#african industrialization week

[africaindustrializationday]

Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Green Industrialization to Accelerate Africa's Structural Transformation.

On November 20th, 2024, Africa will commemorate the 35th anniversary of Africa Industrialization Day (AID). Established in 1989, this day serves as a critical platform to acknowledge the continent's progress in industrial development while addressing the ongoing challenges it faces.

The overall objective emphasizes building synergies between policy, investments, innovation, and capacity building across sectors to effectively leverage AI and green solutions for inclusive and sustainable industrial development in Africa, as underlined below. Specifically;

To build stronger policy advocacy around leveraging AI and green industrialization for Africa's sustainable development.

To highlight strategies and best practices for harnessing the power of AI to boost productivity and efficiency across industrial sectors in Africa.

To promote investments in AI solutions that can help revive and transform key industries in Africa.

To facilitate experience and knowledge sharing between policymakers, industries, academia, civil society and development partners on integrating AI in production systems.

To explore collaborative initiatives between public and private sector for increased funding in AI research and development for industrial applications.

To enhance technical skills and capabilities in AI and green technologies critical to Africa's industrial growth and global competitiveness, in line with the existing Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA7 2016-2025), SDG 2030 and the AU Agenda 2063 which aims to transform and revitalize education in Africa.

To showcase innovative use cases of AI and green industrialization by youths and women entrepreneurs in Africa.

To formulate policy recommendations and actionable strategies for mainstreaming AI and green industry in Africa's industrialization planning and development agenda.

[secretariatbourgeoisophobe]

sure baby queen may be an industry plant but ill be damned if quarter life crisis doesnt fucking slap

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #19

May 17-24 2024

President Biden wiped out the student loan debt of 160,000 more Americans. This debt cancellation of 7.7 billion dollars brings the total student loan debt relieved by the Biden Administration to $167 billion. The Administration has canceled student loan debt for 4.75 million Americans so far. The 160,000 borrowers forgiven this week owned an average of $35,000 each and are now debt free. The Administration announced plans last month to bring debt forgiveness to 30 million Americans with student loans coming this fall.

The Department of Justice announced it is suing Ticketmaster for being a monopoly. DoJ is suing Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation for monopolistic practices. Ticketmaster controls 70% of the live show ticket market leading to skyrocketing prices, hidden fees and last minute cancellation. The Justice Department is seeking to break up Live Nation and help bring competition back into the market. This is one of a number of monopoly law suits brought by the Biden administration against Apple in March and Amazon in September 2023.

The EPA announced $225 million in new funding to improve drinking and wastewater for tribal communities. The money will go to tribes in the mainland US as well as Alaska Native Villages. It'll help with testing for forever chemicals, and replacing of lead pipes as well as sustainability projects.

The EPA announced $300 million in grants to clean up former industrial sites. Known as "Brownfield" sites these former industrial sites are to be cleaned and redeveloped into community assets. The money will fund 200 projects across 178 communities. One such project will transform a former oil station in Philadelphia’s Kingsessing neighborhood, currently polluted with lead and other toxins into a waterfront bike trail.

The Department of Agriculture announced a historic expansion of its program to feed low income kids over the summer holidays. Since the 1960s the SUN Meals have served in person meals at schools and community centers during the summer holidays to low income children. This Year the Biden administration is rolling out SUN Bucks, a $120 per child grocery benefit. This benefit has been rejected by many Republican governors but in the states that will take part 21 million kids will benefit. Last year the Biden administration introduced SUN Meals To-Go, offering pick-up and delivery options expanding SUN's reach into rural communities. These expansions are part of the Biden administration's plan to end hunger and reduce diet-related disease by 2030.

Vice-President Harris builds on her work in Africa to announce a plan to give 80% of Africa internet access by 2030, up from just 40% today. This push builds off efforts Harris has spearheaded since her trip to Africa in 2023, including $7 billion in climate adaptation, resilience, and mitigation, and $1 billion to empower women. The public-private partnership between the African Development Bank Group and Mastercard plans to bring internet access to 3 million farmers in Kenya, Tanzania, and Nigeria, before expanding to Uganda, Ethiopia, and Ghana, and then the rest of the continent, bring internet to 100 million people and businesses over the next 10 years. This is together with the work of Partnership for Digital Access in Africa which is hoping to bring internet access to 80% of Africans by 2030, up from 40% now, and just 30% of women on the continent. The Vice-President also announced $1 billion for the Women in the Digital Economy Fund to assure women in Africa have meaningful access to the internet and its economic opportunities.

The Senate approved Seth Aframe to be a Judge on the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, it also approved Krissa Lanham, and Angela Martinez to district Judgeships in Arizona, as well as Dena Coggins to a district court seat in California. Bring the total number of judges appointed by President Biden to 201. Biden's Judges have been historically diverse. 64% of them are women and 62% of them are people of color. President Biden has appointed more black women to federal judgeships, more Hispanic judges and more Asian American judges and more LGBT judges than any other President, including Obama's full 8 years in office. President Biden has also focused on backgrounds appointing a record breaking number of former public defenders to judgeships, as well as labor and civil rights lawyers.

[macrolit]

By Elisabeth Egan May 18, 2024

“You’d be shocked by how many books have women chained in basements,” Reese Witherspoon said. “I know it happens in the world. I don’t want to read a book about it.”

Nor does she want to read an academic treatise, or a 700-page novel about a tree.

Sitting in her office in Nashville, occasionally dipping into a box of takeout nachos, Witherspoon talked about what she does like to read — and what she looks for in a selection for Reese’s Book Club, which she referred to in a crisp third person.

“It needs to be optimistic,” Witherspoon said. “It needs to be shareable. Do you close this book and say, ‘I know exactly who I want to give it to?’”

But, first and foremost, she wants books by women, with women at the center of the action who save themselves. “Because that’s what women do,” she said. “No one’s coming to save us.”

