#corruption is breathtaking but its not sustainable ( obviously ) and

[wildflowerteas]

the red camellia is undeniably soukoku's flower to me. they bloom in the cold, through snow and winter chill. they're at their most beautiful in the harshest conditions when everything else is dormant or dead. they're a symbol of perseverance and strength and passion. but at the end of the line, they 'behead' themselves when they die, refusing to drop petal by petal, choosing to go when they're still beautiful, refusing to compromise the rest of the tree by rotting on the branch.

[saint-hildegard-of-bingen]

If you love our country, please read this article, and continue to work to save our democracy. And stay hopeful!

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The despair felt by climate scientists and environmentalists watching helplessly as something precious and irreplaceable is destroyed is sometimes described as “climate grief.” Those who pay close attention to the ecological calamity that civilization is inflicting upon itself frequently describe feelings of rage, anxiety and bottomless loss, all of which are amplified by the right’s willful denial. The young activist Greta Thunberg, Time magazine’s 2019 Person of the Year, has described falling into a deep depressionafter grasping the ramifications of climate change and the utter refusal of people in power to rise to the occasion: “If burning fossil fuels was so bad that it threatened our very existence, how could we just continue like before?”

Lately, I think I’m experiencing democracy grief. For anyone who was, like me, born after the civil rights movement finally made democracy in America real, liberal democracy has always been part of the climate, as easy to take for granted as clean air or the changing of the seasons. When I contemplate the sort of illiberal oligarchy that would await my children should Donald Trump win another term, the scale of the loss feels so vast that I can barely process it.

After Trump’s election, a number of historians and political scientists rushed out with books explaining, as one title put it, “How Democracies Die.” In the years since, it’s breathtaking how much is dead already. Though the president will almost certainly be impeached for extorting Ukraine to aid his re-election, he is equally certain to be acquitted in the Senate, a tacit confirmation that he is, indeed, above the law. His attorney general is a shameless partisan enforcer. Professional civil servants are purged, replaced by apparatchiks. The courts are filling up with young, hard-right ideologues. One recently confirmed judge, 40-year-old Steven Menashi, has written approvingly of ethnonationalism.

In “How Democracies Die,” Professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt of Harvard describe how, in failing democracies, “the referees of the democratic game were brought over to the government’s side, providing the incumbent with both a shield against constitutional challenges and a powerful — and ‘legal’ — weapon with which to assault its opponents.” This is happening before our eyes.

The entire Trump presidency has been marked, for many of us who are part of the plurality that despises it, by anxiety and anger. But lately I’ve noticed, and not just in myself, a demoralizing degree of fear, even depression. You can see it online, in the self-protective cynicism of liberals announcing on Twitter that Trump is going to win re-election. In The Washington Post, Michael Gerson, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush and a Never Trump conservative, described his spiritual struggle against feelings of political desperation: “Sustaining this type of distressed uncertainty for long periods, I can attest, is like putting arsenic in your saltshaker.”

I reached out to a number of therapists, who said they’re seeing this politically induced misery in their patients. Three years ago, said Karen Starr, a psychologist who practices in Manhattan and on Long Island, some of her patients were “in a state of alarm,” but that’s changed into “more of a chronic feeling that’s bordering on despair.” Among those most affected, she said, are the Holocaust survivors she sees. “It’s about this general feeling that the institutions that we rely on to protect us from a dangerous individual might fail,” she said.

Kimberly Grocher, a psychotherapist who works in both New York and South Florida, and whose clients are primarily women of color, told me that during her sessions, the political situation “is always in the room. It’s always in the room.” Trump, she said, has made bigotry more open and acceptable, something her patients feel in their daily lives. “When you’re dealing with people of color’s mental health, systemic racism is a big part of that,” she said.

In April 2017, I traveled to suburban Atlanta to cover the special election in the Sixth Congressional District. Meeting women there who had been shocked by Trump’s election into ceaseless political action made me optimistic for the first time that year. These women were ultimately the reason that the district, once represented by Newt Gingrich, is now represented by a Democrat, Lucy McBath. Recently, I got back in touch with a woman I’d met there, an army veteran and mother of three named Katie Landsman. She was in a dark place.

“It’s like watching someone you love die of a wasting disease,” she said, speaking of our country. “Each day, you still have that little hope no matter what happens, you’re always going to have that little hope that everything’s going to turn out O.K., but every day it seems like we get hit by something else.” Some mornings, she said, it’s hard to get out of bed. “It doesn’t feel like depression,” she said. “It really does feel more like grief.”

Obviously, this is hardly the first time that America has failed to live up to its ideals. But the ideals themselves used to be a nearly universal lodestar. The civil rights movement, and freedom movements that came after it, succeeded because the country could be shamed by the distance between its democratic promises and its reality. That is no longer true.

Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans are often incredulous seeing the party of Ronald Reagan allied with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, but the truth is, there’s no reason they should be in conflict. The enmity between America and Russia was ideological. First it was liberal democracy versus communism. Then it was liberal democracy versus authoritarian kleptocracy.

But Trump’s political movement is pro-authoritarian and pro-oligarch. It has no interest in preserving pluralism, free and fair elections or any version of the rule of law that applies to the powerful as well as the powerless. It’s contemptuous of the notion of America as a lofty idea rather than a blood-and-soil nation. Russia, which has long wanted to prove that liberal democracy is a hypocritical sham, is the natural friend of the Trumpist Republican Party, just as it’s an ally and benefactor of the far right Rassemblement National in France and the Lega Nord in Italy.

The nemeses of the Trumpist movement are liberals — in both the classical and American sense of the world — not America’s traditional geopolitical foes. This is something new in our lifetime. Despite right-wing persecution fantasies about Barack Obama, we’ve never before had a president who treats half the country like enemies, subjecting them to an unending barrage of dehumanization and hostile propaganda. Opponents in a liberal political system share at least some overlapping language. They have some shared values to orient debates. With those things gone, words lose their meaning and political exchange becomes impossible and irrelevant.

Thus we have a total breakdown in epistemological solidarity. In the impeachment committee hearings, Republicans insist with straight faces that Trump was deeply concerned about corruption in Ukraine. Republican senators like Ted Cruz of Texas, who is smart enough to know better, repeat Russian propaganda accusing Ukraine of interfering in the 2016 election. The Department of Justice’s inspector general’s report refutes years of Republican deep state conspiracy theories about an F.B.I. plot to subvert Trump’s campaign, and it makes no difference whatsoever to the promoters of those theories, who pronounce themselves totally vindicated.

To those who recognize the Trump administration’s official lies as such, the scale of dishonesty can be destabilizing. It’s a psychic tax on the population, who must parse an avalanche of untruths to understand current events. “What’s going on in the government is so extreme, that people who have no history of overwhelming psychological trauma still feel crazed by this,” said Stephanie Engel, a psychiatrist in Cambridge, Mass., who said Trump comes up “very frequently” in her sessions.

Like several therapists I spoke to, Engel said she’s had to rethink how she practices, because she has no clinical distance from the things that are terrifying her patients. “If we continue to present a facade — that we know how to manage this ourselves, and we’re not worried about our grandchildren, or we’re not worried about how we’re going to live our lives if he wins the next election — we’re not doing our patients a service,” she said.

This kind of political suffering is uncomfortable to write about, because liberal misery is the raison d’être of the MAGA movement. When Trumpists mock their enemies for being “triggered,” it’s just a quasi-adult version of the playground bully’s jeer: “What are you going to do, cry?” Anyone who has ever been bullied knows how important it is, at that moment, to choke back tears. In truth, there are few bigger snowflakes than the stars of MAGA world. The Trumpist pundit Dan Bongino is currently suing The Daily Beast for $15 million, saying it inflicted “emotional distress and trauma, insult, anguish,” for writing that NRATV, the National Rifle Association’s now defunct online media arm, had “dropped” him when the show he hosted ended. Still, a movement fueled by sadism will delight in admissions that it has caused pain.

But despair is worth discussing, because it’s something that organizers and Democratic candidates should be addressing head on. Left to fester, it can lead to apathy and withdrawal. Channeled properly, it can fuel an uprising. I was relieved to hear that despite her sometimes overwhelming sense of civic sadness, Landsman’s activism hasn’t let up. She’s been spending a bit less than 20 hours a week on political organizing, and expects to go back to 40 or more after the holidays. “The only other option is to quit and accept it, and I’m not ready to go there yet,” she said. Democracy grief isn’t like regular grief. Acceptance isn’t how you move on from it. Acceptance is itself a kind of death.

[wesleyv21-blog]

Galapagos: Been there, done that(;

Hello once again!

Quito has never felt quite like home until now. After about 6 hours total of travel (including the hour I lost due to the time difference) from the Galápagos back to the Andes, I’m very glad to be back home-loosely speaking. There’s so much to tell yet so much that words can’t express, but I’ll give it my best shot to review everything that was our excursion to Guayaquil and the famous Galápagos Islands.

