#its out in the us this week and the uk in.... like a dozen months honestly its a lil fucked theyre showing trailers so soon

[severalowls]

Oh there was a trailer for a gritty crime romance turned modern-western revenge murder thriller except its lesbians starring Kristen Stewart at the cinema and I'm completely amazed that tumblr hasn't been going batshit about it. Love Lies Bleeding.

[mariacallous]

Dozens of neo-Nazis are fleeing Telegram and moving to a relatively unknown secret chat app that has received funding from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.

In a report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue published on Friday morning, researchers found that in the wake of the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov and charges against leaders of the so-called Terrorgram Collective, dozens of extremist groups have moved to the app SimpleX Chat in recent weeks over fears that Telegram’s privacy policies expose them to being arrested. The Terrorgram Collective is a neo-Nazi propaganda network that calls for acolytes to target government officials, attack power stations, and murder people of color.

While ISD stopped short of naming SimpleX in its report, the researchers point out that the app promotes itself as “having a different burner email or phone for each contact, and no hassle to manage them.” This is exactly how SimpleX refers to itself on its website.

Last month, one accelerationist group linked to the now defunct neo-Nazi terrorist group Atomwaffen Division, with more than 13,000 subscribers on Telegram, began migrating to SimpleX. Administrators of the channel advised subscribers that “while it's not as smooth as Telegram, it appears to be miles ahead with regard to privacy and security.”

The group now has 1,000 members on SimpleX and, according to ISD, is “part of a wider network built by neo-Nazi accelerationists that consists of nearly 30 channels and group chats,” which includes other well-known accelerationist groups like the Base. Accelerationists seek to speed up the downfall of Western society by triggering a race war in order to rebuild civilization based on their own white Christian values.

The network of groups on SimpleX are also sharing extremist content, including al-Qaeda training manuals, Hamas rocket development guides, neo-Nazi accelerationist handbooks, and militant anarchist literature. And in their newly secure channels on SimpleX, the members of the groups have immediately made direct calls for violence.

“During a 24-hour period on September 25, analysts observed three instances of users calling for the assassination of Vice President Kamala Harris, and one instance calling for the assassination of former President Donald Trump,” the ISD researchers wrote. “Similarly, numerous users called for a race war that would hasten the fall of society, allow them to take the US by force, and institute their desired system of white supremacy.”

SimpleX Chat is an app that was founded by UK-based developer Evgeny Poberezkin. It was initially launched in 2021, and a blog post in August announced that it had passed 100,000 downloads on Google’s Play store. The same blog post announced that Dorsey had led a $1.3 million investment round, having previously praised the app on other social media platforms. Dorsey did not reply to a request for comment.

Poberezkin told WIRED that he was unaware of the migration of neo-Nazi groups to his platform, but says he believes that despite his network’s focus on privacy, SimpleX can curb the spread of terrorist or abusive material on its app.

“Even in these early days we already did more to prevent distribution of [child sexual abuse material] via the preset servers included in the app than many other platforms did, even though they have much more control,” Poberezkin says. “While we cannot indiscriminately scan all content, and it would have been a human rights violation to do so, if the group entry point is publicly promoted and can be joined, and it uses the servers that we operate, we can remove these entry points and the files from the servers. A very important quality of the SimpleX network is that users cannot be approached unless they want to be. It protects the users from any hostile actors and unwanted promotions.”

In February of this year, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that forcing encrypted messaging apps to provide a backdoor to law enforcement was illegal, a decision that undermined the EU’s plan to force encrypted messaging apps to scan all user content for identifiers of child sexual abuse material.

For years, neo-Nazi groups have flourished on Telegram, many of them under the assumption that Telegram was a fully encrypted platform that provided a greater level of security than it really did. Telegram was used by these groups for building out their networks, sharing propaganda, and planning attacks. However, two of the leaders of the Terrorgram Collective were arrested and charged last month, which was a key factor in triggering the migration to SimpleX, the ISD analysts wrote. The group used Telegram to encourage acts of terrorism in the US and overseas.

“For terrorists and violent extremists looking to avoid detection, SimpleX Chat provides significant advantages over Telegram, largely due to its design and features that prioritize privacy and anonymity,” Marc-André Argentino, a senior research fellow at the Accelerationism Research Consortium, wrote last month in an analysis also discussing the migration of extremists from Telegram to the new platform. “SimpleX offers end-to-end encryption by default for all messages, whereas Telegram only encrypts conversations in its ‘secret chats.’”

Poberezkin says that SimpleX is “100 percent private by design” and that even if he wanted to, he couldn’t access information about user IP addresses. Another key privacy aspect of the app is that, unlike most other encrypted chat apps, SimpleX does not require users to enter a phone number or email to register for an account—removing one of the key ways that law enforcement can track down users on other platforms.

“SimpleX, at its core, is designed to be truly distributed with no central server. This allows for enormous scalability at low cost, and also makes it virtually impossible to snoop on the network graph,” Poberezkin wrote in a company blog post published in 2022.

SimpleX’s policies expressly prohibit “sending illegal communications” and outline how SimpleX will remove such content if it is discovered. Much of the content that these terrorist groups have shared on Telegram—and are already resharing on SimpleX—has been deemed illegal in the UK, Canada, and Europe.

Argentino wrote in his analysis that discussion about moving from Telegram to platforms with better security measures began in June, with discussion of SimpleX as an option taking place in July among a number of extremist groups. Though it wasn’t until September, and the Terrorgram arrests, that the decision was made to migrate to SimpleX, the groups are already establishing themselves on the new platform.

“The groups that have migrated are already populating the platform with legacy material such as Terrorgram manuals and are actively recruiting propagandists, hackers, and graphic designers, among other desired personnel,” the ISD researchers wrote.

However, there are some downsides to the additional security provided by SimpleX, such as the fact that it is not as easy for these groups to network and therefore grow, and disseminating propaganda faces similar restrictions.

“While there is newfound enthusiasm over the migration, it remains unclear if the platform will become a central organizing hub,” ISD researchers wrote.

And Poberezkin believes that the current limitations of his technology will mean these groups will eventually abandon SimpleX.

“SimpleX is a communication network rather than a service or a platform where users can host their own servers, like in OpenWeb, so we were not aware that extremists have been using it,” says Poberezkin. “We never designed groups to be usable for more than 50 users and we’ve been really surprised to see them growing to the current sizes despite limited usability and performance. We do not think it is technically possible to create a social network of a meaningful size in the SimpleX network.”

[london-flowergirl]

Brianna Ghey vigil

so. first off, contact warning, i guess? this is me writing about a vigil and protest for a murdered trans girl in london. and i feel very raw about it.

so. i guess i’ll start by talking about where im coming from. i live in the uk, in london. im also trans. and the sitution in the uk is pritty awful. there is 0 poltical will to provide support to trans people. my mp is a tory and his one of the better people in parlmenet about the issues (the torys are fucks and should die in a fire, but transphobia is cross party so i’ll take the small crume, even if he is tory scum still, becous he is)

brianna ghey was murdered 5 or so days ago, by my count. the polical orginal rulled out it being a hate crime. they’ve had to step it back. Brianna was a pritty white trans girl. much like the girls on the side of milk cartons, she’s perfect for this story. but i want to say, right now, there are black and brown trans people who do not get the same respect, the in life, or in death, as brianna dose. i will talk so angryly about what happend to her, and she deserves, and deserved, so, so much more. but so dose every single one of my trans sibblings.

big events like this dont move me, nessercerly. i see it for what it is, tragic, but...i find myself isolated. sometimes. like theres a layer of rubber around my emotions. keep the charge contained. idk.

there was a memorial, a vigil, for brianna at the department of eduction in london. this is one of dozens being held in the united kingdom. briannas death has had an impact on the natinal press, after months and years of vitirol and bial. after dripping posin in to the ears of the public, they have gotten blood. but, in the press style, Brianna was the perfect victim. sixteen, by all accounts, kind and sweet, pritty.

the week before the event, i went to an LGBT event. at it one of the particents discuessed the maintream uk media had published 27 diffrent storys about trans people, all of them negetive.

the blood is on their hands, to be clear. not just theirs thought. the goverment too.

the point being. i went to the vigil. right after work. i turned up, and stood at the back of the huge crowed. i figure maybe 2000, although ive seen srouces call it a few hundred to a thousdon. how its figured idk, but yea. and i stood there, on my own, lost. but with my community. and i thought about how young she was.

i thought about how she didnt deserve to die. and that to drag this crum of fucking attention, she had to die. if not her, someone. and without her death we would still be lashed to the wheel of transphoic storys. how she didnt deserve to be a sacrifice to give pause to this all. i cried. poeple there offered me sweets, offered me hugs, and offered me tissues. i wrote a poem.

people chanted. they talked about the siution in the uk. they spoke about her age. and we spoke about how no one should have to deal. people left candles and flowers. i lit a candle for her, i wrote a note. mostly i felt angry and upset. and again, her story is know becous shes what the press wants, young, pritty, white. 

i am still burning with anger. our youth, trans youth, black youth, brown youth, deserve to grow up.

we should, none of us, should need people to die for people to give a shit.

[a3veen]

The US campus protest crisis | First Edition from the Guardian

It’s only student politics, you might say: a collection of undergraduates staging protests on campus, making demands of university administrators, and registering a futile objection to a faraway crisis. Why should anyone else be interested?

But the protests over Israel’s invasion of Gaza that have convulsed Columbia University in New York are becoming harder and harder to dismiss, reminiscent to some of the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations of 1968. They have set off a wave of similar protests across the US, and now even in the UK. They have drawn attention to the extent of US support for Israel, and lent credence to claims that college administrators listen more closely to hostile Republicans than their own students and faculty.

On Tuesday night, police in riot gear arrested 119 people at Columbia, and counter-protesters launched a violent attack on a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles. On Wednesday, police launched operations to dismantle protests in New York, Texas, Wisconsin, Louisiana and Arizona – and a few minutes ago, there were reports that hundreds of police in riot gear were surrounding the UCLA encampment.

All of this suggests that US college campuses are now the site of a major confrontation over free speech and the war in Gaza that is only likely to grow. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Bassam Khawaja, a human rights lawyer and lecturer at Columbia Law School, about why he supports the protests, what they are seeking to achieve, and how they have escalated to a crisis point. Here are the headlines.

In depth: ‘This escalation didn’t come out of nowhere’

Protests began at universities across the US soon after the Hamas attack of 7 October, and spread as Israel’s invasion of Gaza intensified. Columbia, a potent symbol of the power of student activism thanks to its students’ key role in Vietnam and anti-apartheid protests, was at the centre of the movement from the start.

As early as November, Columbia suspended chapters of two groups, Jewish Voice for Peace and Students For Justice in Palestine, over an unauthorised walkout. Instead of quashing the protest, that action prompted the formation of a coalition of dozens of student organisations, under the CU Apartheid Divest (CUAD) umbrella. Now made up of 100 student-run groups, CUAD has called on the university to sell holdings in companies with significant financial ties to Israel.

It was CUAD that organised a protest encampment earlier this month – and it was the arrest of more than 100 protesters as their tents were cleared two weeks ago that ratcheted tensions up further. Columbia president Minouche Shafik requested the NYPD’s presence, calling the encampment “a clear and present danger”, and in doing so crossed the Rubicon.

“It was essentially students studying in tents,” Bassam Khawaja said. “It’s laughable to say that it was a danger.” Sending in the NYPD two weeks ago was, he said, “certainly an escalation – but it didn’t come out of nowhere. All the way through this, Columbia has chosen to escalate.”

What’s happened at Columbia this week

After the encampment was broken up, some of those who were involved simply started another on the next lawn over. Shortly after midnight on Tuesday, after the university started to suspend students who had refused to leave, a group of about 60 protesters – described by CUAD as an “autonomous subgroup” – moved to occupy Hamilton Hall, an academic building, and barricaded the doors. (New York magazine has an interesting set of pictures from inside the occupation.)

Columbia told the protesters that they would face expulsion, and issued a statement claiming that they were “led by individuals who are not affiliated with the university”; Joe Biden condemned the occupation. Once again, Shafik authorised the NYPD to come in, later highlighting the apparent presence of “outside activists” in a statement released on Wednesday. Police in riot gear marched on the campus and cleared the new encampment.

