#Best Journalist of India

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week - April 3, 2023

Kentucky Legalizes Medical Marijuana in Bipartisan Vote After Decade of Failed Attempts

The state of Kentucky has legalized the use of medical marijuana. The bill received final passage on Thursday. Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear signed it into law Friday morning after a decade of failed attempts in the state legislature.

The news makes Kentucky at least the 38th state in the U.S. to legalize medical marijuana.

Now Indiana is surrounded by weed states. The encirclement is complete 😂

2. The Maryland House of Delegates voted Saturday to approve the Trans Health Equity Act

The Maryland House of Delegates voted Saturday to approve the Trans Health Equity Act — a bill that just a year ago disappeared from the chamber’s agenda ahead of a floor vote.

The bill would require Maryland Medicaid, beginning on Jan. 1, 2024, to provide coverage for additional gender-affirming treatments, which are currently disallowed in the state’s plan but commonly covered by private insurance. The expanded treatments include hormone therapy, hair alteration, voice therapy, physical alterations to the body, and fertility preservation.

3. FDA approves over-the-counter Narcan. Here's what it means

The approved nasal spray is the best-known form of naloxone. It can reverse overdoses of opioids, including street drugs such as heroin and fentanyl and prescription versions including oxycodone.

Making naloxone available more widely is seen as a key strategy to control the nationwide overdose crisis. Effects begin within two minutes when given intravenously, and within five minutes when injected into a muscle. The medicine can also be administered by spraying it into a person's nose.

4. Boston expands tuition-free community college program to all residents

Boston has expanded its tuition-free community college program to include all city residents regardless of age, income or immigration status.

Starting this fall, any city resident will be eligible to pursue an associate’s degree or certificate at one of six partnering local institutions without paying to attend. The program also includes a $250 stipend for incidental expenses each semester for up to three years, and up to $2,500 of debt relief for students whose account balances are keeping them from re-enrolling.

5. First cheetah cubs born in India since extinction 70 years ago

India has welcomed the birth of four cheetah cubs - more than 70 years after the animals were declared officially extinct there.India's environment minister announced the good news, calling it a "momentous event".

The country has been trying to reintroduce the big cats for decades, and last year brought eight cheetahs over from Namibia as part of the plan. Another 12 cheetahs were brought to India from South Africa last month.

6. BBC education show in Afghanistan helps children banned from school

The BBC has launched a new education programme for children in Afghanistan who are banned from school.It is aimed at children aged 11 to 16, including girls whose secondary education has been stopped by the ruling Taliban.

The weekly programme is called Dars, which means lesson in Dari and Pashto, Afghanistan's official languages. It is hosted by BBC Afghan female journalists who were evacuated from Kabul during the 2021 Taliban takeover.

Each new weekly half-hour episode of Dars will air four times a day, Saturday to Friday, on the newly launched BBC News Afghanistan channel.

7. A Trans Creator Has Raised Over 1.5 Million for Trans Healthcare on TikTok Live

Transgender TikTokers are celebrating Trans Day of Visibility by raising over $1.5 million for gender-affirming care around the world.

Mercury Stardust — a DIY TikToker and trans advocate who calls herself the “Trans Handy Ma’am” — raised $120,000 last year in a livestream for the mutual aid nonprofit Point of Pride, which maintains funds for surgeries, hormone therapy, and free binders and gaffs. This year, Stardust and cohost Jory, a.k.a. AlluringSkull, set themselves a goal of raising $1 million in a planned 30-hour live stream…and then smashed that milestone less than six hours after starting the stream Thursday evening.

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I have started a Youtube channel with wholesome videos I can find on the internet. Check it out :)

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[godinvent]

So I saw this post about how in the books, Dracula is actually an old man and I always imagined Dracula looked like older Christopher Lee, who played him while he was a kid. While looking him up I accidentally discovered that Christopher Lee was the coolest person in the universe and there is a non-zero chance he was actually Dracula in real life

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee CBE CStJ (May 27th 1922 - June 7th 2015), Sir because he was knighted in 2009 for his charity and his contributions to cinema

So first of all, I saw that he actually knew 8 LANGUAGES (English, Spanish, French, Swedish, Italian, German, Russian and Greek) and was also a staggering 6 feet 5 inches in height. Born in Belgravia in London, one of the most Dracula sounding places I’ve ever heard of, here’s some insane facts about him

•His father, Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Trollope Lee of the 60th King's Royal Rifle Corps, fought in the Boer War and World War 1

•His mother, Countess Estelle Marie (née Carandini di Sarzano) was an Edwardian beauty who was painted by Sir John Lavery, Oswald Birley, and Olive Snell, and sculpted by Clare Sheridan

•Lee's maternal great-grandfather, Jerome Carandini, the Marquis of Sarzano, was an Italian political refugee

•Jerome’s wife was English-born opera singer Marie Carandini (née Burgess), meaning that Lee is also related to famous opera singer Rosina Palmer

•His parents would divorce when he was four and his mother would marry Harcourt George St-Croix Rose, banker and uncle of Ian Fleming, making the author of the James Bond books Lee’s step cousin. Fleming would then offer him two roles as the antagonist in the film adaptations of his books, though he was only able to land the antagonist role in The Man With the Golden Gun. It’s believed his role in the film is significantly better and more complex than his book counterpart, played as “a dark side of Bond”

•His family would move and they lived next door to famous silent film actor Eric Maturin

•One night, before he was even 9 years old, he was introduced to Prince Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, THE ASSASSINS OF GRIGORI RASPUTIN, WHOM LEE WOULD GO ON TO PLAY MANY YEARS LATER

•Lee applied for a scholarship to Eton, where his interview was in the presence of the ghost story author M.R. James, who is considered one of the best English language ghost story writers in history and who widely influenced modern horror

•He only missed by King’s Scholar by one place by being bad at math, one of the only flaws God gave him

•Due to lack of working opportunities, Lee was sent to the French Riviera and stayed with his sister and her friends while she was on holiday, and on the way there he stopped briefly in Paris with journalist Webb Miller, a friend of his step father. Webb Miller was an American journalist and war correspondent and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the execution of the French serial killer Henri Désiré Landru, also known as BLUEBEARD. He also helped turn world opinion against British colonial rule of India

•While staying with Miller he witnessed Eugen Weidmann’s execution by guillotine, the last public execution ever performed in France

•Arriving in Menton, Lee stayed with the Russian Mazirov family, living among exiled princely families

•When World War 2 began, Lee volunteered to fight for the Finnish Army against the Soviet Union in the Winter War, and a year later, Lee would join the Home Guard. After his father died, he would join the Royal Air Force and was an intelligence officer and leading aircraft man and would later retire as a flight lieutenant in 1946

•While spending some time on leave in Naples, Lee climbed Mount Vesuvius, which erupted only three days later

•After nearly dying in an assault on Monte Cassino, Lee was able to visit Rome where he met his mother’s cousin Nicolò Carandini, who had fought in the Italian Resistance Movement. Nicolò would later go on to be the Italian Ambassador to Britain. Nicolò was actually the one to convince Lee to become an actor in the first place

•Oh yeah Christopher Lee was seconded to the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects where he was tasked with HELPING TRACK DOWN NAZI WAR CRIMINALS

•Lee’s stepfather served as a captain in the Intelligence Corps

•He was actually told he was too tall to be an actor, though that would honestly help him considering one of his first roles was as The Creature in The Curse of Frankenstein

•He was cast in Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N (1951) as a Spanish captain due to not only his fluency in Spanish but also he knew how to fence!

