying to get back to Germany with him, but due to him having the wrong kind of passport and the current political atmosphere in Europe, they’d ended up stuck in Brenner.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not naïve and I do understand both sides of the debate. If we didn’t accept anyone, it would be a catastrophe, genocide. If we accepted every single person who washed up on European shores, then it’s inevitable that the odd mentally-unstable extremist would be in the mix. However, it wasn’t until I met this woman that I realised how blind I’d been to the whole situation.

Britain has some of the best border defences in the whole world. Not because of how many patrols we have or how much money we spend on defence, but because we’re a bloody island. We’re automatically given an advantage over a lot of nations when it comes to who we do and don’t let in, simply because they can’t just walk over! As a result, my own opinions about the refugee crisis have been able to sit above the clouds. I’d watch the 10pm news, think “oh dear, how tragic”, and then carry on with my life. I might have donated a coat here or there, but the situation never once affected my day-to-day life.

After meeting this poor lady and her son last week, I can’t get them out of my head. If you saw the blankness in their eyes, the numbness, you would know that they had seen things no person should ever have to experience. You would ask yourself why the hell hadn’t we let more of these people in? She explained to me that neither the Italian nor the Austrian authorities wanted to deal with them, so they were simply being bumped back and forth across the border. Once, when they arrived in Austria, they’d taken her son in for questioning, taken his fingerprints, photographed him, and sent him and his mother straight back into Italy with no explanation.

She (because I don’t even know her name!) asked me what she was supposed to do. I relayed the question to the soldiers, and they said that they couldn’t stay in Italy, they just had to get on the next train to Austria. The only way they could have stayed in Italy would have been to declare asylum, but you have to do that in the first country you arrive in, and that wouldn’t have allowed the pair to continue to Germany.

The awful thing is that they were so close! From Innsbruck to Munich it’s just two hours on the train. Just two hours. Yet every time they arrived in Austria they were sent backwards.

I’m sorry that this blog doesn’t contain my usual lightheartedness or film metaphors. I do want to be able to give this a happy ending, but the fact is I don’t know the ending. The lady and her son were put on the next train to Austria, and were told they would be able to get to Germany that way. I don’t know if they eventually got there, or whether they were bounced back again. I got on my own train and headed back into the Puster Valley.

When I got to work the next day, I told some of the other English teachers about my experience, and they weren’t surprised at all. This lady and her son were in no means the first, or the last, to arrive in Brenner in that situation.

I’ve been left with a lot of questions and not many answers. You can call me too liberal, too sensitive. Maybe I should just mind my own business. But the fact is that if Britain had been torn apart by political disarray, war and extremism, I’d pray every second of every day that other countries would help.

Until next time,

Beth ❤️

#brenner pass #south tyrol #syria #refugee crisis

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gadgetsrevv · 5 years ago

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Juventus are favourite to win Serie A again but there are reasons to doubt them

The mind games began at the end of May. Not from a pretender to the Juventus throne, but from Maurizio Sarri’s predecessor.

Sarri had yet to be announced as the Old Lady’s new coach back then but Massimiliano Allegri seemed to have a very good idea of who the club were lining up as his replacement. In his goodbye press conference, he once again stoked up the debate that had raged throughout the final two years of his tenure.

Does how you win matter? Last time he checked Juve’s motto, he didn’t think so. It claims “winning is the only thing that counts” and Allegri is a born winner. In coaching, guys like him are few and far between. As he sees it, you either got it or you don’t. Winning is not something you learn.

“I could give you an example,” he said, “but if I do, I’d bring the house down.” Some in the room thought Allegri meant Sarri who, at the time, had lifted only one trophy his whole career: the Serie D Coppa Italia.

– Williams: What to watch in Serie A this season – Serie Awesome podcast: 2019-20 season preview

In his final TV interview before heading off on his holidays, Allegri did what he often does, downplaying his own role in Juventus’ success while championing the work of the club and its players. He dismissed the idea that his successor has a big job on his hands to maintain the standards he set. “It’s a winning team,” Allegri said. “It’s a team that has got what it takes to keep winning. It’s a team that’s way better than the rest and has a 90 percent chance of winning [the league] again.”

Innocent and nonchalant in his delivery, Allegri would never have said such a thing in the event he were staying. It was, perhaps, a subtle way of applying some pressure on his successor.