Witherspoon, 48, has now been a presence in the book world for a decade. Her productions of novels like “Big Little Lies,” “Little Fires Everywhere” and “The Last Thing He Told Me” are foundations of the binge-watching canon. Her book club picks reliably land on the best-seller list for weeks, months or, in the case of “Where the Crawdads Sing,” years. In 2023, print sales for the club’s selections outpaced those of Oprah’s Book Club and Read With Jenna, according to Circana Bookscan, adding up to 2.3 million copies sold.

So how did an actor who dropped out of college (fine, Stanford) become one of the most influential people in an industry known for being intractable and slightly tweedy?

It started with Witherspoon’s frustration over the film industry’s skimpy representation of women onscreen — especially seasoned, strong, smart, brave, mysterious, complicated and, yes, dangerous women.

“When I was about 34, I stopped reading interesting scripts,” she said.

Witherspoon had already made a name for herself with “Election,” “Legally Blonde” and “Walk the Line.” But, by 2010, Hollywood was in flux: Streaming services were gaining traction. DVDs were following VHS tapes to the land of forgotten technology.

“When there’s a big economic shift in the media business, it’s not the superhero movies or independent films we lose out on,” Witherspoon said. “It’s the middle, which is usually where women live. The family drama. The romantic comedy. So I decided to fund a company to make those kinds of movies.”

In 2012, she started the production company Pacific Standard with Bruna Papandrea. Its first projects were film adaptations of books: “Gone Girl” and “Wild,” which both opened in theaters in 2014.

Growing up in Nashville, Witherspoon knew the value of a library card. She caught the bug early, she said, from her grandmother, Dorothea Draper Witherspoon, who taught first grade and devoured Danielle Steel novels in a “big cozy lounger” while sipping iced tea from a glass “with a little paper towel wrapped around it.”

This attention to detail is a smoke signal of sorts: Witherspoon is a person of words.

When she was in high school, Witherspoon stayed after class to badger her English teacher — Margaret Renkl, now a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times — about books that weren’t part of the curriculum. When Witherspoon first moved to Los Angeles, books helped prepare her for the “chaos” of filmmaking; “The Making of the African Queen” by Katharine Hepburn was a particular favorite.

So it made sense that, as soon as Witherspoon joined Instagram, she started sharing book recommendations. Authors were tickled and readers shopped accordingly. In 2017, Witherspoon made it official: Reese’s Book Club became a part of her new company, Hello Sunshine.

The timing was fortuitous, according to Pamela Dorman, senior vice president and publisher of Pamela Dorman Books/Viking, who edited the club’s inaugural pick, “Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.” “The book world needed something to help boost sales in a new way,” she said.

Reese’s Book Club was that something: “Eleanor Oliphant” spent 85 weeks on the paperback best-seller list. The club’s second pick, “The Alice Network,” spent nearly four months on the weekly best-seller lists and two months on the audio list. Its third, “The Lying Game,” spent 18 weeks on the weekly lists.

“There’s nothing better than getting that phone call,” added Dorman, who has now edited two more Reese’s Book Club selections.

Kiley Reid’s debut novel, “Such a Fun Age,” got the nod in January 2020. She said, “When I was on book tour, a lot of women would tell me, ‘I haven’t read a book in four years, but I trust Reese.’” Four years later, on tour for her second novel, “Come and Get It,” Reid met women who were reading 100 books a year.

Witherspoon tapped into a sweet spot between literary and commercial fiction, with a few essay collections and memoirs sprinkled in. She turned out to be the literary equivalent of a fit model — a reliable bellwether for readers in search of intelligent, discussion-worthy fare, hold the Proust. She wanted to help narrow down the choices for busy readers, she said, “to bring the book club out of your grandma’s living room and online.”

She added: “The unexpected piece of it all was the economic impact on these authors’ lives.”

One writer became the first person in her family to own a home. “She texted me a picture of the key,” Witherspoon said. “I burst into tears.”

Witherspoon considers a handful of books each month. Submissions from publishers are culled by a small group that includes Sarah Harden, chief executive of Hello Sunshine; Gretchen Schreiber, manager of books (her original title was “bookworm”); and Jon Baker, whose team at Baker Literary Scouting scours the market for promising manuscripts.

Not only is Witherspoon focused on stories by women — “the Bechdel test writ large,” Baker said — but also, “Nothing makes her happier than getting something out in the world that you might not see otherwise.”

When transgender rights were in the headlines in 2018, the club chose “This Is How It Always Is,” Laurie Frankel’s novel about a family grappling with related issues in the petri dish of their own home. “We track the long tail of our book club picks and this one, without fail, continues to sell,” Baker said.

Witherspoon’s early readers look for a balance of voices, backgrounds and experiences. They also pay attention to the calendar. “Everyone knows December and May are the busiest months for women,” Harden said, referring to the mad rush of the holidays and the end of the school year. “You don’t want to read a literary doorstop then. What do you want to read on summer break? What do you want to read in January?”

Occasionally the group chooses a book that isn’t brand-new, as with the club’s April pick, “The Most Fun We Ever Had,” from 2019. When Claire Lombardo learned that her almost-five-year-old novel had been anointed, she thought there had been a mistake; after all, her new book, “Same As it Ever Was,” is coming out next month. “It’s wild,” Lombardo said. “It’s not something that I was expecting.”

Sales of “The Most Fun We Ever Had” increased by 10,000 percent after the announcement, according to Doubleday. Within the first two weeks, 27,000 copies were sold. The book has been optioned by Hello Sunshine.

Witherspoon preferred not to elaborate on a few subjects: competition with other top-shelf book clubs (“We try not to pick the same books”); the lone author who declined to be part of hers (“I have a lot of respect for her clarity”); and the 2025 book she’s already called dibs on (“You can’t imagine that Edith Wharton or Graham Greene didn’t write it”).

But she was eager to set the record straight on two fronts. Her team doesn’t get the rights to every book — “It’s just how the cookie crumbles,” she said — and, Reese’s Book Club doesn’t make money off sales of its picks. Earnings come from brand collaborations and affiliate revenue.