•Lee’s portrayal of Dracula had a crucial aspect of it which Bela Lugosi’s didn’t have: sexuality, a prime aspect of the original novels.

•While being trapped into playing Dracula under Hammer Film Productions, Lee actually hated the script so much that he would try his best to sneak actual lines from the original novel into the script

•Ironically, he was rejected from playing in The Longest Day because “he didn’t look like a military man”

•Christopher Lee was friends with author Dennis Wheatley, who “was responsible for bringing the occult into him”. He would go on to play in two film adaptations of his novels

•His biggest regret in his career is not taking the role of Sam Loomis from Halloween when offered to him

•Christopher Lee was the only person involved with the Lord of the Rings movies to have actually met J.R.R Tolkien

•When playing Count Dooku, he actually did most of the swordsmanship himself

•Christopher Lee was the second oldest living performer to enter the Billboard Top 100 charts with the song “Jingle Hell” at 91 years old. After media attention, he would get No. 18, and Lee became the oldest person to ever hit the Billboard Top 20 chart

I really am leaving some stuff out here and I may go on

[metamatar]

ok so i am very much uninformed on politics, i decided at a younger age that i wasn't interested in it and therefore would not read or keep myself particularly informed about it. obviously this is a bad idea, and i want to change and keep myself informed on actual politics and well, abstract[?] (wrong word but cannot think of another, basically mean like. knowing which political .. stance ?? [idk. like marxist or communist or whatever] i might be.) ones as well. what's a good place to get started here? where do i look for actual politics going on in india since i'm pretty sure ndtv or whatever isn't exactly the best source? or maybe it is? idk, like i said i'm pretty uninformed on the matter but would like to learn more

so one thing is, in india you have to accept the media landscape is just dire because being a journalist with integrity is a bit like signing up to have your life ruined. all major media has been bought by hindutva already. what you have to do is more learn to read between lines, understand people's motivations, which is a matter of practice. a good way to start is to read analysis (not news reports) of the same incident in different media and you'll start noticing patterns. even more important imo is to talk and bounce ideas with a friend at a similar place as you or someone interested in politics who won't overwhelm you with their perspective. you can try online but idt its safe or advisable anymore to do that experiment online. i had debate club in university (sad) and some socialist reading groups (better) after. the thing is this journey to self education is kind of personal and im also not pedagogically oriented or trained? so lots of first person description instead of prescriptions.

i still check what's up on ndtv because it gives me a good pulse of what english language media and liberals are thinking. major newspapers i scan hindu and the indian express sometimes. online i have a look at newslaundry (also has some youtube content) and the wire, they're reader supported and haven't turned full hindutva yet. i read longer form things in the caravan and epw, but these are subscription based. i keep tabs on the latest round of hindutva fake news when alt news debunks it.

for the abstract things, i literally did an online course bc i was frustrated by what all the liberal arts grads seemed to already agree on. i did ian shapiro's moral foundations of politics which is available online as both youtube lectures and a textbook. if you want to go that route feel free but it's not necessary, you can also try to read the entries on wikipedia or stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (more expertise) when you encounter something unfamiliar and build up like that. podcasts like bbc in our time will often interview academics to give intros to many political philosophy concepts and thinkers. whatever your learning style supports! i think the important thing is to find something you are actually interested in, and take that tack. i like history, so i might read books about historical revolutions or historical forms of organising society or listen to podcasts like mike duncan's revolutions.

For communism the usual starting points are these very short pamphlets:

Principles of Communism by Engels

The Manifesto of the Communist Party by Marx

Wage-Labor and Capital by Marx

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Engels

feel free to ask for more specific questions!

[gatheringbones]

[“To be associated with prostitution signifies moral loss. In 1910, US district attorney Edwin Sim wrote that ‘the characteristic which distinguishes the white slave from immorality … is that the women who are victims of the traffic are forced unwillingly to live an immoral life’.This belief – that to be a sex worker is to live an ‘immoral life’ – has persisted. Mark Lagon, who led the US State Department’s anti-prostitution work during the George W. Bush era (and went on to run the biggest anti-trafficking organisation in the US), wrote in 2009 that women who sell sex lead ‘nasty, immoral lives’ for which they should only not be held ‘culpable’ because ‘they may not have a choice’.

In the 2000s, the blog Diary of a London Call Girl, written by escort and anonymous blogger ‘Belle de Jour’, was a smash hit, leading to books and a TV show. After its author was named in 2009 as the research scientist Brooke Magnanti, journalists, like Lombroso before them, attempted to read her supposed moral loss in her physical body: ‘I scrutinize [Magnanti’s] face without quite knowing what I’m looking for … dead eyes, maybe … or something a bit grim and hard around the mouth.’ Sex work, categorised as the wrong kind of sex, is seen as taking something from you – the life in your eyes. In her imagined loss, Magnanti is transformed in the journalist’s eyes into a threat, a hardened woman.

This supposed sexual excess, and the loss that accompanies it, delineates the prostitute as ‘other’. The ‘good’ woman, on the other hand, is defined by her whiteness, her class, and her ‘appropriate’ sexual modesty, whether maidenly or maternal. Campaigns for women’s suffrage in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries drew on the connection between women’s bodies and honour and the honour and body politic of the nation. These campaigns were intimately linked with efforts to tackle prostitution, with British suffragists engaging in anti-prostitution work ‘on behalf’ of women in colonised India to make the case that British women’s enfranchisement would ‘purify the imperial nation-state’.

This sense that people (particularly women) are changed and degraded through sex crops up in contemporary feminist thought about prostitution, too. Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, who runs a diversion programme for arrested sex workers in Arizona, claims that ‘once you’ve prostituted, you can never not have prostituted … having that many body parts in your body parts, having that many body fluids near you, and doing things that are freaky and weird really messes up your ideas of what a relationship looks like, and intimacy’. Sex workers who go through that programme have to abstain not only from selling sex but also from sex with a partner.

Even more punitive responses were common in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and even twentieth centuries. Orders of nuns across the world ran workhouses and laundries for ‘fallen women’ – prostitutes, unmarried mothers, and other women whose sexualities made their communities uneasy. Conditions in these ‘Magdalene laundries’ were primitive at best and often brutal; even in the twentieth century, women could be confined within them for their whole lives, imprisoned without trial for the ‘moral crime’ of sex outside of marriage. Many women and their children died through neglect or overwork and were buried in unmarked graves. In Tuam, Ireland, 796 dead children were secretly buried in a septic tank between 1925 and 1961. The last Magdalene laundry in Ireland closed only in 1996.

