Excellent survey of Italian politics (with some economics and culture) 1945-2021. Foot makes convincing claim that political innovations in Italy--for good and ill--eventually propagate to rest of "the West" *including* the Anglosphere.
John Foot joins Long Reads for a discussion about Italy from the era of partisan resistance to the current predicament of "post-democracy"—and a resurgent right wing. John is professor of modern Italian history at the University of Bristol. His works include The Man Who Closed the Asylums: Franco Basaglia and the Revolution in Mental Health Care and The Archipelago: Italy Since 1945.
Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by Features Editor Daniel Finn.
What happens when the UK's Minister for International Development accidentally calls an inevitable war "unforeseeable"? We discuss Armando Iannucci's beloved political satire IN THE LOOP (2009) and what it says about the culture of spin in U.K. politics. PLUS: further developments in the Canadian trucker protest, and thoughts on that most important institution of all: the Oscars.
M-x Research (contact them for password): TBA https://m-x-research.github.io/ Tue Feb 15 0800 Vancouver / 1000 Chicago / 1100 Toronto / 1600 GMT / 1700 Berlin / 2130 Kolkata – Wed Feb 16 0000 Singapore
Emacs Berlin (virtual, in English) https://emacs-berlin.org/ Wed Feb 23 0930 Vancouver / 1130 Chicago / 1230 Toronto / 1730 GMT / 1830 Berlin / 2300 Kolkata – Thu Feb 24 0130 Singapore
Emacs APAC (virtual, in English) https://emacs-apac.gitlab.io/ Sat Feb 26 0030 Vancouver / 0230 Chicago / 0330 Toronto / 0830 GMT / 0930 Berlin / 1400 Kolkata / 1630 Singapore
Although Plain Org v1.2 has been in the App Store for a little while, the release write-up was overdue, sorry. The update receives some new features and bugfixes.
If you haven't heard of Plain Org, it gives ya access to your org files on iOS while away from your beloved Emacs.
If you're finding Plain Org useful, please help support this effort by getting the word out. Tell your friends, tweet, or blog about it.
Ok, now on to what's included in the v1.2 release…
Edit heading sections inline
v1.0 introduced outline editing (for headings only). In v1.2, we can also edit section content. Press the return
key multiple times to exit out section editing.
Filter by keyword/priority/tag
From the search dialog, you can now filter by keyboard, priority, and tag.
Render drawers and properties
Drawers are now rendered and can be expanded to view their content.
Open files via the Files app's "Share" sheet
From the Files app, you can now explicitly request launching files in Plain Org by using the "Share" menu.
Render LaTeX src blocks (experimental)
This one has its rough edges at the moment, so have to mark it experimental, but… you can can now render #+begin_src latex blocks.
Insert title/id in new files
New files created via Plain Org automatically get #+TITLE: and :ID: inserted by default as follows:
#+TITLE: My favorite title
:PROPERTIES:
:ID: 7C845D38-8D80-41B5-BEB1-94F673807355
:END:
UPDATE: Sorry, this feature currently has a bug. You may not get these values inserted into your new document. Working on a fix.
Adding new tags quicker
Add tags quicker via the new + button.
Enable/disable sticky tags
Keywords, indent, and tags are maintained when adding new headings via outline editing. If you prefer disabling sticky tags, this can now be disabled.
Improved navigation bar
v1.2 makes the navigation bar feel more at home on your iPhone. It uses a large title which scrolls into the navigation bar.
Bugfixes
Fix table rendering for iPad width.
Fix image's horizontal padding.
Fix adding new tags on new headings.
Fix snapshotting bug resulting in Syncthing conflicts.
Fix tapping menu after presenting other dialogs.
Filter out parenthesis in file-local keywords like TODO(t).
Commit pending inline changes if search is requested.
Fix opening local links inside tables.
Roundtrip whitespace in empty headings.
Roundtrip trailing whitespace when raw-editing heading content.
Tapping on body content should not toggle expansion.
+ both Krystal and Saagar are great on the Anglophone CFM and US military/foreign-policy Ukraine crisis- and warmongering.
+ KB's radar/monolog on how Corporate Democrats, esp Obama (who she rips mercilessly :-), are planning an UTTERLY DOOMED Trump- and Jan-6-centric strategy for the Nov 2022 US elections.