While many still make Juventus favourites for the Scudetto, which would be their ninth straight if successful, they do seem less of a sure thing than usual.

For a start, Sarri’s appointment is the most left-field since that of Gigi Maifredi in 1990. Sure, the circumstances are different. Sarri is undoubtedly better prepared and more experienced than Maifredi was then. Juventus, as a club, are united behind him and he’s taking over a winning team. Make no mistake: if Sarri can get his ideas across and make a group of players this talented play in the style he implemented so successfully at Napoli, then we could be about to see the best Juventus of all-time.

But doubts remain.

Are the goalkeepers as comfortable on the ball as he needs them to be? Is a defence used to defending man-to-man, backing off and defending its own penalty area prepared to go zonal and step up, playing with wide open spaces behind it? And what of the attack?

Juventus are undoubtedly fancied to win Serie A for a ninth straight time but this season might be their toughest campaign yet in terms of competition.

One of the challenges Sarri faced when attempting to impose his style at Chelsea in England was the tentativeness or unwillingness to play quick combinations. Midfielders needed too many touches. Wingers held onto the ball too long, stopping and starting, allowing opposition defences to regroup and re-organise.

On Juve’s preseason tour, Sarri spoke about the re-education process for his new squad and how he needs time to change the habits of players who’ve worked under different coaches with different ideas for such a long time. His biggest challenge might be the players’ muscle memory. Sarri must convince Giorgio Chiellini, 35, and Cristiano Ronaldo, 34, to play another way. In fact, during the Asia leg of Juve’s preseason, he described his job as organising 10 players around CR7.

Sarri is the one who will have to adapt to the winner of multiple Ballons d’Or, and to Juventus. It’s not going to be the other way round. And so, a coach used to relying on a contingent of 13-14 players now has to keep a squad of superstars happy, something Allegri made look easy, and the club hasn’t helped Sarri in this regard.

For a start, Juventus have tried to offload a number of big names without success. Gonzalo Higuain has been returned to sender, to say nothing of forgotten man, Marko Pjaca. The Bianconeri tried to sell Paulo Dybala not once, but twice, and the Argentine is still bizarrely up for sale. Mario Mandzukic and Sami Khedira, who signed new deals last season, know they are on the market. As it stands, Juventus are going to have some very tough decisions to make when it comes to deciding who doesn’t make the cut for their 23-man Champions League squad.

We will have to see whether the club’s efforts to ease the strain on the payroll and recalibrate the wage-to-turnover ratio — the European transfer window closes on September 2 — have in turn caused friction elsewhere. Juve’s no drama togetherness has underpinned their success over the past nine years. A happy camp could potentially be compromised although saying that, one might counter that Higuain and Dybala aren’t the ones inconvenienced; the club is. Unfortunately for the balance sheet, they don’t want to be anywhere else.

Juventus’ appeal is higher than it’s ever been this century. Testament to that is Matthijs de Ligt‘s decision to join from Ajax when he pretty much had his pick of Europe’s elite and in that context, the scepticism and reservations surrounding Juventus are hard to square. Projection plays a part here. After eight consecutive league titles, there is an element of “Juve fatigue” among neutrals and fans of other Italian clubs. But it’s also a reflection of the increased competitiveness of the league and the indications this year are that Juventus have less margin for error, not that they make many mistakes.

Conte and Lukaku are new arrivals at Inter Milan this summer and should be integral to a much stronger title push in 2019-20.

In my opinion, three teams have a realistic shot at winning the title.

Inter have to be taken seriously not just because they have strengthened across the board, but, to follow Allegri’s logic, on the basis that they have a born winner at the helm in Antonio Conte. Much more is expected of Napoli in Carlo Ancelotti’s second year, too, and rightly so now that Kostas Manolas is partnering Kalidou Koulibaly in defence.

Standards are rising across the league, too. Roma have appointed the impressive Paulo Fonseca to managed a flawed, but fixable, squad. Milan have tailor-made their team for Marco Giampaolo, while Atalanta and Torino have retained what made them great last year. Lazio look capable of making it rain goals like they did two years ago.

Tax breaks have enabled Brescia to bring Mario Balotelli home and Fiorentina to give Franck Ribery a swansong. Cagliari have assembled an ambitious team, including the returning Radja Nainggolan, for their centenary season. Bologna have invested roughly €60m in players like successful loanees Riccardo Orsolini and Nicola Sansone, hoping to pick up where they left off under Sinisa Mihajlovic, who is continuing to coach the team while undergoing treatment for leukaemia. Genoa look like they could be very exciting with Aurelio Andreazzoli in charge.