The Irish nuns who ran the Magdalene laundries did not disappear. Instead, they set up an anti-prostitution organisation, Ruhama, which has become a major force in campaigning to criminalise sex work in Ireland, and now couches its work in feminist language. The Good Shepherd Sisters and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity continue to make money from the real estate where the Magdalene laundries stood, while largely stonewalling survivors’ efforts to document or account for the abuses that took place there – and refusing to contribute to the compensation scheme for survivors.”]

molly smith, juno mac, from revolting prostitutes: the fight for sex workers’ rights, 2018

[mariacallous]

After a period of relative quiescence, everyone has started talking about fascism again. This is, in part, due to the threat of a second term for Donald Trump, which has reactivated a highly polemical “fascism debate” in the United States. But there are plenty of other actual or quasi-fascists elsewhere. The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is the leader of a genuine neo-fascist party. In Latin America, Argentina’s Javier Milei has picked up where Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro left off. And, in India, Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party was reelected in June, albeit with a much-reduced majority.

By contrast, much less has been said about anti-fascism. Most commentators and journalists—and even many academics—seem to have accepted that anti-fascism belongs to the 20th century. Which is a little strange. If fascism is real, why not its opposite? And what happened to all of those historical memories of fighting fascism, above all in Europe, but also further afield?

Fortunately, we still have France, the only country that continues to talk about anti-fascism in a consistent and meaningful way across the political spectrum—and one of the few places where this talk translates into a hard electoral reality.

The explanation for this anomaly lies in the concept of the so-called front républicain (republican front). This refers to any coalition or alliance that is designed to keep the far-right from power.

In the late 1880s and 1890s, the front républicain included those who were opposed to the rise of Boulangism, a militarist far-right movement, and those who defended the cause of Alfred Dreyfus, whose false conviction was one of the great republican causes at the time. The clash between an insurgent far-right and the massed republican forces of the moderate right, the center, and the left was subsequently repeated time and again.

There were echoes of the front républicain in the 1936 Popular Front, although this was in a more obviously left-wing key. The same logic was invoked in the 1950s, at the time of Poujadism, and again in the 1980s, when Jean-Marie Le Pen’s Front National began to make its first electoral breakthroughs.

By this time, the front républicain had taken on a clearly electoral dimension. The aim was to ensure that the best-placed candidates from “republican” parties would win in the second-round of an election. This involved strategic désistements (withdrawals) by weaker “republican” candidates, followed by tactical voting.

The most famous recent iteration of the front républicain is usually also considered to be its last hurrah. In 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen squeezed past the socialist candidate, Lionel Jospin, in the first round of the presidential election. This was the first time that any far-right candidate had come so close to power, and it was a profound shock.

In response, the entire political class called on the French to vote for the center-right candidate, Jacques Chirac, in the second round. It worked spectacularly: Chirac was elected with more than 82 percent of the vote on a turnout of almost 80 percent. Left-wing voters massively supported a right-wing candidate in order to save the French Republic.

But, as we now know, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s success was only the beginning. Since then, his daughter Marine Le Pen has climbed ever higher in the polls. She qualified for the second round of the presidential elections in 2017 and 2022, when she received 41 percent of the vote. Le Pen’s party, too, has gone from strength to strength. Now rebaptized as the Rassemblement National, it has gradually developed its local and regional presence—and, in 2022, it made a major breakthrough when it won 89 seats in the National Assembly.

For most analysts, the success of Marine Le Pen and the Rassemblement National was easily explained by the atrophy of the front républicain. After 2002, fewer and fewer left-wing voters felt inclined to block the far-right, and a significant minority of right-wing voters embraced it. With each new election, the remnants of a century-old French anti-fascist tradition seemed to fall away. Indeed, many of the most pessimistic result forecasts of the 2024 elections were based on the assumption that it was essentially dead.

Imagine the surprise, then, when the results of the second round were announced on Sunday night. Despite increasing its seats and vote share, the far-right flopped compared to the polls. It was soon clear that voters had done everything they could to stop the Rassemblement National from winning a majority.

All of a sudden, the front républicain was back, and the phrase was plastered across the French mainstream media. Commentators and pollsters scrambled to explain themselves. For those with long memories, it felt as if the spirit of 2002 had been resurrected from the grave.

The simplest way to explain this remarkable revival of anti-fascism is to invoke something that all historians of modern France will recognize: the fear of disorder and social collapse. Modern French history is littered with regime changes, protests, revolutions, and civil wars. The constitutional settlement of the Fifth Republic, born in 1958 during the Algerian War, was specifically designed to ensure stability, and it survived the momentous protests of 1968 and the economic crisis of deindustrialization unscathed.

Still today, voters are scared of the consequences of bringing a far-right party to national power. They fear that a victory for Marine Le Pen or her prime-minister-in-waiting, Jordan Bardella, would unleash violence and instability across the country. On the three occasions when they have realistically faced this prospect—2017, 2022 and 2024—they have pulled back. Each time, they have invoked the front républicain as a defense mechanism.

But there was more to the 2024 elections than simply a kneejerk reaction to the threat of disorder. For the first time since the early 2000s, anti-fascism was imbued with a positive quality. People invested hope in the left-wing alliance, known as the Nouveau Front Populaire. They saw anti-fascism as the basis on which to build a fairer society, with more public spending, a higher minimum wage, a wealth tax, and a reversal of Macron’s pension reforms.

This process was especially striking amongst young people, some of whom were not even born in 2002. Theirs is not the same anti-fascism as those aged 50 or older, who remember the rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen and the Front National. Young activists still talk about “fascism” and “racism,” just like the elders from whom they have learnt their history, but they are doing more than replaying the political battles of the past. They know that they are only one front in a global anti-fascist universe that stretches from the Trump trials to the smooth authoritarianism of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

The campaigning of young anti-fascists has been made all the more intense by the fact that the Rassemblement National has succeeded in mobilizing a significant proportion of young people. The struggle to contain the far-right in France is not an intergenerational clash between youthful liberals and reactionary boomers. If anything, old people are the least likely to vote for Marine Le Pen and her acolytes. In fact, young people are fighting for the political soul of their own generation.

The most obvious symbol of this fight is Bardella himself. He is only 28 years old, and his meteoric rise has not passed unnoticed. Some voters in the 2024 elections even asked where the “Bardella” voting slip was when they arrived at the polling booth. They wanted to vote for him, even though he was not on the ballot.

Yet his youthful persona—and his facility with Tiktok—drew a committed response. During and after the elections, French social media was filled with a cascade of anti-fascist memes and counter-videos. Young people, often people of color, lampooned Bardella’s campaign tactics and press conferences. They pilloried his party and the—sometimes very inexperienced—candidates who ran for election, calling them out for their racism, homophobia, bigotry, or plain stupidity.

It helps that some of the emerging figures on the French left are also young. Clémence Guetté, of La France Insoumise, is 33. Marine Tondelier, the current leader of the main Greens party, is 37. And Raphaël Glucksmann, who led the center-left to second place in the 2024 European elections, is 44. They are all politicians who have cut their teeth in a political landscape where the far-right is a fixture, not an anomaly.