Last Wednesday we flew from Quito to Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city. Nicknamed the Pearl of the Pacific for its beauty and the pride of its inhabitants, Guayaquil is the financial hub of Ecuador and really always has been. It’s named after the legendary figures of Guayas and Quil, an indigenous couple who according to legend led the resistance against the Spanish in what is now the area around the city. It was damn beautiful—and hot as hell compared to Quito! Upper 80s with 100% humidity and no clouds! Our first stop was the centrally-located Parque Histórico, where we took a tour of the zoological/botanical gardens that featured animals and plants from all over Ecuador. Crocodiles, otters, parrots, mangroves, monkeys—it was pretty cool! After that, we ate lunch on the famous Malecón (Boardwalk) that sits right on the River Guayas. Then, we toured an art museum that housed an impressive collection of pre-Columbian art from all around Ecuador. Ecuador is home to the first culture in South America to make pottery (the Valdivia culture). The Ecuadorian coast can also boast to be the home of the Manta-Wantawillka culture, the best and only ocean navigators in the southeastern Pacific. In addition, the infamous Spondylus shells are found in the depths off the Ecuadorian coast. These shells were traded as far north as Baja California and as far south as Chile and formed an important part of the economies of various ancestral societies. Alas, our time in Guayaquil was limited to a day, but what a day we spent! It’s a beautiful city that doesn’t have a tradition of tourism interestingly enough, yet I couldn’t recommend it more.

Thursday was the big day, the one we were all looking forward to: the arrival in las Islas Encantadas, the Galápagos Islands. The word “Galápagos” comes from old Spanish and means a saddle; it originally referred to the various species of tortoises that inhabit the islands and then came to refer to the islands themselves. We spent Thursday and Friday in San Cristobal, the capital and home of the oldest human settlements on the islands. Unlike mainland Ecuador, there is no history of ancestral communities living on the islands. Even though the Manta-Wantawillka were the first to discover the islands, they didn’t settle them because they’re very inhospitable. Only 2 islands have natural sources of fresh water. Only 4 are inhabited. I never knew the meaning of “desert island” until I came here. Yet they’re a curious mix of tropical, desert, and high altitude. On the same island (such as San Cristobal or Santa Cruz), you can encounter 5 different micro-climates, each with their own vegetation, animal life, and weather. And then there are the islands that look like they’re otherworldly, such as Bartolomé or Baltra. Bartolomé is red and rocky with an occasional cactus sprouting out of the lava flows and this scraggly grey lichen sprawled out over the entire surface of the island. Baltra has completely red soil, like deep red soil, and the same grey lichen except in much vaster quantities. There are also ruined buildings all over the island—probably dating from the WWII U.S. military base—which give the island an Old West-type feel.

But anyway, Thursday we spent on San Cristobal. We checked into our hotel and chilled the rest of the day, heading down the boardwalk to the beach and swimming with sea lions (which are called lobos marinos in Spanish, or sea wolves, which to me makes a whole lot more sense than sea lions). Sea lions are literally everywhere on San Cristobal—on the benches, on the beaches, on the sidewalk, on the outdoor patios of the restaurants, sometimes on the street. They’ll chase you sometimes if you get too close—as some of the students found out! The way human settlements work on the Galápagos is that 97% of all the territory of the islands is reserved as the national park, leaving 3% for human development. San Cristobal boasts a population of about 8,000 people; Santa Cruz is the biggest in population with around 18,000. So yea, Thursday we spent exploring and swimming and trying to avoid sunburn (which would prove a losing battle the entire trip, as there was hardly ever a cloud in the sky all the days we were there. The sun would be roasting us from 8:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. every day).

On Friday we took a boat out to a tiny rock called León Dormido to go snorkeling! This was the first time I had ever gone snorkeling and it was amazinggggggg. We wore wetsuits, flippers, and masks—the whole outfit lol. The current around this rock was such that you could just float effortlessly while looking at all the wildlife literally right below you. We swam with schools of fish, sea lions, sharks, and even sea turtles! It was absolutely incredible to be only 10 feet from all these animals you see at the aquarium or on TV. One of the students brought a GoPro camera and got the whole experience—including the animals—on video! After eating lunch on the boat and taking a wonderful nap in the sun (which I later came to regret due to sunburn), we returned to San Cristobal to hear a talk by a local political activist about the tourism industry and local relations of power. This to me is far more interesting than the wildlife, although it’s never emphasized. The activist told us that some people come to the Galápagos not realizing that people actually live on the islands lol, which is indicative of the image projected to the rest of the world. There’s basically 4 entities that run the islands. There’s the Charles Darwin Research Station, which has the most funds of any of the entities I’ll discuss and enjoys the most privileged access to all of the islands—such unrestricted access that not even the local politicians or national park people have. Their agenda, which is ostensibly one of conservation and study, often prevails over the local interests of the people who inhabit and try to make a living on the islands. Second, there’s the Parque Nacional Galápagos, which is the administrative body of the national park aspect of the islands and is overseen principally by the Ministry of the Environment. Their agenda often meshes with that of the Charles Darwin Station, yet the key difference is the amount of money the two have. Whereas the Parque Nacional is funded by the state (meagerly), the Charles Darwin Station is an NGO affiliated with the Charles Darwin Foundation, which receives much more money from international donors. Third, there is the political system on the islands which includes local governments for each of the 4 inhabited islands as well as an overarching political body. Whereas the local governments are elected directly, the Minister of the Galápagos is appointed by the president and thus often a) is corrupt, b) is unpopular, c) does not govern with the interests of the local population in mind, or d) some combination of a, b, and c. Finally, there is the tourism industry, which really comprises two sets of individuals and companies: local and foreign. The foreigners are technically not allowed to operated in the islands by law, yet one always sees the fleets of international cruise ships circling the islands like vultures with their tourists on board. The corrupt politicians allow the international cruise lines to operate illegally, and the fucked up thing is that the conservationist agenda usually goes along with it because the rhetoric of tourism in the Galápagos is ostensibly to minimize the environmental impact of tourists by having them take up as little space as possible for as little time as possible. So, it’s very common for a trip to the Galápagos to be spent almost entirely on board a Royal Caribbean cruise ship or another similar one, which then lays anchor at various ports only long enough for tourists to disembark to take pictures, buy things, eat, etc.

We’re not taking this route obviously. In fact, this piece is important for yall to know in case you ever want to come to the Galápagos or have friends/family who do. It’s vital that visitors to the islands DO NOT rely on big-name, international travel agencies to visit the islands. In addition to the environmental impact these companies leave behind, they siphon money out of the local economy. Only 1/3 of the money spent in the Galápagos stays in the pockets of the local galapagueños. Even though the islands are the richest province in Ecuador, they should be a lot better off. Instead, their environment and their jobs get auctioned off to foreign companies because of corrupt politicians and because tourists don’t know any better and go with the household names over the local establishments and tours. The latter is wayyy more fun, trust me. And part of the fun lies in knowing that I’m contributing to a responsible tourist ethos. I came into this trip thinking that tourism was inherently exploitative. Now I understand that that’s not the case. However, when big transnational companies appropriate the livelihood of the local population, that’s when tourism becomes a problem. Now yall know and can plan a smart, eco-friendly, and relatively sustainable trip to these magical islands.

On Saturday we arrived on Santa Cruz, the biggest island population-wise and the tourism hub. We stayed on land and checked out the Center of Environmental Interpretation, a system of trails with cool information about the formation of the islands as well as sociological information about the human aspect of the islands. We hiked up breathtaking (literally and figuratively) trails and spied frigate birds, boobies, big spiders, marine iguanas, giant cactuses, etc. I found out that the colonists as the residents are called have their residency pretty much for life; the only way they can lose it is by failing to renew it once every 10 years or so. Yet obtaining residency in the first place is tricky: one must marry someone with residency or be born to parents who have residency. Living on the islands is so exclusive so as not to upset the delicate ecosystems or overburden the economy. This whole time we had been eating fabulously. I’ve never had seafood so fresh in my life. Lobsters, tuna, shrimp—out of this world delicious. At dinner some of us met this random U.S. dude touring the islands after having just graduated college. He rubbed me the wrong way from the beginning, but then he mentioned how he really wanted to try ayawaska recreationally. Ayawaska, or ayahuasca, is an entheogen that combines two vines found in the Amazon—one contains a neurotransmitter released at birth and at death, and the other contains an enzyme that allows for the metabolization of the neurotransmitter. This combination is distilled into a drink and taken by shamans (yachakuna in Kichwa, where the term ayawaska comes from) of various Amazonian nations in order to divine the future, receive instructions or warnings, or cope with loss or other powerful life events/emotions. It is a sacred plant, and partaking in an ayawaska ritual requires years of dedication, preparation, and for outsiders, trust and bonds of communion with a local population. It cannot be taken recreationally, and the fact that this tourist expressed an interest in doing so even after one of us pointed all the above out to him just really irritated me. However, it’s important I use him as an example and continuously strive to root out my own ignorance and prejudices toward cultures different than my own.

