by no means a comprehensive review of NBA 2023, but gives what's "on the tin": "A Trip Around the NBA" inc Lebron, Nuggets (esp Jokic), 76ers, Kings, Mavericks
When LeBron James passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar this winter as the NBA's all-time leading scorer, will James also become the league's final all-time leading scorer? Are the Denver Nuggets & Philadelphia 76ers good enough outside their MVP-level centers to win a title? What theological truths can one tease out from the resurrection of the Sacramento Kings? How long can Luka Dončić abide Dallas making mistake after mistake around him? All this & more with Ian Levy, FanSided creative editorial direction and NBA aficionado.
mostly bant (excepting extensive crushing of police pseudoscience), quite entertaining
We get a taste of the old Trump magic through his beautiful eulogy for one of his most loyal supporters, the wonderful Diamond. Then, we check in with America’s police forces through a(nother) unhinged new Sheriffs movement, and a cop who claims to to be able to discern 911 callers’ guilt through the tone of their voices. Finally, it’s time for a little Game of Thrones theory. Get bonus content on Patreon
Stevie Martin, Rachel Fairburn and Johnny Cochrane ask how super the superhero really is. Is the caped crusader the sexiest superhero of all? Or a weirdo in a cave who makes it all worse, actually?
Producer: Beth O’Dea
Evil Genius with Russell Kane is a BBC Audio Bristol production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.
Another set of quite bad takes (though not as bad as most of Anglophone CFM) from Anatol Lieven @ QIRS (and Late Night Live host Philip Adams), recorded for posterity (not quality). Following ~chronological in audio:
- Russia's invasion of (i.e., NATO proxy war in) Ukraine (aka /RUW/) is currently in stalemate, with surprising AFU successes ----- some of this alleged success is allegedly due to weapons technology favoring defense, such as --------- UK Javelins that supposedly have destroyed masses of AFRF tanks --------- US Stingers that supposedly have destroyed masses of AFRF aircraft - current NATO tank/MBT imbroglio (since before F 20 Jan 2023 meeting at Ramstein) is mostly due to ----- non-US suppliers willing to give up their entire tank forces to Ukraine ----- US claims Abrams unsuited for AFU (but Lieven suggests, US also fears escalation) ----- Germany also fears AFRF escalation after the AFU breakouts (e.g., blowing through Kherson and Zaporizhia to attack Crimea) that Lieven seems to believe would ensue if the AFU got Leopard 2 MBTs ----- to his credit, Lieven states not only that --------- Russia qua Putin, but also Russians=public opinion and Crimeans themselves consider Crimea to be part of Russia (which Lieven notes was only transferred by the USSR to Ukraine in 1954) --------- (extra credit to Lieven, best part of this interview) just as US nuclear doctrine prescribes a nuclear response for an attack on Hawaii, Russian nuclear doctrine prescribes a nuclear response for an attack on Crimea - Lieven and Adams hope for a ceasefire; Lieven points out that ceasefires can be stable and not - Lieven (IIRC prompted by Adams) points out that US-NATO goals are quite unclear ----- Lieven fails to note US advocacy for 'decolonizing Russia' - despite yet again flaunting his 'Putin Derangement Syndrome', Adams points out that, if Putin is overthrown, it will probably be by an even more extreme Russian nationalist ----- Lieven agrees that Putin is popular, though he ascribes this to massive propaganda (unlike what UKCFM and the BBC are doing in Lieven's home=UK) ----- Lieven agrees (and does /not/ (IIRC) ascribe to massive propaganda) that nationalism is a powerful and popular force in Russian public opinion ----- Lieven concurs that Putin is unlikely to be overthrown, but if so would only be by an even more extreme nationalist, but ... ----- Lieven claims that --------- RUW must end with negotiated settlement such that both sides can claim victory --------- /should/ Putin be overthrown, having 'his head nailed to the wall' (IIRC exact quote) would allow US-NATO to claim victory --------- ... which seems senseless, given that Lieven admits that Putin's replacement would be even more nationalist, but that's not the only thing Lieven says in this interview that makes little sense - Lieven claims that the PRC is a 'disapproving' ally of Russia ----- Lieven admits that PRC (and India) continue to violate sanctions to purchase Russian products, but downplays (massively increasing) trade ----- Lieven claims PRC has not given military support to AFRF (which appears false, at least with regard to optoelectronics) ----- Lieven suggests PRC is contemptuous of alleged AFRF battlefield losses ----- Lieven admits that 'China experts' state that, should US-NATO appear to be threatening to resubjugate (à la Yeltsin) or breakup (à la 'decolonization') Russia, PRC PLA would massively intervene to assist AFRF - in an unintentionally hilarious coda, Lieven and Adams call for ... US rationality :-)
As the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine looms, we take stock of the current state of the war, what might happen on the battlefield, shifting sentiments in Russia and how a protracted war might be avoided.