However, SE's radar/monolog (which is good in its recommendations--esp that US should publicly and in writing commit to NATO *excluding* Ukraine and Georgia) gets some key points about NATO history very wrong, notably:
- NATO (and its precursor and successor alliances) were *not* developed to "contain Soviet aggression" (not a direct quote from SE, but definitely a paraphrase). They were just more weapons for the Global Class War that intensified 1917-1990 (with a pragmatic, time-limited interval to fight fascism), along with Gladio, the ratlines, atomic bombing Japan, and all the other things the Anglophone-led empire introduced *during WW2*. NATO etc were not *reactions to* USSR policy, they were just rebooting the 1917-1940 phase of the Global Class War. (See, e.g., US, UK, and France behavior during the 1936-1939 assault on the Spanish Republic--which was a proxy war more than a Civil War, but I digress.)
- Bill Clinton (et al) did not simply decide to repurpose NATO for humanitarian interventions, as SE explicitly claims. US CorpDems were from the beginning totally sympathetic with US weapons contractors' need to "find a new enemy" in order to terminate the "peace dividend." CorpDems then decided that they could use R2P (and "looking tough," etc) to sell shitlibs on reflating military budgets. (Pro tip--US military has almost nothing to do with "defense," so DON'T call it that!)
Krystal and Saagar cover the latest Biden administration warmongering in Ukraine, Canada's escalation towards the Trucker convoy, Hillary's campaign operation to spy on Trump, the report Trump flushed White House documents down a toilet, CNN's deranged views on Joe Rogan, Obama's terrible midterm strategy for Dems, the real history of NATO, and Biden's decision to steal billions from Afghanistan.
2nd segment (and headlines): good. 1st segment (interview mostly with the woman formerly known as Eve Ensler) ... is DN! at not-quite-peak identity-cringe, and definitely skippable (though it gets better once "V" goes away)
Democracy Now! 2022-02-14 Monday
Headlines for February 14, 2022
V-Day to Earth Day: How Women in 70+ Countries Are Rising to End Violence Against Women & Our Planet
Climate & Punishment: How Incarcerated People Face Increasing Threat of Fires, Floods & Extreme Heat
all 3 segments EXCELLENT, esp 3rd on Israel's attempt to takeover South Africa's dairy industry. Israel's Milco bought SA-flagship Clover, and is now doing layoffs and cutbacks, plus moving Clover's operations from the logical/lower-cost interior to more-expensive coastal cities ... from where it would be sooo much easier to just import Israel-subsidized dairy ... coincidentally grazed on land stolen from Palestine !-( Of course, US mass-oriented corporate-funded media will provide coverage ~= 0 on this, much less pushback from SA unions or global BDS movement.
all 3 segs EXCELLENT, esp 1st on Wyden-Heinrich disclosures (just a redacted copy of what they initially protested to the CIA and DCI in *April 2021*) on CIA's bulk-collection spying on US citizens. Note this is NOT just a repeat of the NSA abuses Snowden exposed--new agency, but more importantly, claiming new/older legal authority. Of course, the "FISA court" remains a joke.
Who doesn’t love a great dating story? True Dating Stories offers real dating stories — told by the people who lived them. In this episode, a romantic evening of Yahtzee for two is all fine until the helicopters appear. More episodes are available at: smarturl.it/truedatingstories
After 5-and-a-half series, 44 episodes and 714 days, The News Quiz welcomes a live studio audience once again.
Recorded at the BBC Radio Theatre, this week Andy Zaltzman was joined by Mark Steel, Athena Kugblenu, Hugo Rifkind and Jackie Weaver to look at NHS backlogs, the end of all COVID restrictions in England, a minor reshuffle and a major scientific breakthrough.
Hosted by Andy Zaltzman
Chairs script by Andy Zaltzman
Additional Material from Alice Fraser, Alex Kealy, Eleri Morgan and Rajiv Karia
Production Co-ordinator: Katie Baum
Sound Editor: Marc Willcox
The Producer is Gwyn Rhys Davies, and it is a BBC Studios Production.