At least 50 officers used an armoured vehicle with a mechanical ramp to gain access to the second floor of Hamilton Hall. They used so-called “flashbang” grenades to disorient the occupiers, arrested them, and took them away in buses. According to student newspaper the Columbia Spectator, officers “threw a protester down the stairs in front of the building and slammed protesters with barricades”. You can see the location of the occupied building and encampment below.

Here’s how Adam Tooze, the renowned economic historian and Columbia faculty member, described the scene as a police vehicle arrived:

On an order from their commander, the police pushed. They pushed hard. Very hard. They move fast, as quickly as their bulk and equipment would allow, maximizing momentum. The officers use waist-high steel barriers as plows to drive the protestors back and to pin them in side streets and against walls …

The scene was static. But I would not be honest if I did not say that my stomach churned watching it. The sheer force of the movement, the relentless and sudden drive of the steel barrier against human bodies, moved the air.

“People are absolutely furious,” Khawaja said. “The university has now twice called the police on the students who are supposed to be under our care. There is a good reason we don’t bring police on to campus – the NYPD has a history of violence against protesters. The administration knew, or should have known, that they were putting these students at risk.”

What the students want

At Columbia and elsewhere, they want to see a ceasefire and an end to the occupation of Gaza – but more locally, they make the case that their universities should divest from companies with links to Israel.

In this piece, Tooze points out how opaque Columbia’s financial reporting is – but also notes that the publicly known assets in question are worth a few million against a total endowment of almost $15bn. The real point, he argues, is to highlight “the way that a powerful educational institution like Columbia is embedded in networks of power and influence”.

There have also been documented cases of antisemitism. Although most appear to have been linked to protests just off campus by demonstrators unaffiliated with Columbia, some Jewish groups at the university hold the student organisations responsible for fomenting an atmosphere in which such abuse is more likely. Apartheid Divest has condemned and disowned such incidents and called the perpetrators “inflammatory individuals who do not represent us”.

Others have argued that it is unreasonable to tar the entire movement with the comments of a few. “Antisemitism has no place on a college campus,” said Khawaja. “There have been unacceptable incidents. But the idea that this is an antisemitic movement is simply incorrect. We have to have no tolerance for antisemitism, but [we want] to be able to speak up for Palestinian rights.”

How university administrators have handled it

The Columbia encampment began in April – deliberately timed to coincide with Shafik’s trip to Washington. She was there to testify to a Republican-led committee that is keen to point out what it sees as tolerance of antisemitism on campuses – and she would have been keenly aware that the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard have already been forced to resign after their own disastrous evidence sessions.

Shafik was viewed by many at Columbia as having been bulldozed into surrendering any defence of academic freedom. “Her testimony was shameful,” Khawaja said. “She capitulated to very extreme positions from the right, she commented on confidential disciplinary hearings, and she didn’t defend free speech. It created an enormous amount of tension.”

Not every university has responded in the same way: at Brown, for example, an encampment ended after the university governing body agreed to hold a vote later this year on divestment. “We’ve seen other universities deal with this in a much more productive manner,” Khawaja said. “But at Columbia, because there has been escalation at every turn, it is very difficult now to de-escalate.”

How the protests have spread

Police had been called in from Princeton to the University of Utah. In Austin, Texas, governor Greg Abbott sent in state troopers on horseback to disperse a peaceful protest; in Georgia, at Emory University, police used pepper balls, stun guns and rubber bullets, and arrested 28 people. (Read Timothy Pratt’s grim and vivid piece about the fallout there.)

As this email is sent, more than 1,500 people have been arrested on more than 30 campuses across 23 states, while many other schools have seen protests that did not lead to arrests. CNN has an up-to-date map. This Washington Post piece gives a detailed sense of how the movement has spread, and how crucial the confrontation between students and the Columbia authorities has been as a catalyst.

The events of Tuesday night felt like a crucible of how intense the confrontations have become – and how they may continue to escalate. Not far from Columbia, at City College of New York in Harlem, 173 people were arrested. At UCLA, fights broke out after a large group of counter-protesters��attacked an encampment there (above), launching fireworks into the camp and throwing wood and a metal barrier at those inside it. Dani Anguiano reports that protesters and journalists on the scene said that police looked on for hours before intervening.

“On the one hand, the students have been quite uncomfortable at generating so much media attention – they want the focus to be on Gaza, while doing what they can within their own institutions,” Khawaja said. “But this is a country with a long history of college protests that have shifted the course of our history – and they know that history.”

Archie Bland

[qnewsau]

2023: The Australian queer year in review

New Post has been published on https://qnews.com.au/2023-the-australian-queer-year-in-revew/

2023: The Australian queer year in review

As the year comes to an end, we look back at some of the Australian LGBTQIA+ news, events and queer moments that made up 2023.

January

Midsumma: Melbourne held its annual multi-week Midsumma Festival where former premier Daniel Andrews marched with pride goers. 

Sam Stosur retires: Sam, who won the US Open singles titles plus seven Grand Slam doubles titles, retired at the Australian Open. Sam publicly came out later in her career in 2020. 

February

WorldPride: Sydney became the epicentre of the queer universe when hosting WorldPride. The two-week extravaganza featured an opening night concert, the traditional Mardi Gras parade, a Human Rights Conference, a Bondi Beach party, a pride march over the Bridge and a closing party. 

Big names like Kylie Minogue, Dannii Minogue, Sugababes, Agnes, Nicole Scherzinger, Kim Petras, Ava Max, Jessica Mauboy, Courtney Act and Casey Donovan featured throughout WorldPride. However, there was only one true icon of the event: Progress Shark. 

Queerstralia: ABC broadcasts the series Queerstralia. Hosted by Zoe Coombs Marr, it took a deep dive into the queer history of Australia. 

March

Australian Idol: Queer First Nations singer Royston Sagigi-Baira won Australian Idol. Royston is a Thanakwith (Aboriginal) and Wagadagam (Torres Strait Islander) man from Mapoon in Far North Queensland. 

Posie Parker rejected: Anti-trans activist Posie Parker was drowned out by counter-protesters during her tour of Australia. During her visit to Brisbane, hundreds rallied against her hateful views. While in Melbourne she was joined by neo-Nazis which saw widespread condemnation. 

In Our Blood: The musical drama inspired by Australia’s radical response to HIV/AIDS in the 1980s was broadcast on ABC with many scenes shot at Brisbane’s Sportsman Hotel. 

The Wickham reopens: After many months closed for renovations, Brisbane’s iconic LGBTQIA+ venue The Wickham reopened. 

April 

Censorship rejected: The Australian Classification Board rejected a call to ban or restrict a gender and sexuality memoir after a conservative activist complained to Queensland Police.

May

Archibald Prize: Artist Julia Gutman wins the Archibald Prize with a portrait of queer performer Montaigne. While queer musician and artist Zaachariaha Fielding (from Electric Fields) won the Wynne Prize for best landscape. 

Kylie’s back: Long-time queer ally Kylie Minogue released Padam Padam. The song charted in the Top 10 in the UK and the Top 20 in Australia. The first time the singer had achieved this in more than a decade. 

June

Queens Ball: The 62nd edition of the Queens Ball in Brisbane was held at City Hall. More than a dozen Queensland queer community advocates, performers and organisations were honoured in a ceremony hosted by Paul Wheeler and Chocolate Boxx. 

Trans legal win: The Queensland government passed a new law allowing trans and gender-diverse people to change their gender on their birth certificates without having to undergo surgery.

July

Logies: Out actor Tim Draxl was nominated for the Silver Logie as most outstanding actor while RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under received two nominations for Best Entertainment Program and Best New Talent for Kween Kong. 

Patricia Karvelas: Proudly out presenter Patricia Karvelas was named as the new host of one of ABC’s flagship programs Q&A.

Gymnast: Out Australian gymnast Heath Thorpe was controversially not selected for the World Championships despite winning the Australian All-Around title. 

August

Women’s World Cup: Australia and New Zealand hosted the Women’s World Cup with a record 96 publicly out players competing. The Matildas, who had 10 out players including superstar Sam Kerr, reached the semi-finals after a thrilling penalty shoot-out win against France. The Matildas broke attendance and ratings records, becoming the most-watched event in Australia since Cathy Freeman at the Sydney Olympics. 

Honour Awards: NSW’s largest annual LGBTIQA+ community awards were held and presented by ACON. 

September

Brisbane Pride: Brisbane hosted its annual pride event including fair day, rally and march, and other community events across the month. 

Drag Race: The third season of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under crowned the first-ever Australian winner. Isis Avis Loren from Melbourne took the crown with Ballarat’s Gabriella Labucci runner-up. The show was co-hosted by Rhys Nicholson and included queer Aussie guest judges Keiynan Lonsdale and Josh Cavallo. 

October

Big Gay Day: The Wickham held its annual Big Gay Day with Peter Andre and Rogue Traders headlining. 

Troye Sivan: The Australian queer artist released his album Something to Give Each Other featuring hit singles Rush, Got Me Started and One of Your Girls. It went straight to the top of the charts giving Troye his first Australian No.1 album.

Pride Adelaide: The annual event took place with a march and a celebration featuring artists Ricki-Lee, Crystal Waters, Natalie Bassingthwaighte and Samantha Jade.

November 

Gay Games: The 11th edition of the event was co-hosted by Hong Kong and Guadalajara in Mexico. This was the first co-hosting of the games and the first time it took place in Asia. Australian LGBTQIA+ athletes competed in both cities. 

ARIAs: Troye Sivan and G Flip dominated the ARIA Music Awards with four and two award wins respectively. Troye took out Song of the Year for Rush. 

Natalie Bassingthwaighte: The Rogue Traders lead singer and actress known for her work on Neighbours revealed she was in a relationship with a woman.

PrideFest: Perth held its annual pride events with events across the month celebrating the city’s LGBTQIA+ community.

BayPride: Despite protests the inaugural pride event in Wynnum, Queensland took place with a large family-friendly march.

December

Hate Crime Inquiry: The long-awaited Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ hate crimes in NSW saw 19 recommendations made. Advocates welcomed the findings and called on the NSW Police Force to action the report’s recommendations.

JOY Media: The Melbourne-based LGBTQIA+ community radio station JOY 94.9 celebrated their 30th anniversary.

NT politics: The openly gay MP Chansey Paech made history as the first Aboriginal man to be appointed Deputy Chief Minister in the Northern Territory.

Olympics: Australian climber Campbell Harrison qualified for the Paris Olympics and shared a kiss with his boyfriend to celebrate.

For the latest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) news in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

[justiceamberheard]

Johnny Depp’s rebuttal, part 2.

Johnny Depp

"It seemed like a lot of word salad to me," Depp tells the court, speaking about the statements. "I didn't know where they'd come from... or where they ended up."

Depp says he has never taken as many as eight to 10 MDMA pills at once.

Depp is then asked about Dr David Kipper, who treated his finger."When you saw the damage in the house and the blood everywhere... there would be no point in lying to the man... I told him that she had thrown a bottle of vodka... and cut my finger off. The tip of my finger, but a good chunk. I miss it."

"At one point... I don't remember it lasting long... I took a pretty good shot to the face, to the eye... so I had a bit of a shiner," he tells the court. "It all ended and then everything got fine again." (honeymoon).

Depp says he never witnessed any "full-on physical blow-outs" between the sisters but had seen "tonnes of verbal blow-outs" and "have certainly seen Ms Heard grab Whitney, push her around… there were half a dozen times when some of us, whoever was in the general vicinity, would have to leave..."

Depp recalls Kate Moss incident on stairs;

Amber Heard's lawyer Ben Rottenborn returns straight to Johnny Depp's earlier testimony about his honeymoon on the Orient Express in the summer of 2015.Before the break, he told the court that Heard hit him during the trip, giving him a black eye.The court was previously shown a picture from the holiday, which Depp says shows him with the bruising under his left eye.Now, Mr Rottenborn is presenting some more pictures, which were taken in Thailand just before this trip. He says these pictures show the actor with the same mark. Depp says this is to do with the light in these photos. "You had that same mark on your eye before you got on that train," Mr Rottenborn says.