This is true of all celebrity book clubs. An endorsement from one of them is a free shot of publicity, but one might argue that Reese’s Book Club does a bit more for its books and authors than most. Not only does it promote each book from hardcover to paperback, it supports authors in subsequent phases of their careers.

Take Reid, for instance. More than three years after Reese’s Book Club picked her first novel, it hosted a cover reveal for “Come and Get It,” which came out in January. This isn’t the same as a yellow seal on the cover, but it’s still a spotlight with the potential to be seen by the club’s 2.9 million Instagram followers.

“I definitely felt like I was joining a very large community,” Reid said.

“Alum” writers tend to stay connected with one another via social media, swapping woot woots and advice. They’re also invited to participate in Hello Sunshine events and Lit Up, a mentorship program for underrepresented writers. Participants get editing and coaching from Reese’s Book Club authors, plus a marketing commitment from the club when their manuscripts are submitted to agents and editors.

“I describe publishing and where we sit in terms of being on a river,” Schreiber said. “We’re downstream; we’re looking at what they’re picking. Lit Up gave us the ability to look upstream and say, ‘We’d like to make a change here.’”

The first Lit Up-incubated novel, “Time and Time Again” by Chatham Greenfield, is coming out from Bloomsbury YA in July. Five more fellows have announced the sales of their books.

As Reese’s Book Club approaches a milestone — the 100th pick, to be announced in September — it continues to adapt to changes in the market. Print sales for club selections peaked at five million in 2020, and they’ve softened since then, according to Circana Bookscan. In 2021, Candle Media, a Blackstone-backed media company, bought Hello Sunshine for $900 million. Witherspoon is a member of Candle Media’s board. She is currently co-producing a “Legally Blonde” prequel series for Amazon Prime Video.

This month, Reese’s Book Club will unveil an exclusive audio partnership with Apple, allowing readers to find all the picks in one place on the Apple Books app. “I want people to stop saying, ‘I didn’t really read it, I just listened,’” Witherspoon said. “Stop that. If you listened, you read it. There’s no right way to absorb a book.”

She feels that Hollywood has changed over the years: “Consumers are more discerning about wanting to hear stories that are generated by a woman.”

Even as she’s looking forward, Witherspoon remembers her grandmother, the one who set her on this path.

“Somebody came up to me at the gym the other day and he said” — here she put on a gentle Southern drawl — “‘I’m going to tell you something I bet you didn’t hear today.’ And he goes, ‘Your grandma taught me how to read.’”

Another smoke signal, and a reminder of what lives on.

[thepagansun]

Respect Neo-Pagans and Our Gods!

Although they probably will never see it (or care), this post is meant for Hollywood, Netflix, Marvel and all other industries and streaming platforms that are hosting shows based on but twisting pagan or polytheist "mythology" or ancient religions such as Gods of Egypt, Immortals, Clash of the Titans, Thor: Love and Thunder, DT17, Supernatural, Kaos, Twilight of the Gods, Blood of Zeus, Percy Jackson, Xena: Warrior Princess, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Record of Ragnarok, American Gods, Lore Olympus, and God of War games, etc.

The trend of creating content that demonizes, humiliates, or insults our Gods is upsetting and unfair. Creative and artistic license is one thing, but it's a double-standard for content about the monotheistic god or religions to be treated with respect even when under academic criticism while are ours are depicted as one-dimensional, villainized and humiliated. We are asking for that same respect.

Yes, content about any kind of "mythology" is fun, but the modern world needs to please remember that these were and still are RELIGIONS to many people around the world, myself included.

People worshipped these Gods, listened to their stories around the fire, married under their vows, raised their children, went to war, and but also built magnificent structures, wrote literature, prayed in their temples, and many more!

In fact, we still have vestiges of their worship! The names of the months and days of the week in the Western world come from Roman or Norse/Germanic Gods, the Olympic Games were originally dedicated to Zeus, the Hippocratic Oath was originally a prayer offered to Apollo, people from all over the ancient world visited the shrine and oracle at Apollo's Delphi, and many more examples.

And while yes, sometimes people were sacrificed to some pagan Gods (not so much the Greeks or Romans), but are we really going to pretend that many more people haven't died in the name of Christianity or Islam??

Lord Zeus wasn't just some womanizer, he was also King of the Gods, Father of Gods and Humans, the God of Hospitality, Oaths, Lightning, Law, Order, Authority, Monarchy, etc.

This was also Lord Zeus of the ancient Greeks:

This was also Lord Odin of the ancient Norse:

This was also Lady Hera of the ancient Greeks:

This was also Lord Ra of the ancient Egyptians:

This was also Lord Huracan of the ancient Maya:

Even if you personally don't worship these Gods, at least respect the fact that your ancestors did. Imagine if 100-200 years from now your descendants start making movies and shows that demonize or humiliate Yahweh, Jesus, Allah and Mohammed, etc.!

In fact, neo-paganism is the fastest growing religion in the United States: https://commonwealthpolicycenter.org/paganism-is-americas-fastest-growing-religion/#:~:text=Paganism%20is%20one%20of%20the,a%20broader%20form%20of%20paganism.

Members of Ásatrù, heathen religion of Iceland, honoring the Norse Gods:

Members of Hellenism, honoring the ancient Greek Gods:

Members of my religion, Nova Roma, honoring the ancient Roman Gods:

Traditional African religion:

Traditional Maya religion:

Members of Wicca at Stonehenge, the biggest Neo-Pagan religion in the world with 3-5 million practioners worldwide!

Our Gods are our RELIGION, not just your "mythology!" And both They and we, their followers, deserve the same respect you expect for your religions.

And they at least would never condemn you to an eternal fiery pit simply for not believing in them, unlike some other god I could mention.

They are here. We are here. They exist. We exist. And we are not going anywhere.