VERY EXCELLENT ep with Matt, Will, and guest, mostly on Canada, Ukraine, and their intersection, inc:
- Freedom Convoy trucker protest is NOT working-class movement, despite the fact that ... - ... US and Canadian shitlibs want a violent backlash (yes, Matt Yglesias /did/ call for the US Marines to attack!) - UK (whose inbred elites are increasingly ridiculous) and US (less inbred, more dangerous) are creating the "Ukraine crisis," which actual Ukrainians reject - western-backed Ukrainians are corrupt "granteaters" - Ukrainian oligarchs (esp Kolomoysky) run scams and launder money with US real estate - Canadian Liberals esp Chrystia Freeland backs actual Nazis and corrupt oligarchs esp Poroshenko - literally Brookings-backed Jewish Yale-y neocon James Kirchick hates being called a warmonger while literally mongering wars for a living
Sr. Canada-Ukraine correspondent Dan Boeckner returns to update us on Canada’s trucker convoy issue as well as their new Queen Romana. Then we turn to Ukraine, discussing the ongoing tensions in the region, as well as how Ukrainian style corruption is working it’s way into the industrial midwest. Finally, a reading series from and old friend reminding folx to be considerate and refrain from using the w*rm*nger slur.
VERY EXCELLENT (and funny!), esp regarding laughable Anglophone CFM and social-media and corporate-funded media attacks on PRC, esp on
- athletes, esp migrants, esp Gu Ailing aka Eileen Gu - claims of Uyghur genocide - infrastructure development in and outside China (the "slow train" bit is really odd)
With a diplomatic boycott by Western governments, corporate media propaganda has demonized China over the 2022 Winter Olympics. Britain's Financial Times openly declared, "Beijing Winter Olympics: the new front line in the US-China cold war." Actual China expert Carl Zha joins Multipolarista to pick apart the propaganda and explain what's really happening.
EXCELLENT Felix-only ep with guest (and occasional contributor--Biederman does tend to take all available air :-) Hasan Piker on the 2011 Showtime series 'Homeland', the making of modern middlebrow TV, and the development of post-911 natseclib propaganda in the Obama Years.
Felix is joined by Hasan Piker to discuss the 2011 Showtime series “Homeland”
In order to survive, plant life relies on exchanges with the atmosphere. These exchanges are particularly complex in forests where they are affected by a variety of microbes and animals and are further complicated by human interaction with the environment. A new article published in Reviews of Geophysicspresents recent developments in our understanding of forest-atmosphere exchange. We asked the authors about advances in our understanding of forest-atmosphere exchange and what is still unknown.
What is “forest-atmosphere exchange”?
Forests are landscapes dominated by trees. “Forest-atmosphere exchange” is a catch-all phrase referring to the exchange of “stuff” (specifically, mass, momentum, and energy) between the atmosphere and the trees, other plants, and soil in these landscapes. For example, trees draw carbon dioxide from the air and release water vapor, oxygen, pollen, and a variety of organic compounds.
Forests also exchange huge quantities of heat with the atmosphere, both directly through the sensible heating and cooling of leaves and indirectly as latent heat passing to the atmosphere when water vapor is released.
Forest-atmosphere exchanges have important effects on our weather, climate, and how the whole Earth works as an interconnected system.
The microbes, fungi, and animals living in forests further add to the quantity and variety of exchanges.
Forest-atmosphere exchanges are vital to forests’ physiology and ecology. The exchanges also have important effects on our weather, climate, and how the whole Earth works as an interconnected system.
What tools do researchers use to understand forest-atmosphere exchange?
The three traditional pillars of research for forest-atmosphere exchange are field observations, mathematical theory, and physical scale-models. Many of these techniques were developed to answer applied questions in forestry and agriculture or are extensions of more general fluid flow theory.
By the 1970s and 1980s the development of better sensors and a robust theoretical framework allowed researchers to get at more fundamental aspects of forest-atmosphere exchanges, such as their role in cycling essential nutrients.
With the subsequent advent of high-performance computers, numerical modeling now provides a fourth pillar in the investigation of forest-atmosphere exchange.
At larger time and space scales, remote sensing (from satellites, drones, or tall towers) can infer some aspects of forest–atmosphere exchange, typically through indirect measures such as canopy greenness or changes in atmospheric composition.
How does forest-atmosphere exchange vary between different types of forests and on different scales?
Forest-atmosphere exchanges span time and space scales from milliseconds and millimeters, such as when gases diffuse through a leaf’s stomata, to scales measured in decades and continents, such as when considering the impact of deforestation on the Earth’s atmosphere. There is no single correct scale at which to view these exchanges.