Guest:
Anatol Lieven - Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
skip the 1st/Galoni set, go straight to 16:17 for the 2nd/Martinello set (which starts weak but gets funnier)
From the Okanagan Comedy Festival, Mayce Galoni demands more credibility from the UGO seeing community, and Danny Martinello teaches us how to recognize the people who've worked on themselves, It involves soda cans!
VERY EXCELLENT (and unexpectedly funny!) interview (mostly Will and Felix, few Matt interjections) on Palestine, Israel, US (and a bit on Persian Gulf states) inc (mostly chronologically in the audio):
- Israel's crimes pre-Netanyahu, and the fakeness of 2023 liberal-Zionist outrage over new Israeli government as somehow a Trump-style break with a proud tradition - Israel (as state) and Israeli racism, esp ----- settlement policies ----- Netanyahu government members, esp Ben-Gvir (esp his crimes and criminal sympathies) ----- Israeli racism most pronounced among Mizrahim (they say 'Sephardic', but from context I suspect they mean 'Mizrahi') - increasing global solidarity with Palestine (esp at 2022 World Cup) - Abu Akleh murder, esp its referral to ICC - US domestic politics ----- increasing opposition to Israel policies esp US youth esp Jews ----- increasing realization of that growing opposition (and ineffectiveness of overcoming that opposition) among US liberal Zionists esp Corporate Democrats ----- ... yet Corporate Party continues to cling to Israel (and 'Abraham Accord' "allies") - Palestine Authority as increasingly ineffective Judenrat and compradors - effective Palestinian resistance, esp violent ----- Gaza, esp rocket development ----- West Bank esp Nablus and "Lion's Den"
We’re joined by AJ+ journalist Mohammad Alsaafin to discuss the newly formed Israeli government, the state of Palestinian resistance, and of course, Mideast politics vis-à-vis the recent World Cup.
My theme has a concept of the side-note and the margin-note.
A few years ago, I moved away from Tufte’s preferred fonts, instead letting folks’s browsers determine the font.
The margin-note is for general “scribbling” in the margins. And the side-note is analogues to an inline footnote.
Up until I leveraged Ox-Hugo’s shortcode customizations to handle both. , I wrote the below function to replace Ox-Hugo 📖’s export function for footnotes.
(defun jf/org-hugo-sidenote (footnote-reference _contents info)
"Transcode a FOOTNOTE-REFERENCE element from Org to Hugo sidenote shortcode.
CONTENTS is nil. INFO is a plist holding contextual information."
(let* ((element (car (org-export-get-footnote-definition footnote-reference info)))
(beg (org-element-property :contents-begin element))
(end (org-element-property :contents-end element)))
(format "{{< sidenote >}}%s{{< /sidenote >}}"
(s-trim (buffer-substring-no-properties beg end)))))
;; Over-write the custom blackfriday export for footnote links.
(advice-add #'org-blackfriday-footnote-reference
:override #'jf/org-hugo-sidenote
'((name . "wrapper")))
;; Don't render the section for export
(advice-add #'org-blackfriday-footnote-section
:override (lambda (&rest rest) ())
'((name . "wrapper")))
With the above function and advice all Org-mode exports, except to my blog, the footnotes retain their original export behavior. I definitely prefer to utilize as much of the native functionality as possible.
President of Intercept Brazil Andrew Fishman & Jacobin columnist Branko Marcetic join Briahna for a deep dive into Brazil's version of 1/6. Was it, in fact, a legitimate coup attempt? And what role did social media play in the storming of Brazil's capital? Then we pivot to a philosophical conversation about the role Brazil's speech laws, which allow for many more constraints on speech than our own first amendment does, are a better match for a country that has recently experienced an actual military coup. Is the commitment to free speech absolutism so common in America a product of political naivety in a country that's never really experienced the full potential consequences of home grown fascism? Does the first amendment provide protections that sincerely protect minority views, or does it just create the perception that speech is free at the same time that tech platforms, news papers owned by billionaires, and corporate campaign spending neuter dissident voices? Are Glenn Greenwald's criticisms of limitations on speech occurring in Brazil overly reliant on a US lens/speech framework? Or is there a there there?