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 28 May 1913, thousands of dockworkers in Philadelphia won their two-week strike for a pay increase and union recognition. They had recently joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), chartered as Local 8. This local branch had more Black members than any other Wobbly branch, led by the African-American dockworker, Ben Fletcher (pictured). Local 8 was probably the most racially and ethnically integrated union in the United States during the WWI era. Black and Irish workers, Eastern European migrants and others all belonged. Local 8 also was among the most durable branches of the IWW, dominating the waterfront, despite massive employer and government repression, for almost a decade. We have just produced a three-part podcast miniseries about Fletcher, with the final part out today: it is a bonus episode exclusively for our supporters on patreon. You can support us and listen to it here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/e74-1-ben-bonus-83673762 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=634160945423791&set=a.602588028581083&type=3

[ninja-muse]

At last, a month where I feel like I read enough! The trick, clearly, was to pick up graphic novels and other very short things. Will this trend continue in November? Almost certainly not.

Followers might have seen my review for The Dollmakers by Lynn Buchanan last week but that's not actually my top read of the month. That honour goes to Jane Austen's Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney, which I got as an ARC from work, told myself I wouldn't read just yet, then promptly picked up after The Dollmakers and all but burned through. It's about the female authors we know Austen read and why they were bestsellers in their day but are barely known now, with all sorts of publishing and book industry history thrown in, along with a dose of memoir. Needless to say, I was the target audience and I've added a good handful of classics to my TBR. (It's out in February, in case you're interested.)

The rest of my top reads are there for just being solidly good. The Disappearing Spoon gave me all the fun science history I wanted. The Angel of Indian Lake gave me a good horror trilogy ending. The Tropic of Serpents gave me more Lady Trent adventures. And so on. I only really had two misses: The Aeronaut's Windlass, which felt very by-the-books epic fantasy without pushing boundaries, and Wordhunter, which I'm actively recommending people don't read. It was utterly average and kind of trying too hard to be edgy, and then it needlessly introduced sexual violence against women and children and handled both badly. How a book that lets a pedophile off with a warning got published in 2024, I will never understand.

In happier news, my book haul! Two books this month: Sorcery and Small Magics, sent by the publisher, and another volume of The Unwritten, meaning I only need to find one and I've got the full run. Hurray! (If you ever spot Vol. 9, folks, lemme know.)

All that reading means that I haven't done much writing. I need to get back to that, but at least I know what was blocking me and am working to rectify the situation. I am, however, starting to get seriously envious of authors who were able to write during the pandemic and are now getting those novels published. I stopped writing entirely for a year and a half, for various reasons, and now I feel like I've fallen behind.

Someday I might return to the Not-Quite-Urban Fantasy but I'm still too raw to handle the edits even now.

Oh, the worlds of might-have-been!

And now I've gone and left this on a down note. There'll be more positivity next month, I promise. In the meantime, here’s my list of everything I read this month, in the rough order of how glad I was to have read them.

Jane Austen’s Bookshelf - Rebecca Romney

A rare book dealer explores the literary histories of Austen’s favourite female authors, and how they didn’t make the English canon the way Austen did. Out in February.

8/10

reading copy

The Disappearing Spoon - Sam Kean

An entertaining history of chemistry, atomic physics, and the elements of the periodic table.

8/10

library ebook

The Tropic of Serpents - Marie Brennan

Isabella Camherst travels south to Bayembe to study savannah dragons, but finds herself caught in politics and sent on a mission to the swamp of Mouleen.

7.5/10

African-coded secondary characters, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (asexual)

library book

The Dollmakers - Lynn Buchanan

When Shean of Pearl receives, and refuses, an artisan dollmaker license, she sets off for a remote village to prove she and her dolls have what it takes to be guards against the Shod. If this means luring the monsters in, so be it.

7.5/10

reading copy

The Angel of Indian Lake - Stephen Graham Jones

Jade Daniels, now Proofrock’s history teacher, has put slasher cycles behind her. Except it’s looking like another one’s started anyway.

7.5/10

Blackfoot protagonist, 🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (sapphic), Black secondary characters

warning: blood, gore, death, murder

reading copy

Reluctant Immortals - Gwendolyn Kiste

Lucy Westrena and Bee Rochester are trying to get through the days in 1967 LA when their exes return in San Fransisco.

7/10

🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (sapphic), Jamaican-British secondary character

warning: abusive relationships

reading copy

Bury Your Gays - Chuck Tingle

After Misha refuses to kill off his queer leads for the season finale, he finds himself stalked by horror villains he created.

7/10

🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (gay), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (bi, aroace), 🏳️‍🌈 author

warning: death, murder, torture, homophobia, child abuse

library book

Ms. Marvel, Vol. 7 - G. Willow Wilson with Mirka Andolfo (Illustrator), Takeshi Miyazawa (Illustrator)

Kamala Khan faces two difficult foes: gerrymandering and a sentient computer virus.

6.5/10

Pakistani-American protagonist, Muslim protagonist, Pakistani-American secondary characters, Muslim secondary characters, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (sapphic), Black secondary character, secondary character with limb damage and a cane, Muslim author

warning: outing

off my TBR

Paladin’s Grace - T. Kingfisher

Stephen is a paladin whose god has died. Grace is a perfumer trying to keep her past buried. Witnesses to a failed assassination, they now must work together to navigate a world of intrigue, poisoners, and zealots. It’s a good thing they like each other.

6.5/10

off my TBR/ebook

Plain Jane and the Mermaid - Vera Brosgol

When Jane’s potential fiancé is kidnapped by a mermaid, she descends into the depths to rescue him even though she can never hope to compete with true waifish beauty.

7.5/10

warning: body shaming

library book

Sorcery and Small Magics - Maiga Doocy

Leovander Loveage and Sebastian Grimm get along like oil and water—which makes it all the worse when Leo's hit with an illegal curse and they must work together to break it.

6.8/10

🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (achillean), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (achillean), 🏳️‍🌈 minor character (ungendered), minor character with dark skin, minor character who uses a cane

gifted by publisher

Dictionary of Fine Distinctions - Eli Bernstein

Illuminating and illustrated definitions of commonly confused words.