Sunday was the best snorkeling day by far. We took a boat from Santa Cruz to the little island of Bartolomé, which is home to perhaps the most iconic image of the islands (Google Galápagos and you’ll probably see it, or check out my Facebook as I posted a picture of it). Bartolomé is so inhospitable that it’s been used as a site to film movies that take place on Mars. There’s dried lava plumes, ridges, cliffs, and tunnels everywhere, and the sparse vegetation only adds to the merciless landscape. With no trees and no clouds to shade us, we were sizzling as we climbed up to the summit to look down on the bay. But it was all worth it once we jumped in the water! We snorkeled and swam with penguins! The second smallest species in the world. They were adorableeee! And they zoomed in the water right past us as we snorkeled! We also saw numerous sharks lurking on the seafloor, as well as seastars and tons of fish. There’s this giant fish called a parrotfish that is as brightly colored as its namesake. They are absolutely breathtaking. And the water was a bright turquoise—I’ve only ever seen water that beautiful in the movies haha. We also ate lunch on the boat (an incredible experience), and on the way back to Santa Cruz (about a 2 hour ride), I sat up top with the captain and jammed out to his playlist of reggeaton classics while the wind whipped my hair and the sun beat down on my back. Simply beautiful.

Monday was our last full day. We visited two sinkholes that are named Los Gemelos (the Twins) because they’re right next to each other. They were pretty cool but uneventful haha. Then we visited the famous Charles Darwin Research Center. We toured the tortoise breeding program and saw baby tortoises! They were absolutely the cutest things ever—only like the size of your hand, moving all around their enclosures exploring to their precious little hearts’ content, and eating leaves like you’ve never seen anything eat a leaf. The day passed far too quickly and left us all with sadness and nostalgia. We played classic group games like Hot Seat and the question game and games of that sort through the night. As we were leaving today, I couldn’t help but feel that this is an adios and not a chao—a goodbye forever and not an “until next time.” I certainly would love to return but I just don’t see how I’ll ever be able to for the rest of my life. Then again, I’m one of the 1% of the world population who has ever visited the islands. And what a fulfilling trip it was. Still though, returning to Quito has filled me with a profound sadness. It’s not just leaving behind such a paradise and knowing that I’ll never be able to recreate that experience in the same way. It’s also returning to the daily grind of classes and homework. But even more than that—being in an airport for the first time since January has filled me with homesickness for one of the really only times so far. I can’t really explain why beyond that just physically being in an airport made me recall the flight to the unknown that took place what feels like eons ago. The domestic and international arrivals share the same exit point, so I was literally back in the same place I was when everything was so new and I didn’t know anybody or anything. It was a weird feeling.

So, there ya have it—the Galápagos episode over and done with. These words fail to do justice to the sights, smells, sounds, emotions, and thoughts that comprised this trip. I encourage yall to go and see for yourselves, because the Enchanted Islands will certainly enchant you—as they have done me.  

[terryblount]

Ori and the Will of the Wisps PC Review

It is hard to believe five years have passed since Ori and the Blind Forest debuted on our screens. Developers Moon Studios crafted a momentous game that not only reinvigorated the metroidvania genre, but also reminded gamers how beautiful and intricate these titles can be. Now the long-awaited sequel is finally on our shelves, but how could any studio follow up on lightning in a bottle like this?

The answer is in Ori and the Will of the Wisps. I mentioned in my Rage 2 review that all good sequels have the ability to reach the full potential of their I.P’s. It is not just about more, bigger or prettier. Good sequels elevate themselves to those untouched areas of gameplay that their predecessors never reached, and this is precisely what Moon Studios achievedwith their second Ori game.

Enjoying the pleasures of home

If ever there was a write-up willing to criticise Ori and the Will of the Wisps (hereafter Ori 2), you will not find it here. Perhaps this will not be a review of Ori 2, but my best attempt to express what a masterpiece this sequel has turned out to be. Moon Studios maxed out every strength from their first game, and remind us once again why metroidvanias can be some of the most fulfilling experiences in our industry.

A picture is worth a thousand words

One of the highlights from Ori and the Blind Forest was Moon Studios’s incredible talent for using visual language. Like many other metroidvanias, the first Ori game could impart a lot to the player using only modest resources. There wasn’t much exposition, there were limited snippets of dialogue, and the game had a very conservative use of cut scenes.

Nonetheless, it was still an experience you could get lost in. The devs allowed their game itself to communicate with the player on a visual level, and this design philosophy spills over into almost everything in Ori 2. In short, Ori 2 is a game that shows rather than tells in that the visuals of Ori’s story are a fundamental bridge between both the narrative and the gameplay.

Take the eponymous (and very cute) Ori, for example. Even a noob taking a cursory glance at this little critter would immediately tell there is something agile, yet vulnerable about… it. Hold on a second, is Ori a boy or a girl? Only thing I know is that the name has a Hebrew origin meaning ‘my light’, so perhaps Ori is Jewish?

Name of the game (Image from Ori and the Blind forest Wiki)

Anyway, I digress. True to the sloping lines and gossamer-like luminance of the character model, Ori once again felt super smooth and an utter pleasure to control for the thirteen-ish hours I spent leaping and bounding throughout the various biomes. There is a weightless momentum in how Ori handles, which encourages the player to keep moving and to experiment with acrobatics.

It seems that virtually niggles and annoyances have been ironed out from the first game, and it is clear the devs wanted to push the boundaries of traversal in this series to the next level. Moreover, Ori’s revamped animations are equally slick in this sequel, both in the twirls or somersaults when leaping weightlessly through the levels, but also in the combat or ranged attacks against enemies.

A battle in spirit

Ori has been given quite a substantial upgrade in terms of how players will fight against the malicious bugs, slugs and even bosses scattered around the world. Combat is now closer to the metroidvanias that have followed in the interim from the first game’s release (for example, Hollow Knight) in that Ori can now swap on the fly between a spirit sword, ranged spirited projectiles, heavy weapons, and more.

The player will really have their reflexes tested on normal or hard difficulties since the combat is fast and frantic. I strongly recommend a first playthrough on ‘easy’, particularly since you cannot adjust the difficulty later. Nonetheless, this spirit bunny is every bit as agile and responsive during battle as he is with traversal, and there is a decent variety of ranged and melee attacks to make up your fighting strategy.

The spirit trees that give Ori his abilities

It is from the combat I noticed that Ori 2 now boasts a more varied menu and progression system. Moon Studious have swapped out the linear style of the previous game, and have implemented something closer to an RPG’s structure, which allows for abilites and weapons to unlock quicker, and thereby leaving the choice to the player on what to upgrade and define their own playing style.

The forest lives on

The reason why Ori possesses these abilities and, frankly, why he glows in the dark, is because he was one of several spirits inhabiting a mystical willow tree – the heart of the entire forest’s spiritual energy. The first game saw Ori being adopted by a creature called Naru after falling out of the willow tree during a great storm, and eventually setting out to rescue the forest dying from a malicious corruption.

With the forest now restored to its lavish glory, Ori 2 opens with a touching scene of the pair living a serene life, along with their new friends Guma and Ku. All is well until Ku, who is the cutest little owlet EVER, finally becomes overwhelmed by the desire to fly. Unfortunately, Ku’s tiny little wing got mangled, leaving the owlet grounded and very depressed as it watches the other birds go by.

First flight

Ori and co. therefore try to help Ku with a makeshift wing which seems to work quite well until, during its first flight, Ku is caught in an angry storm, not unlike the one that shook Ori from its tree. With Ori riding on Ku’s back, the duo crash land in a desolate area of the forest, and they become separated.

The stage is set for Ori to embark on a rescue mission, and as a surprise to no one, Ori finds that all is still not well in the deep, forgotten places of the forest. The mission to rescue Ku therefore becomes intertwined with restoring the forest’s life force to an abandoned and hostile world, and Ori soon finds that it is not only Ku’s life that hangs in the balance.

In certain segments there are chase sequences. You really feel Ori’s vulnerability here, and it is utterly terrifying.

Thanks to absolutely superb animation and expert use of potent imagery, the story in Ori 2 is nothing less than sublime. Without spoiling anything, I will just say that the narrative plays out as a riveting and engrossing mix of fairy tale tropes, which are interspersed with gut-wrenching climaxes of triumph and failure.

The hauntingly beautiful soundtrack is also a crucial component here. The melody is a beautiful reflection of the game itself in that the orchestral swells alongside dream-like notes are constantly tinged with an undertone of sadness and melancholia.