The teaching profession is in the worst shape of the past 50 years. That’s according to researchers Melissa Arnold Lyon and Matthew Kraft, who crunched a half century’s worth of data on indicators like whether students want to go into teaching, the prestige of teachers, and the job satisfaction of teachers themselves. What emerged were some striking historical patterns and a clear warning about the state of the teaching profession.
The financial support of listeners like you keeps this podcast going. Subscribe on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/HaveYouHeardPodcast or donate on PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/haveyouheardpodcast
VERY EXCELLENT--very important for understanding Obama foreign/military policy, as well as the US deepstate's casual, sociopathic murderousness. pullquote: > New York Times columnist James Reston soon wrote [unfortunately paywalled] [about these events](https://www.nytimes.com/1966/06/19/archives/washington-a-gleam-of-light-in-asia.html) under the headline “A Gleam of Light in Asia.” Americans needed to understand these “hopeful political developments,” including the fact that the “Indonesian massacre” could not have occurred “without the clandestine aid [Indonesia] has received indirectly from [the US].” Recently declassified records illustrate [just how right Reston was](https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/indonesia/2017-10-17/indonesia-mass-murder-1965-us-embassy-files).
Joko Widodo, the president of Indonesia, expressed regret on Wednesday about 12 instances of “gross human rights violations” over the past decades of the nation’s history — including an extraordinary U.S.-backed bloodbath carried out by the Indonesian military following a coup in 1965.
The carnage targeted the Indonesian Communist Party — known as Partai Komunis Indonesia, or PKI — as well as their family members, purported sympathizers, or people who stood next to a member of the PKI at a bus stop once. (It was not an exact science.) At least 500,000 Indonesians were killed, often up close with machetes or knives. Soon afterward the Central Intelligence Agency, which played a key role in supporting the massacre, called it “one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century.”
Remarkably, Barack Obama used similar language in a passage in his 1995 autobiography “Dreams From My Father,” referring to the killings as “one of the more brutal and swift campaigns of suppression in modern times.” Yet this section of the book has received almost no notice. A Google search finds references to that sentence from Boston public radio station WBUR; the student newspaper at Northwestern; the New York Review of Books; my dormant blog; and little else.
As Obama describes it, he moved with his mother from the U.S. to Indonesia in 1967 after she divorced his father and married Lolo, an Indonesian engineer. Obama recorded the audiobook version of “Dreams From My Father” himself, so we can hear the president-to-be describing the terrifying facts his mother learned about both their adopted country and the country they’d come from:
Or if you prefer to read rather than listen, here are Obama’s words:
She found herself a job right away teaching English to Indonesian businessmen at the American embassy. … The Americans were mostly older men, careerists in the State Department, the occasional economists or journalists who would mysteriously disappear for months at a time, their affiliation or function in the embassy never quite clear. …
These men knew the country, though, or parts of it anyway, the closets where the skeletons were buried. Over lunch or casual conversation they would share with her things she couldn’t learn in the published news reports. They explained how Sukarno had frayed badly the nerves of a U.S. government already obsessed with the march of communism through Indochina, what with his nationalist rhetoric and his politics of nonalignment — he was as bad as Lumumba or Nasser! — only worse, given Indonesia’s strategic importance. Word was that the CIA had played a part in the coup, although nobody knew for sure. More certain was the fact that after the coup the military had swept the countryside for supposed Communist sympathizers. The death toll was anybody’s guess: a few hundred thousand, maybe; half a million. Even the smart guys at the Agency had lost count.