Our study focuses on exchanges happening over tens of centimeters up to one kilometer, and over times from one second to tens of minutes. Our key message is that the real-world structure of forests really matters for forest-atmosphere exchange. Real forests are patchy and that greatly affects their aerodynamics. For example, the aerodynamics of forest edges dominate patches as large as 120 hectares (roughly equivalent to the size of 170 soccer pitches!). Real forests edges are also filled with low branches and tall woody shrubs, presenting a green wall to the wind, rather than the set of lollipop-like trees seen in many models. Lastly, we argue measurements and models should encompass a wider range of forest densities. This is important because the flow around forests can be counter intuitive; for example, the wind penetrates deeper into a patchy forest canopy when it is in leaf.
How do different human activities affect forest-atmosphere exchange?
Almost everything human beings can do in or to a forest can affect forest-atmosphere exchange. Even simply walking through a forest can affect microbial activity and therefore the amount of CO2 exchanged. Of course, some activities have larger potential impacts than others.
We are only beginning to unravel the large-scale impact of many human activities on forest-atmosphere exchange.
Globally, over the past few decades, forests have become increasingly fragmented. Only about half of the world’s remaining forest area lies more than 500 meters from the nearest edge. This fragmentation affects forest-atmosphere exchange because edges differ from the forest interior in their local climates and the habitats they provide.
We are only beginning to unravel the large-scale impact of many human activities on forest-atmosphere exchange. For example, what is the net effect of increasing atmospheric CO2 on the world’s forests? Research on immature trees shows some evidence of a “greening” effect, with more vigorous growth under elevated CO2. The response of mature ecosystems is less well understood— elevated CO2increases carbon uptake by photosynthesis but does it increase the long-term carbon storage, or do other factors, such as nutrient availability, limit biomass growth and therefore carbon capture?
To what extent do current computer models capture the realism of forest-atmosphere exchange?
There is a perpetual tradeoff in computer modeling between scale and resolution. Generally, we can make models more realistic when considering smaller distances and shorter times, but we are forced to sacrifice detail at larger scales. This tradeoff is particularly relevant to weather and climate simulations because of the extreme computational expense of simulating air movement. Despite the prevalence and importance of forests, most forest-atmosphere interactions must be reduced to coarse approximations to be included in these models, if they are included at all.
At the scales of time and space we discuss in our review, advances in non-destructive scanning techniques, computing power, and theory are poised to allow researchers to investigate forest-atmosphere exchange at real sites, using models capable of resolving turbulence. These models are potentially powerful tools to study smaller-scale processes, and to improve the realism of the parametrizations in the larger-scale models that inform policy and commerce.
What are some of the broader scientific and societal applications of a better understanding of forest-atmosphere exchange?
A better understanding of forest-atmosphere exchange could improve weather forecasts and climate simulations, and therefore generate more informed policy and commercial decisions based on those models.
A better understanding of forest-atmosphere exchange could improve weather forecasts and climate simulations, and therefore generate more informed policy and commercial decisions based on those models. For example, the most recent versions of Earth-system models allow researchers to simulate how vegetation responds to environmental change, such as damage from tropospheric ozone.
Other applications include the risk management industry. Large insurers and specialist agencies constantly update their probabilistic models to help manage the impact of catastrophic weather events on forestry and agriculture, whose resulting annual losses in Europe alone amount to billions of US dollars. A better understanding of forest-atmosphere exchange could help us use money and resources more effectively in large-scale tree planting schemes, and so reduce the impact of human activity on our climate and the living world.
Storm damage to trees in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, Italy after Storm Vaia/Adrian (October 2018). Credit: Naturpuur (CC BY 4.0)
What are some of the unresolved questions where additional research, data, or modeling are needed?
Many questions remain when considering different scales of time and space. Taking just the ecosystem scale that we discuss, outstanding research areas include:
improving our understanding of how water vapor and CO2 move through the forest
targeted observations of the actual exchange of gases and particles, particularly around forest edges
how best to allocate computing resources for weather, climate, and Earth-system studies
improving our understanding of exchange at night and during low winds
developing statistical approximations of forest-atmosphere exchange that can be used in larger models.
Editor’s Note: It is the policy of AGU Publications to invite the authors of articles published in Reviews of Geophysics to write a summary for Eos Editors’ Vox.
Citation: MacKenzie, A. R. and E. J. Bannister (2022), Modeling forest-atmosphere exchange, Eos, 103, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EO225008. Published on 11 February 2022.