In all honesty, I was taken on a rollercoaster ride of emotions during my play-through, and it has been a long time since a game has had this effect on me. Seeing that poor baby owl frightened and alone in the dead forest wasteland brought me right to verge of tears, while I beamed like adoring parent during the more happy moments. This is really fantastic story-telling.

Breaking boundaries

Both the story and the gameplay is of course sustained by two immaculate pillars: The graphics and the level-design. You often hear about video games blurring the boundaries between art and entertainment, but Ori 2 utterly shatters this division. This game IS art. The visuals are so imaginative and aesthetically pleasing that it looks like you are playing through Bob Ross painting brought to life.

With Unreal dominating the source-available market at the moment, I am really glad Moon Studios showed us how Unity still has a lot more to offer

Running on the Unity engine, the devs have created a massive world rendered with more detailed textures, a much higher particle count, and a more complex lighting system than the first game. The forest feels alive and breathing with several different biomes for Ori to explore, and each area has been coloured with a very distinct palette to reinforce the player’s awareness of location.

I mentioned visual language earlier, and it is in environmental design that Moon Studios have really put this to work. The greens, browns and blues represent colours that guide Ori, that beckon the little critter to safety. The reds, yellows and purples on the other hand represent danger, and it is astounding to see how consistently the devs have endorsed this system throughout the entire game.

I simply could not get enough of this beautiful world. From races against the ghosts of other players, to doing small quests for animals that inhabit in the forest, to feeling that satisfaction of nimbly making it through heavily-spiked, narrow corridors, it is mesmerizing that all of this is functioning so well in one game. It is a model of excellence in environmental design.

Ori, the paragon

We often hear people complaining that ‘they don’t make games like they used to’ and I somewhat agree. I feel like modern studios tend to put money before their vision for making their game because of how alarmingly competitive the industry has become. As such, games rarely take risks, and the industry often faces something of an identity crisis.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps stands as a shining contradiction to this ethos. This game oozes creative energy, and was quite obviously made by people who really have a passion for this genre. It shows how we can use technology not just to enhance everything in a game, but also how complex systems can be made to function alongside one other.

It is so rare that we see excellence in our games these days, which is why Ori and the Will of the Wisps truly is a non-negotiable moment. This is not just a game: It is an education to what gaming as a medium can accomplish. You simply have to play this.

Breathtaking soundtrack

Gorgeous art style

Immaculate level design

Great story

Controls well

Good dev support

Some bugs

Long start up loading time

          PC Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using Nvidia GTX 1070, i5 4690K CPU, 16GB RAM – Played using an Xbox One Contoller

The post Ori and the Will of the Wisps PC Review appeared first on DSOGaming.

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[bountyofbeads]

Democracy Grief Is Real https://nyti.ms/2LRLcSL

I have been in a deep depression since Thanksgiving and feel totally defeated and exhausted so I'm heartened to know there's a reason for it. 😭😭😭

Democracy Grief Is Real

Seeing what Trump is doing to America, many find it hard to fight off despair.

By Michelle Goldberg | Published Dec. 13, 2019 | New York Times | Posted December 13, 2019 |

The despair felt by climate scientists and environmentalists watching helplessly as something precious and irreplaceable is destroyed is sometimes described as “climate grief.” Those who pay close attention to the ecological calamity that civilization is inflicting upon itself frequently describe feelings of rage, anxiety and bottomless loss, all of which are amplified by the right’s willful denial. The young activist Greta Thunberg, Time Magazine’s 2019 Person of the Year, has described falling into a deep depression after grasping the ramifications of climate change and the utter refusal of people in power to rise to the occasion: “If burning fossil fuels was so bad that it threatened our very existence, how could we just continue like before?”

Lately, I think I’m experiencing democracy grief. For anyone who was, like me, born after the civil rights movement finally made democracy in America real, liberal democracy has always been part of the climate, as easy to take for granted as clean air or the changing of the seasons. When I contemplate the sort of illiberal oligarchy that would await my children should Donald Trump win another term, the scale of the loss feels so vast that I can barely process it.

After Trump’s election, a number of historians and political scientists rushed out with books explaining, as one title put it, “How Democracies Die.” In the years since, it’s breathtaking how much is dead already. Though the president will almost certainly be impeached for extorting Ukraine to aid his re-election, he is equally certain to be acquitted in the Senate, a tacit confirmation that he is, indeed, above the law. His attorney general is a shameless partisan enforcer. Professional civil servants are purged, replaced by apparatchiks. The courts are filling up with young, hard-right ideologues. One recently confirmed judge, 40-year-old Steven Menashi, has written approvingly of ethnonationalism.

In “How Democracies Die,” Professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt of Harvard describe how, in failing democracies, “the referees of the democratic game were brought over to the government’s side, providing the incumbent with both a shield against constitutional challenges and a powerful — and ‘legal’ — weapon with which to assault its opponents.” This is happening before our eyes.

The entire Trump presidency has been marked, for many of us who are part of the plurality that despises it, by anxiety and anger. But lately I’ve noticed, and not just in myself, a demoralizing degree of fear, even depression. You can see it online, in the self-protective cynicism of liberals announcing on Twitter that Trump is going to win re-election. In The Washington Post, Michael Gerson, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush and a Never Trump conservative, described his spiritual struggle against feelings of political desperation: “Sustaining this type of distressed uncertainty for long periods, I can attest, is like putting arsenic in your saltshaker.”

I reached out to a number of therapists, who said they’re seeing this politically induced misery in their patients. Three years ago, said Karen Starr, a psychologist who practices in Manhattan and on Long Island, some of her patients were “in a state of alarm,” but that’s changed into “more of a chronic feeling that’s bordering on despair.” Among those most affected, she said, are the Holocaust survivors she sees. “It’s about this general feeling that the institutions that we rely on to protect us from a dangerous individual might fail,” she said.

Kimberly Grocher, a psychotherapist who works in both New York and South Florida, and whose clients are primarily women of color, told me that during her sessions, the political situation “is always in the room. It’s always in the room.” Trump, she said, has made bigotry more open and acceptable, something her patients feel in their daily lives. “When you’re dealing with people of color’s mental health, systemic racism is a big part of that,” she said.

In April 2017, I traveled to suburban Atlanta to cover the special election in the Sixth Congressional District. Meeting women there who had been shocked by Trump’s election into ceaseless political action made me optimistic for the first time that year. These women were ultimately the reason that the district, once represented by Newt Gingrich, is now held by a Democrat, Lucy McBath. Recently, I got back in touch with a woman I’d met there, an army veteran and mother of three named Katie Landsman. She was in a dark place.

“It’s like watching someone you love die of a wasting disease,” she said, speaking of our country. “Each day, you still have that little hope no matter what happens, you’re always going to have that little hope that everything’s going to turn out O.K., but every day it seems like we get hit by something else.” Some mornings, she said, it’s hard to get out of bed. “It doesn’t feel like depression,” she said. “It really does feel more like grief.”

Obviously, this is hardly the first time that America has failed to live up to its ideals. But the ideals themselves used to be a nearly universal lodestar. The civil rights movement, and freedom movements that came after it, succeeded because the country could be shamed by the distance between its democratic promises and its reality. That is no longer true.

Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans are often incredulous seeing the party of Ronald Reagan allied with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, but the truth is, there’s no reason they should be in conflict. The enmity between America and Russia was ideological. First it was liberal democracy versus communism. Then it was liberal democracy versus authoritarian kleptocracy.

But Trump’s political movement is pro-authoritarian and pro-oligarch. It has no interest in preserving pluralism, free and fair elections or any version of the rule of law that applies to the powerful as well as the powerless. It’s contemptuous of the notion of America as a lofty idea rather than a blood-and-soil nation. Russia, which has long wanted to prove that liberal democracy is a hypocritical sham, is the natural friend of the Trumpist Republican Party, just as it’s an ally and benefactor of the far right Rassemblement National in France and the Lega Nord in Italy.

The nemeses of the Trumpist movement are liberals — in both the classical and American sense of the world — not America’s traditional geopolitical foes. This is something new in our lifetime. Despite right-wing persecution fantasies about Obama, we’ve never before had a president that treats half the country like enemies, subjecting it to an unending barrage of dehumanization and hostile propaganda. Opponents in a liberal political system share at least some overlapping language. They have some shared values to orient debates. With those things gone, words lose their meaning and political exchange becomes impossible and irrelevant.

Thus we have a total breakdown in epistemological solidarity. In the impeachment committee hearings, Republicans insist with a straight face that Trump was deeply concerned about corruption in Ukraine. Republican Senators like Ted Cruz of Texas, who is smart enough to know better, repeat Russian propaganda accusing Ukraine of interfering in the 2016 election. The Department of Justice’s Inspector General report refutes years of Republican deep state conspiracy theories about an F.B.I. plot to subvert Trump’s campaign, and it makes no difference whatsoever to the promoters of those theories, who pronounce themselves totally vindicated.