Innuendo, half-whispered asides; that’s how she found out that we had arrived in Djakarta less than a year after one of the more brutal and swift campaigns of suppression in modern times. The idea frightened her, the notion that history could be swallowed up so completely, the same way the rich and loamy earth could soak up the rivers of blood that had once coursed through the streets; the way people could continue about their business beneath giant posters of the new president as if nothing had happened. …
Power. The word fixed in my mother’s mind like a curse. In America, it had generally remained hidden from view until you dug beneath the surface of things; until you visited an Indian reservation or spoke to a black person whose trust you had earned. But here power was undisguised, indiscriminate, naked, always fresh in the memory. Power had taken Lolo and yanked him back into line just when he thought he’d escaped, making him feel its weight, letting him know that his life wasn’t his own. That’s how things were; you couldn’t change it, you could just live by the rules, so simple once you learned them. And so Lolo had made his peace with power, learning the wisdom of forgetting.
The 1965 coup and its hideous aftermath is covered in detail in the recent book “The Jakarta Method” by former Washington Post reporter Vincent Bevins.
Indonesia was governed from World War II until 1965 by President Sukarno (some Indonesians have a single name) who had previously led the resistance to Dutch colonization. This made the U.S. increasingly unhappy. Indonesia was enormous, with the world’s sixth-largest population, and the PKI was the third-biggest Communist Party on Earth, after China’s and the Soviet Union’s. It mattered little to the American government that Sukarno was not himself a Communist, or that the PKI had no plans or capacity for violence. It was bad enough that Sukarno did not leap to put the Indonesian economy at the service of U.S. multinationals, and that he helped create the Non-Aligned Movement of countries that wished to stay out of both the Soviet and American blocs.
The U.S. goal, then, was to extract Sukarno from power in favor of someone reliable (from the American perspective), while creating a pretext for the Indonesian military to destroy the PKI. But how to make this happen?
Howard P. Jones, the American ambassador to Indonesia until April 1965, told a meeting of State Department officials just before leaving his post, “From our viewpoint, of course, an unsuccessful coup attempt by the PKI might be the most effective development to start a reversal of political trends in Indonesia.” This, he believed, would give the army a “clear-cut kind of challenge that would galvanize effective reaction.” A British Foreign Office official made the case that “there might therefore be much to be said for encouraging a premature PKI coup during Sukarno’s lifetime.”
Coincidentally enough, this is exactly what appeared to happen. On September 30, 1965, a group of young military officers kidnapped six Indonesian generals, claiming that they planned to overthrow Sukarno. All six generals somehow soon ended up dead.
Suharto, an Army general who was, fortuitously, not targeted, announced with his allies that the dead generals had been castrated and tortured by female members of the PKI in a “depraved, demonic ritual,” according to Bevins. Years later it was discovered that none of this was true; all but one of the six generals had simply been shot.
To this day, it’s impossible to say what truly happened. Bevins lists three theories. First, the leader of the PKI may have helped plan the events of September 30 with contacts in the military. It may have been the young members of the military acting alone with no PKI involvement. Or Suharto may have collaborated with the September 30 officers, pretending that he would support them and then betraying them as part of a plan to seize power for himself.
In any case, Suharto certainly seemed to have a plan ready to execute. Soon afterward, Sukarno was out and Suharto was in charge. Then the killing began, in what the Indonesian army internally called Operasi Penumpasan, or Operation Annihilation.
The U.S. was not only aware of what was happening, but was also an eager participant, providing lists of PKI members to the Indonesian military.
The butchery lasted for months, into early 1966, with the New York Times referring to it as a “staggering mass slaughter of Communists and pro-Communists.” The U.S. was not only aware of what was happening, but was also an eager participant, providing lists of PKI members to the Indonesian military. One American official later said, “They probably killed a lot of people, and I probably have a lot of blood on my hands, but that’s not all bad. There’s a time when you have to strike hard at a decisive moment.” According to Time magazine, there were so many corpses that it created “a serious sanitation problem in East Java and Northern Sumatra where the humid air bears the reek of decaying flesh. Travelers from those areas tell of small rivers and streams that have been literally clogged with bodies.”
New York Times columnist James Reston soon wrote about these events under the headline “A Gleam of Light in Asia.” Americans needed to understand these “hopeful political developments,” including the fact that the “Indonesian massacre” could not have occurred “without the clandestine aid [Indonesia] has received indirectly from here.” Recently declassified records illustrate just how right Reston was.
Suharto ruled Indonesia brutally for the next three decades, remaining a key U.S. ally until he fell from power in 1998. Only now, over 57 years since the coup, is the Indonesian government barely beginning to face its own past.