This article does not represent the opinion of AGU, Eos, or any of its affiliates. It is solely the opinion of the author.
pullquotes: > we are told as a matter of fact that a globalized world leads to a larger wage premium for more educated workers. This is undoubtedly true when the people designing the course of globalization deliberately structured it to put less-educated workers in rich countries in direct competition with low-paid workers in the developing world. It would likely not be true if globalization had been designed to put doctors, dentists, lawyers, and other highly paid professionals in direct competition with their lower paid counterparts in the developing world.
> it is a lie to claim that the neoliberal ideology described by [[Hartwich, Becker, and Haslam 2021](https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12438)] is one that holds that economies and societies should be organized along the principles of the free market. In fact, the ideology is consistent with all sorts of government interventions that have the effect of redistributing income upward.
> Edsall’s piece does a very good job laying out evidence that US trade policy has been a major factor in breeding the resentments that have led to the rise of Trump and support for racist and authoritarian policies more generally. But a key feature missing from this discussion is the fact that the worsening of the plight of non-college educated workers, to the benefit of more educated workers, was by design. [...] Perhaps one factor in the resentment of white non-college educated workers is that they are repeatedly lied to about the causes of their relative decline in well-being. It might be good if it was more generally acknowledged that they are faring more poorly because we structured policy so that they would fare more poorly. In other words, it was not something that just happened, it was something the elites did to them.
We all know about the Trumpers’ big lie: somehow millions of votes were stolen from their hero, but the liberals were so smart in their steal that Trump’s team can’t produce any evidence. That one rightly draws contempt from anyone not in the cult, but what about the big lie that the vast majority of intellectuals seem to accept?
Regular readers know what I am talking about. The big lie is that the massive rise in inequality over the last four decades was somehow the result of the natural workings of the market. The standard position among policy types is that the rise in inequality was simply the result of the development of technology and the process of globalization.
We saw this view on full display in a generally interesting column in today’s NYT by Thomas Edsall. The piece looks at the growth in support for Trump, and right-wing populism more generally, among non-college educated white workers. It cites a number of academics who identify this development as a result of being left behind by economic developments, while Blacks and other minorities are perceived as having increased opportunities.
The key point, that is repeatedly misrepresented in this piece, is that the harm to the working-class in the last four decades was the result of deliberate policy, not something that just happened. For example, the first quote from an academic tells readers:
“Education has emerged as a clear cleavage in addition to more traditional indicators of social class. The highly educated fare better in a more globalized world that puts a premium on human capital.”
Note that we are told as a matter of fact that a globalized world leads to a larger wage premium for more educated workers. This is undoubtedly true when the people designing the course of globalization deliberately structured it to put less-educated workers in rich countries in direct competition with low-paid workers in the developing world.
It would likely not be true if globalization had been designed to put doctors, dentists, lawyers, and other highly paid professionals in direct competition with their lower paid counterparts in the developing world. (Yes, we can have testing requirements to ensure they meet rich countries’ standards. Even elites are smart enough to design mechanisms for accomplishing this task.)[1] In other words, we are given as a fact that globalization had to hurt less-educated workers, as opposed to this outcome being a policy choice by the people who crafted trade agreements over the last four decades.
We get another repetition of the big lie a little further down when Edsall discusses the work of Lee Hartwich, Julia C. Becker, and S. Alexander Haslam which finds that neoliberalism can “reduce well-being by promoting a sense of social disconnection, competition, and loneliness.”
It warns of these harms from exposure to neoliberal ideology, which according to Edsall, “they describe as the belief that ‘economies and societies should be organized along the principles of the free market.’”
Edsall is writing this in the middle of a pandemic which has created dozens of billionaires because of government-granted patent monopolies on vaccines, treatments, and other items needed to combat the pandemic, even as millions lost their jobs and struggled with illness.
These government-granted monopolies are antithetical to a free market. They are a government policy to promote innovation, and arguably a verypoorone in the case of the pandemic. But the more basic point is that it is a lie to claim that the neoliberal ideology described by Hartwich, Becker, and Haslam is one that holds that economies and societies should be organized along the principles of the free market. In fact, the ideology is consistent with all sorts of government interventions that have the effect of redistributing income upward.