To those who recognize the Trump administration’s official lies as such, the scale of dishonesty can be destabilizing. It’s a psychic tax on the population, who must parse an avalanche of untruths to understand current events. “What’s going on in the government is so extreme, that people who have no history of overwhelming psychological trauma still feel crazed by this,” said Stephanie Engel, a psychiatrist in Cambridge, Mass., who said Trump comes up “very frequently” in her sessions.

Like several therapists I spoke to, Engel said she’s had to rethink how she practices, because she has no clinical distance from the things that are terrifying her patients. “If we continue to present a facade — that we know how to manage this ourselves, and we’re not worried about our grandchildren, or we’re not worried about how we’re going to live our lives if he wins the next election — we’re not doing our patients a service,” she said.

This kind of political suffering is uncomfortable to write about, because liberal misery is the raison d’être of the MAGA movement. When Trumpists mock their enemies for being “triggered,” it’s just a quasi-adult version of the playground bully’s jeer: “What are you going to do, cry?” Anyone who has ever been bullied knows how important it is, at that moment, to choke back tears. In truth there are few bigger snowflakes than the stars of MAGA world; The Trumpist pundit Dan Bongino is currently suing the Daily Beast for $15 million, saying it inflicted “emotional distress and trauma, insult, anguish,” for writing that NRATV, the National Rifle Association’s now defunct online media arm, had “dropped” him when the show he hosted ended. Still, a movement fueled by sadism will delight in admissions that it has caused pain.

But despair is worth discussing, because it’s something that organizers and Democratic candidates should be addressing head on. Left to fester, it can lead to apathy and withdrawal. Channeled properly, it can fuel an uprising. I was relieved to hear that despite her sometimes overwhelming sense of civic sadness, Landsman’s activism hasn’t let up. She’s been spending a bit less than 20 hours a week on political organizing, and expects to go back to 40 or more after the holidays. “The only other option is to quit, and accept it, and I’m not ready to go there yet,” she said. Democracy grief isn’t like regular grief. Acceptance isn’t how you move on from it. Acceptance is itself a kind of death.

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Ukraine’s Leader, Wiser to Washington, Seeks New Outreach to Trump

President Volodymyr Zelensky still needs backing from the administration. He is proposing a new ambassador and weighing hiring lobbyists to build better ties.

By Kenneth P. Vogel and Andrew E. Kramer | Published Dec. 13, 2019 Updated 12:44 PM ET | New York Times | Posted December 13, 2019 |

WASHINGTON — Eager to repair their country’s fraught relationship with Washington, allies of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine have met with lobbyists with close ties to the Trump administration, hopeful of creating new channels of communication.

After more than two months of anxious waiting, Mr. Zelensky finally appears to have won support from the White House for a candidate to fill Ukraine’s vacant ambassadorship to the United States.

And Mr. Zelensky, still deeply dependent on American assistance, has been signaling, in hardly subtle fashion, that he and his officials will not assist in the impeachment process, keeping quiet in particular about the fact that his government knew weeks earlier than it has publicly acknowledged that Mr. Trump had frozen nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine.

Nearly every world leader has struggled to figure out how to deal with Mr. Trump. But few face greater pressure to find the answer — or more hurdles to doing so — than Mr. Zelensky.

Wiser now to the ways of Washington, he and his team are carefully trying to reestablish themselves in a variety of ways as an important ally with a substantive agenda deserving of Washington’s attention and support.

They have a long ways to go. Mr. Zelensky’s team has been discouraged by the absence of expected support from Mr. Trump for Ukraine’s peace talks with Russia, as well as the lack of follow-through from the White House on a promised Oval Office meeting with Mr. Zelensky that the administration had quietly signaled might happen in late January.

Mr. Zelensky’s allies were frustrated further by Mr. Trump’s meeting in the Oval Office on Tuesday with Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister. And when the president’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani paid an unexpected visit to Kyiv last week in a continued effort to dig up dirt on Mr. Trump’s political opponents, no Ukrainian government officials met him.

Asked by an official at the German Marshall Fund on Friday what the Zelensky administration wants from Washington, Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, who has been in Washington this week meeting with administration and congressional officials, said “all we are asking from our colleagues in the U.S. administration is fair treatment.”

He added, “We don’t want to be shamed and blamed.”

The continued push to try to overcome Mr. Trump’s grudge against Ukraine suggests Zelensky administration officials have concluded that impeachment will fail in the Senate and that they will almost certainly need to work with Mr. Trump for at least another year, and possibly another five years if Mr. Trump is re-elected.

“Our relations are not in good shape,” said Olena Zerkal, a former deputy foreign minister under Mr. Zelensky. “I don’t believe in any chemistry between our leaders.”

Mr. Zelensky’s willingness to accommodate the Trump administration has hardly gone unnoticed in Kyiv.

After the White House released a rough transcript of a July 25 call between the American and Ukrainian presidents, Mr. Zelensky was panned in Ukraine on social media for seeming too eager to please Mr. Trump. That included signaling a willingness to pursue the investigations sought by Mr. Trump into political targets like the family of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

“Monica Zelensky,” the Ukrainian president was called on social media in Kyiv, in a reference to the intern whose sexual relations with Bill Clinton led to the last impeachment proceedings of an American president.

Even a White House visit, if it happens, risks being seen not so much as a triumph for Mr. Zelensky as more kowtowing to Mr. Trump, who could cite it as evidence he never linked such a visit, or American military assistance for Ukraine, to investigations that would benefit him politically.

“In Kyiv, we have to place bets on the current power in Washington,” said Nikolay Kapitonenko, professor at the Institute of International Relations. But outreach to the Republican administration is not risk free, he said, adding, “Zelensky understands that taking any side is dangerous.”

The importance of American support for Ukraine — and the desire for more of it from Mr. Trump — has been on display in recent days.

An American diplomat traveled to Kyiv to express support for the Ukrainians headed into Mr. Zelensky’s first face-to-face meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Monday in Paris.

But Trump administration officials privately told the Ukrainians that Mr. Trump himself would signal support, according to Americans and Ukrainians familiar with the matter, either via Twitter, as first reported by The Daily Beast, or possibly even an invitation for Mr. Zelensky to visit the White House next month. While Mr. Trump posted more than 100 tweets on Sunday, none expressed support for the Ukrainians headed into the peace talks.

The Trump administration had also resisted calls to levy sanctions against a Russian gas pipeline that would circumvent Ukraine. The White House reportedly worked to undermine congressional efforts to block the pipeline, though sanctions language was added to a $738 billion military policy bill that passed the House on Wednesday. And the military assistance that Democrats accuse Mr. Trump of using as leverage to force the investigations reportedly still has not fully reached Ukraine.

Those are among the issues that may help explain why the Ukrainians are considering stepping up their lobbying in Washington, despite potential political and financial costs.

During his campaign and early in his presidency, Mr. Zelensky proclaimed that he had no need to hire lobbyists like the government of his predecessor. “I never met a single lobbyist,” he said. “I don’t need this. I never paid a coin and I never will.”

Yet, in the weeks before Mr. Zelensky was elected in April, his advisers quietly worked with a Washington lobbying firm, Signal Group, to arrange meetings in Washington with Trump administration officials, as well as congressional offices and think tanks that focus on Ukraine-United States relations.

Mr. Zelensky distanced himself from the arrangement, even though Signal Group reported in a filing under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, that it was paid nearly $70,000 by Mr. Zelensky’s party through a lawyer named Marcus Cohen. Mr. Cohen, on the other hand, claimed that the money came from his own pocket, not from Mr. Zelensky’s party.

The Justice Department’s National Security Division, which oversees FARA, sent a letter to Mr. Cohen requesting information about the arrangement, then urged him to register as a foreign agent, according to people with knowledge of the situation. One of the people said that the division also audited Signal Group’s filings, informing the firm in a letter in October that the inquiry was closed.

Signal defended its FARA filings as accurate, and referred questions about Mr. Cohen’s representations to him or Mr. Zelensky’s team. Neither responded to requests for comment.

Mr. Zelensky “may find that it is best to be his own spokesperson on this subject for a while to prevent others from interpreting his words for him,” at least until “trust can be rebuilt,” Heather A. Conley, who was a deputy assistant secretary of state in the bureau of European and Eurasian affairs from 2001 to 2005, said in an email.

Ms. Conley, who is director of the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was among the think tank officials who met with one Mr. Zelensky’s advisers in April in a meeting arranged by Signal and Mr. Cohen.

They discussed Mr. Zelensky’s anticorruption and economic overhaul plans, Ms. Conley said, adding, “Ukraine faces a fraught landscape in Washington — with or without a lobbyist.”

The discussions about hiring a lobbyist, which are described as preliminary, have divided Mr. Zelensky’s team.