The number of clubs hiring coaches who set out to dominate opponents and win games rather than sit back and aim not to get beat is encouraging as Serie A continues along a progressive, expansive path.

For Juventus, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be another procession this year. Still, with Sarri the hope is that its the beginning of a process to something bigger and better than what went before. Allegri isn’t the only one curious to see whether that’s possible or not.

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#Uncategorized #Juventus are favourite to win Serie A again but there are reasons to doubt them Juven

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sportsleague365 · 6 years ago

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For some footballers, the summer is already in sight. Specifically for those with just a few months remaining on their current contracts, the decision between staying put or moving on is becoming more urgent by the second. There are a number of reasons the players in question have run down their deals. Some are approaching retirement age and will likely hang up their boots at the end of the season; others are simply ready to move clubs and many have simply failed to agree – or even be offered – new terms by their current clubs. Below, we’ve put together the ultimate combined XI of footballers who are out of contract this summer. We have decided to leave out those who could retire at the end of the season – the likes of Gianluigi Buffon, Dani Alves, Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben are among the most high-profile players set for exits, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see any of the names mentioned below call it a day in the coming months. Be sure to check out BetBull, who are sponsoring all of Squawka’s Deadline Day content. Still, there are plenty of players who will be greatly sought after this summer when their contracts expire. Goalkeeper: Michel Vorm Club: Tottenham Likelihood of renewal:2/10 Michel Vorm turned 35 last October, so the Dutchman isn’t getting any younger. But goalkeepers are generally able to play on for longer than outfield players, meaning Vorm may have two or three seasons left in him as a player. The former Swansea City star has lost his place as Hugo Lloris’ deputy at Tottenham this season as a result of Paulo Gazzaniga’s impressive displays between the sticks. Vorm won’t accept being third place next term, so an exit is very likely. Whether he will return to his native Holland or stay in one of Europe’s top five leagues is up for debate. Centre-back: Diego Godin Club: Atletico Madrid Likelihood of renewal: 5/10 Diego Godin has played a central role in Atletico Madrid’s rise into the upper echelon of European clubs over the last few years. He scored the goal against Barcelona that sealed the club’s famous La Liga title victory in 2014. However, the 32-year-old could part ways with Atletico this summer. He has been heavily linked with Inter Milan in recent weeks, while Juventus have also been mooted as potential suitors. Diego Simeone has admitted Godin could leave on a free transfer, but there is no guarantee yet. Centre-back: Vincent Kompany Club: Manchester City Likelihood of renewal: 6/10 Much like Godin at Atletico, Kompany has been central to Manchester City’s emergence as a European superpower in recent times. The popular captain has struggled with injuries but continues to be an important part of the squad. At 32, he could still be playing regularly somewhere, and Pep Guardiola may not be able to make any promises going into next season. A move to Italy may be on the cards, but City would be wise to keep Kompany on because of his influence and leadership. Centre-back: David Luiz Club:Chelsea Likelihood of renewal:4/10 David Luiz has cut a divisive figure over the years, but there’s no questioning his ability when he’s in the mood. The Brazilian is a powerful defender who can also pick a pass better than many midfielders, and he’s been an important part of the Chelsea team since returning Stamford Bridge. But Luiz’s ability doesn’t count for much if reports about Chelsea’s contract policy are to be believed. According to the Guardian, Chelsea are unwilling to offer anything other than one-year contract extensions to players in their 30s. Luiz turns 32 in April, meaning his time in England could be up, unless it’s extended by a year. Right wing-back: Antonio Valencia Club:Manchester United Likelihood of renewal:3/10 According to the Manchester Evening News, Antonio Valencia has accepted he may have to leave Manchester United when his contract expires at the end of the season. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has left the right-back out of his squad in eight of the last nine matches. Knee injuries have contributed towards Valencia’s demise, but his future may depend on United’s managerial decision in the summer. If Solskjaer is appointed permanently, Valencia will probably be on his way out, but a different coach could have an opposing view. Central midfield: James Milner Club:Liverpool Likelihood of renewal:6/10 Very little has been said about whether James Milner will extend his stay at Liverpool. The midfielder isn’t getting any younger, but his versatility makes him a crucial member of the squad who can fill a number of positions when needed. Presumably the 32-year-old won’t want to drop down a level, although there will be Premier League clubs outside of the top six – and perhaps a couple in the top six – lining up to sign the former England international on a free transfer. Central midfield: Adrien Rabiot Club:Paris Saint-Germain Likelihood of renewal:1/10 Rabiot is certain to be one of the most sought after players among Europe’s top clubs this summer. The midfielder has turned down a new contract at PSG and has since been effectively ousted from the squad, making a summer exit inevitable. Barcelona, the club who were expected to seal a deal for Rabiot, have now signed Frenkie de Jong from Ajax, leaving Rabiot’s future uncertain. Tottenham and Liverpool have also been heavily linked with the 23-year-old. Left wing-back: Nacho MonrealClub:Arsenal Likelihood of renewal:5/10 Back in September, Sky Sports claimed Arsenal had entered talks with Nacho Monreal over a new contract, yet there have been no developments or updates since. That suggests there is a chance those negotiations didn’t go well and Monreal could leave the Emirates. Arsenal are likely to pursue a new left-back next summer, so a return to Spain may be Monreal’s best course of action if he can’t agree new terms in north London. Attacking midfielder: Juan Mata Club:Manchester United Likelihood of renewal:4/10 An immensely popular figure in English football, the Premier League could be waving goodbye to Juan Mata this summer. The Spaniard has been linked with a return to Valencia, and other Spanish clubs are certain to be interested. However, perhaps Mata will have an option to stay in England if Arsenal’s reported interest is genuine. Mata has worked with Gunners boss Unai Emery before, and the 30-year-old would be a handy squad addition for the north Londoners. Attacking midfielder: Aaron Ramsey Club:Arsenal Likelihood of renewal:1/10 Aaron Ramsey is the most certain departee on our list. Sky Sports have strongly suggested that the midfielder has signed a pre-contract agreement with Italian champions Juventus, who he is set to join up with for the 2019/20 season. Unai Emery continues to use Ramsey intermittently, but the only way he could possibly stay at Arsenal is if reports of a move to Juventus are incorrect and the Welshman suddenly agrees fresh terms at the Emirates. It’s highly unlikely. Striker: Olivier Giroud Club:Chelsea Likelihood of renewal:3/10 Olivier Giroud seems destined to be a reserve striker rather than the main man at Chelsea. He struggled to cement a place in the team when Alvaro Morata was considered the first-choice striker at Stamford Bridge. Now Morata is gone, Gonzalo Higuain appears to be Maurizio Sarri’s man. With that in mind, there is little reason Giroud will be eager to stay on at Chelsea unless he is happy to sit on the bench. What’s more, Chelsea’s contract policy – as mentioned above in regards to Luiz – may prevent an extension going through. Subscribe to Squawka’s Youtube channel:sqwk.at/Squawka-Sub The post Contract rebel XI: The best players whose current deals expire this summer appeared first on Squawka News. #NachoMonreal #AaronRamsey #AntonioValencia