On the whole, Edsall’s piece does a very good job laying out evidence that US trade policy has been a major factor in breeding the resentments that have led to the rise of Trump and support for racist and authoritarian policies more generally. But a key feature missing from this discussion is the fact that the worsening of the plight of non-college educated workers, to the benefit of more educated workers, was by design. There was nothing inherent to the logic of globalization or development of technology that led to this outcome.
Perhaps one factor in the resentment of white non-college educated workers is that they are repeatedly lied to about the causes of their relative decline in well-being. It might be good if it was more generally acknowledged that they are faring more poorly because we structured policy so that they would fare more poorly. In other words, it was not something that just happened, it was something the elites did to them.
[1] To preempt an obvious complaint, this need not be a brain drain story where the most educated workers leave developing countries. We can design mechanisms where rich countries share their gains by paying to educate two or three professionals for every one that arrives from a developing country. As it stands, many professionals from developing countries already move to rich countries, but there is no compensation.
EXCELLENT: Puryear makes the case against James Earl Ray as *lone* killer very well. Spoiler: JER pretty clearly had assistance from people with Real Power (tm).
Who actually killed Martin Luther King Jr? The answer may surprise you. Author, journalist and activist Eugene Puryear fills us in. Eugene Puryear is the author of "Shackled and Chained: Mass Incarceration in Capitalist America," a journalist at Breakthrough News and the host of the Punch Out podcast.
Hear our patreon-only chat with Eugene about the latest in Ethiopia, what he learned when he went there, his father's role in the Civil Rights Movement, and the worst Happy MLK tweets here https://www.patreon.com/posts/patreon-with-khs-61390129
VERY EXCELLENT, esp the 2nd half (more like 2/3) with BJG
Katie Halper, Briahna Joy Gray and historian Daniel Bessner break down Whoopi Goldberg's recent comments about the Holocaust, Jews, race and more as well as her non-apology, which actually raises some interesting questions about race, racism, identity politics and more.
Daniel Bessner is the co-host of the American Prestige podcast and Hanauer Honors Associate Professor of History at the University of Washington.
Briahna Joy Gray co-hosts the podcast Bad Faith, she is the former National Press Secretary for Bernie Sanders, as well as the former Senior Politics Editor for The Intercept.
VERY EXCELLENT episode on 5-6 Feb 2022 AU meeting, and on how African polities and the African Union are becoming less reliant on US-led neoliberal empire, and multipolarizing with Russia and PRC. Esp good on differential US/NATO treatment of multiple recent (and past) coups.
worth a listen, but totally fails to discuss 3 of 4 groups of 'undesirables' on which Pétain's 'Révolution nationale' focused. Long discussion about Jews/Holocaust, no mention of foreigners/immigrants, Freemasons, and Communists. To be precise: * the words 'Communist' or 'socialist' (or any variant) are only uttered *once* each, and then in the context of discussing French antisemitism! It's as if there was no class war involved ...) * Freemasons or anticlericalism are never mentioned, nor IIRC is the RN's hardcore Catholicism * the only mention of foreigners or immigrants is Romas/Sintis, once.
Shannon Fogg answers listener questions on the collaborationist regime created following France’s defeat by Nazi Germany
In the latest episode in our series on history’s biggest topics, Professor Shannon Fogg answers listener questions on the collaborationist French regime that was created following the country’s defeat by Nazi Germany. In conversation with Rob Attar, she examines the origins of Vichy France, explores its relationship with Nazi Germany and reveals what life was like for those who lived under Vichy rule.
VERY EXCELLENT: episode#=600 is consistently entertaining and (not usually a CTH strength) focused on the 'Wolf Warrior' movies, the evolution of genre='big-budget, blockbuster action movie' in US and PRC, and reflections on their global competition in culture, geopolitics, and swag.
We ring in our 600th episode by taking our movie reviews international. We watched Wolf Warrior (2015) and Wolf Warrior II (2017), two entries in the emerging genre of Chinese action blockbusters. What can these films tell us about the new Chinese century? Does belt and road translate to the cinema? Can Xi thought defeat the neoliberlized menace of CGI blood and lead to the return of true action filmmaking? Is it based to get silly with your homies? All these answers and more await you.
Tickets going fast for our southern tour, get yours here: chapotraphouse.com/live
TODO: integrate this! pullquotes > pocket-reader.el [allows] you to read Pocket articles on Emacs. > I can [also] save an elfeed entry to pocket, and read it later like any other web articles.
I found this gem:
pocket-reader.el. It is
one of those low-key packages that just works.