Some are concerned that hiring a lobbying firm with ties to Mr. Trump could jeopardize Democratic support. And some are wary of becoming involved with K Street at all, because of the specter of Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, who was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for crimes related to his lobbying for a deeply unpopular former Ukrainian government.

Yet two of the firms being discussed for possible lobbying engagement have links to Mr. Manafort, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions.

A representative of one of the firms, Mercury Public Affairs, which worked with Mr. Manafort on his Ukraine effort, met in Kyiv last month with a top aide to Mr. Zelensky. The lobbyist, Bryan Lanza, has ties to the Trump White House, and was in Ukraine on unrelated business according to people familiar with the meeting.

It was arranged by an American lawyer named Andrew Mac, who himself registered last month with the Justice Department as an unpaid lobbyist for Mr. Zelensky. Mr. Mac, who splits his time between Washington and Kyiv, was appointed by Mr. Zelensky last month as an adviser responsible for building support among the Ukrainian diaspora.

In a sign of the scrutiny in Kyiv on its new government’s tumultuous relationship with Mr. Trump, and efforts to calm it, secretly recorded video and photographs circulated of Mr. Lanza’s meeting with the Zelensky aide in a restaurant.

In an article featuring the photographs, a Ukrainian news outlet noted that Mr. Lanza helped lift sanctions against the corporate empire of the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a Kremlin ally. That arrangement was assailed by critics in Washington as a sweetheart deal that represented a capitulation to the Kremlin, while Mr. Lanza also lobbied to help remove potentially crippling sanctions on the Chinese telecom giant ZTE.

Mr. Mac said Mr. Lanza had been “very effective in working for his clients on difficult matters.”

Another firm that was discussed by Mr. Zelensky’s aides, Prime Policy Group, also has a Manafort link — albeit a more dated one. It was started by Charlie Black, a former business partner of Mr. Manafort’s in the 1980s and ’90s. Mr. Black’s firm has represented other clients in Ukraine, including Sergey Tigipko, a Ukrainian billionaire and former official in the government of Viktor F. Yanukovych.

Mr. Black said he had not had any conversations with Mr. Zelensky’s team about a possible contract, but would not be opposed to such an engagement.

Mr. Mac met this month in Washington to discuss Ukrainian energy issues with the former Representative Billy Tauzin, a Democrat turned Republican from Louisiana who is now a lobbyist. While someone with knowledge of the deliberations said Mr. Tauzin was not being considered as a potential lobbyist for Ukraine, he has connections that could be helpful. His congressional staff once included Dan Brouillette, who was confirmed this month as secretary of the Energy Department, upon which the Ukrainian government has relied for help with its power supply during brutally cold winters.

Ms. Conley suggested that Mr. Zelensky would be better served by an ambassador than a lobbyist, but the process of filling that vacancy has not been quick.

At least three names had been floated in recent months, and the Zelensky administration’s current preference for the position, Volodymyr Yelchenko, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations, had been awaiting approval since late September or early October, according to people familiar with the process. They said that the State Department had signed off on Mr. Yelchenko weeks ago, but that the Ukrainians had grown anxious waiting for the White House to do so.

Officials in Kyiv were told that the approval would be formally communicated this week, they said. The White House and State Department did not respond to questions about the approval of Mr. Yelchenko.

Some attributed the delay to a quiet push by some Trump allies for a prospective ambassador who is closely aligned with Mr. Giuliani, Andrii Telizhenko, who had served as a low-ranking diplomat in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington under the previous government.

He was embraced by Mr. Trump’s allies after claiming that the former American ambassador to Kyiv and other Ukrainian officials worked to undermine Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign. In recent months, Mr. Telizhenko has worked closely with Mr. Giuliani to advance those claims. As part of the effort, the two men traveled together to Hungary and Ukraine last week to record interviews with former Ukrainian officials for a series of programs by a conservative cable channel seeking to undermine the impeachment proceedings.

It is unclear whether Mr. Zelensky’s team ever seriously considered Mr. Telizhenko as an ambassador candidate.

Kenneth P. Vogel reported from Washington, and Andrew E. Kramer from Kyiv.

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The Party That Ruined the Planet

Republican climate denial is even scarier than Trumpism.

By Paul Krugman | Published Dec. 12, 2019 | New York Times | Posted December 13, 2019 |

The most terrifying aspect of the U.S. political drama isn’t the revelation that the president has abused his power for personal gain. If you didn’t see that coming from the day Donald Trump was elected, you weren’t paying attention.

No, the real revelation has been the utter depravity of the Republican Party. Essentially every elected or appointed official in that party has chosen to defend Trump by buying into crazy, debunked conspiracy theories. That is, one of America’s two major parties is beyond redemption; given that, it’s hard to see how democracy can long endure, even if Trump is defeated.

However, the scariest reporting I’ve seen recently has been about science, not politics. A new federal report finds that climate change in the Arctic is accelerating, matching what used to be considered worst-case scenarios. And there are indications that Arctic warming may be turning into a self-reinforcing spiral, as the thawing tundra itself releases vast quantities of greenhouse gases.

Catastrophic sea-level rise, heat waves that make major population centers uninhabitable, and more are now looking more likely than not, and sooner rather than later.

But the terrifying political news and the terrifying climate news are closely related.

Why, after all, has the world failed to take action on climate, and why is it still failing to act even as the danger gets ever more obvious? There are, of course, many culprits; action was never going to be easy.

But one factor stands out above all others: the fanatical opposition of America’s Republicans, who are the world’s only major climate-denialist party. Because of this opposition, the United States hasn’t just failed to provide the kind of leadership that would have been essential to global action, it has become a force against action.

And Republican climate denial is rooted in the same kind of depravity that we’re seeing with regard to Trump.

As I’ve written in the past, climate denial was in many ways the crucible for Trumpism. Long before the cries of “fake news,” Republicans were refusing to accept science that contradicted their prejudices. Long before Republicans began attributing every negative development to the machinations of the “deep state,” they were insisting that global warming was a gigantic hoax perpetrated by a vast global cabal of corrupt scientists.

And long before Trump began weaponizing the power of the presidency for political gain, Republicans were using their political power to harass climate scientists and, where possible, criminalize the practice of science itself.

Perhaps not surprisingly, some of those responsible for these abuses are now ensconced in the Trump administration. Notably, Ken Cuccinelli, who as attorney general of Virginia engaged in a long witch-hunt against the climate scientist Michael Mann, is now at the Department of Homeland Security, where he pushes anti-immigrant policies with, as The Times reports, “little concern for legal restraints.”

But why have Republicans become the party of climate doom? Money is an important part of the answer: In the current cycle Republicans have received 97 percent of political contributions from the coal industry, 88 percent from oil and gas. And this doesn’t even count the wing nut welfare offered by institutions supported by the Koch brothers and other fossil-fuel moguls.

However, I don’t believe that it’s just about the money. My sense is that right-wingers believe, probably correctly, that there’s a sort of halo effect surrounding any form of public action. Once you accept that we need policies to protect the environment, you’re more likely to accept the idea that we should have policies to ensure access to health care, child care, and more. So the government must be prevented from doing anything good, lest it legitimize a broader progressive agenda.

Still, whatever the short-term political incentives, it takes a special kind of depravity to respond to those incentives by denying facts, embracing insane conspiracy theories and putting the very future of civilization at risk.

Unfortunately, that kind of depravity isn’t just present in the modern Republican Party, it has effectively taken over the whole institution. There used to be at least some Republicans with principles; as recently as 2008 Senator John McCain co-sponsored serious climate-change legislation. But those people have either experienced total moral collapse (hello, Senator Graham) or left the party.

The truth is that even now I don’t fully understand how things got this bad. But the reality is clear: Modern Republicans are irredeemable, devoid of principle or shame. And there is, as I said, no reason to believe that this will change even if Trump is defeated next year.

The only way that either American democracy or a livable planet can survive is if the Republican Party as it now exists is effectively dismantled and replaced with something better — maybe with a party that has the same name, but completely different values. This may sound like an impossible dream. But it’s the only hope we have.

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Donald Trump Wanted Another Roy Cohn. He Got Bill Barr.

EVEN BETTER.

By Caroline Fredrickson, Ms. Fredrickson is the author of “The Democracy Fix.” | Published December 12, 2019 | New York Times | Posted December 13, 2019 |

President Trump famously asked, “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” Demanding a stand-in for his old personal lawyer and fixer, Mr. Trump has actually gotten something better with Bill Barr: a lawyer who like Cohn stops seemingly at nothing in his service to Mr. Trump and conveniently sits atop the nation’s Justice Department.

Mr. Barr has acted more like a henchman than the leader of an agency charged with exercising independent judgment. The disturbing message that sends does not end at our borders — it extends to countries, like those in the former East Bloc, struggling to overcome an illiberal turn in the direction of autocracy.

When Mr. Trump sought to have President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine announce an investigation of his political opponent, he likely expected a positive response. After all, politicized prosecutions had been part of Ukraine’s corrupt political culture for years.