Heard's lawyer also refutes evidence that Depp gave earlier today, saying he does not remember there being a phone on the wall in the house in Australia. He reads evidence given by Depp during his UK trial, in which he does recall the phone.

Johnny Depp is now being asked by Ben Rottenborn if he has previously said that if he "wants to be with a woman sexually then she is rightfully yours".Depp says this is "ludicrous".The actor is now being shown text messages that he apparently sent in February 2017. "This looks nothing like me..." Depp starts. He suggests the messages have been "screwed with".Mr Rottenborn asks if he wants to see the unredacted version."No, because you could have typed it up last night."The texts are now being shown to the court."Right!!! Exactly!!! [Woman's name] p**** is RIGHTFULLY MINE!!!!! Should I not just bust in and remove its hinges tonight."Depp says he has read this correctly.Another one says: "I want to change her understanding of what it is like to be thrashed about like a pleading Mackerel. I NEED. I WANT. I TAKE."

Depp tries to explain something, suggesting he may have contacted people at Warner Bros but not necessarily for this reason. He then says no, he did not reach out to anyone at Warner Bros to get Heard fired from the film.Mr Rottenborn then reads out a text Depp sent to his former agent in August 2016. It's quite a long message, but here is some of it."She's begging for total humiliation... She's gonna get it..."I have no mercy, no fear and not an ounce of emotion... I cannot wait to have this waste of a c*** g****** out of my life!!!..."I can only hope that karma kicks in and takes the gift of breath from her."

Depp testified earlier today that "I've been waiting to be able to get the truth out" and "I've spoken up for what I've been carrying on my back", Mr Rottenborn says.He says it is "not true" that this trial is the actor's first chance to tell his story as he launched the UK proceedings six months before Heard's Washington Post column was published in December 2018, and that the trial took place over three weeks in 2020.

Morgan Tremaine, a former TMZ employee

he was assigned to a story on Amber Heard in May 2016. He said he dispatched photographers to the location when the actress was filing for a restraining order.

The next assignment on Heard was in August 2016 when she was giving a deposition about the restraining order she had filed for against Depp.

On 12 August 2016, he says TMZ received the video of Depp slamming cabinets, which has been shown in court. He says the video was sent via their email tip line.     (no souces were named though).

Bryan Neumeister, an expert in digital forensics (note this is his hobby, he is not a specialist in it);

The court is shown three versions of the photo. "All three of these photos had to go through some type of transformation to change sizes," he says.Mr Neumeister also gives his opinion on other photos showing Heard with bruising, looking at the "exif data" - and says this shows they have gone through Photos 3.0 editing software.

He stated that Amber has been edited using Photos 3.0 software.

Digital forensics expert Bryan Neumeister is now being asked if he found any modification of exif metadata - which gives details on how a photograph is taken and edited - on photos in this case.He says he cannot answer this question.

Beverly R Leonard, an airport worker

Ms Leonard said she was in the baggage claim area and observed Heard with a companion with whom she got into an "altercation". Heard grabbed her companion and pulled something from her neck, she said."At that point I got up and went over to break up what appeared to be a fight. I summoned a colleague to help me. I stepped in between them and separated them."

Dr Richard Gilbert

He is board certified and a member of multiple orthopedic organisations;

 "I do believe so," the surgeon says, when asked if the injury could have been sustained in the way Depp has described.He says Heard's story is "highly unlikely" as it would be "rare" for an injury such as Depp's to have been caused in this way. The actor would more likely have injured a different part of his hand, he says, and he saw no signs of this "whatsoever".

Heard's lawyer Ben Rottenborn tells the court, Heard said she saw Depp smashing the phone against the wall, but had said she did not know definitively how the injury happened.Dr Gilbert says it is correct to say he has seen no evidence to say there was glass in the wound or bruising elsewhere. Depp's story about how the injury occurred means the bottle didn't injure his fingernail but did wound the finger underneath, Mr Rottenborn tells the court.Mr Rottenborn says there is another explanation for how the injury occurred: "It didn't happen how Mr Depp says it did.""I cannot make that assumption," Dr Gilbert says. "Nor can you."

[ukrainenews]

Daily Wrap Up October 28, 2022

Under the cut:

The United States will provide $275 million in additional military assistance to Ukraine, including arms, munitions and equipment from U.S. Department of Defense inventories, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday.

At least four people have been killed and 10 wounded in the latest attack from Russian troops, Ukraine has said. Several towns neighbouring the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia power plant across the Dnieper River were hit by shelling, a statement from the presidential office said.

The US has dismissed accusations from Russia that its defence department was helping Ukraine engage with banned biological weapons.

Russia has sent “up to 1,000” mobilized personnel to the west bank of the Dnipro river in its bid to defend the city of Kherson, the Ukrainian armed forces said in a Facebook post on Friday.

“The United States will provide $275 million in additional military assistance to Ukraine, including arms, munitions and equipment from U.S. Department of Defense inventories, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday.

"We are also working to provide Ukraine with the air defense capabilities it needs with the two initial U.S.-provided NASAMS ready for delivery to Ukraine next month and we are working with Allies and partners to enable delivery of their own air defense systems to Ukraine," Blinken said.”-via Reuters

~

“At least four people have been killed and 10 wounded in the latest attack from Russian troops, Ukraine has said.

Several towns neighbouring the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia power plant across the Dnieper River were hit by shelling, a statement from the presidential office said.

Dozens of residential buildings were damaged and power lines cut leaving thousands without a supply.”-via The Guardian

~

“The US has dismissed accusations from Russia that its defence department was helping Ukraine engage with banned biological weapons.

Calling the allegations “pure fabrications brought forth without a shred of evidence”, the US claimed Russia was attempting to “distract from the atrocities” being carried out in Ukraine.

“Ukraine does not have a biological weapons program. The United States does not have a biological weapons program. There are no Ukrainian biological weapons laboratories supported by the United States,” the US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said.

Russia’s United Nations ambassador said the country would pursue an investigation that both the US and Ukraine violated the convention prohibiting use.”-via The Guardian

~

“Russia has sent “up to 1,000” mobilized personnel to the west bank of the Dnipro river in its bid to defend the city of Kherson, the Ukrainian armed forces said in a Facebook post on Friday.

The post said that, while the region’s pro-Moscow authorities moved civilians and items like hospital equipment to the east bank, “the strengthening of the enemy group with mobilized military personnel numbering up to 1,000 people on the right [west] bank in the Kherson region is noted.”

“They are resettled in the homes of local residents who have left these areas,” it added.

Russia is digging in ahead of an expected battle for the regional capital, which lies on the west bank of the Dnipro.

The UK’s defense ministry said in its daily intelligence update on Friday said it was “likely” that “mobilized reservists” had been sent to reinforce Russian troops on the west bank.

“Russia has likely augmented some of its units west of the Dnipro river with mobilized reservists,” it said. “However, this is from an extremely low level of manning.”

It added that Russian forces across most of Ukraine had transitioned to a “long-term, defensive posture” over the last six weeks, “likely due to a more realistic assessment that the severely undermanned, poorly trained force in Ukraine is currently only capable of defensive operations.””-via CNN

[only-johnny-deppp]

“Whatever I’ve gone through, I’ve gone through. But, ultimately, this particular arena of my life has been so absurd...” 

 Johnny Depp’s NEW INTERVIEW!

Last saturday, August 14, The UK Times, released a new interview with Johnny for the Sunday Times section. It was realized sometime earlier this month, in London, probably on the same day he and Andrew Levitas were recording for the Q&A for the “Minamata” release in UK. This is Johnny’s first interview since the UK trials in London last year, and released three years after Johnny’s major interview for the British GQ Magazine. Here Johnny and Andrew Levitas speaks about “Minamata”, his future as actor and a thing or two about his personal life, although he cannot talk about the court case.

For those who couldn’t read yet, here is the FULL interview:  Enjoy.

***

“I’M BEING BOYCOTTED BY HOLLYWOOD”

Johnny Depp has a new film out this week. In the opening scene his character, the real-life photographer W Eugene Smith, says, “I’m done. I’m tired. My body is older than I am. I’m always in goddam pain. I can’t trust my f***ing dick any more. Constantly in a foul mood. Even the drugs bore me.”

I ask Depp if Smith’s despair resonated with him. Depp stops. Rocks back and forth. “That’s interesting,” he replies with painful hesitation.

“I didn’t approach playing Smith in that way… Although you bring your toolbox to work and use what is available. Having experienced...” He stops again. Depp takes any questions that might refer to his calamitous libel case last year slowly, in a mumbly, croaking drawl. “A surreal five years…”

In the film Smith needs to revive his reputation. In real life Depp’s task is even more daunting. Thanks to the judgment, everyone can call him a “wife-beater”. Now he must convince a Hollywood still convulsed by #MeToo that he’s not toxic — and that any attempt to rebuild his career is a risk worth taking. This is Depp’s first interview since the case.

We are speaking over Zoom, Depp in his London home, in front of a gold-framed painting. The 58-year-old is wearing a lot of clothes. Earrings. Floppy hat. Sunglasses. Bandana. Scarf. Checked shirt over a T-shirt with an indiscernible slogan. If you saw him on the Tube*, you might think he was off to work at the London Dungeon*, to play most of the characters.

PS. For those who are not familiar with British words: * Tube = British slang for London Underground, the subway trains. * London Dungeon = is a walk-through experience that recreates scenes from London's scary history in a mixture of live actors, special effects and rides.

Depp resumes, talking in broken sentences about the new film, Minamata, in which Smith, via Life magazine, exposes the brutal mercury poisoning of Japanese villagers in the early 1970s.

“How do we do this?” he asks rhetorically, meaning how to speak about the elephant in the Zoom. “Well, there’s no way one can’t recognise the absurdity of the mathematics.” He grins. “If you know what I mean?” No. “Absurdity of media mathematics.” He talks in riddles. “Whatever I’ve gone through, I’ve gone through. But, ultimately, this particular arena of my life has been so absurd...”

He trails off again. He is holding a big brown roll-up of some sort. “What the people in Minamata dealt with? People who suffered with Covid? A lot of people lost lives. Children sick...Ill. Ultimately, in answer to your question? Yeah, you use what you’ve got. But what I’ve been through? That’s like getting scratched by a kitten. Comparatively.”

Last July, I went to the High Court in London to watch Depp on another screen — a video from the socially distanced court where the Hollywood star was losing a libel action against The Sun after it called him a “wife-beater”. It was the grottiest showbiz trial of the century. There were photos of the actor passed out in a foetal slump, socks on show. One lengthy exchange involved faeces. Another urination, inside or outside a house, after a violent night with his ex-wife Amber Heard.

This had all been going on for a while. In 2016 Heard applied for a temporary restraining order against him. The couple had long endured a narcotic, booze-filled, childish relationship, but that does not matter — 12 incidents levelled against Depp were proved, said the judge, and abuse is abuse, regardless of how badly they both behaved. Depp wanted to appeal, but the court said no. Next April in the US he has a $50 million defamation case against Heard relating to an opinion piece she wrote about being the victim of domestic abuse. It may be his last roll of the dice.

In the 1990s Depp was a sensitive heart-throb. Cooler than DiCaprio, edgier than Pitt. In this past year he has been stripped of his status and dignity. On day three of the trial Sasha Wass QC, representing The Sun, asked Depp about daubing a penis on a painting. He could not remember. “That would be quite a big thing, painting a penis on a picture?”  Wass asked. “Quite a big thing?” Depp asked.

It was a well-delivered line, but Depp was on show. Performing. Now he is more timid, less lucid. His people say he cannot talk about the court case given the looming US trial, yet it hangs over everything. The director of Minamata, Andrew Levitas, is also on our call — as a pub trivia aside, Levitas is married to the Welsh singer Katherine Jenkins.