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spicynbachili1 · 6 years ago

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Q&A: Hizbul Mujahideen leader: ‘We will never surrender’ | News

Riyaz Naikoo is without doubt one of the most needed armed Kashmiri fighters with a bounty of 12 lakh (roughly $170,00) on his head.

The 31-year-old former arithmetic instructor is the commander of Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), a pro-Pakistan armed separatist group that opposes Indian rule in Kashmir.

The HM group, based in 1989, is thought to be a terrorist organisation by India in addition to the USA and the European Union.

The Himalayan area is house to seven a long time of battle, with greater than half 1,000,000 Indian forces deployed to struggle insurgent teams demanding both independence or merger with Pakistan.

For the reason that armed insurrection erupted in 1989, greater than 70,00zero folks have been killed, in response to estimates by an area human rights federation, Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS).

In 2010, mass protests erupted once more, throughout which greater than 100 civilians have been killed – the worst violence in a decade that noticed stone-throwing Kashmiri youths hitting the streets in opposition to Indian rule.

The killing of widespread HM commander Burhan Wani in 2016 sparked the present section of lethal protests that has pushed a rising variety of youths in the direction of armed insurrection.

Al Jazeera spoke to Naikoo over the cellphone to debate whether or not he would think about negotiating with India, the technique behind armed wrestle and his imaginative and prescient for Kashmir’s future.