It is impossible to say whether this youthful French anti-fascism has a future. In his “letter to the French” after the elections, Macron referred to the front républicain, but it is not clear that he or his allies intend to adhere to it. In particular, the proposal to form a governing coalition without some or all of the left—which several members of Macron’s party have endorsed—would run counter to the spirit of the election results. Meanwhile, the RN is waiting patiently for its next opportunity to show off its electoral strength.

Nevertheless, the recent electoral cycle in France is a reminder that today’s anti-fascism is no longer beholden to the 1930s or 1990s. It has a life of its own—and a whole new generation of foot soldiers ready to go to war against their oldest enemy.

[richincolor]

New Releases

More exciting books for our summer TBR list. Look for K. Imani's review of Unbecoming next Friday. 

Click below to read all about this week's releases

Unbecoming by Seema Yasmin

 Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Two Muslim teens in Texas fight for access to abortion while one harbors a painful secret in this funny and heartfelt near-future speculative novel perfect for fans of Unpregnant. In a not-too-distant America, abortions are prosecuted and the right to choose is no longer an option. But best friends Laylah and Noor want to change the world. After graduating high school, they’ll become an OBGYN and a journalist, but in the meantime, they’re working on an illegal guide to abortion in Texas. In response to the unfair laws, underground networks of clinics have sprung up, but the good fight has gotten even more precarious as it becomes harder to secure safe medication and supplies. Both Layla and Noor are passionate about getting their guide completed so it can help those in need, but Laylah treats their project with an urgency Noor doesn’t understand—that may have something to do with the strange goings-on between their mosque and a local politician. Fighting for what they believe in may involve even more obstacles than they bargained for, but the two best friends will continue as they always have: together.

A Magic Fierce and Bright by Hemant Nayak

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

A young technomancer teams up with a handsome thief to save her sister in this propulsive, magic-filled young adult fantasy that is perfect for fans of Gearbreakers and Iron Widow . Adya wants nothing more than to be left alone. Content to be loyal to no one but herself in the isolated jungles of South India, she dreams only of finding her lost sister, Priya, and making enough money to take care of their family. It’s too bad that her rare ability to wake electric machines—using the magic that wiped them out five centuries ago—also makes her a coveted political pawn. Everyone seems to believe that her technomancy can help them win the endless war for control over the magic’s supernatural source. These senseless power struggles mean little to Adya. But when her enemies dangle news of her sister before her, she’s all too quick to leap at the chance to bring Priya home—even if it means teaming up with a rakish, disreputable thief in order to do it. With the threat of invasion looming ever larger on the horizon, Adya must reconcile the kind of person she is with the kind of person she wants to be and untangle the web of intrigue, conspiracy, and deceit that threatens to take all of India down with it.

It’s Only a Game by Kelsea Yu

Bloomsbury YA

In this twisty, fast-paced YA thriller, a dangerous game becomes all too real when Marina and her friends are framed for murder. When Marina Chan ran from her old life, she brought nothing with her-not even her real name. Now she lives in fear of her past being discovered. But when her online gaming team is offered a tour of their favorite game company, Marina can’t resist accepting, even though she knows it might put her fake identity at risk. Then the creator of the game is murdered during their tour. Whoever killed him plans to frame Marina and her friends for the murder unless they win four rounds of a dangerous game. A game that requires them to lie, trespass, and steal. A game that could destroy everything Marina’s worked so hard to build…. A game that she might not survive.

[queer-writers-poll]

E. M. FORSTER (1879 - 1970): author

Works: Maurice, A Passage to India, A Room with a View

_____

VITA SACKVILLE-WEST (1892 - 1962): novel, poet, journalist, garden designer

Works: All Passions Spent, The Edwardians, Family History

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Zack Beauchamp at Vox:

I met Raqib Naik, a journalist who had fled his native India, at a coffee shop in suburban Maryland. We sat at the same metal table where he once discussed the prospect of his assassination with FBI agents.

Naik is a Muslim from Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state. In August 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked the state’s longstanding self-determination rights and temporarily imposed martial law. Indian officials arbitrarily detained thousands of Kashmiris, including many journalists. Through it all, Naik did his best to convey the reality in Kashmir to the outside world — a firsthand account of what was really going on in what’s often termed “the world’s largest democracy.” On August 15, 10 days after the crackdown in Kashmir began, Naik received the first of three visits from Indian military intelligence officers who interrogated him about his reporting. The harassment forced him underground; he eventually fled to the United States in the summer of 2020. But Modi wouldn’t let him go that easily. In September 2020, an Indian military official sent Naik a message saying “i have invited your father for a cup of tea.” In November 2020, a second intelligence officer said he too had contacted Naik’s father, vowing that he and Naik would “meet in person” even though Naik had moved to America. While traveling in another country in June 2022, Naik received an anonymous text message saying “you are being tracked and will be prosecuted.” He flew back to the US as quickly as possible.  [...]

India’s plot against America

I have spent the past several months investigating stories like Naik’s: critics of India who say the Indian government has reached across the Pacific Ocean to harass them on American soil. 

Interviews with political figures, experts, and activists revealed a sustained campaign where Narendra Modi’s government threatens American citizens and permanent residents who dare speak out on the declining state of the country’s democracy. This campaign has not been described publicly until now because many people in the community  — even prominent ones — are too afraid to talk about it. (The Indian government did not respond to repeated and detailed requests for comment.)  India’s efforts include a handful of high-profile incidents, most notably an assassination plot against American and Canadian activists. But more commonly, India engages in subtle forms of harassment that fly under the public radar. An American charity leader who spoke out on Indian human rights violations saw his Indian employees arrested en masse. An American journalist who worked on a documentary about India was put on a travel blacklist and deported. An American historian who studies 17th-century India received so many death threats that she could no longer speak without security. Even a member of Congress — and vocal critic of the Modi regime — said she was concerned about being banned from visiting her Indian parents.

[...]

And while Russian involvement in the 2016 election swayed few votes, there’s good reason to believe India’s campaign is working as intended — muting stateside criticism of India’s autocratic turn under Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

An American academic warned me that they couldn’t speak openly about India out of concern for family. An American think tank expert described numerous examples of censorship and self-censorship at prominent US institutions. These two sources, and many others, would only share their personal stories with me anonymously. All were concerned about the consequences for their careers, their loved ones, or even themselves — and they weren’t alone. “Indian Americans who are against the BJP, or oppose the BJP, have been intimidated and as a result routinely engage in self-censorship. I have heard them say as much to me,” says John Sifton, the Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “There are prominent Indian American intellectuals, writers, [and] celebrities who simply will not speak out against Modi because they are afraid that by doing so they will subject themselves to a torrent of online abuse and even death threats.” As a result, one of the most important developments of our time — Modi pushing the world’s largest democracy toward an authoritarian future — is receiving far less scrutiny in the United States than it should, especially at a time when Modi is running for a historic third term. 