The two men clearly get on. “With regards to journalism, it was important for us to put across in the film the power of truth,” Levitas says. Depp nods. “The responsibility of journalists to look after citizens of the world. [Our film] coincided with the moment important publications had to put Raquel Welch on a cover to get enough eyeballs to sell enough ads in order to put something meaningful inside. A result of that is clickbait — it’s destroying the purpose of journalism,” Levitas continues.

“You said it beautifully,” says Depp, one of the world’s most pinned-up men, who built a career on magazine covers. “I couldn’t say it better than that.”

Last month Levitas wrote to MGM, which bought Minamata for the US market but decided not to release it. He accused MGM of being concerned that “the personal issues of an actor in the film could reflect negatively upon them”. Then the letter got really strong. Levitas accused MGM of failing in its “moral obligation” to release the film and said it needed to explain to the victims “why you think an actor’s personal life is more important than their dead children”. He then attached Smith’s photos of ghastly deformities that shocked the world 50 years ago.

“It’s important that the movie gets seen and supported,” Levitas says. “And if I get an inkling it’s not going to be, it’s my responsibility to say so. Where it goes from there? I don’t know. But we have responsibility to these victims . . .”

You can see why he’s passionate. The film is good. MGM bought the film because it is good. Depp is good too. He disappears into the role, far from his more recent pantomime parts. It’s being released worldwide, just not in the actor’s homeland.

Depp, who also produced the film, interrupts. “We looked these people in the eyeballs and promised we would not be exploitative. That the film would be respectful. I believe that we’ve kept our end of the bargain, but those who came in later should also maintain theirs.”

“Some films touch people,” he adds. “And this affects those in Minamata and people who experience similar things. And for anything…” He pauses, as he does. “For Hollywood’s boycott of, erm, me? One man, one actor in an unpleasant and messy situation, over the last number of years?” He trails off. “But, you know, I’m moving towards where I need to go to make all that…” Again, he trails off. “To bring things to light.”

The fact, as I think Depp knows, is that for his career, the court that matters is not one of law, but public opinion. On social media, where a lot of minds are made up, Depp’s good reputation will always outweigh the bad, thanks to his frequently blinkered fans.

Outside the High Court, as Heard arrived, I saw Natasha, 30, yell: “Get hit by a truck, Amber!” She is extreme, but the persistent way his fans demand that others think their idol is a saint shows a career revival will happen. After all, most filmgoers do not follow his private life at all. To them, he is Jack Sparrow, Edward Scissorhands. To them, he is a star — and a star can take an awful lot of heat before it burns out.

“They have always been my employers,” Depp says of his fans. “They are all our employers. They buy tickets, merchandise. They made all of those studios rich, but they forgot that a long time ago. I certainly haven’t. I’m proud of these people, because of what they are trying to say, which is the truth. The truth they’re trying to get out since it doesn’t in more mainstream publications. It’s a long road that sometimes gets clunky. Sometimes just plain stupid. But they stayed on the ride with me and it’s for them I will fight. Always, to the end. Whatever it may be.”

Depp will talk like this for ever — about his “truth”. Minamata is the last film Depp has listed on the industry site IMDb, where actors usually have half a dozen in development. So, yes, fans of the actor can see Depp in a new role now — it is a return, but is it a relaunch? The film was finished in 2019, way before last year’s court case. Is that it? His last film? He thinks and looks off to his bookshelves, at biographies of Betjeman and Olivier.

“Er...no,” he says, eventually. “No. No. Actually, I look forward to the next few films I make to be my first films, in a way. Because once you’ve...Well, look. The way they wrote it in The Wizard of Oz is that when you see behind the curtain, it’s not him. When you see behind the curtain, there’s a whole lot of motherf***ers squished into one spot. All praying that you don’t look at them. And notice them.”

I would ask him to explain, but I am not sure he is an explainer. Watch this space, I guess, but he is already taking a first step back. After we speak, it is announced Depp is getting the coveted Donostia award at the San Sebastian Film Festival next month. Some people are just too famous to fail.

~ Interview by Jonathan Dean, in London, for The Times UK (released on August 14, 2021)

[mariacallous]

For almost half a century, in other words within the limits of political memory, Britain has been a country where the priority of most governments has been to keep a few key economic numbers low. Income tax, interest rates, inflation and most people’s wages: all were deliberately suppressed by Downing Street and its collaborators in business and the Bank of England. By doing so a space was created – in theory at least – for certain interest groups to flourish: employers, entrepreneurs, shareholders, top earners, homeowners and consumers. Together, they were supposed to boost our previously sluggish rate of economic growth.

It hasn’t quite worked out like that. Britain is on the brink of recession yet again. Interest rates, taxes and inflation are all high. Only average wages are still low. And even that dubious achievement of British government and capitalism since the 1980s now feels fragile, with strikes solidifying and spreading across both private and state sectors, determinedly driven by workers who have finally had enough of years of falling pay. As Mick Lynch of the RMT union put it with characteristic pithiness on the Today programme last week: “The price of labour isn’t at the right price in this country.”

What might life be like in Britain if most people’s wages were more generous? One answer is more like life in many other rich countries. According to the United Nations, the share of our gross domestic product that goes to employees is lower than in France, Germany, Italy, Australia, South Korea, Canada, the US and half a dozen other, often more successful, capitalist nations. This “labour share” has fallen in Britain in most years since the late 1970s, when the great counterattack began against unions and decent pay for the many. The absence of this broad-brush but telling indicator from everyday debate in Britain is a sign of how much our politics is shaped by essentially rightwing assumptions.

But now the national conversation about pay seems to be changing. Lynch says the strikes – which despite months of disruption still have substantial public support – are ultimately about “the rebalancing of our society”. That’s a very ambitious goal for a union movement much smaller than in its 1970s heyday; which receives at best qualified support from Labour; and which faces a cornered Tory government that sees a successful confrontation with the unions as one of the few ways it might stay in power. Yet the cost of living crisis, and crippling staff shortages from the NHS to the railways, mean that the old Westminster and media orthodoxy that holding down pay is Britain’s only realistic option is losing its force.

Were salaries generally higher, it would almost certainly be easier to recruit and retain staff. Some of the large number of adults who have chosen to leave the national workforce in recent years would probably return. Workers might be more motivated and efficient, lessening Britain’s productivity crisis. Some employees would be able to work fewer hours, and families might benefit as a result.

With higher disposable incomes, people would probably spend more, boosting the British economy. Meanwhile the state would need to spend less on benefits that effectively subsidise low wages. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, two thirds of working-age adults in poverty are in a household where someone works. Higher wages could make having a job a real – rather than often rhetorical – route out of poverty.

Realigning the economy with the needs of the majority would also have costs. Taxes or state borrowing would have to rise to fund better public sector wages – at least in the short term, until the in-work benefits bill fell, and rising incomes increased growth. Goods and services might also become more expensive. We have got used to a world where almost anything can be delivered cheaply to our door – and almost anything can be done to us at work. In a higher-wage world, we might lose some of our power as consumers, while gaining power as workers. At first, we might feel the loss of familiar pleasures more than we use this new agency.

But inflation has already begun to end the golden age of consumption for most of us, anyway. And higher wages may also bring more welcome disruptions. The gap between ordinary and elite earners, which has opened even further in Britain than most wealthy countries, might narrow – especially if taxes are raised to increase public sector pay. Such a narrowing could have psychological as well as material consequences. The extreme separateness and sense of entitlement of the modern rich, and the queasy mix of fascination and loathing rich people arouse in us, evident in hit TV shows such as Succession and The White Lotus, might diminish a little if economic security was not so unfairly distributed.

Now, some or all of these potential shifts may sound far-fetched. But an economy where most people’s wages grew rather than shrank has existed before in Britain. For much of the first three decades of the 20th century, and again from the late 1940s until the mid-1970s, the “labour share” increased. In fact, its trajectory over the past 150 years forms a wave pattern, with slumps regularly followed by recoveries. Another upswing is overdue.

It may be harder to achieve this time. During previous pay upswings, the economy and trade union memberships were often growing strongly, unlike now. Today’s workers will have to be canny and relentless to get more, when the rewards provided by capitalism may be shrinking overall for some time.

But the survival, instead, of the low-wage status quo feels increasingly uncertain. In 1962, one of the most influential modern economists wrote that “in a market society” the way that pay is distributed “is unlikely to be tolerated unless it is also regarded as yielding distributive justice”. Without a broad public acceptance of such economic arrangements, he went on, “no society can be stable”.

The economist was Milton Friedman, one of the gurus of the global right. With Britain in such a state now that even he and Mick Lynch might agree on a few things, were Friedman still alive, the end of our low-wage era may be coming.

[newstfionline]

Friday, July 8, 2022

Skyrocketing Global Fuel Prices Threaten Livelihoods and Social Stability (NYT) “No Es Suficiente”—It’s not enough. That was the message protest leaders in Ecuador delivered to the country’s president this past week after he said he would lower the price of both regular gas and diesel by 10 cents in response to riotous demonstrations over soaring fuel and food prices. The fury and fear over energy prices that have exploded in Ecuador are playing out the world over. In the United States, average gasoline prices, which have jumped to $5 per gallon, are burdening consumers. But in many places, the leap in fuel costs has been much more dramatic, and the ensuing misery much more acute. In Nigeria, stylists use the light of their cellphones to cut hair because they can’t find affordable fuel for the gasoline-powered generator. In Britain, it costs $125 to fill the tank of an average family-size car. Hungary is prohibiting motorists from buying more than 50 liters of gas a day at most service stations. Last Tuesday, police in Ghana fired tear gas and rubber bullets at demonstrators protesting against the economic hardship caused by gas price increases, inflation and a new tax on electronic payments. The staggering increase in the price of fuel has the potential to rewire economic, political and social relations around the world.

Nicaragua expels Mother Theresa's nuns in latest crackdown (BBC) Nuns from the order founded by Mother Theresa have left Nicaragua after their organisation was stripped of its legal status. They were escorted by police to the border and crossed into neighbouring Costa Rica on foot. Their organisation is among the latest to be shut down as part of a crackdown on anyone deemed to oppose President Daniel Ortega. The Catholic Church has been outspoken about human rights abuses in Nicaragua. Local media said 18 nuns from the Missionaries of Charity were driven to the border in a bus escorted by migration officials and police officers. The nuns had been working with the poor in Nicaragua since 1988 and ran a children's nursery, a home for abused and abandoned girls and a nursing home.

A Year Since a President’s Murder, Haitians Keep Waiting to Hit Rock Bottom (NYT) The warring gangs took over several neighborhoods around Port-au-Prince weeks ago, going door to door, raping women and girls, killing the men, beheading many of the adults and then forcing the newly orphaned children into their ranks. One woman, Kenide Charles, took cover with her 4-month-old baby underneath a bed, waiting for the fighting to subside. It never did and she fled, crossing gang checkpoints with her son raised above her head, like a human white flag. This week marks a year since President Jovenel Moïse of Haiti was murdered in his home in one of the capital’s wealthiest neighborhoods as dozens of police stepped aside, letting the assassins through. Many Haitians had no love for the deeply unpopular president, but thought his assassination would be the country’s new rock bottom and believed they could start climbing back up. Instead, the picture remains grim with a seeming state of lawlessness taking hold in parts of the country. The violence that recently rocked Ms. Charles’s impoverished neighborhood over nearly two weeks in May is a sign of how brutal life is for many Haitians. “I see no future in Haiti for my kids,” Ms. Charles, 37, said. “Even to feed them is a struggle.” When Ms. Charles was finally able to return to her neighborhood on the outskirts of Haiti’s capital, the entire block of houses where her home once stood had been burned to the ground. The corpses of at least 91 victims lay along the streets or in their homes, while the attack left at least 158 children orphans, many of whom were then recruited by gangs.

Johnson resigns, remains UK prime minister for now (AP) British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said it is “clearly the will” of his Conservative Party that there should be a new leader as he announced his resignation. Johnson said Thursday he will remain as British prime minister while a leadership contest is held to choose his successor. Critics say he should not be allowed to remain as caretaker prime minister and he should be removed from office as soon as possible. The announcement came after the latest ethics scandal around his leadership led some 50 senior lawmakers to quit the government.