Al Jazeera reached out to the Indian authorities for remark however was but to obtain a response on the time of publication.

Al Jazeera: Why did you resolve to take up arms, what satisfied you to affix HM?

Riyaz Naikoo: In 2003, a cousin of my mom was martyred. This was when the fact of Kashmir touched me personally for the primary time. I used to be at school 11 (eleventh grade).

My mother and father needed me to go outdoors Kashmir to finish greater training, however I used to be drawn to the thought of resistance and knew that I won’t be able to serve on the bottom if I went away.

I labored as a instructor for greater than three years and was additionally concerned in social work in Pulwama district. Throughout this time, I got here in contact with a senior fighter, Parvaiz Musharraf.

I used to speak to him so much and would ask him questions on why he had joined and the way they might succeed despite the fact that they have been outnumbered. He would clarify my queries, and he additionally gave me his private diary, which I’d usually learn, [it] remains to be with me.

On March 21, 2010, he was martyred. I lastly grew to become an energetic fighter on 1 June 2012 underneath my code identify, Zubair. These days, it was not straightforward to outlive, as our numbers have been low. From the threats to our lives to pangs of starvation, we noticed all of it. Since then I’ve met and misplaced many fellow fighters and associates.

My household has suffered so much and are routinely harassed since I joined the armed insurrection. Our home has been attacked so many occasions, and my brother, uncles, and father have been arrested many occasions.

Al Jazeera: Do you continue to imagine within the technique of armed resistance?

Naikoo: Permit me to cite the good Nelson Mandela, who wrote the next phrases in his autobiography, Lengthy Stroll to Freedom: “A freedom fighter learns the exhausting approach that it’s the oppressor who defines the character of the wrestle, and the oppressed is usually left no recourse however to make use of strategies that mirror these of the oppressor. At a degree, one can solely struggle fireplace with fireplace.”

The Indian navy occupation of Jammu and Kashmir which we’re combating in opposition to is the longest-running and essentially the most brutal occupation within the up to date period, which compares with the occupation of Palestine in its scope and depth, but the fact of abuses right here is far much less identified.

Sure, we’ve got chosen the trail of armed wrestle, however primarily, we’re for peace, not struggle.

It’s the nature of the occupying Indian state that has compelled us to resort to violent strategies of resistance. Kashmiri folks didn’t decide up arms for greater than 40 years since occupation started in 1947. It was solely after steady repression and scuttling of all peaceable technique of resistance that we have been compelled to take action.

There are various United Nations resolutions that decision for a plebiscite to find out the desire of the folks of Jammu and Kashmir.

However the Indian state has repeatedly refused to recognise or implement them, they usually hold labelling Kashmir as their inner matter, which works in opposition to the legality and historical past of the dispute.

Armed wrestle just isn’t precisely our first selection, however it’s a troublesome selection that a few of us have made, and we are going to stay steadfast on our chosen path.

You should know that this state of affairs just isn’t distinctive in historical past. Such has been the case with all freedom struggles in opposition to colonial rule, be it the Indian freedom wrestle in opposition to the British, or the Algerian motion in opposition to the French, or the wrestle of the Libyan folks in opposition to Italian rule. The folks of Kashmir are the life-blood of our resistance.

Al Jazeera: Provided that many younger males are being killed, what makes you proceed to take up arms?

Naikoo: By elevating our weapons in opposition to Indian rule in Kashmir, we need to allow them to know that we’ll not settle for the occupation of our land underneath any circumstance. We are going to reply to their power with power since that appears to be the one language they perceive.

We are going to proceed to face up for our proper to self-determination and we’re able to struggle till our final breath. Most of all, we need to allow them to know that we’d die within the wrestle, however we are going to by no means give up.

No colonial occupation has continued eternally, and it’s our agency perception that the Indian rule in Kashmir may even collapse eventually, till then, we are going to struggle.

Clearly, such resistance comes at a value, and Indian forces proceed to kill Kashmiri folks with impunity.

The willpower, resistance and sacrifices of our folks – women and men, young and old, widows and orphans, half-mothers [mothers whose children have disappeared] and disappeared sons, these in prisons and in torture centres, encourage us to hold on.

Al Jazeera: What are your calls for? Do you see Pakistan as a part of what you need?

Naikoo: Our demand may be very easy – freedom. Freedom, for us, means the entire dismantling of India’s unlawful occupation of Kashmir and all of the constructions that help it, be they navy or financial.