India’s willingness to go after critics outside its borders — a practice political scientists call “transnational repression” — is a symptom of this democratic decline. Most sources told me that Indian harassment of Americans began in earnest after Modi took office in 2014, with most reported incidents happening in the past several years (when the prime minister became more aggressively authoritarian at home). Modi, a member of a prominent Hindu supremacist group since he was 8 years old, seems to believe he can act on the world stage in the same way he behaves at home. Despite the brazenness of India’s campaign — attacking Americans at home in a way that only the world’s worst authoritarian governments would dare — the Biden administration is putting little pressure on Modi to change his ways. Judging New Delhi too important in the fight against China, the US government has adopted its own unstated policy of avoiding fights with India over human rights and democracy. [...]

Modi’s “new India”

India was founded in 1947 as a secular democracy, with formal equality of all citizens enshrined in its constitution. But even before then, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) had begun laying the groundwork for an alternative Hindu nationalist state. Narendra Modi has been a part of this fight since 1958, when he first got involved in his town’s RSS branch.

The RSS’s ideology, called Hindutva, holds that India must be a state principally for Hindus. It treats non-Hindus, especially Muslims, as foreign imports at best and invading forces at worst. The BJP is the RSS’s political wing, and it has worked extensively to bring the Indian state in line with Hindutva principles.  Making this dream into reality has been the purpose of Modi’s political career. Since becoming prime minister, he’s proven remarkably adept at it. The revocation of Kashmir’s autonomous status, and the subsequent crackdown that swept up Raqib Naik, is just one of many Hindutva victories during his tenure.  His government recently inaugurated a major new Hindu temple in the city of Ayodhya, on the site of a mosque that was torn down by an RSS-aligned mob in 1992. It passed the Citizenship Amendment Act, a law that, among other things, set up discriminatory immigration rules for Muslims. In states across the country, local BJP governments have passed laws restricting interfaith marriage between Hindus and Muslims.

Vox exposes India’s siccing of Americans critical of its authoritarian turn under PM Narendra Modi.

[officiallordvetinari]

Wikipedia Featured Article Poll, Biographies Edition. Summaries and links below the cut

Margaret Ives Abbott (June 15, 1878 – June 10, 1955) was an American amateur golfer. She was the first American woman to win an Olympic event: the women's golf tournament at the 1900 Summer Olympics.

Lilias Eveline Armstrong (29 September 1882 – 9 December 1937) was an English phonetician. She worked at University College London, where she attained the rank of reader. Armstrong is most known for her work on English intonation as well as the phonetics and tone of Somali and Kikuyu. Her book on English intonation, written with Ida C. Ward, was in print for 50 years. Armstrong also provided some of the first detailed descriptions of tone in Somali and Kikuyu.

Morris Berg (March 2, 1902 – May 29, 1972) was an American catcher and coach in Major League Baseball, who later served as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. Although he played 15 seasons in the major leagues, almost entirely for four American League teams, Berg was never more than an average player and was better known for being "the brainiest guy in baseball." Casey Stengel once described Berg as "the strangest man ever to play baseball".

Edward Dando (c. 1803 – 28 August 1832) was a thief who came to public notice in Britain because of his unusual habit of overeating at food stalls and inns, and then revealing that he had no money to pay. Although the fare he consumed was varied, he was particularly fond of oysters, having once eaten 25 dozen of them with a loaf and a half of bread with butter.

Harold Francis Davidson (14 July 1875 – 30 July 1937), generally known as the Rector of Stiffkey, was a Church of England priest who in 1932, after a public scandal, was convicted of immorality by a church court and defrocked. Davidson strongly protested his innocence and to raise funds for his reinstatement campaign he exhibited himself in a barrel on the Blackpool seafront. He performed in other sideshows of a similar nature, and died after being attacked by a lion in whose cage he was appearing in a seaside spectacular.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas (April 7, 1890 – May 14, 1998) was an American journalist, author, women's suffrage advocate, and conservationist known for her staunch defense of the Everglades against efforts to drain it and reclaim land for development. Moving to Miami as a young woman to work for The Miami Herald, she became a freelance writer, producing over one hundred short stories that were published in popular magazines. Her most influential work was the book The Everglades: River of Grass (1947), which redefined the popular conception of the Everglades as a treasured river instead of a worthless swamp. Its impact has been compared to that of Rachel Carson's influential book Silent Spring (1962). Her books, stories, and journalism career brought her influence in Miami, enabling her to advance her causes.

George Went Hensley (May 2, 1881 – July 25, 1955) was an American Pentecostal minister best known for popularizing the practice of snake handling. A native of rural Appalachia, Hensley experienced a religious conversion around 1910: on the basis of his interpretation of scripture, he came to believe that the New Testament commanded all Christians to handle venomous snakes.

Margaret Alice Murray FSA Scot FRAI (13 July 1863 – 13 November 1963) was a British-Indian Egyptologist, archaeologist, anthropologist, historian, and folklorist who was born in India. The first woman to be appointed as a lecturer in archaeology in the United Kingdom, she worked at University College London (UCL) from 1898 to 1935. She served as president of the Folklore Society from 1953 to 1955, and published widely over the course of her career.

Dom Pedro Afonso (19 July 1848 – 10 January 1850) was the Prince Imperial and heir apparent to the throne of the Empire of Brazil. Born at the Palace of São Cristóvão in Rio de Janeiro, he was the second son and youngest child of Emperor Dom Pedro II and Dona Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies, and thus a member of the Brazilian branch of the House of Braganza. Pedro Afonso was seen as vital to the future viability of the monarchy, which had been put in jeopardy by the death of his older brother Dom Afonso almost three years earlier.

Elias Abraham Rosenberg (Hebrew: אליאס אברהם רוזנברג; Hawaiian: Eliaka Apelahama Loselabeka; c. 1810 – July 10, 1887) was a Jewish immigrant to the United States who, despite a questionable past, became a trusted friend and adviser of King Kalākaua of Hawaii. Regarded as eccentric, he lived in San Francisco in the 1880s and worked as a peddler selling illegal lottery tickets. In 1886, he traveled to Hawaii and performed as a fortune-teller. He came to Kalākaua's attention, and endeared himself to the king with favorable predictions about the future of Hawaii. Rosenberg received royal appointments to several positions: kahuna-kilokilo (royal soothsayer), customs appraiser, and guard. He was given lavish gifts by the king, but was mistrusted by other royal advisers and satirized in the Hawaiian press.

[willkatfanfromasia]

Book review – Sangathaara

A book who’s reputation precedes it.

Based on the same topic as an already epic novel, this book accomplished the hard task of being an interesting read. The lack of an English translation is very disappointing

It is a historical mystery with politics and drama interspersed.

It primarily tries to answer the questions surrounding Aditha karikalan's life and death.

For starters it is just 1 volume instead of 5. The author’s (kalachakram narasimhan) writing style (perhaps intentionally) gives glimpses of his former career as a journalist. The story and pacing keeps the reader engrossed-slow enough to reel you in but fast enough to prevent boredom.