Germany eases path to permanent residency for migrants (AP) Tens of thousands of migrants, who have been living in Germany for years without long-lasting permission to remain in the country, will be eligible for permanent residency after the government approved a new migration bill Wednesday. The new regulation, endorsed by the Cabinet, applies to about 136,000 people who have lived in Germany for at least five years by Jan. 1, 2022. Those who qualify can first apply for a one-year residency status and subsequently apply for permanent residency in Germany. They must earn enough money to make an independent living in the country, speak German and prove that they are “well integrated” into society. Those under the age of 27 can already apply for a path to permanent residency in Germany after having lived in the country for three years.

Russia warns humanity at risk if West seeks to punish it over Ukraine (Reuters) Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said attempts by the West to punish a nuclear power such as Russia for the war in Ukraine risked endangering humanity, as the near five-month conflict leaves cities in ruins and thousands homeless. U.S. President Joe Biden says Russian President Vladimir Putin is a war criminal and has led the West in arming Ukraine and imposing crippling sanctions on Russia. “The idea of punishing a country that has one of the largest nuclear potentials is absurd. And potentially poses a threat to the existence of humanity,” Medvedev, now deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, said on Telegram on Wednesday. Russia and the United States control about 90% of the world’s nuclear warheads, with around 4,000 warheads each in their military stockpiles, according to the Federation of American Scientists. Medvedev cast the United States as an empire which had spilled blood across the world, citing the killing of Native Americans, U.S. nuclear attacks on Japan and a host of wars ranging from Vietnam to Afghanistan.

Ukrainians cling to life at front line (AP) Viktor Lazar shares his war-side balcony with a pair of opera glasses and a tiny orange snake, his only companion in an apartment that seems to sit at the edge of the world. The opera glasses, more of a joke, are hardly needed—the front line is visible without them. The rumbling of Russian and Ukrainian shelling is audible even now, although Lazar claims not to notice. Below his balcony is a crater, one of many. On the nearby street, a Grad rocket launcher rolls by. Lazar estimates the Russians are just 10 kilometers (6 miles) away. As the war grinds into its fifth month along deadly fault lines in Ukraine’s east and south, Lazar and his few neighbors in Kharkiv’s vast and shattered neighborhood of Saltivka represent a life without resolution in which many are trapped. New communities are being told to flee. Not all do. The Soviet-era apartment blocks in Saltivka once housed a half-million people, one of the largest neighborhoods in Europe. Now perhaps only dozens remain. Some of the buildings are blackened, while others are crumbling slab by slab. Tall grass overtakes abandoned playgrounds scattered with fallen and ripened cherries. Soldiers’ trenches are bare. In a few apartments now ripped open, laundry still hangs on the line.

Common enemy (Foreign Policy) The British and American domestic security chiefs held a rare press conference in London on Wednesday to sound the alarm about their biggest common threat: China. FBI Director Christopher Wray indicated that China had interfered in recent U.S. elections, while MI5 chief Ken McCallum said the British agency had more than septupled investigations into Chinese Communist Party activity in the past four years. How are the strong words going down in Beijing? Not so well. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said British intelligence was trying to “hype up the China threat theory” and told McCallum to “cast away imagined demons.”

Chinese database for sale (WSJ) From April 2021 through last month, a 23-terabyte data file belonging to the Shanghai police containing 970 million rows of names, birthdays, addresses and IDs of Chinese citizens was left available to the internet to access without the need of a password. In what certainly appears to be the largest cybersecurity breach in China and among the largest in the world, a hacker took it, deleted it and demanded 10 bitcoin if they wanted it back. That amount matches the amount that a user sought as of last Thursday on a cybercrime forum seeking to sell a billion records of Chinese citizens’ information.

Shanghai, Beijing order new round of mass COVID-19 testing (AP) Residents of parts of Shanghai and Beijing have been ordered to undergo further rounds of COVID-19 testing following the discovery of new cases in the two cities, while tight restrictions remain in place in Hong Kong, Macao and other Chinese cities. Shanghai has only just emerged from a strict lockdown that confined most of its 24 million residents to their homes for weeks and the new requirements have stirred concerns of a return of such harsh measures. Apartment blocks where cases are discovered continue to be isolated, while mass testing in the majority of the city’s 16 districts has been ordered at least through Thursday. A negative test result obtained within the previous 48 hours is required to enter residential compounds and public venues under the “two tests within three days” program.

Ex-leader Shinzo Abe critically shot in shock Japan attack (AP) Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, an arch-conservative and one of his nation’s most divisive figures, was shot and critically wounded during a campaign speech Friday in western Japan. He was airlifted to a hospital but officials said he was not breathing and his heart had stopped. Police arrested the suspected gunman at the scene of an attack that shocked many in Japan, which is one of the world’s safest nations and has some of the strictest gun control laws anywhere. Abe, who is 67 and was Japan’s longest-serving leader before stepping down in 2020, was in cardio and pulmonary arrest as he was airlifted to the hospital, local fire department official Makoto Morimoto said.

Flood threat moves north as Sydney area emergency eases (AP) Floodwaters were receding in Sydney and its surrounding area Thursday as heavy rain threatened to inundate towns north of Australia’s largest city. Evacuation orders and official warnings to prepare to abandon homes were given to 60,000 people by Thursday, down from 85,000 on Wednesday, New South Wales state Premier Dominic Perrottet said. Emergency Services Minister Steph Cooke said record-breaking rain that began around Sydney on Friday last week was easing. “It is very pleasing to see that the weather situation is starting to ease after almost a week of relentless rain,” she said.

A hajj closer to normal: 1 million Muslims begin pilgrimage (AP) It is a scene that stirs hope—and relief—for Muslims around the world. One million pilgrims from across the globe amassed on Thursday in the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia to perform the initial rites of the hajj, marking the largest Islamic pilgrimage since the coronavirus pandemic upended the annual event—a key pillar of Islam. The hajj is a once-in-a-lifetime duty for all Muslims physically and financially able to make the journey, which takes the faithful along a path traversed by the Prophet Muhammad some 1,400 years ago. Pilgrims spend five days carrying out a set of rituals intended to bring them closer to God.

[letterboxd]

Halfway—2021.

Two Filipino indies lead the Letterboxd Top 25 at the 2021 halfway point, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to shake—and reshape—the film industry. Jack Moulton and Gemma Gracewood take stock.

Cleaners, Glenn Barit’s photocopied, hand-colored, stop-motion feature about high schoolers in the northern Philippines city of Tuguegarao, is the highest-rated 2021 film on Letterboxd at the halfway point of the year, with a weighted average of 4.3 out of 5 stars. Ode to Nothing, by Barit’s fellow countrywoman Dwein Baltazar, is in second place, and Shaka King’s two-time Oscar-winner Judas and the Black Messiah rounds out the top three.

Last year was a transition year in many ways: for the world, a pandemic-led move away from cinema screenings to at-home virtual theaters and streaming-first releases; for Letterboxd, a move away from US-led release dates in our annual calculations. This has opened the way for notable films from around the world to be included on our lists far sooner than their oft-delayed American releases (which had resulted in, for example, Brazil’s Bacurau not making the 2019 Letterboxd Year in Review).

Both of these factors help to explain why we have two Filipino independent features leading our midway Top 25. “Cleaners and Ode to Nothing are exactly the kind of small Filipino films that would have struggled to get national distribution in theaters in the before times, despite the buzz that they garnered,” writes Manila-based film critic Philbert Dy in his companion essay to the Top 25, in which he explains how the Philippines’ particularly long and harsh Covid lockdown has “led to smaller, quirkier films being made accessible to more Filipinos, whose consumption of cinema were once beholden to the whims of conglomerate cinema owners”.

‘Cleaners’, written and directed by Glenn Barit.

When we shared the good news with him, a delighted Cleaners director Glenn Barit specifically shouted out his nation’s film lovers: “It is a testament to a vibrant Filipino film community still actively watching and supporting films of our own. Especially with a film like ours set in a small city far from the capital, it is amazing to read in reviews that it resonates with a lot of people (sometimes even outside our country).”

From this year forward, our mid-year rankings include films that have been released in any country, with at least a limited theatrical, streaming or video-on-demand run, and a minimum of 1,000 views on Letterboxd. These new rules allow us to celebrate the love for Katie Found’s lesbian romance My First Summer—released in Australia in March—without having to wait for the US to catch up. It joins indie highlight Shiva Baby, Michael Rianda’s animated hit The Mitchells vs The Machines and Heidi Ewing’s swooning romance, I Carry You With Me, on the Top 25 in putting young, queer characters on the screen.

‘My First Summer’, written and directed by Katie Found.

As expected, many films on the list have suffered pandemic delays. We use premiere dates to mark the year of record for each film, so A Quiet Place Part II will always be attached to its March 2020 red-carpet screening, despite the fourteen-month hibernation that followed. This is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection by Mosotho director Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese screened at 2019’s Venice Film Festival and had a very long festival run until Mubi picked it up for streaming in the UK this year. The film’s lead, Mary Twala, passed away a year ago, July 4, 2020 (see her also in Beyoncé’s Black is King). Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s Our Friend—one of the eight women-directed films on the list—went to TIFF, London, and AFI before being released this January without screening once in 2020.

More than half of our Top 25 films are directed by BIPOC directors, nearly a dozen of whom are of Asian descent, illuminating a key benefit of the new eligibility system. Challenging the US for the most represented country is India with five films in the list, taking advantage of Amazon’s distribution deal and creating greater accessibility for Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam-language films at home and abroad.

‘Red Post Post on Escher Street’, written and directed by Sion Sono.

Also among the Asian directors making the list are legends Tsai Ming-liang and Sion Sono. Tsai’s Days recently received a limited run in Spain (it will be brought to the US by Grasshopper Films this August), while Sono’s Red Post Post on Escher Street had a quick VOD run in February courtesy of Japan Society Film.

Produced in the US and directed by Japanese-Brazilian Edson Oda, Nine Days qualifies due to an exclusive run at the Singapore arthouse theater The Projector in May—it’ll be released in the US later this month. Finally, Asian American director Jon M. Chu makes the list with his adaptation of Quiara Alegría Hudes and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights. We are also happy to see a couple of Letterboxd members in the halfway 25: Cleaners’ Barit and Chad Hartigan (Little Fish). If you’d like to discover more 2021 releases by our member-filmmakers, we have a list for that.

The Top 25 is, of course, solely made up of narrative feature-length films. On the documentary front, Flee is currently the highest-rated non-fiction feature of 2021. Neon is expected to release the film in the US for an awards run later this year, but it’s eligible now due to a release earlier this month in director Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s homeland of Denmark.

‘Flee’, directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen.

Fellow Sundance Film Festival winner Summer of Soul (or… When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) is currently the year’s highest-rated documentary in general, but was 48 hours shy of eligibility for the halfway list, releasing in theaters and on Hulu on July 2. The runners-up are: Sir Alex Ferguson: Never Give In, directed by the notorious football manager’s son; David Attenborough’s The Year Earth Changed, directed by Tom Beard; and rock-docs TINA and (in his doc-directing debut) Edgar Wright’s The Sparks Brothers.

In other categories, It’s a Sin is the highest-rated narrative miniseries at the midway point, Can’t Get You Out of Our Head by Adam Curtis is the highest-rated documentary miniseries, Bo Burnham: Inside is the highest-rated comedy special, Blackpink: The Show is the highest-rated music film, Save Ralph is the highest-rated animated short film, and Four Roads, by Alice Rohrwacher, is the highest-rated live-action short film.

With Cannes underway and more festivals to come, it is still a long road to the 2021 Year in Review for these films—but given the journey most of them have already travelled, it is pleasing to celebrate the filmmakers’ success. Ang galing ninyong lahat!

On top of its meticulously bonkers production process, our highest-ranked film, Cleaners, had a long journey to its first theatrical distribution, and it’s far from over. The film premiered at the QCinema International Film Festival in October 2019, to raves from Filipino Letterboxd members, and it still holds a firm grasp on its high rating nearly two years later. Ultimately, the first non-fest release for Cleaners occurred when Singapore’s Asian Film Archive screened it for a week in April, thus qualifying the film for our 2021 lists.