We need to do away with the constructions which have enslaved not simply the territory of Kashmir but in addition the free expression and social and financial well-being of our folks. We wish our freedom with justice and dignity.

We think about Pakistan as our ideological and ethical buddy. Pakistan is the one nation which has constantly supported our trigger and raised the considerations of Kashmiri freedom wrestle at worldwide boards.

Pakistan’s creation because the homeland for Muslims of the Indian subcontinent hyperlinks us to it traditionally as we have been a Muslim majority area whose geography was contiguous with Pakistan. Most significantly, even when the Pakistani state’s help for Kashmir trigger has, at occasions, wavered circumstantially, the folks of Pakistan have at all times stood by us and our trigger.

Al Jazeera: Would you ever interact in negotiations or back-channel talks with India?

Naikoo: We aren’t in opposition to negotiations with India. However negotiations can solely result in a fruitful end result after they happen between events that recognise one another as equals.

Negotiations can not occur between a grasp and a slave or, as the good thinker of Palestinian armed wrestle, Ghassan Kanafani, very aptly put it, as “the dialog between the sword and the neck”.

Some Indian leaders insist that we should discuss throughout the ambit of the Indian structure; what they actually imply is capitulation. They aren’t excited by honouring our legit political calls for. They’re solely excited by pushing for insurance policies and mechanisms that additional entrench the occupational equipment.

Al Jazeera: What’s the ideology behind your wrestle? Are you curious about connecting with different armed teams combating occupation in numerous international locations?

Naikoo: Our ideology is of peace with justice. However our wrestle is for each citizen of occupied Jammu and Kashmir who lives and suffers underneath the shadow of occupation.

As followers of Islam, we’re taught by our faith to struggle all types of oppression until oppression is decimated. Islam motivates us to sacrifice for the reason for common justice.

To the folks everywhere in the world who is perhaps studying this, let me guarantee them that we’re in solidarity with all these folks, no matter their faith and their geography, who’re dwelling underneath occupations and are combating struggles for his or her freedom.

We perceive their plight, their challenges, their hopes and their needs as solely an oppressed can perceive the ache of different oppressed.

Having stated that, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen is an indigenous Kashmiri organisation which derives its cadres and logistics regionally and, in that, we’re self-sufficient. Thus, we don’t want help of any armed group in navy phrases, however we do encourage diplomatic, ethical, and activist solidarity from those that would recognise the legitimacy of our wrestle for liberation.

Al Jazeera: What sort of Kashmir would you like? Would you like a non secular state?

Naikoo: Freedom wrestle is an extended drawn out course of and it evolves over a time frame. Our speedy aim is to finish the Indian occupation and drive its navy and political equipment out of our land.

As for our future, we envision the creation of a free area whereby the character of the state will be deliberated upon freely. The paradigms of this debate can, and can change with time.

Having stated that, as you understand, Kashmir is a Muslim majority area and subsequently the folks have a particular affinity with the legal guidelines, rules and ethos of Islam.

I have to point out right here that we, very a lot based mostly on our faith, envision a system that encompasses the safety of minorities, which appreciates dialogue and tolerance, which has an incredible custom of free pondering, which doesn’t tolerate slavery, and which strives for equality.

We search steerage from Allah, to whom sovereignty belongs, to attempt for peace and justice, and in contrast to the forces of oppression, we’re not guided by the egos of the ability hungry.

Al Jazeera: When civilians come out on the streets to guard the fighters from Indian forces, they find yourself being killed, arrested or damage. Do you’re feeling this can find yourself fermenting bitterness and have your individual supporters flip their backs on you?

Naikoo: Kashmiri persons are not new to the streets of Kashmir. They’ve been protesting the Indian occupation since 1947, and the oppressive Dogra rule [in the 20th century] earlier than that.

Whereas earlier, folks used to run away from complete villages the military was about to cordon, now occasions have modified and we’re seeing that individuals particularly our youth are repeatedly placing their lives in danger.

We’re extraordinarily grateful to all these individuals who in a method or different are combating this unlawful occupation. We should additionally perceive that we as armed fighters are usually not totally different from folks. We’re totally different organs of the identical physique.

There isn’t a important binary of distinction between armed fighters and customary folks. Occupation’s bullets don’t make a distinction between civilians and fighters, nor do its prisons. We’re united with our folks in life and dying.

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