It is the content, however, that has left the audience split. The book starts off with aditha Karikalan ‘s spectre lamenting that he hasn’t received justice even after 1000 years- that his killers haven’t been found. We can’t help but quip- but they have been found! In the inscriptions. The author (via AK) argues that the ‘killers’ held important titles in the chola court (“bramadhirayan”) and termed as traitors (how can pandyas be traitors to cholas?). Most suspiciously, their punishment seems neither grave or memorable for a crime of this magnitude.

Several decades into the future, a daughter of Sundara chola with his second wife who'd become a Buddhist monk, dies leaving behind memoirs to her nephew Rajendra Chola. The latter tasks his daughter Arunmozhi nangai with reading them for him - with horrifying reveals for both.

The actual tale begins with kundhavai’s “coming of age” ceremony at the twilight years of her great-grandfather Parantaka 1’s reign. Ambitious kundhavai and Aditha karikalan have great dreams fuelled by youthful vigor.

A teen boy raging to kill his clan's mortal enemy and a teen girl desiring more than her lot in life.

The empire is threatened by Pandyas, Lankans and Srivijaya may too join them. Anirudhdhar, Pazhuvettarayar are frustrated that their new emperor Gandaraditha has no interest in war. They plot to waylay the ship carrying the young Srivijayan princess Vijayarekha and betroth her to AK. This young girl is already engaged to a prince of purasanga (Malaysia?) and loathes her kidnapping.

A handsome young diamond merchant from Purasanga and a young warrior from a fallen Kingdom both enter the empire. The former swiftly rises up the ranks of chola nobility through an advantageous marriage and draws kundhavai’s curiosity by claiming to be the descendant of an elder Chola line. He also claims to possess important ritual artefacts (conch, parts of a plant) used in coronations of ancient Chola’s (adicholar) that kundavai is determined to anoint her brother with. The latter youth, desolate from his kingdom's fall, gains AK’s trust and married kundhavai. (Surprise surprise!)

Pazhuvettarayar, Aniruddhar and kodumbalur vellalar try to steer the rulers.

A prominent devadasi grapples with a wealthy admirer’s attention as her own past and future are questioned.

Ravidasan is given an interesting chola link to weave him into this chaos. His condemnation is also added into this mix.

The author blends a legend about ancient Chola’s artefacts with the ambitions of 10th century South India.

But why the controversy? You may ask.

This book has irked keen fans of Ponniyin Selvan, due to it’s contrasting portrayal of some beloved characters.

- Kundhavai and Vanthiyadevan are NOT good guys. They have individuals agendas.

It builds up slowly and believably within the story’s context – but best not to consider it truth.

A few reviews have pointed this out- the author’s writing style and the book’s preface claim journalistic veracity (the book’s full of footnotes) yet it has the same creative liberties as ponniyin Selvan

- Parthibendran, a fictional character, makes a short appearance.

- There’s a Nandini esque character in this book too (linked to the details in this post ). And the author gives her an unhappy end. He equates her with a real person

- Pazhuvettarayar is cleared of responsibility for AKs murder as he is his greatgrandpa/ great uncle? – but the book goes on to portray other characters as capable of killing their flesh and blood. (This happens a couple of times)

- Gandaraditha’s characterization is – uhm- a choice, alright. As a story it was acceptable (within this universe) but its murky when you realise it’s based on a real person.

- There’s a baby swap in this too. Amv and Madhurantakan's parentage is given a shocking explanation. I may reveal in the comments if y'all want it.

The author has a thorough knowledge of chola art and inscriptions, as well as the many feuds that took place over several generations, weaving them artfully as contributors to the final outcome.

A thozhi (confidant) of kundhavai -thettakani- becomes an important observer due to her proximity to key events. A neutral character in a book full of people with ambitions.

@celestesinsight @thereader-radhika @ambidextrousarcher @harinishivaa @vibishalakshman @sowlspace @deadloverscity @favcolourrvibgior @thelekhikawrites @nspwriteups and anyone else interested !

[elliepassmore]

The Living Medicine release!

First discovered in 1917, bacteriophages—or “phages”—are living viruses that devour bacteria. Ubiquitous in the environment, they are found in water, soil, inside plants and animals, and in the human body. When phages were first recognized as medicines, their promise seemed limitless. Grown by research scientists and physicians in France, the Soviet Union, and elsewhere to target specific bacteria, they cured cholera, dysentery, bubonic plague, and other deadly infectious diseases. But after Stalin’s brutal purges and the rise of antibiotics, phage therapy declined and nearly was lost to history—until today.

In The Living Medicine, acclaimed science journalist Lina Zeldovich reveals the remarkable history of phages, told through the lives of the French, Soviet, and American scientists who discovered, developed, and are reviving this unique cure for seemingly-intractable diseases. Ranging from Paris to Soviet Georgia to Egypt, India, South Africa, remote islands in the Far East, and America, The Living Medicine shows how phages once saved tens of thousands of lives. Today, with our antibiotic shield collapsing, Zeldovich demonstrates how phages are making our food safe and, in cases of dire emergency, rescuing people from the brink of death. They may be humanity’s best defense against the pandemics to come.

Bookshop.org

Barnes & Noble

While this book is focused on the medical history of bacteriophages, it also provides lots of information about how the phages themselves work. The topic of the book was fascinating and there's so much interesting knowledge within the pages. I found this to be a superb overview of both the history and the science of phages and definitely recommend it to anyone interested in medicine, medical history, or the rise in antibiotic resistance.

Interested? Check out my full review!

[itsblasttothepast]

I'm not really a Chewis fan (I don't mind them, I just like Chestappen more) for a few reasons but I think that if there was something between them it was more of a BFF with benefits in their younger days - with Checo baying all babygirl in Sauber and Lewis being the moment at that time (I think that after Nico Lewis wouldn't want to mix personal and profesional ever again) but they sure do have chemistry. A song for them would be I think, Never Mind by Rafael Witt (it's a bit angsty but that's how I feel about this ship) - it's like Sergio reflecting at their relationship after years - mind you, that's just my interpretation so it might be completly wrong - it's written with the perspective that Chewis was real until they fell apart somewhere around 2018 and ended completly in 2021.

"Sleep/Isn’t it much harder?/Searching just to find her where you would not expect"

That is Checo thinking about the past and wondering what could've been if he stayed with Lewis as something more than just friends - I think that young Lewis wouldn't look for happiness in Sergio just because he was focused on becoming the greatest when Checo was just a rookie who was trying hard. I recon Sergio wouldn't have such doubts and he would just want to be happy with what he had. "To be/Lost inside, you’re a liar/Whining won’t inspire/The ghosts you thought were in the past"

I think the ghost of Lewis's relations with Nico would play a huge role on the downfall of Chewis, with Sergio witnesing it first hand and supporting both of them through the difficult times. I think Lewis would be the one who would refuse to talk about past claiming that he "dealt with it" and Checo would be just tired of being in the shadow of something he couldn't fully understand.