On Monday, when Michael Horowitz, inspector general for the Justice Department, released a report that affirmed the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election was justified, Mr. Barr immediately turned on his own agency in defense of the president.

“The F.B.I. launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken,” he said.

Similarly, Mr. Barr’s response to the report from Robert Mueller on Russian interference and Mr. Trump’s purported presidential misconduct was to cast doubt on his own staff, questioning their work product as well as their ethics and legal reasoning. Even before he became attorney general, Mr. Barr questioned Mr. Mueller’s investigation of the president for obstruction of justice in a 19-page legal memo he volunteered to the administration.

And where he could have neutrally passed Mr. Mueller’s findings to Congress, he instead took the widely criticized and unusual step of making and announcing his own legal conclusions about Mr. Mueller’s obstruction inquiry. He followed up this Cohn-like behavior with testimony in the Senate, where he insinuated that the United States government spied on the Trump campaign. Mr. Barr apparently has decided that, like Cohn, he serves Donald Trump and not the Constitution or the United States, flouting his oath of office and corrupting the mission of the Justice Department.

In the past, the United States has, however imperfectly, advanced the rule of law and supported governments committed to an anti-corruption agenda. According to George Kent, a State Department official who testified in the House impeachment inquiry, Russia sees corruption as a tool to advance its interests. So when the United States fights a kleptocratic culture, it serves not only lofty humanitarian goals but also our national security. Mr. Zelensky ran a campaign and was elected on a platform that put fighting corruption at the forefront. He should have received extensive and unmitigated support in that effort.

In the former East Bloc countries, despite the hopes of many for a post-Soviet era where democracy would thrive, the parties and politicians in power have consolidated their control in a manner reminiscent of the Communist era.

Autocrats understand that supposedly independent institutions such as the courts and prosecutors are vital to locking in their power. In Romania, a crusading anti-corruption prosecutor who was investigating top government officials was fired at the same time as the government advanced legislation to cabin the ability of other prosecutors to pursue cases against political officials. Poland’s right-wing populist Law and Justice Party has attacked the independent judiciary and has sought to remove judges who do not follow the party line. Hungary has followed suit. Bulgarian politicians have persecuted civil society groups that have criticized their abandonment of the rule of law.

While several United States ambassadors have attempted to support anti-corruption efforts in the region, they have been continuously undercut by the White House. In addition to firing Marie Yovanovitch, who served as ambassador to Ukraine, in part because of her anti-corruption focus, Mr. Trump hosted Viktor Orban of Hungary in Washington over the objections of national security officials who did not want to elevate a corrupt leader with close ties to the Kremlin; furthermore, the president has tried to cut funding for anti-corruption programs.

Mr. Trump’s focus on cultivating foreign leaders who can help his re-election has overwhelmed our national interests in the region. That is certainly a shame for the anti-corruption activists in former Communist countries who have depended on our help and leadership since the end of the Soviet era and who have seen their justice system turned to serve political ends.

But for Americans, we must worry that we face a similar domestic situation: a prosecutor who bends to the political needs of the president. Mr. Trump may no longer be able to call on Roy Cohn, but he now has a stronger ally in the United States’ top law-enforcement official, who thinks that if the president does it, it can’t be wrong.

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How Trump Weaponized the Justice Department’s Inspector General

The president and his allies have turned investigations into a political tool for use against their enemies.

By James B. Stewart, Mr. Stewart is a New York Times business columnist. | Published Dec. 13, 2019, 6:00 AM ET | New York Times | Posted Dec. 13, 2019

In his report on the origins of the F.B.I.’s Russia investigation, and in testimony before Congress on Wednesday, Inspector General Michael Horowitz of the Department of Justice demolished President Trump’s most sensational allegations about the Russia inquiry: He concluded that the opening of the investigation was lawful and legitimate, that there was no improper “spying” on the Trump campaign and that the F.B.I. wasn’t part of some “deep state” conspiracy to overthrow the president.

That hardly stopped Mr. Trump and his allies. The report “was far worse than expected,” the president asserted — after already predicting it would be “devastating.” “This was an attempted overthrow and a lot of people were in on it and they got caught, they got caught red-handed,” Mr. Trump said in the Cabinet Room at the White House.

Attorney General William Barr was quick to pile on, too: “The inspector general’s report now makes clear that the F.B.I. launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken,” he said in a Justice Department statement.

Media coverage and Senate hearings quickly shifted to the F.B.I.’s procedural failings, which Mr. Horowitz labeled “gross incompetence.” By the end of the week, Americans could be forgiven for thinking that the F.B.I. was indeed part of some sinister coup attempt — precisely the opposite of what Mr. Horowitz had concluded.

So much for the supposedly nonpartisan and independent office of the Department of Justice Inspector General — a position that, before the Trump administration, most Americans hardly knew existed. To a striking degree, Mr. Trump and his allies have turned the post into a potent weapon aimed at his supposed enemies in the federal law enforcement agencies.

Their ability to wreak political havoc with the latest Horowitz report is part of what has now become a clear pattern: Call for an investigation of a favorite Trump target; speculate about the likely outcome; seize on any collateral evidence that emerges; spin the results; then move quickly to the next investigation. Repeat.

The White House and Republicans in Congress insisted the inspector general open an investigation into the origins of the Russia inquiry, even though it was already thoroughly covered in a report from the special counsel Robert Mueller. Investigators armed with virtually unlimited time and budget will nearly always find something (as critics of the special counsel role have long argued).

Mr. Horowitz uncovered some new details, and the irregularities he discovered in the F.B.I.’s FISA application process may well prompt a needed overhaul of the standards for intrusive surveillance of American citizens. But Mr. Horowitz conceded that even if all of those problems had been corrected, he couldn’t say the outcome would have been any different. Nor do they fundamentally change our understanding of how and why the Russia investigation began — already reported in considerable and accurate detail, including in this newspaper and in my recent book, “Deep State.”

But no matter how redundant, such investigations can serve as useful fishing expeditions. Six House committees conducted investigations of Hillary Clinton’s role in the Benghazi attacks. All of them absolved her of any wrongdoing. But it was in one of those investigations that a committee uncovered her use of a personal server for her email correspondence, which led to the F.B.I.’s Clinton email investigation. That provided candidate Trump with his “Lock her up” chant — and arguably cost her the presidency.

Mr. Horowitz, citing requests from members of Congress and the public, spent 17 months examining the F.B.I.’s handling of the Clinton email case. His conclusion: There was “no evidence” that the decision not to seek charges against Mrs. Clinton was “affected by bias or other improper conclusions,” the opposite of what Mr. Trump had been asserting for months.

But during that investigation Mr. Horowitz uncovered hundreds of texts between an F.B.I. agent, Peter Strzok, and an F.B.I. lawyer, Lisa Page, that suggested animus toward Mr. Trump and also revealed that the two had in the past engaged in an extramarital affair — information eagerly disseminated by the Justice Department and Trump allies.

Since then Mr. Trump has tweeted about Ms. Page over 40 times, caricaturing her and Mr. Strzok as “love birds” conspiring to bring down the president, with Mr. Trump often using the most vulgar terms to whip his supporters into a partisan frenzy. At a rally in October, Mr. Trump simulated an orgasm while saying: “I love you, Peter! I love you, too, Lisa! Lisa, I love you. Lisa, Lisa! Oh God, I love you, Lisa.”

Citing that incident as the last straw, this week Ms. Page sued the Department of Justice for unlawfully releasing the texts, which she said had “radically altered” her day-to-day life.

The existence of an investigation provides the president and his allies with unlimited opportunities to speculate about the outcome, while the inspector general is bound by confidentiality restrictions until the report is released. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, confidently predicted the inspector general’s report would demonstrate a “system off the rails” before he read it.

This may help explain why Mr. Trump, in his efforts to pressure Ukraine’s government to open investigations of Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, didn’t really care whether the Ukrainians actually conducted such an investigation — only that one be announced. That would have given him and his allies the opportunity to speculate about what the investigation was finding to tar the Bidens without any risk that an investigation would exonerate them.

It doesn’t matter if the report itself turns out to be something of an anticlimax. To his credit, Mr. Horowitz didn’t abandon the objective evidence in an effort to please his overseers. He certainly didn’t reach the answers about Russia or the Clinton email investigation for which President Trump and his allies so fervently hoped.

Yet there’s just enough in the Horowitz report to fuel “deep state” conspiracy theories. Mr. Trump has seized on reports from the inspector general to excoriate James Comey, Andrew McCabe and other former F.B.I. employees as “traitors.” Many media reports have focused on Mr. Horowitz’s “scathing” criticism of the F.B.I. rather than his broader conclusions.

Mr. Trump can be confident that few people will actually read the dense, legalistic prose of the Horowitz report — just as relatively few Americans read the entire Mueller report — which shows the F.B.I. largely fulfilling its mission in extraordinary circumstances.