‘Ode to Nothing’, written, directed and edited by Dwein Baltazar.

Ode to Nothing has been on an even longer journey. The film also debuted at the QCinema Festival, but in 2018, and finally arrived on local streaming services iWantTFC and KTX.PH earlier this year.

Being celebrated by their countryfolk on Letterboxd is one thing, but how can those of us outside the Philippines see these top two films? Perhaps we need to give our local distributors a nudge. As Cleaners director Barit explains: “We are a team of three first-time filmmakers and producers. We are still learning the ropes of film distribution and marketing—and it’s been very hard. I just want to shamelessly say that our doors are wide open for distribution and acquisition; we are not yet available on any streaming platforms locally or internationally [winks nervously].”

See the Halfway 2021 list on Letterboxd and watch the Top 10 countdown on YouTube

Follow Jack and Gemma on Letterboxd

[machinations-ii]

Debut Album of The Strokes' Is This It and Interpol's Turn on the Bright Lights.

TURN ON THE BRIGHT LIGHTS

New York City was in transition in 2002, the devastation of 9/11 still lingered but a new sense of goodwill and compassion flowed through the city with dozens of bands reanimating a faded glory that had come to define the Giuliani era. Arriving after several well-regarded EPS that honed Interpol's Sonic and sartorial sense, it's possible no album captured this moment as vividly as their debut turn on the bright lights. Interpol took shape at NYU in the late 1990s where the band formed partially as a result of mutual fashion appreciation. Frontman Paul banks had come across bassist Carlos dangler in their dorm wearing skin tight black clothing and a giant crucifix. Meanwhile guitarist daniel kessler had already gotten to know Dengler in a world war 1 class after approaching him with a compliment about his shoes, and the trio eventually found replacement drummer Sam Fogerino while he was working in a used clothing store. Soon after coming together, the group started to jam at Funkadelic studios, PDA was already in embryonic form by then. After hustling in the NYC circuit and recording here and there, a chance meeting with Emma Pollock of the Delgado's led to the release of an Interpol EP in 2000 on the esteemed chemical underground label. On the heels of the EP success and in the midst of the post strokes gold rush in New York City, Interpol scored a deal with Matador Records then home to bands like Belen Sebastian, yo a tango, and pavement. Chris Lombardi of Matador claimed that he was most impressed by the business-like manner with which the band conducted themselves the suits first and foremost. Interpol decided to record turn on the bright lights at producer Peter Quedas's home studio in Bridgeport Connecticut to avoid all of the temptations New York City had to offer a hot young band while Cadis has gone on to produce the national, Frightened Rabbit, and Yan C, his most recent credit prior to turn on the bright lights was engineering the get up kids on a wire. Sessions were contentious Carlos D had wanted more keyboards, more nights on the town, and the title of the record to be celebrated baselines of the future. If banks had his way, PDA wouldn't have even made the record. However Quedas protested and told him that's their hit single, which it was. Quedas was not enthused with the new, until the final mix which had him in tears. But for all the seriousness and grandeur of turn on the bright lights moments of humor abounded. The spoken intro of Stella was a diver and she was always down; was recorded while banks was ad-libbing with ice in his mouth “this one called Stella was a diver she's always down”. Anchored by Carlos D and Fogerino’s hulking rhythm section, Banks created it in New York City recognizable to its citizens but in cryptic indelible lyrics. “The subway was a porno”, “relationships were a bracelet” and “they had 200 couches for you to sleep” when it all felt like too much. Beginning with a crowd stoking instrumental that would foreshadow runs opening for U2 and the Cure, turn on the bright lights resulted in music of unusually sweeping and grandiose gestures that felt foreign to rock music in general at the time but especially to indie rock. It's hard to imagine the transition towards the post-punk bombast of Arcade Fire, The Killers, and the National without Interpol opening the lane first. While local papers would occasionally snark at them as fashion victims and post-punk dilettante, critical acclaim for turn on the bright lights was overwhelmingly positive. The brilliance of turn on the bright lights is all the more apparent 19 years later a beacon that continues to shine radiantly during its city's darkest moments. IS THIS IT

Fueled by hype that was extraordinary even by the standards of the British press, The Strokes became instant superstars in the UK long before their fellow Americans heard “is this it” thirty-six stylish lo-Fi down-and-dirty minutes of unwholesome Downton Blues that evoke The Velvet Underground, The Ramones, television, and countless others who will firm New York City as the epicenter of punk rock cool, the strokes debut was already in stores in the UK for months before its eventual American release mere weeks after the September 11th attacks. Is this it subsequently took on an unintended resonance and became a sentimental document of a New York City that would no longer exist after Rudolph Giuliani, gentrification, and the war on terror. The Strokes may not have saved rock and roll themselves but The Libertines, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, the killers, and the Arctic Monkeys likely wouldn't exist without “is this it”. while several members of The Strokes have been playing together since high school in a project called “just pipe” the band truly took shape after guitarist Albert Hammond jr. joined the group he and singer Julian Casablancas attended the same Swiss boarding school and reconnected after Hammond returned to New York City and serendipitously moved across the street from Elite Model Management which just so happened to be owned by Casablancas’ father. Contrary to the stereotype of The Strokes as a prefab overnight success, the group struggled throughout the late 90s playing to empty rooms before their demo got the attention of Rough Trade ANR man Jeff Travis, nor were they predator naturally cool from the start. before The Strokes first gig Hammond claims the band was so nervous they watched the Eddie Murphy movie Bowfinger to calm themselves. Preliminary sessions for is this it were recorded with Gil Norton best known for his work with the Pixies but also Foo Fighters “ultra slick the color in the shape” for the album itself The Strokes would reunite with Gordon Raphael who previously produced the modern age EP. The unorthodox production of “is this it” was the result of Raphael using a minimal number of microphones and following Casablancas says requests to have it sound like your favorite blue jeans not totally destroyed but worn in comfortable. According to Raphael an A&R guy named Steve obelisk II held is this it most unprofessional sounding music that he has never heard. The strokes declined the invitation from MTV to play alongside the vines in the hives at the 2002 Video Music Awards. The band didn't want to be lumped in to quote the new rock revolution it consisted of mostly bands with the word the and a plural noun in their names. Casablancas told MTV I'm not going to do a band off with them and strokes manager Ryan gentle said “that was pretty much the last time we were played on MTV”. The infamous bare-bottom on the international release of is this it is that of photographer Colin lanes girlfriend, however concerns about whether conservative chain stores like Target and Walmart would carry the record but The Strokes to switch to the American cover shot of a subatomic particle in a bubble chamber Casablancas is rumored to have liked it even more than the original. A more crucial alteration from the international version involves the removal of its own, New York City cops all involved agreed that a chorus of New York City cops they ain't that smart would be considered in poor taste after 9/11 even if the song was written years previous by removing the song from the US release of is this it there's not a single song in a Strokes album that has mentioned New York City by name. Well The Strokes achieved a level of popularity rivaled by few American bands in the 21st century is this it was considered a commercial disappointment in its time it peaked only at number 33 on Billboard while lead single last night topped out at number five of the modern rock chart with some day stalling at Number 17. Long story short, these two albums (and arguably two of the best rock albums of all time) had left a dent in my

life for it defined my teenage years when I had nothing, lost, and frustrated with my life. It reminded me the melancholic time that I had in the past. So I'll leave you guys with a lyrics from each album and try to find the song that corresponds to it :). "I have 7 faces, and I know which one to wear" "Soma is what they would take when hard times opened their eyes and saw pain in a new way"

[dherzogblog]

The Birth of The Daily Show: 25 Years of Fake News and Moments of Zen

It was July of 1995 and I had left MTV to become President of Comedy Central. It was the basic cable equivalent of going from the NY Yankees to an expansion team. I was on the job just two weeks when I received a call from Brillstein Grey the high powered managers of Bill Maher, host of one of the networks few original programs, "Politically Incorrect". We were informed Bill and his show would leave the network when his contract expired in 12 months. It was a done deal. Bill wanted to take his show to the "big leagues" at ABC where he would follow Night Line. Comedy Central was left jilted. Terrible news for a network still trying to establish itself. We had a year to figure out how to replace him and the clock was ticking. So began the path to The Daily Show.

It was very much a fledgling Comedy Central I joined, available in barely 35 million homes, desperately seeking an identity and an audience. It was just over three years old, born into a shot gun wedding that joined two struggling and competing comedy networks, HBO’s Comedy Channel and Viacom’s HA!, Watching them both stumble out of the gate, the cable operators forced them to merge, telling them: "We only need one comedy channel, you guys figure it out”. After some contentious negotiations the new channel was born and the red headed step child of MTV and HBO set out to find the pop culture zeitgeist its parents had already expertly navigated. The network had yet to define itself. The programming consisted mainly of old stand up specials from the likes of Gallagher (never underestimate the appeal of a man smashing watermelons), a hodgepodge of licensed movies (“The God’s Must be Crazy and The Cheech and Chong trilogy were mainstays) and Benny Hill reruns. The networks biggest hit by far was the UK import “Absolutely Fabulous”, better know as “AbFab”. Comedy Central boasted a handful of original shows, including the wonderfully sublime "SquiggleVision" of “Dr. Katz”, the sketch comedy "Exit 57" (starring the then unknown Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert) and of course Maher’s "Politically Incorrect". In retrospect I don’t think Bill got enough credit for pioneering the idea of political comedy on mainstream TV. Back then he was the only one doing it.

Politically Incorrect performed just fine, but got more critical attention than ratings. It was a panel show, and I had something a bit different in mind to replace it. I knew we needed a flagship, a network home base, something akin to ESPN's Sports Center where viewers could go at the end of a the day for our comedic take on everything that happened in the last 24 hours….."a daily show". I had broad idea for it in my head. I would describe it as part "Weekend Update", part Howard Stern, with a dash of "The Today Show" on drugs complete with a bare boned format to keep costs low so we could actually afford to produce it. We could open with the headlines covering the day's events (our version of a monologue), followed by a guest segment (we wouldn't need to write jokes...only questions!), and finish with a taped piece. Simple, right? We just needed someone to help flesh out our vision.

Comedy Central was a a second tier cable channel then and considered a bit of a joke (no pun intended). It had minuscule ratings, no heat and even less money to spend. Producers were not lining up to work with there. Eileen Katz ran programming for the channel and the two of us began pitching this idea to every producer who would listen. One of the first people we approached was Madeleine Smithberg, an ex Letterman producer and had overseen "The Jon Stewart Show" for us at MTV. We thought she was perfect for the role. “You can’t do this, you can’t afford this, you don't have the stomach for this, it will never work ” Madeliene said when we met with her. We could not convince her to take the gig. Ok then....we moved on. The problem was we heard that same refrain from everybody. No one wanted the job. So after weeks being turned down by literally EVERYONE, I said to Eileen: “We have to go back to Madeleine and convince her to do this with us"!

Part our pitch to her was we would go directly to series. There would be no pilot. The show was guaranteed to go on air. We had decided this show was our to be our destiny and we had to figure it out come hell or high water. As a 24 hour comedy channel, if we couldn't figure out a way to be funny and fresh every day...what good were we? We told Madeliene we were committed to putting the show on the air and keeping it there till we got it right (for at least a year anyway). That, plus some gentle arm twisting got her to sign on. Shortly after that, Lizz Winstead did too.

Madleiene and Lizz very quickly landed on their inspired notion of developing the show and format as a news parody. It brought an immediate focus and a point of view to the process . All of the sudden things started to take shape and coming to life. Great ideas started flowing fast and furious while an amazing collection of funny and talented began to come on board. Madeliene and Lizz were off to the races. Now all we needed was a host.

The prime time version of ESPN's Sports Center was hosted by Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann back then and it was must see cable TV. But I had recently started to notice another guy hosting the show's late night edition. He was funny, with a snarky delivery reminiscent of Dennis Miller. His name was Craig Kilborn. On the phone with CAA agent Jeff Jacobs one day, I asked if he knew happened to know who repped him? “I do" he said. "We just signed him”. Within days he was in my office along with Madeleine, Lizz, and Eileen who were all a bit skeptical about the tall blond guy with the frat boy vibes sitting across from them. After opening the meeting with a few off color comments that would probably get him cancelled today (an early warning sign fo sure), Craig ultimately won them over and we had our host.