Kudos to alphapapa!
pocket-reader.el does
what it says: It allows you to read Pocket articles on Emacs. If you use
Firefox, it's handy because Pocket is built in on
Firefox.
All you have to do is sign up a Pocket account and authorize
pocket-read.el.
Then you are just a button click away from saving articles and reading
them later.
It feels liberating for me to know that an app remembers the interesting
long-form writings, and I can come back any time in the future,
on Emacs!
What's interesting is,
pocket-reader.el
integrates well with
elfeed,
as I can save an elfeed entry to pocket, and read it later like any
other web articles.
EXCELLENT! not particularly funny (nor is there any 'Patagonian gaucho' contrary to the shownotes), but Owens crafts and tells his light and lighthearted stories (of which this is just one--he's basically the BBC's 21c Welshman) as well as anyone active today.
In 1978 a Japanese film crew came to 11-year-old Tudur Owen’s farm on Anglesey to make a programme about his life for a TV show called Children of the World. Then a Patagonian gaucho turned up. As did a man claiming to be a geology student called Hector. But were they all what they seemed?
Written and narrated by Tudur Owen with additional voices from Lisa-Jên Brown, Richard Harrington, Gwenno Hodgkins and Yuriko Kotani.
Script editor: Gareth Gwynn
Production co-ordinator: Katie Baum
Sound design: David Thomas
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production
MU episode# 304 is VERY EXCELLENT despite not much politics (Luke riffs on socialism and human development briefly and well) or banter (not comedic, anyway--Will talks about his parents recent deaths) ... but, hey, when you're doing Bergman it better be all about the movie. Been a while (OK, decades) since I saw 'Cries and Whispers' (or, Bergman says in the trailer which W&S helpfully provide, 'Whispers and Cries') and now I gotta see it again ...
We discuss one of the least sentimental films about death and family, Ingmar Bergman's CRIES AND WHISPERS (1972), and provide a possible political reading of Sweden's most famous auteur. Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.
Mainstream human rights organization Amnesty International has come out publicly and said that "Israeli authorities must be held accountable for committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians," and that Israel's "cruel system of domination" amounts to a "crime against humanity."
We discuss this report with Ali Abunimah, journalist and editor of the Electronic Intifada.
Plus: most consistently-good episode in awhile. Minus: vanden Heuvel's arguments are increasingly incoherent (not that she's usually wrong, but her statements increasingly don't follow logically), and her interview seemed more-than-usually truncated. (Yeah, this is a "the food is bad and there's not enough" pitch :-)
There is only one truly bipartisan issue in the United States Congress these days: increasing military spending. Every year it passes, and every year we spend trillions of dollars on weapons and soldiers. Money that could be spent on education, homelessness, and infrastructure all goes to the war chest.
The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel joins the Useful Idiots to warn of the dangers of the US escalating tensions with Russia over Ukraine.
It’s not about helping Ukraine, she explains. It’s about money and power.
We’re at war to show that NATO matters. We’re at war to save Biden’s sinking poll ratings. We’re at war so politicians, lobbyists, and pundits can make money.
“That is not a good reason for a soldier to be away from his family. They’re being used for symbolic fodder.”
And while anti-war groups are speaking up to stop this, mainstream media is a lot louder. CNN, Fox News, and the New York Times are helping shape the propagandist narrative that a Russian invasion is imminent and US troops and weapons are needed to stop it.
So don’t listen to them. Let’s find the facts and figure out for ourselves: are there peaceful solutions?
Plus, attempted cancellations of Joe Rogan and Whoopi Goldberg, Trump’s biggest protest this country has ever seen, and please, don’t inject stuff into your penis.
It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.
And stay tuned for the full interview with Katrina vanden Heuvel on Monday at 7am.