The pattern has already started again. Mr. Trump has moved on to the next Russia investigation being conducted at Mr. Barr’s behest by United States Attorney John Durham of the District of Connecticut. This week Mr. Durham took the extraordinary step of criticizing the Horowitz report, fueling renewed speculation that this time Mr. Trump will finally get a result he wants.

“I do think the big report to wait for is going to be the Durham report,” Mr. Trump said, once again speculating about a report that hasn’t been written. “That’s the one that people are really waiting for.”

James B. Stewart is a New York Times business columnist and the author of “Deep State: Trump, the F.B.I., and the Rule of Law.”

[terryblount]

Ori and the Will of the Wisps PC Review

It is hard to believe five years have passed since Ori and the Blind Forest debuted on our screens. Developers Moon Studios crafted a momentous game that not only reinvigorated the metroidvania genre, but also reminded gamers how beautiful and intricate these titles can be. Now the long-awaited sequel is finally on our shelves, but how could any studio follow up on lightning in a bottle like this?

The answer is in Ori and the Will of the Wisps. I mentioned in my Rage 2 review that all good sequels have the ability to reach the full potential of their I.P’s. It is not just about more, bigger or prettier. Good sequels elevate themselves to those untouched areas of gameplay that their predecessors never reached, and this is precisely what Moon Studios achievedwith their second Ori game.

Enjoying the pleasures of home

If ever there was a write-up willing to criticise Ori and the Will of the Wisps (hereafter Ori 2), you will not find it here. Perhaps this will not be a review of Ori 2, but my best attempt to express what a masterpiece this sequel has turned out to be. Moon Studios maxed out every strength from their first game, and remind us once again why metroidvanias can be some of the most fulfilling experiences in our industry.

A picture is worth a thousand words

One of the highlights from Ori and the Blind Forest was Moon Studios’s incredible talent for using visual language. Like many other metroidvanias, the first Ori game could impart a lot to the player using only modest resources. There wasn’t much exposition, there were limited snippets of dialogue, and the game had a very conservative use of cut scenes.

Nonetheless, it was still an experience you could get lost in. The devs allowed their game itself to communicate with the player on a visual level, and this design philosophy spills over into almost everything in Ori 2. In short, Ori 2 is a game that shows rather than tells in that the visuals of Ori’s story are a fundamental bridge between both the narrative and the gameplay.

Take the eponymous (and very cute) Ori, for example. Even a noob taking a cursory glance at this little critter would immediately tell there is something agile, yet vulnerable about… it. Hold on a second, is Ori a boy or a girl? Only thing I know is that the name has a Hebrew origin meaning ‘my light’, so perhaps Ori is Jewish?

Name of the game (Image from Ori and the Blind forest Wiki)

Anyway, I digress. True to the sloping lines and gossamer-like luminance of the character model, Ori once again felt super smooth and an utter pleasure to control for the thirteen-ish hours I spent leaping and bounding throughout the various biomes. There is a weightless momentum in how Ori handles, which encourages the player to keep moving and to experiment with acrobatics.

It seems that virtually niggles and annoyances have been ironed out from the first game, and it is clear the devs wanted to push the boundaries of traversal in this series to the next level. Moreover, Ori’s revamped animations are equally slick in this sequel, both in the twirls or somersaults when leaping weightlessly through the levels, but also in the combat or ranged attacks against enemies.

A battle in spirit

Ori has been given quite a substantial upgrade in terms of how players will fight against the malicious bugs, slugs and even bosses scattered around the world. Combat is now closer to the metroidvanias that have followed in the interim from the first game’s release (for example, Hollow Knight) in that Ori can now swap on the fly between a spirit sword, ranged spirited projectiles, heavy weapons, and more.

The player will really have their reflexes tested on normal or hard difficulties since the combat is fast and frantic. I strongly recommend a first playthrough on ‘easy’, particularly since you cannot adjust the difficulty later. Nonetheless, this spirit bunny is every bit as agile and responsive during battle as he is with traversal, and there is a decent variety of ranged and melee attacks to make up your fighting strategy.

The spirit trees that give Ori his abilities

It is from the combat I noticed that Ori 2 now boasts a more varied menu and progression system. Moon Studious have swapped out the linear style of the previous game, and have implemented something closer to an RPG’s structure, which allows for abilites and weapons to unlock quicker, and thereby leaving the choice to the player on what to upgrade and define their own playing style.

The forest lives on

The reason why Ori possesses these abilities and, frankly, why he glows in the dark, is because he was one of several spirits inhabiting a mystical willow tree – the heart of the entire forest’s spiritual energy. The first game saw Ori being adopted by a creature called Naru after falling out of the willow tree during a great storm, and eventually setting out to rescue the forest dying from a malicious corruption.

With the forest now restored to its lavish glory, Ori 2 opens with a touching scene of the pair living a serene life, along with their new friends Guma and Ku. All is well until Ku, who is the cutest little owlet EVER, finally becomes overwhelmed by the desire to fly. Unfortunately, Ku’s tiny little wing got mangled, leaving the owlet grounded and very depressed as it watches the other birds go by.

First flight

Ori and co. therefore try to help Ku with a makeshift wing which seems to work quite well until, during its first flight, Ku is caught in an angry storm, not unlike the one that shook Ori from its tree. With Ori riding on Ku’s back, the duo crash land in a desolate area of the forest, and they become separated.

The stage is set for Ori to embark on a rescue mission, and as a surprise to no one, Ori finds that all is still not well in the deep, forgotten places of the forest. The mission to rescue Ku therefore becomes intertwined with restoring the forest’s life force to an abandoned and hostile world, and Ori soon finds that it is not only Ku’s life that hangs in the balance.

In certain segments there are chase sequences. You really feel Ori’s vulnerability here, and it is utterly terrifying.

Thanks to absolutely superb animation and expert use of potent imagery, the story in Ori 2 is nothing less than sublime. Without spoiling anything, I will just say that the narrative plays out as a riveting and engrossing mix of fairy tale tropes, which are interspersed with gut-wrenching climaxes of triumph and failure.

The hauntingly beautiful soundtrack is also a crucial component here. The melody is a beautiful reflection of the game itself in that the orchestral swells alongside dream-like notes are constantly tinged with an undertone of sadness and melancholia.

In all honesty, I was taken on a rollercoaster ride of emotions during my play-through, and it has been a long time since a game has had this effect on me. Seeing that poor baby owl frightened and alone in the dead forest wasteland brought me right to verge of tears, while I beamed like adoring parent during the more happy moments. This is really fantastic story-telling.

Breaking boundaries

Both the story and the gameplay is of course sustained by two immaculate pillars: The graphics and the level-design. You often hear about video games blurring the boundaries between art and entertainment, but Ori 2 utterly shatters this division. This game IS art. The visuals are so imaginative and aesthetically pleasing that it looks like you are playing through Bob Ross painting brought to life.

With Unreal dominating the source-available market at the moment, I am really glad Moon Studios showed us how Unity still has a lot more to offer

Running on the Unity engine, the devs have created a massive world rendered with more detailed textures, a much higher particle count, and a more complex lighting system than the first game. The forest feels alive and breathing with several different biomes for Ori to explore, and each area has been coloured with a very distinct palette to reinforce the player’s awareness of location.

I mentioned visual language earlier, and it is in environmental design that Moon Studios have really put this to work. The greens, browns and blues represent colours that guide Ori, that beckon the little critter to safety. The reds, yellows and purples on the other hand represent danger, and it is astounding to see how consistently the devs have endorsed this system throughout the entire game.

I simply could not get enough of this beautiful world. From races against the ghosts of other players, to doing small quests for animals that inhabit in the forest, to feeling that satisfaction of nimbly making it through heavily-spiked, narrow corridors, it is mesmerizing that all of this is functioning so well in one game. It is a model of excellence in environmental design.

Ori, the paragon

We often hear people complaining that ‘they don’t make games like they used to’ and I somewhat agree. I feel like modern studios tend to put money before their vision for making their game because of how alarmingly competitive the industry has become. As such, games rarely take risks, and the industry often faces something of an identity crisis.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps stands as a shining contradiction to this ethos. This game oozes creative energy, and was quite obviously made by people who really have a passion for this genre. It shows how we can use technology not just to enhance everything in a game, but also how complex systems can be made to function alongside one other.

It is so rare that we see excellence in our games these days, which is why Ori and the Will of the Wisps truly is a non-negotiable moment. This is not just a game: It is an education to what gaming as a medium can accomplish. You simply have to play this.

Breathtaking soundtrack

Gorgeous art style

Immaculate level design

Great story

Controls well

Good dev support

Some bugs

Long start up loading time

          PC Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using Nvidia GTX 1070, i5 4690K CPU, 16GB RAM – Played using an Xbox One Contoller

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