7/10

library book

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop - Satoshi Yagisawa

When Takako finds herself adrift in life, she accepts a room in her estranged uncle’s bookshop.

7/10

Japanese cast, Japanese author

library book

Wordhunter - Stella Sands

A spiky forensic linguistics student is tapped by her local PD to help find a kidnapped teen, but that brings up a missing person’s case from her own past. Too close, too soon.

2/10

Black secondary character

warning: drug use, alcohol abuse, rape and an odd attitude towards its aftermath, pedophiles given a pass

library book

Picture books

All the Books - Hayley Rocco

Piper loves books so much she takes her whole collection everywhere, but when her wagons tip over in the rain she discovers … the library!

9/10

DNF

The Aeronaut’s Windlass - Jim Butcher

The cold war between Spires Albion and Aurora is heating up, and something uncanny is showing itself. Caught in it all are Captain Grimm, late of the Predator, a handful of trainee guards, and a prince of cats.

library ebook

Currently reading

The Price of the Stars - Debra Doyle and James D. MacDonald

When Beka’s politician mother is assassinated, her father gives her his warship in exchange for her tracking the assassins down. But when someone has it in for your family, sometimes one must take drastic measures.

off my TBR

The Empress Letters - Linda Rogers

A mother in the 1920s writes her life story in a series of letters to the daughter she’s searching for in China.

🇨🇦, Chinese secondary characters

warning: fetal remains, anti-Chinese racism

off my TBR

Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century - Richard Taruskin A history of early written European music, in its social and political contexts.

The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle Victorian detective stories

disabled POV character (limb injury), occasional Indian secondary characters

warning: racism, colonialism

Monthly total: 14 + 1 Yearly total: 106 Queer books: 3 Authors of colour: 2 Books by women: 9 Authors outside the binary: 0 Canadian authors: 0 Classics: 0 Off the TBR shelves: 3 Books hauled: 2 ARCs acquired: 3 ARCs unhauled: 4 DNFs: 1

January February March April May June July August September

[mariacallous]

AI projects like OpenAI’s ChatGPT get part of their savvy from some of the lowest-paid workers in the tech industry—contractors often in poor countries paid small sums to correct chatbots and label images. On Wednesday, 97 African workers who do AI training work or online content moderation for companies like Meta and OpenAI published an open letter to President Biden, demanding that US tech companies stop “systemically abusing and exploiting African workers.”

Most of the letter’s signatories are from Kenya, a hub for tech outsourcing, whose president, William Ruto, is visiting the US this week. The workers allege that the practices of companies like Meta, OpenAI, and data provider Scale AI “amount to modern day slavery.” The companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A typical workday for African tech contractors, the letter says, involves “watching murder and beheadings, child abuse and rape, pornography and bestiality, often for more than 8 hours a day.” Pay is often less than $2 per hour, it says, and workers frequently end up with post-traumatic stress disorder, a well-documented issue among content moderators around the world.

The letter’s signatories say their work includes reviewing content on platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram, as well as labeling images and training chatbot responses for companies like OpenAI that are developing generative-AI technology. The workers are affiliated with the African Content Moderators Union, the first content moderators union on the continent, and a group founded by laid-off workers who previously trained AI technology for companies such as Scale AI, which sells datasets and data-labeling services to clients including OpenAI, Meta, and the US military. The letter was published on the site of the UK-based activist group Foxglove, which promotes tech-worker unions and equitable tech.

In March, the letter and news reports say, Scale AI abruptly banned people based in Kenya, Nigeria, and Pakistan from working on Remotasks, Scale AI’s platform for contract work. The letter says that these workers were cut off without notice and are “owed significant sums of unpaid wages.”

“When Remotasks shut down, it took our livelihoods out of our hands, the food out of our kitchens,” says Joan Kinyua, a member of the group of former Remotasks workers, in a statement to WIRED. “But Scale AI, the big company that ran the platform, gets away with it, because it’s based in San Francisco.”

Though the Biden administration has frequently described its approach to labor policy as “worker-centered.” The African workers’ letter argues that this has not extended to them, saying “we are treated as disposable.”

“You have the power to stop our exploitation by US companies, clean up this work and give us dignity and fair working conditions,” the letter says. “You can make sure there are good jobs for Kenyans too, not just Americans."

Tech contractors in Kenya have filed lawsuits in recent years alleging that tech-outsourcing companies and their US clients such as Meta have treated workers illegally. Wednesday’s letter demands that Biden make sure that US tech companies engage with overseas tech workers, comply with local laws, and stop union-busting practices. It also suggests that tech companies “be held accountable in the US courts for their unlawful operations aboard, in particular for their human rights and labor violations.”

The letter comes just over a year after 150 workers formed the African Content Moderators Union. Meta promptly laid off all of its nearly 300 Kenya-based content moderators, workers say, effectively busting the fledgling union. The company is currently facing three lawsuits from more than 180 Kenyan workers, demanding more humane working conditions, freedom to organize, and payment of unpaid wages.

“Everyone wants to see more jobs in Kenya,” Kauna Malgwi, a member of the African Content Moderators Union steering committee, says. “But not at any cost. All we are asking for is dignified, fairly paid work that is safe and secure.”

[probablyasocialecologist]

The NHS is still flailing and the cost of living crisis is rumbling on. Only earlier this month, junior doctors embarked on the longest strike in NHS history, and it was confirmed that inflation had shot up again. The government was also slammed just last week for spending £240 million to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda – even though no refugees have actually been sent to the east African country yet. It’s also less than a month since the Tories promoted a new “Brexit freedom” – being able to buy wine in pints – another policy announcement which left people very perplexed.

The DragonFire weapon apparently cost about £100 million (between govt and industry).

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #21

May 31-June 7 2024

As part of President Biden's goal to bring the number of traffic deaths to zero, the Department of Transportation has sent $480 million in safety grants to all 50 states, DC, and all the US territories. The grants will focus on trucks, buses and other large vehicles. Thanks to DoT safety actions deaths involving heavy vehicles dropped by 8% from 2022 to 2023 and the department wants to keep pushing till the number is 0.