FUN FAC#1: Minutes after the news of Craig's hiring went public, Keith Olberman's agent called me directly to ask why we hadn't considered hiring him?

Ok, we had a host and producers...but what to call it? After sifting through dozens of ideas for a title, Madeleine called me one day and said, "I think we should just call it what we've been calling it all along...."The Daily Show". As we approached our launch date we taped practice shows and took them out to focus groups to get real life feedback. The groups hated it.... I mean with a red hot hate. They hated Craig, the format, the jokes, everything. We were crushed and dejectedly looked around at the room at one another. "Now what?" “Either they’re wrong, or we are". I said I think they are...but it doesn’t matter, we're doing this!" We never looked back.

The show took off quickly garnering some quick buzz and attention, we felt like we had crashed the party. Well, sort of. We had no shortage of fun, growing pains and drama along the way. The Daily Show version 1.0 was about to unravel. In a December 1997 magazine interview Craig made some truly offensive and inappropriate remarks about Lizz and female members of the staff. Whether it was poor attempt at humor or just plain misogynist (or both) is beyond the point. It was all wrong, very wrong. Craig was suspended for a week without pay. Lizz left the show. In the moment I chose to protect the show and its talent more so than Lizz. That was wrong too. It's more than cringe worthy looking back now, and I regret not making some better decisions then. My loyalty to our host was later "rewarded" when in the Spring of 1998 Kilborn's team, a la Bill Maher, unceremoniously informed us he had signed a deal to follow Letterman on CBS when his contract expired at the end of the year. No discussion, a done deal. Comedy Central jilted again. Like Maher, Kilborn wanted his shot at the network big leagues and we had a little over six months to figure out how to replace him. We all know how that chapter ended. That search would eventually reunite us with Jon Stewart who along with The Daily Show took Comedy Central and basic cable to the "the big leagues" on their own terms, redefining late night comedy in the process The rest, as they say, is "Fake News" history.

Fun Fact #2: before approaching Jon (who I did not originally think would be interested) I initially offered the job to a chunkier, largely unknown Jimmy Kimmel, fresh off his co hosting duties on "Win Ben Stein's Money" ...only to have him turn us down.

My fascination with late night began as a kid. I remember how exciting it was to stay up to sneak a peek at the Carson monologue and watch him do spit takes with his chummy Hollywood guests. Later on I also loved the heady adult conversation Dick Cavett would have with everyone from Sly Stone to Groucho Marx. But it was the comedic revolution of Saturday night Live in 1975, followed by Letterman's game changing show in 1981 that truly established late night as the coolest place on the television landscape. I could only dream of one day being part of it.

25 years on, I couldn’t be more proud of The Daily Show and its legacy. Those days helping build it alongside Madeleine, Lizz, Eileen and the team were among the most satisfying (and fun) experiences I have ever had. It was thrilling to take a shot at the late night landscape and try and make our mark, especially when no one thought we could.

I am prouder still of what Trevor Noah and his staff have achieved since they took the hand off from Jon, evolving and growing the show through a new voice and lens. I think my personal "Moment Of Zen" will last as long as Trevor remains behind the desk, allowing me to selfishly boast of having hired every host this award winning and culture defining franchise has ever had.

25 years later. it remains as relevant as ever, a bona fide late night institution, standing shoulder to shoulder with all the great shows that inspired us to start.

[qwertyfingers]

suicide tw i guess sorry i just need to. say things and not have a real conversation but how the fuck am i supposed to get out of this state of mind rn when im in thjs much pain literally nothing is helping at all. even if i wasnt also strugglign mentally for other reasons this would be insane to deal with. its been 10 fucking years of just eternal decline the pain gets worse and worse im developing increasingly dangerous symptoms i literally *physically* on a chemical level can't get anywhere close to a healthy amount of sleep because everything is so fucked up in my brain. 3-5 nights a week i cant even lie down all the way because the pain gets worse because the pressures so bad and no one can help me no one can improve any of this even a little bit. maybe i get lucky and in 6-9 months time the new injection reduces the symptoms enough to get back to my previous level of disability where i [checks notes] uh 'still cant function in a basic way but at least get more than 2-3 hours of lucidity per day' and thats maybe 60% likely. 40% chance it has little-no effect and the nhs refuses to fund it long term and my literal last hope for any relief from this hell is lost. and i cant even bring myself to be hopeful about the medication working because i have lost all sense of optimism or belief in my own body and dont know that ill ever get it back. given the symptoms and my dad getting diagnosed with the same thing theres close to 100% certainty my migraines are literally just a result of spinal instability in my neck that could be fixed surgically but its literally impossible to get in the uk and the sums of money needed even just to get assessed are so astronomical it will literally never happen. i cant do this for the rest of my life! i cant spend 30-40-50-however many years exhausted and distraught and in agony with absolutely no reprieve or hope or change. whats the point! what do i have to live for? media consumption? i cant even hold a conversation online about things i like anymore. when was the last time i managed to reply more than 2-3 times before the conversation fizzled out or i got too sick to be online or i forgot i was talking at all and just disappeared. i will never be able to go back to school i will never have any kind of work that fulfils me in any way. ill probably never regain my ability to read even close to as well as before. my drawing ability will keep deteriorating and ive already lost all patience and affection for the process of making art in any form. ill never be able to regularly do the things i used to love like hike and play team sports and act on stage. ill never get back my mathematical ability ill never get to study physics like i wanted ill keep losing parts of myself by inches and miles every time something in my body deteriorates. i lost everything i cared about at 16 and the only thing that kept me alive was my hope that i could recover some semblance of it, and then i almost died a few dozen times and my hope wavered but at least i had my fucking stubbornness and now i dont rven have that. i have no spite or rage or tenacity or ferocious desire to prove myself against all the odds anymore im just tired. physically mentally spiritually its all just over and done i got nothing left to give to this fight now. what is the point of suffering through it all if the struggle is so utterly painfully meaningless.

[introvertguide]

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964); AFI #39

The most recent movie for the group to review was the Kubrick dark comedy, Dr. Strangelove (I am not writing out the whole title each time). This film has some of the most legitimately funny lines of bewilderment, with some occasions involving an actor playing across from himself. For most film goers, this will be Peter Seller’s most famous role since he plays three main characters, all with different accents, appearances, and quirks. The film was nominated for 4 Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actor) but did not take home any trophies. The film did win best picture at the BAFTAs. This film was definitely in the style of Kubrick, but it was in a genre that I don’t believe he delved into again. I want to review the plot before discussing further, so let me get the usual out of the way:

SPOILER ALERT!!! I AM ABOUT TO GIVE AWAY THE WHOLE PLOT OF THE FILM!!! IF YOU WANT TO WATCH THE FILM ON YOUR OWN WITHOUT HAVING ANYTHING SPOILED, STOP NOW AND WATCH THE FILM!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!

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At the start, we are introduced to United States Air Force Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) who is commander of Burpelson Air Force Base. This base houses a group of B-52 bombers armed with hydrogen bombs that are constantly in the air. The planes are constantly within two hours from their targets inside the USSR in case of nuclear war. General Ripper orders his executive officer, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake of the UK Royal Air Force (Peter Sellers), to put the base on alert and to issue "Wing Attack Plan R" to the patrolling bombers, one of which is commanded by Major T. J. "King" Kong (Slim Pickens). All of the aircraft commence an attack flight on the USSR, and set their radios to allow communications only through their CRM 114 discriminators, which was designed to accept only communications preceded by a secret three-letter code known only to General Ripper. Mandrake discovers that no attack order has been issued by the Pentagon and tries to stop Ripper, who locks them both in his office. Ripper tells Mandrake that he believes the Soviets have been fluoridating American water supplies to pollute the "precious bodily fluids" of Americans. Mandrake realizes Ripper has gone insane.

In the War Room at the Pentagon, General Buck Turgidson (George C Scott) briefs President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers again) and other officers about how "Plan R" enables a senior officer to launch a retaliatory nuclear attack on the Soviets if all superiors have been killed in a first strike on the United States. It would take two days to try every CRM code combination to issue the recall order, but the planes are due to reach their targets within hours. Muffley orders the U.S. Army to storm the base and arrest General Ripper. Turgidson then attempts to convince Muffley to let the attack continue, but Muffley refuses. Instead, he brings Soviet ambassador Alexei de Sadeski (Peter Bull) into the War Room to telephone Soviet Premier Dimitri Kissov on the "hotline". Muffley warns the Premier of the impending attack, and offers to reveal the positions of the bombers and their targets so that the Soviets can protect themselves.

After a heated discussion in Russian with the Premier, the ambassador informs President Muffley that the Soviet Union had created a doomsday machine as a nuclear deterrent; it consists of many buried bombs jacketed with "cobalt-thorium G", which are set to detonate automatically should any nuclear attack strike the country. Within two months after detonation, the cobalt-thorium G would encircle the planet in a radioactive shroud that would render the Earth's surface uninhabitable. The device cannot be deactivated, as it is programmed to explode if any such attempt is made. The President's wheelchair-bound scientific advisor, former Nazi German Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers one more time), points out that such a doomsday machine would only be an effective deterrent if everyone knew about it; Alexei replies that the Soviet Premier had planned to reveal its existence to the world the following week.

Meanwhile, U.S. Army troops arrive at Burpelson, and General Ripper commits suicide. Mandrake identifies Ripper's CRM code from his desk blotter and relays it to the Pentagon. Using the code, Strategic Air Command successfully recalls all of the bombers except Major Kong's, whose radio equipment has been damaged in a missile attack. The Soviets attempt to find it, but Kong has the bomber attack a closer target due to dwindling fuel. As the plane approaches the new target, a Soviet ICBM site, the crew is unable to open the damaged bomb bay doors. Kong enters the bay and repairs the broken electrical wiring while sitting on a H-bomb, whereupon the doors open and the bomb is dropped. Kong joyfully straddles the bomb as it falls and detonates over the target.

Back in the War Room, Dr. Strangelove recommends that the President gather several hundred thousand people to live in deep underground mines where the radiation will not penetrate. He suggests a 10:1 female-to-male ratio for a breeding program to repopulate the Earth once the radiation has subsided. Worried that the Soviets will do the same, Turgidson warns about a "mineshaft gap" while Alexei secretly photographs the war room. Dr. Strangelove declares he has a plan, but then rises from his wheelchair and announces "Mein Führer, I can walk!" as the Doomsday Machine activates. The film ends with a montage of many nuclear explosions, accompanied by Vera Lynn's rendition of the song "We'll Meet Again".

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This is a pretty weird film, but it has some of the funniest lines in cinema. Discussions of not letting a Russian envoy into the war room because he will “see the big board,” the president announcing there is no fighting in the war room, a crazy general constantly talking about a plot to steal American bodily fluids, and a discussion about how the high ranking officials and generals would be hidden in shelters with a 10-1 ratio of hot women to men with the expectation of constant impregnation which everybody suddenly favors: it is all absurd. But I really love it and laugh every time I watch.

The three roles of Peter Sellers is especially noteworthy, as all of his characters are so different. He plays a very British foreign exchange officer (I am not sure this exists), an absolutely whacky former Nazi scientist, and the straight man of the film in the form of the US president. Since Dr. Strangelove was an advisor to the president, there were many scenes in which Peter Sellers was acting across from a stunt shoulder or the back of a head that was supposed to be him. He did a fantastic job of making light of total world destruction during the cold war.

One very notable thing about the acting of Peter Sellers was that he had a couple of ad libs during the movie. Stanley Kubrick is not a director that particularly cares if he gets along with his actors, often times demanding dozens of takes for even the simplest of background scenes. Long dialogue scenes are repeated over and over to the point that many actors did not want to work with Kubrick. And still, the director seemed to like Sellers quite a bit and kept a couple of the takes that were ad-libbed, specifically for the character of Dr. Strangelove. Perhaps the crazy former Nazi character was so unpredictable that random whacky outbursts (like the scream for “Mein Fuhrer” at the end) seemed appropriate.