"Why would I take your order?/Disorder, I cry/Crumble even further/Disorder, I yearn"

That is Checo from McLaren or the end of Force India times when everything around him seemed hostile and against him and he just wanted to do his best but he couldn't operate in the chaos. Not to mention that he went to McLaren to replace Lewis which only adds to the narrative of feeling lost and slightly undervalued (by the teams and by Lewis, who was chasing stars in Merc - he was there to congratulate him on every victory but Lewis wasn't really there for him).

"I’ll confess my love to the stars/And you’d never mind"

Sergio loves with his whole heart and it was just a matter of differences in personalities that caused them to fall apart eventually, no argument had taken place, nobody did anything worng - they are the perfect example of "the right person, the wrong time" "Now you said some things you wish you didn’t/You put me to walk/within your limits/Explain to me clearly now" I think Lewis might have held some sort of grudge against Sergio for how the 2021 season played of and how Checo did his best to help Max (adding on top the controversy of Abu Dhabi and what went on there). He probably didn't even know it but Sergio could feel the distance and he decided that it was best to be just friends than resent each other. Years passed and now he would like to talk to Lewis clearly about what happened to them because if you love someone so much you never stop, the love just takes on different shape.

"I wanna learn to heal the spirit/Walk with my own eyes/Watch the Sun, the morning light"

Right now with all the shit going on Sergio just wants to enjoy the time he has left in the sport and make the most of it, looking for the happy memories for himself and not trying to prove anything to anyone.

"I wanna learn to feel the world/Drown within its arms/Step outside the guiding lines" Sergio from this season decided to throw caution to the wind and he started to meet the annoying journalists with the "I don't give a fuck" energy because he finnaly doesn't want the media to dictate if he is or isn't enjoying doing what he loves. He is no longer the PR trained pet RBR can use however they want and I think Lewis would admire that, seeing that he was once forced into a persona that wasn't him too. As for Billie Eilish and Chestappen I think the most obvious one is Ocean Eyes

"I've been watchin' you for some time/Can't stop starin' at those ocean eyes/Burning cities and napalm skies/Fifteen flares inside those ocean eyes/Your ocean eyes" Sergio watched Max grew inside the sport and he was there with him from the beginning, he knew what Max was capable of and he never doubted his skills. He saw Max become what he is today - a record breaking machine with almost nothing that could stop him - and I think he admires him in a way.

"No fair/You really know how to make me cry/When you gimme those ocean eyes/I'm scared/I've never fallen from quite this high/Fallin' into your ocean eyes/Those ocean eyes" Ekhem - Brazil 2022 again? How Max destroyed Sergio's picture of how they could be great teammates? How the whole mess afterwards somehow painted him as the vilivan? And what did he do? Nothing, he made peace with it and continued his work, eventually going back to being friendly with Max - because let's be honest, Max is only scary on the track, off of it he's a little puppy dog who wants to play - and he can't help it, he just likes his silly blonde teammate.

"I've been walkin' through a world gone blind/Can't stop thinkin' of your diamond mind/Careful creature made friends with time/He left her lonely with a diamond mind/And those ocean eyes" It's like- It's just them, isn't it? Sergio, aside from Kamui, never had a good teammate who would be nice to him (not talking about racing but outside of the race weekends too) and I think he likes how things work with Max, especially since the Dutchman is really entertaining and quick witted - making friends with him must've been something new for Checo and let me tell you, I don't think the process was easy at all, with Max fighting for WDC, with them having problems in 2022, with RBR being the way it is - but it worked in the end, no?

First, let me tell you song headcanon anon, how much I love your asks and how they cheer me up in this dark moments after Austin 🥰

I appreciate even when you aren't a Chewis fan, you found a song about them! First of all, it's a fan headcanon that Lewis and Checo had something going on when they were younger. The hugs, the looks, the joking around... then both Nicos got in the middle (Hulkenberg for Checo and Rosberg for Lewis) and they drifted apart.

I think we all agree that if those two had something going on, it ended in 2021 after Checo joined RBR and became enemy number two (Max being number one).

Anon, you get Checo so well, I once saw a post that said something about the problem with Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader (sorry, Star Wars reference here): 'Anakin loved too much and Darth Vader loved too little'. So I see Checo as the one always loving too much, giving everything. He loves his teams, even evil McLaren, he loves his teammates, he loves racing... but it's too much love and he isn't appreciated as much by teams and teammates (they are the ones loving too little).

As much as I love Chewis, I know Lewis is focused on himself and his eight championship (and he indirectly blames Checo for not getting it), so it makes sense he moved on.

I know! I recommended Ocean Eyes for a fancam, I originally heard that song in a Chewis video, which as pretty as it was, I didn't get why the song, since none of them have blue eyes XD

With the Mexican GP around the corner, maybe we need a more cheerful song for Chestappen, do you have one? Please share!!

(Also, while I suck, I'm thinking of making fanvideos with your song recommendations... some day in the future when I have time 😅

[somerabbitholes]

hey girl! do you have any recs on the topic of separatist movements in India, emphasis on the khalistani movement. I'm looking for an academic perspective, as to how and why this movement began, historical basis etc!

hi! i do, here you go —

Blood for Blood by Terry Milewski: he’s one of the best people writing about Khalistani separatism and this book also looks at the global dimensions of the movement

The Khalistan Conspiracy by GBS Sidhu: more specifically about the movement in India and how things came to a head in 1984; he used to be in the R&AW so there’s a lot to learn here

India Against Itself by Sanjib Baruah: a history of cultural and ethnonationalist politics in Assam, how it tipped over into separatism, and how the Indian state dealt with it. Also see his In the Name of the Nation.

India’s Northeast by Udayon Misra: a collection of essays on the northeast’s politics and identity

Hello Bastar by Rahul Pandita: it’s a journalistic work on the Naxal movement and India’s red corridor

hope that helps!

[nicklloydnow]

“Months into Russia’s war in Ukraine, the United States had intelligence pointing to “highly sensitive, credible conversations inside the Kremlin” that President Vladimir Putin was seriously considering using nuclear weapons to avoid major battlefield losses, journalist Bob Woodward reported in his new book, “War.”

The U.S. intelligence pointed to a 50% chance that Putin would use tactical nukes if Ukrainian forces surrounded 30,000 Russian troops in the southern city of Kherson, the book says. Just months before, in the far northeast, Ukrainian troops had stunned the Russians by recapturing Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and were pivoting to liberate Kherson, strategically located on the Dnieper River not far from the Black Sea.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan stared “with dread” at the intelligence assessment — described as coming from the best sources and methods — in late September 2022, seven months after Russia’s invasion, the book says. It caused alarm across the Biden administration, moving the chance of Russia using nukes up from 5% to 10% to now 50%.

According to Woodward’s account, President Joe Biden told Sullivan to “get on the line with the Russians. Tell them what we will do in response.”

He said to use language that was threatening but not too strong, the book says. Biden also reached out to Putin directly in a message, warning of the “catastrophic consequences” if Russia used nuclear weapons.

(…)

In another heated conversation laid out in Woodward’s book, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confronted his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, in October 2022.

“We know you are contemplating the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine,” Austin said, according to Woodward. “Any use of nuclear weapons on any scale against anybody would be seen by the United States and the world as a world-changing event. There is no scale of nuclear weapons that we could overlook or that the world could overlook.”