The Departments of Interior and Agriculture announced $2.8 billion plan to protect public land and support local government Conservation Efforts. $1.9 billion will be used to repair and restore national parks and public land, restoring historic sites, as well as Bureau of Indian Education-funded schools. $900 million will go to conservation funding, allowing the government to buy land to protect it. Half the funds will go to the federal government half to state and local governments and for the first time ever a tribal Conservation Land Acquisition program has been set up to allow tribal governments to buy land to protect nature.

The Department of Transportation announced that it had managed to get customers nearly $1 Billion dollars worth of flight reimbursements. The DoT reached an agreement with 3 airlines, Lufthansa, KLM, and South African Airways to pay between them $900 million to passengers effected by Covid related cancellations and delays. This adds to the $4 billion dollars of refunds and reimbursements to airline passengers under the Biden Administration.

The Department of Interior announced $725 million to clean up legacy coal pollution. This is the 3rd pay out from the $11.3 billion dollars President Biden signed into law in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to clean up coal pollution and invest in communities that used to rely on the coal industry. The money will be spent across 22 states and the Navajo Nation. Closing dangerous mine shafts, reclaim unstable slopes, improve water quality by treating acid mine drainage, and restore water supplies damaged by mining.

HUD launches the first of its kind investment program in manufactured homes. Manufactured homes represent a major market for affordable housing and the Biden Administration is the first to offer support to people trying to buy. HUD hopes the program will help 5,000 families and individuals buy their own home over the next 5 years.

The Department of the Interior announced $700 million for long-term water conservation projects across the Lower Colorado River Basin. The Colorado River Basin provides water for more than 40 million people, electric power to 7 US States and is a critical crucial resource for 30 Tribal nations and two Mexican states. The project hopes to save more than 700,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Mead. In the face of climate change causing a historic 23-year drought, there is record low water levels at Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The Biden Administration has moved aggressively to try to protect the Colorado River and make sure there's enough water in the West.

HUD makes $123 million for fighting Youth Homelessness available. This represents the 8th round of investment in Youth Homelessness since 2021 for a total of $440 million so far. The Biden Administration is focusing on innovative answers, like host homes, and kinship care models, with emphasis on creating equitable strategies to assist youth who are most vulnerable, including BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and youth with disabilities. This is part of the Biden Administration goal of cutting homelessness by 25% by the end of 2025

The Department of Agriculture announced a series of actions to strength Tribal food sovereignty. The USDA will grant tribes in Maine, Alaska, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon and Washington $42 million through the Indigenous Animals Harvesting and Meat Processing Grants to support native animal harvesting. $18 million for projects under the Tribal Forest Protection Act. As well as $2.3 million to support the service of Indigenous foods in school meal programs. The USDA also plans its first ever class of interns specifically focused on Tribal agriculture and food sovereignty. The USDA also plans to host a first ever international trade mission focused on Tribal Nation and Native Hawaiian Community businesses.

Bonus: President Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, and Secretaries of Defense Lloyd Austin and State Antony Blinken traveled to Normandy France to mark the 80th Anniversary of D-Day. They were joined by a handful of surviving veterans of the landings many over 100 years old.

[boof-chamber]

“At the same time that debates about “new fascisms” were polarizing radical debate across Europe, the writing and correspondence of Angela Y. Davis and George Jackson generated a theory of fascism from the lived experience of the violent nexus between the carceral state and racial capitalism. Davis, the Black Marxist and feminist scholar, needs little introduction, her 1970 imprisonment on trumped-up conspiracy charges having rocketed her to the status of household name in the United States and an icon of solidarity worldwide. Fewer remember that the conspiracy charge against Davis arose from an armed courtroom attack by her seventeen-year-old bodyguard, Jonathan Jackson, with the goal of forcing the release of the Soledad Brothers, three African American prisoners facing the death penalty for the killing of a white prison guard. Among them was Jonathan’s older brother, the incarcerated Black revolutionary George Jackson, with whom Davis corresponded extensively. Jackson was killed by a prison sniper during an escape attempt on August, 21, 1971, a few days before the Soledad Brothers were to be tried.

In one of his prison letters on fascism, posthumously collected in Blood in My Eye (1972), Jackson offered the following reflection:

“When I am being interviewed by a member of the old guard and point to the concrete and steel, the tiny electronic listening device concealed in the vent, the phalanx of goons peeping in at us, his barely functional plastic tape-recorder that cost him a week’s labor, and point out that these are all manifestations of fascism, he will invariably attempt to refute me by defining fascism simply as an economic geo-political affair where only one party is allowed to exist aboveground and no opposition political activity is allowed.”

Jackson encourages us to consider what happens to our conceptions of fascism if we take our bearings not from analogies with the European interwar scene, but instead from the materiality of the prison-industrial complex, from the “concrete and steel,” from the devices and personnel of surveillance and repression.

In their writing and correspondence, marked by interpretive differences alongside profound comradeship, Davis and Jackson identify the U.S. state as the site for a recombinant or even consummate form of fascism. Much of their writing is threaded through Marxist debates on the nature of monopoly capitalism, imperialism and capitalist crises, as well as, in Jackson’s case, an effort to revisit the classical historiography on fascism. On these grounds, Jackson and Davis stress the disanalogies between present forms of domination and European exemplars, but both assert the privileged vantage point provided by the view from within a prison-judicial system that could accurately be described as a racial state of terror.”

[morganeactually]

How Björk's avant-gardism breaks the fetichization of music genres beautifully

Hi everyone ! For this week's post, I would like to introduce you to my favorite female artist : Björk. Her genre-melding approach is the reason why I find her musical identity particularly remarkable. In constant evolution, the latter is marked by a fearless exploration of the new and the unfamiliar. Indeed, she refuses to be confined by only one style or tradition and chooses instead to continually redefine her music. Björk's unique sound embodies both cultural fluidity and artistic freedom. Her albums embrace diverse influences such as the British electronica movement of the 1990s, pop music, jazz, classical music, folk and traditional Iceland music, world music, etc.