This Chapo Trap House episode is Matt Christman only, so no bants, and indeed not much humor aside from the grimness of humanity. It's very much "MC does US history," and particularly the history of the Mormons (aka LDS Church aka CJCLDS) from the 1844 death of Joseph Smith Jr (1805-1844, and yes, JS was the son of Joseph Smith Sr) to "the present day" (presumably not long before its 4 Feb 2022 release). (This is part 2 of 2 on Mormon history, so TODO: get part 1 of 2, episode 557 per the show notes.) The thesis seems to be that, over this period,
1. The Mormons attempted to flee (1844-1849) from US state violence and market capitalism to the Salt Lake valley, which was then at the very northern edge of Mexico. Unfortunately, ... 2. After 1848, Utah Territory was inextricably part of the US state from which they fled. Nevertheless, the Mormons attempted (c1848-c1870) to build a well-separated society and polity with an autarchic cooperative economy, against (esp during the Utah War 1857-1858) though within the US state and its hegemonic market ideology. 3. As individual Mormons became more economically successful, increasingly the community turned away from collectivity and toward integration into the US state and economy. Instead they differentiated themselves via their doctrine (esp the Mormon Reformation) and practice, esp (c1870-c1900) polygamy. Christman emphasizes that polygamy was from early in LDS history at least ideologically important as a collective-welfare institution that was only slowly abandoned by the mainstream LDS (though it continues in Smith-fundamentalist split-off sects, which have not disappeared and MC suggests are growing). 4. As Mormons and Utah continued to prosper economically c1900-c1950, the LDS leadership continued to modernize doctrinally so as to harmonize with hegemonic US ideologies (e.g., historical progress, positive-thinking individualism). Christman points to the theology of James Talmage (1862-1933), and the extent to which Utah politics mirrored that of the larger US (esp the New Deal) through c1945. 5. After WW2, LDS leadership definitely (and LDS membership mostly) abandoned the post-New-Deal social and economic consensus, instead doubling-down on anti-communism specifically and the "culture war" (avant la lettre) generally. Christman particularly emphasizes the work of Cleon Skousen (1913-2006) as critical to the Mormon hard-right turn. (IIUC, MC goes a bit overboard regarding the influence of Skousen, who (IIUC) was quite a marginal and controversial figure in LDS politics. But MC is convincing in arguing CS as an ideological predecessor of QAnon and Q-adjacent political figures today.) The LDS does seem to place great importance in its missionary program, however, so when anti-black elements of its theology (dicey in their time--MC discusses how the LDS went back-and-forth on slavery and white supremacy) became inconvenient to proselytizing in the non-white world (and in the post-1965 US), "Mormon prophecy" once again produced a convenient revelation: in this case, a 1978 affirmation of non-white humanity. 6. Christman ends with an emphasis on Mormon integration into today's US plutocratic-socialist economy (USPSE), and celebration of the hegemonic US capitalist ideology; the LDS hits historic highs in follower count just as the US economy seems failing-and-flailing, and trust and faith in the institutions underlying the USPSE hit record lows. It's too long to discuss in detail here, so I'll just point to his discussion of multilevel marketing (MLMs) in Utah's economy today.
Continuing from episode 557 - Mormons, pt. 1, Matt guides us through the history of the Mormons after the death of Joseph Smith. We continue to track how the development of Mormonism reflects and refracts the development of American capitalism.
Tickets for our upcoming southern live shows at: chapotraphouse.com/live
Andy Zaltzman is joined by Elis James, Ola Labib, Zoe Lyons and Ed Balls to give an un-redacted update on the week’s news.
The panel look at Partygate and Johnson's precarious position in No.10, find out what the Levelling Up whitepaper can teach us about the birth of civilisation, and discover how little we know about trees.
Hosted by Andy Zaltzman
Chairs script by Andy Zaltzman
Additional Material from Alice Fraser, Benjamin Partridge, Ray Badran and Tasha Dhanraj
Production Co-ordinator: Katie Baum
Sound Editor: Marc Willcox
The Producer is Gwyn Rhys Davies, and it is a BBC Studios Production.
Andy Zaltzman and the News Quiz satirise the week's news from the UK and beyond.
This week Andy is joined by Nish Kumar, Rachel Fairburn, Neil Delamere and Isabel Hardman. They try to make sense of a week of war mongering and cake ambushes.
Chair's Script: Written by Andy Zaltzman
Additional Material: Written by Alice Fraser, Heidi Regan, Rhiannon Shaw and Tasha Dhanraj.
Production Coordinator: Katie Baum
Sound Editor: Marc Willcox
Producer: James Robinson
rerun from 2019 Accent on Toronto, but excellent lowkey funny, ends with a few minutes of Simon Rakoff
Recorded at Accent on Toronto, Dave Hemstad shines HIS spotlight on first class travel and cruise ships - but at the risk of getting too fancy, he also dives into some semi-illegal parking, spooning and contraband...socks!
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