As Shoigu listened, Austin pressed on, noting that the U.S. had not given Ukraine certain weapons and had restricted the use of some of those it had provided. He warned that those constraints would be reconsidered. He also noted that China, India, Turkey and Israel would isolate Russia if it used nuclear weapons.

“I don’t take kindly to being threatened,” Shoigu responded, the book says.

“Mr. Minister,” Austin said. “I am the leader of the most powerful military in the history of the world. I don’t make threats.”

According to a U.S. official, Austin’s Oct. 21, 2022, call to Shoigu was indeed to warn Russia against any use of nuclear weapons. The official said the call was contentious. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, confirmed there were intelligence reports at the time that referred to increased indications of Russia’s potential use of nuclear weapons and they triggered growing concerns within the administration. The official said leaders across the government were instructed to call their counterparts to deliver the same message.

U.S. intelligence officials saw China as having the most influence over Russia, and Biden called Chinese President Xi Jinping about the need for deterrence, Woodward wrote.

Xi agreed to warn Putin, according to the book. Biden and Xi met and agreed in November 2022 that “a nuclear war should never be fought” and noted their opposition to the use or threat to deploy nuclear weapons in Ukraine, a White House statement said at the time.

In terms of the war starting at all, the book details Biden’s criticism late last year of President Barack Obama’s handling of Russia seizing Crimea and a section of the Donbas in 2014, at a time when Biden was serving as the Democrat’s vice president.

“They f----- up in 2014,” Woodward wrote that Biden said to a close friend in December, blaming the lack of action for Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. “Barack never took Putin seriously.”

Biden was angry while speaking to the friend and said they “never should have let Putin just walk in there” in 2014 and that the U.S. “did nothing.””

“Ex-PM Liz Truss spent her final days in office studying weather maps and preparing for UK radiation cases after American spies feared the Kremlin tyrant was hours from pressing the button.

Whitehall disaster planners feared radioactive material hurled into the atmosphere could have travelled the 1,700 miles across Europe from any blast zone.

Based on “exquisite” intelligence, the US concluded there was a 50 per cent chance Russia could deploy a tactical nuke on the Ukrainian battlefields or test a larger bomb over the Black Sea.

The horrifying details of how close the war came to a massive escalation are revealed in Out of the Blue, an updated biography of the short-lived PM.

It reports Ms Truss spent “numerous hours studying satellite weather data and wind directions” over fears the “wrong weather patterns” could have a “direct fall-out effect on Britain”.

Separately, a new book, War, by Watergate journalist Bob Woodward also reports the White House believed there was a 50 per cent chance Russia would use a battlefield weapon based on “exquisite” human intelligence received in autumn 2022.”

[chaplinlegend]

In September 1931, Charlie Chaplin, during his second tour of Europe promoting his new film "City Light's", met Mahatma Gandhi in London. It was a meeting of two giants from completely different fields of work. One of them was a legend of politics, a nationalist, a lawyer and a father of the nation, and the other was the most important idol of cinema, the greatest entertainer and a legend of cinema. Unlike Charlie Chaplin, Mahatma Gandhi was not a fan of films and watched only two films in his life, one in English and one in Hindi.

Mahatma Gandhi did not know Charlie Chaplin's work, he did not know who he was.

The meeting was widely commented on in the media, with a lot of journalists and photographers.

Mahatma Gandhi opposed the abuse of machines. Charlie Chaplin asked him about his views on the "abhorrence of machines", to which Mahatma Gandhi replied:

"Machines have in the past made us dependent on England, and the only way in which we can free ourselves from this dependence is by boycotting all products manufactured by machines."

On hearing Gandhi speak about machines, Charlie Chaplin wrote in his notebook:

"I received a clear lesson in tactical maneuvering in India's freedom struggle, paradoxically impressed by a practical, manly visionary with an iron will to endure it."

He also attended a prayer with Mahatma Gandhi.

Charlie Chaplin was greatly impressed by Mahatma Gandhi, who inspired next film, "Modern Times". It was one of Charlie Chaplin's best films!

[mariacallous]

This week, as every week, Brexit enfeebled the UK. It was not a one-off disaster, like a fatal heart attack. Rather Brexit is showing itself to be a debilitating disease that never grants us a moment’s peace.

In the past few days

The post-Brexit trade talks between the UK and Canada collapsed. Despite all the promises of global Britain crossing the clear blue oceans and cutting deals with India, the US, Canada and China, we remain isolated.

After years of being too scared to actually take control of the UK’s borders, the government promised checks on imported food from the EU. The effect, according to the food industry, will be to raise prices and produce shortages. (Romantics searching for flowers for Valentine’s Day may well have their work cut out, despairing florists are already warning.)

Brexit took away the right of Brits to live and work where we pleased in the EU. For a while in 2023 it looked as if France would allow British expats to stay for longer than 90 days at a stretch. But the French courts blocked that concession to second home owners in the Dordogne.

Meanwhile the Brexit inspired border in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK continued to enrage Ulster Unionists, who in their hearts must now know that English Tories have played them for fools.

Finally, the Guardian reported that the EU's plans to increase bulk medicine procurement across the bloc risk creating shortages in Britain.

That’s just in the past few days.  

And yet the politicians who promised the electorate that leaving the EU would turn us into a world leader are simply not held to account.

You would have to be 35 or older to remember how the BBC used to deal with politicians who failed to deliver on their promises. In 2003 Tony Blair backed the US invasion of Iraq on the grounds that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

He didn’t.

BBC journalists tore into the then Labour government. Its ministers had taken us to war on a false prospectus, they claimed. Lied, in short.

And yet in a dereliction of journalistic duty the BBC has let the false prospectus of Brexit pass without the smallest attempt to remind its authors of their false promises.

Here is Daniel Hannan, the Zelig of British nationalism. For more than two decades, he popped up at what felt like every right-wing meeting and rally, urging ever more Utopian fantasies on the luckless British public.  

In 2016, he promised the revival of depressed British cities, a Silicon Valley in the East End of London, and falling prices and booming wages for us all.

Is he or any other Conservative or Faragist politician questioned to within an inch of his life by the BBC?

Of course not. Continuous funding cuts and right-wing attacks have destroyed the corporation’s ability to provide a vital news service. It’s given up on democratic accountability.

I can make one argument in its defence. If a BBC presenter were in the room with me now, I am sure they would say that the Labour opposition is giving them nothing to report. It is staying silent for fear of alienating elderly voters. The Liberal Democrats shut up for the same reason.

In its politicians and media, the UK is like the caricature Victorian family that puts on a show of respectability and says nothing about its dirty secrets.

No one, however, can shut up Professor Chris Grey, and our culture is the better for it. His Brexit & Beyond blog is the best source of information on our national malaise, and I was delighted to have him on podcast.

I will write a longer piece, which will bounce off our conversation about the purity spiral on the right Brexit set off. With a bit of luck that should be up tomorrow or on Wednesday. I am also working of a read on the lessons from the 1920s for the 2020s.