For instance, in "Homogenic" (1997), she creates, through the mix of orchestral strings with industrial beats, a soundscape that opposes easy categorization. Furthermore, both Asian culture and Björk's Icelandic roots served as inspirations for the album and its cover. They underscore the themes of identity and self-reinvention. On the one hand, her stylized hair and kimono-like dress remind of the traditional attire of a geisha. On the other hand, the minimalist aesthetic echoes the unembellished beauty of Icelandic landscapes : the cold and metallic tones of the color palette resemble its glaciers and volcanic rocks. The futuristic vibe is connected to Iceland's reputation as a land of myth and mystery.

Björk is also known for her experimental approach, breaking new ground with new technologies and unconventional sounds. In the album "Biophilia" (2011), she blends organic and digital elements by integrating nature sounds and interactive apps. She displays her engagement for both nature and technology in a holistic way. Additionally, the artist combines a wide range of global influences (Icelandic folklore, British multimedia apps, Asian and African percussions, European classical music and American electronic music). She doesn't reduce them to stereotypes but celebrates their complexity. Thus, the artist creates a rich and multifaceted album that defies borders and genres at the same time. Björk's dress on the album cover bridges the gap between the natural and the artificial just like her music. Her voluminous flame-like hair gives a visual representation of the album's boundary-pushing and innovative spirit.

Björk's music videos and stage performances are genre-defying as well because they incorporate avant-garde fashion, digital art and theatrical elements like surrealism and performance art. In this way, they connect high art with pop culture. To illustrate, her song "All Is Full of Love" mixes high-tech visuals with a classical string arrangement. It challenges the elitism associated with classical music, making it accessible and relatable. The clip blending robotic imagery with sensual themes proves that technology and emotions can coexist. The lyrics were inspired by love in spring. According to Björk, “The song, in essence, is actually about believing in love. Love isn't just about two persons, it's everywhere around you. Even if you're not getting love from Person A, it doesn't mean there's not love there.“ The video depicts Björk as a robot being assembled in a factory, who kisses another robot passionately. The robots are humanized : they have a heart and are able to fall in love and to express their desires. The clip is considered as one of the milestone of computer animation.

[zvaigzdelasas]

[Nikkei is Private Japanese Media]

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) came at the "right time" for boosting Africa's development, a top African Union (AU) official told Nikkei Asia, as he played down concerns that it was a debt trap for poor countries. Last week, Beijing said it would ramp up the decade-old infrastructure drive to build ports, roads and railways by pushing into the digital realm, as the multibillion-dollar program becomes China's key foreign policy tool for influence in developing nations. Chinese President Xi Jinping's renewed focus on industrialization, agriculture and talent development was also just what the continent needs, said Albert Muchanga, head of trade and industry for the African Union Commission, the AU's Ethiopia-based secretariat.

"China will continue BRI, at the same time there is a complementary effort to support us in those three areas. ... Both came at the right time," Muchanga said in an interview on the sidelines of last week's Turkey-Africa Business and Economic Forum in Istanbul. "Africa was making massive investments in developing infrastructure, connectivity, telecommunication systems as well as energy facilities [when BRI launched] and that helped quite a lot." "We need to start the process of adding value on the continent to push industrialization," added the former Zambian diplomat.[...]

Asked if Western powers were being drawn to Africa in competition with China, Muchanga replied, "Well, they are reacting to it, which is good." He also questioned growing criticism that the BRI's massive infrastructure loans and an opaque structure have saddled some recipient countries with unsustainable debt. Some $76.8 billion worth of Chinese overseas loans were renegotiated or written off between 2020 and 2022, according to U.S. research firm Rhodium Group, compared to $17 billion in the preceding three years. "When you discuss with the scholars from China and other people, I think there's an acknowledgment that if we demonstrate greater transparency, I think some of the allegations that are made may not be well founded," Muchanga said, without elaborating.

AU member nation ministers will gather in November to adopt a critical minerals strategy, the official said, adding that the commission is working on a document for approving its new leaders at a summit scheduled for February. "We are responding to the issue of green transition by coming up with a critical minerals strategy," he said, "but the message is to come and produce at source to contribute to decarbonization."

16 Oct 23

[positivelybeastly]

Results of the Quiz!

As you may recall, just over three weeks ago, I posted this quiz, so that I could test all of your knowledge of the ever elusive, ever effusive Hank McCoy - and here are all the results!

Now, I know for a fact that you only got 9, and that you flubbed the girlfriend question, because you told me as much, but you did still get the best score out of everyone, so, congratulations!

Extremely good score. This is elite results. Uncanny. Astonishing, even . . .

Very good. Honestly, this is the point at which I think people were only getting questions wrong because those questions were insane to ask in the first place, heehee.

Eminently excellent scores! Not that I would expect any different, I know all three of these fine individuals, and they've been kind enough to let me blather to them often enough that I expect they've internalised a lot of it.

Firmly good scores! Of the ten questions, I'd say only four were common knowledge, so getting above four is a good score, honestly. Though, Abby, Raze, you may want to get to know your beau a touch better. ;)

Respectable scores! About the level of knowledge I'd expect, honestly, because as far as I know, some normal people do follow me. :P It has been known.

Remedial classes! But hey, you did good. Nothing to be ashamed of here.

I'm proud that none of my followers got a zero. I think the world of all of you, and you showed me exactly why that's the case here. <3

Look below for the answers and the context!

What was Hank's first girlfriend called?

Hank's first girlfriend, as revealed in X-Men Unlimited vol. 1 #10, was called Mindy! A short lived fling during high school, she was sadly killed by Dark Beast during his infiltration of Hank's life. Jennifer Nyles was Hank's second girlfriend, who he was with when he was first recruited to the X-Men, and who had her memory of Hank wiped by Charles Xavier. Vera was Hank's third girlfriend, whom he met at Coffee-A-Go-Go! during the original 60s run of Uncanny X-Men.