A little side note is that this was the first film appearance of James Earl Jones as one of the bombardiers on the B-52. He was known for his work in the theatre at the time, so of course he had a bit part in which he was mostly covered in a flight suit and said very little. Now that is a misuse of talent. 

A point about the movie that I was unaware but was pointed out by a follower of the group was that the promotional material for the film shows that the plane was named “Leper Colony” (thank you @themightyfoo). This implies that this group was actually a bunch of screw ups, which is part of the overall joke that this group was given access to world ending bombing capabilities. Maybe it was assumed that the order to drop the bombs would never be given and this group was just given this detail to get them out of the way.

So does this movie belong on the AFI list? Yes, but maybe not ranked so high. It has a lot of name recognition, but I think that is more due to the very distinct naming and the titular role. Maybe the notoriety is also due to the subject matter and the time it was released. It is a fine film with great acting, but I find it hard to put above Jaws, Rocky, or Taxi Driver. I guess that is more my humble opinion, but I agree the list would be lacking without this film. So would I recommend it? Absolutely. It is an interesting story about how red tape allowed one high ranking individual to literally destroy the world. And it is a joke. It is such a well told story that they had to put a disclaimer at the front. A great lesson, even today. 

[xhxhxhx]

Alan Allport’s Britain at Bay (Knopf, 2020) is great on all the ways the United Kingdom was an only imperfectly free country at the beginning of the Second World War. 

On the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act:

Police power in Northern Ireland was very different in character from elsewhere in the UK, owing to the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act, or SPA. The SPA was originally passed in the emergency conditions of 1922 at the end of the Irish War of Independence. Its powers had only been supposed to last one year, but it was found to be so useful that it was annually renewed by Stormont up to 1933, and made permanent thereafter.

Using the authority granted to it by the SPA, Northern Ireland’s government could impose curfews, prohibit public gatherings and protest marches, ban newspapers, arrest members of the public wearing uniforms or bearing items associated with proscribed organisations, search for and seize contraband goods, indefinitely detain those suspected of ‘subversive activity’ or exclude them from entering Northern Ireland, punish anyone making a report ‘intended or likely to cause disaffection to His Majesty’ and, in broad terms, ‘take all such steps and issue all such orders as may be necessary for preserving the peace and maintaining order’. In December 1938 the SPA was used to introduce internment without trial for suspected IRA men. Some of these detainees were taken to a prison hulk called the Al Rawdah, moored off Killyleagh, into which they were packed in bronchitic squalor for five months. The SPA granted Craigavon’s executive virtually unlimited domestic powers of control and surveillance, which were directed specifically at an ethno-religious minority regarded as a parasitical and disloyal enemy within. The SPA formed, in the words of a National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) report in 1936, ‘the basis for a legal dictatorship’. W. J. Stewart, a progressive Unionist critical of the UUP, described Northern Ireland’s government in the 1930s as ‘more completely in control of the six counties than either Hitler or Mussolini in their own countries’.

[...]

The police responded to the [IRA’s 1939] bombing campaign in different ways, some constabularies taking great pains to distinguish IRA terrorists from the Irish community at large, some less so. Newspaper stories from the Spanish Civil War had been full of reports about seditious ‘Fifth Columnists’, and the possibility that Irish migrants might be providing sanctuaries for IRA men did not seem completely fantastical. In London the Metropolitan Police asked hotel and boarding-house staff to provide details about any new visitors with Irish addresses or accents. The public was encouraged to report sightings of Irishmen ‘idling’ during daylight hours on the streets of the capital. S-Plan attacks provoked panicky and legally dubious police work. After the Piccadilly bombing constables ‘dashed through the crowd haphazardly’, as one witness later put it, rounding up dozens of men with Irish brogues. The whole operation was conducted with such a lack of basic procedure that all of the detained men had to be released later in the day for want of evidence – including a couple of suspects who, it turned out later, really had been involved in planting the bomb.

On the Prevention of Violence (Temporary Provisions) Act:

Earlier in 1939, the S-Plan terrorist campaign had provoked a similar kind of test, on a smaller scale, of how far the British were willing to compromise their traditional civil liberties in the name of public safety. In July 1939 the home secretary had introduced the Prevention of Violence (Temporary Provisions) Act to the Commons, a remarkable piece of legislation rushed through Parliament at breakneck speed, largely forgotten in the subsequent hubbub of war but something that ought to be better remembered than it is. The Prevention of Violence Act granted the home secretary the authority to prohibit anyone who had been resident in Great Britain for less than twenty years from entering or re-entering the country if it was believed that they were ‘concerned in the preparation or instigation […] of acts of violence designed to influence public opinion or Government policy with respect to Irish affairs’. He could expel such persons from the United Kingdom and detain them for up to five days prior to that expulsion. The Act allowed, for the first time in history, a political appointee to imprison, deport and exile British subjects without reference to the courts. It also empowered the police, under certain circumstances, to conduct searches and seizures of suspects’ property without obtaining a judicial warrant first. British subjects – as all Irishmen and -women still legally were in 1939, even those living in the Free State – had never been subject to such peacetime restrictions before.

Hoare insisted to Parliament that the new Act was a ‘temporary measure to meet a passing emergency’ which would remain on the statute books for no longer than two years. Some MPs were not convinced. They saw it as an attack on Britain’s culture of democracy. ‘We are proud that this is a free country,’ argued William Wedgwood Benn (father of Tony and grandfather of Hilary). ‘Our people hold their heads a little higher because they believe they enjoy a measure of freedom […] I do not think public opinion will be assisted by giving the Home Secretary power to turn us all into ticket-of-leave men, if he so wishes.’ In return, supporters of the Act regarded these objections as a sop to terrorists. ‘What about King’s Cross?’ demanded Sir Joseph Nall, Tory MP for Manchester Hulme. ‘What about the people who are being maimed and killed?’ It was much better, he argued, ‘to deport a dozen innocent persons than to allow one innocent person to be killed’. The Prevention of Violence Act passed into law.

Even before the Second World War broke out, then, fears of terrorism had already caused the government drastically to revise traditional assumptions about the freedoms of the individual British citizen. The Prevention of Violence Act was a first step in the creeping Hibernicisation of British law during the twentieth century, a process in which restrictions on civil liberty originally applied in ‘troubled’ Ireland were progressively transferred to the rest of the United Kingdom as well. In time, an indefinite state of emergency would become the new normal.

On the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act and Treachery Act:

All of this [invasion scare] seemed to suggest that the democracy itself could not be trusted in a crisis. Only by abandoning the ‘present rather easy-going methods’ of national life and adopting a set of restrictions ‘which would approach the totalitarian’ could Britain survive a Nazi onslaught, the Cabinet was warned by Chamberlain on 18 May. The legal apparatus for such a siege dictatorship was established four days later, when a new Emergency Powers (Defence) Act was passed by the Commons in its entirety in just two hours. This was an extension of the existing emergency legislation passed at the outbreak of war which now gave the government almost unlimited authority to regulate people, property and capital without the need for parliamentary scrutiny. As the new minister for labour later observed, it made him ‘a kind of Führer with powers to order anybody anywhere’. A Treachery Act passed the same day made it a capital offence to assist the enemy’s military operations or to hamper Britain’s own.

As the Times put it, the Emergency Powers Act ‘comes near to suspending the very essence of the Constitution as it has been built up in a thousand years. Our ancient liberties are placed in pawn for victory.’ A slew of regulations soon circumscribed even the most quotidian features of the British citizen’s life. It was unlawful to ‘endeavour to influence […] public opinion in a manner likely to be prejudicial’ to the war effort, to take part in a strike, to withhold information about an invention or patent if the state demanded it, to hold an unauthorised procession, to put out flags, to operate a car radio or to put icing on a cake (wickedly wasteful of sugar). Chamberlain hoped that public opinion would back these restrictions; but if not, recalcitrant non-cooperators could be drafted into a compulsory labour corps under prison discipline.

The creation in mid-May 1940 of the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV), later renamed the Home Guard, ought to be seen in this context of government nervousness. Private citizens had responded to news of the German parachute landings in the Netherlands and Belgium by announcing the formation of ad hoc militia companies to defend their homeland. Whitehall felt it had to act quickly to control the process. One quarter of a million men aged between seventeen and sixty-five registered to join the new auxiliary force within the first week of its announcement, and by July 1940 its nominal strength stood at 1.5 million.

On Regulations 39BA and 18B:

Sir John Simon’s 1938 prophecy that rearmament and war would turn Britain into ‘a different kind of nation’ seemed to have come true. Moreover, it had happened with a remarkable lack of discussion or opposition. ‘A united nation feels no hesitation or misgiving’ about the abandonment of its personal freedoms, insisted the Times when the Emergency Powers Act was rushed through Parliament: ‘the temporary surrender [of liberties] is made with a glad heart and a confident spirit.’ That was not altogether true. There would be resistance to some of the more controversial powers the government had acquired for itself. That said, the assault on other values, particularly the presumption of innocence in law and the protection of minorities, inspired rather less sympathy.

The very British right to grumble out loud produced an early skirmish in this conflict over liberties. Regulation 39BA, introduced in June 1940, made it a criminal offence, punishable by up to a month in prison, to circulate ‘any report or statement relating to matters connected with the war which is likely to cause alarm and despondency’. It was announced at the same moment the Ministry of Information launched a ‘Silent Column’ campaign that condemned spreading rumours and gossiping about the war effort. The government was not shy about using its new power. By late July there had been over seventy prosecutions. A tradesman in Yeovil was jailed for thirty days for saying ‘Hitler will be here in a month’. A Bristol septuagenarian earned himself a week in prison for claiming that the Swastika would soon fly over Parliament.

As the summer wore on, however, a press backlash caused the government to retreat. Churchill admitted to the Commons on 23 July that, however ‘well-meant’ it had been, Regulation 39BA had had the unfortunate effect of criminalising ‘silly vapourings which are best dealt with on the spur of the moment by verbal responses’. The Silent Column was put into what he called ‘innocuous desuetude’, and the Home Secretary was asked to review all ‘alarm and despondency’ convictions. To what extent the Order’s continued existence had a chilling effect on free expression is unknowable. (‘Best to pass no opinion these days,’ as one Briton was reported saying by Home Intelligence. ‘You might get hung.’) Could anyone be certain that that innocuous pollster or Mass Observer asking them questions about the war was not a government provocateur?

A more ominous issue came up in August, when the government sought to create special regulations to deal with a crisis in which heavy bombing or invasion had halted normal legal procedures in some parts of the country. It proposed the creation of regional ‘War Zone courts’, presided over by experienced judges and appointed by the lord chancellor. Although these would not be military tribunals or courts-martial, they would nonetheless have the power to impose death sentences without appeal. ‘If we are not shot by the Germans we are evidently going to be shot by our own people,’ one Briton commented on hearing the news. The proposal was attacked in the Commons as far too vague, considering its life-and-death stakes. The Home Secretary’s reassurance that such courts would only operate with the greatest restraint was condemned as feeble by the barrister and Liberal MP Frank Kingsley Griffith: ‘it is all very well for anybody to come before this House and say, “I have a Bill which entitles me to cut off your head, but I can assure you that I am only going to cut your toe nails.” ’ In the end, the government retreated and promised that all War Court sentences would be subject to appeal. They were, in the end, never used anyway.

The Home Office received enough popular pushback against both Regulation 39BA and the War Zone courts for it to moderate its plans on the grounds of civil liberty. There was much less public concern provoked by the mass incarceration without trial of British citizens, which began on the morning of 23 May with the arrest of Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists (BUF). Under Defence Regulation 18B, the Home Secretary could detain indefinitely anyone of ‘hostile origin or associations’ or who had recently committed ‘acts prejudicial to the public safety’. Anyone so interned had a right of appeal to an advisory committee, but they were not allowed to know who had recommended their arrest, or why.

Regulation 18B had existed since the outbreak of war but was only now applied with any seriousness. By July 1940 over 700 BUF members and fellow-travellers of the far right had been swept up, most to Brixton Prison (only a single Communist Party member, a Yorkshire shop steward accused of sabotaging workplace production, joined them).

Not great!