Hank's fur was originally what colour?

A slightly unfair question, because I believe the original intention was for Hank's fur to come out black, but due to printing and colour limitations of the time, it actually came out grey, which is what modern recolours of the initial issues of Hank's first mutation have run with. It later turned blue towards the end of Hank's run on Amazing Adventures.

Which of these organisations is Hank NOT an official member of?

Hank has, in fact, been a member of the Illuminati (New Avengers vol. 3), the Britney Spears Fan Club (Wolverine), and the Stark Industries Board of Shareholders (Astonishing X-Men). Despite having two longtime friends and teammates on the Champions, as well as making a cameo in that title, he is not an official member of the team.

What is the universe designation for the world that Dark Beast comes from?

The Age of Apocalypse where Dark Beast comes from has been designated as Earth-295 in retrospect. Earth-1610 is the original Ultimate Universe, Earth-616 is the mainline Marvel comics universe, Earth-199999 is the MCU designation, Earth-63 is a world where all mutants are of African descent, and Earth-42 is where Miles Morales ends up at the end of the second Spider-Verse movie.

Which of these characters is Hank's best friend?

Though Hank has been friends with Jean Grey, Scott Summers, and Bobby Drake for far longer, he and Simon Williams have always identified each other as mutual best, dearest friends. While Hank's friendship with Emma Frost is very dear to me, sadly, it never got much focus after Grant Morrison stopped writing both characters.

Where does the idea that Beast likes Twinkies so much come from?

Though Marvel has had a long standing advertising and promotional arrangement with Hostess, the idea that Beast likes Twinkies to an unhealthy amount comes from an issue of X-Men from the late 1990s, where he posts up his New Year's Resolutions, which include curing the Legacy Virus, reading more 12th century texts, and eating less Twinkies.

Which type of animal did Hank once claim that his mother was allergic to so he was never allowed to have one as a child?

When Hank first acquired his puppy Sassafras, he claimed that he saw her in the window of a pet shop while out jogging and couldn't say no to her, stating that his mother had never allowed him to have a dog as a child because she was allergic. Precisely where Sassafras went after the events of New Defenders is, unfortunately, unknown.

Which of the following musical artists has Hank NOT been shown listening to across his comics history?

Hank has, in fact, been shown to enjoy listening to the Rolling Stones (Generation X), Oingo-Boingo (Multiple Man), Frank Sinatra (Uncanny X-Men), and Devo (Astonishing X-Men). Though he has not yet been shown to have listened to Taylor Swift, it isn't out of the question, given his apparent appreciation for Britney Spears.

When did Beast first meet the new team of X-Men (Wolverine Colossus Nightcrawler Storm etc)?

Beast makes an appearance in Uncanny X-Men #111 (1978) investigating the seeming disappearance of the new generation of X-Men, and when he finds them trapped in Mesmero's circus, he makes numerous references to not knowing them well enough to say whether or not the people he's seeing are them or not, indicating that he hasn't yet met them. It's only when he sees Scott and Jean that he realises it's definitely the X-Men.

Who was Beast's first successful brain surgery performed on?

When Rogue neutralised the Red Skull, who had had Charles Xavier's brain grafted onto his so as to claim his telepathic talents, she took him to Hank so that he could remove the Professor's brain from the Skull's. He makes the remark that he's just completed his first successful brain surgery while washing up, to which Rogue claims that it's no great loss if he was unsuccessful. Whether or not Beast had attempted unsuccessful brain surgery prior to this point is never clarified.

[eretzyisrael]

Good News From Israel

In the 24th Mar 24 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:

An Israeli Arab policeman saved hundreds of Jews on Oct 7.

Israeli scientists are testing new innovative treatments for Alzheimer’s and AMD.

Israelis are the fifth happiest people in the world.

An Israeli device that can detect infected food.

Thousands of foreign workers are reviving Israel’s construction industry.

An Israeli cycling team won the Tour de Taiwan.

Archeologists have found where Jews prepared to fight the Romans.

Read More: Good News From Israel

Jews around the world have just heard how Queen Esther saved the Jewish people from annihilation over 2,000 years ago. This week, the positive Israeli news is full of the achievements of Israeli women.   They include the discoverer of a treatment for a common eye disease.  Three women who developed a test for newborns at risk of disabilities.  The Oct 7 survivor who is back on her feet thanks to Israeli technology.  Technion’s first female dean of aerospace engineering. The winner of the “Nobel Prize” for Electrical Engineering. And the founder of an NGO that has brought water & electricity to 1,100 African villages.   Read also about an Israeli startup that uses AI to increase fertility, and how the Technion is encouraging young mothers to join the ranks of future entrepreneurs.   The photo (TY Sharon) is of Jerusalem’s Bible Lands Museum – one of the venues for the Jerusalem Biennale which is featuring the works of Jewish and Israeli women artists.

[swanasource]

More than a dozen black models have declared they are boycotting Melbourne Fashion Week (MFW) in response to multiple instances of racism they have experienced across the wider Australian fashion industry.

The 13 models – some of whom turned down offers to appear at MFW, while others refused to participate in casting calls – are using next week’s landmark fashion event to draw attention to their experiences of racism in the industry, including claims they are being paid significantly less than white models, the N-word being used by a photographer, and hairdressers talking in derogative terms about African hair.

“In London, New York and Paris, you could not get away with what the fashion industry is doing here and how it treats black models, but they don’t seem to care or want to change,” South-Sudanese-born model Nylow Ajing told this masthead.

“Black models doing Australian fashion is a form of self-destruction”, said Awar Malek, a 24-year-old Sydney-based model. “It is absolutely the most traumatising, and dehumanising, underpaying, and overall mentally draining week and I have no desire to continue to participate.”

Dehumanising’: Models announce boycott amid fashion industry racism claims | Antoinette Lattouf and Osman Faruqi