“Acknowledging some of the crimes of the Suharto regime is a start,” says Bradley Simpson, a historian and expert on this period. “But President Widodo must do more to initiate a long overdue process of accountability and restitution for victims and survivors of the 1965–1966 killings. So do governments like the United States and Great Britain, which were willing accomplices in the Indonesian army’s campaign of mass murder.”
There is no sign of that happening in U.S., however. Obama, with his direct personal knowledge of Indonesia and this history, might seem to be a natural leader for this process. But you shouldn’t get your hopes up. He also explains in “Dreams From My Father” that he learned in Indonesia that “the world was violent … unpredictable and often cruel.” His stepfather, he records, taught him that “Men take advantage of weakness in other men. They’re just like countries in that way. … Better to be strong. If you can’t be strong, be clever and make peace with someone who’s strong. But always better to be strong yourself. Always.”
VERY EXCELLENT! and surprisingly--usually the 'Weekly Roundup's are a collection of highlights of previously-presented segments, but this one is all-new material (unless I'm very confused/memoryholed)
In this Weekly Roundup we discuss George Santos allegedly stealing 3,000 dollars from a disabled Veteran's GoFundMe surgery for his dog, CNN defends the new "Phallic" MLK monument, the story behind an Arizona Suburb who's water was shut off, a study showing that high earning Men are cutting back in work hours not quitting, a discussion on giving CSPAN full time control over the cameras in Congress, the rise of the Single, Woke, Democratic Female voter bloc, and our partner James Li covering The World Economic Forum's predictions of an incoming Recession and if there's more going on than meets the eye.
Could Theresa May make a comeback? Who could be Twitter’s new CEO? And what will King Charles say in his first Christmas message? All these questions are answered in the final Dead Ringers of the year.
Performed by Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens, Duncan Wisbey, Naomi McDonald and Anil Desai.
Written by Tom Jamieson and Nev Fountain, Laurence Howarth, Sarah Campbell, Tom Coles and Ed Amsden, Edward Tew, Cody Dahler, Robert Darke, Sophie Dickson, Katie Sayer.
Produced and created by Bill Dare.
Production Co-ordinator: Caroline Barlow
mostly EXCELLENT (and continuing to outperform Breaking Points). This W 18 Jan 2023 Counter Points is marred only by a half-bad Ukraine (5th in this show?) segment: like Krystal and Saagar, Ryan and Emily are
+ good about how US-NATO threatens (at best) regional peace and stability and (at worst) global nuclear war - bad in blaming Russia entirely for this US-NATO proxy war (which was actually, from 2014 Maidan coup to 2022 Russian invasion, provoked by US-NATO manipulation of their Ukraine puppet)
Esp good are the segments on
+ (1st and 2nd segments) how global elites (esp "Davos set," Corporate Republicans, and Sinema+Manchin) are targeting the US 99%'s income support as the elites' next profit opportunity + Joe Rogan (inc others--CP just focuses on Rogan) suspects that the continuing Biden documents revelations are the CorpDems telling Amtrak Joe to find the next train out of the US presidency + (final segment) Sam Biddle on his [recent interview (for The Intercept)](https://theintercept.com/2023/01/15/guccifer-interview-hacked-clinton-emails/) ([archived here](https://archive.ph/XMzoU)) and past contacts (at Gawker et al) with Marcel Lazar aka Guccifer, and Lazar's life with, work on, and fascination with, the US empire's elites.
Ryan and Emily discuss the Davos Summit and what the speakers and guests have to say about their version of the future, GOP attacking retirement age and Social Security, a failed Republican candidate Solomon Pena arrested for potentially hiring shooters to attack Democratic opposition candidates, Joe Rogan speaks on Joe Biden's classified documents disaster, Poland's Prime Minister warns of WW3 if Ukraine loses, a bathroom fight between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert shows divisions, Ryan reviews the words of Alexander Hamilton in regards to the Debt Ceiling, Emily discusses her thoughts on American Pessimism, and an interview with Sam Biddle from The Intercept on Guccifer a hacker incarcerated for years for an email hacking spree against America’s elite.
VERY EXCELLENT--GER/Multipolarista (relatively succinctly) showing how US 'rules-based international order' ("the US makes the rules and everybody else follows orders") opposes a democracy- and law-based international order
The West opposed the rest of a planet in United Nations General Assembly votes that called for a new international economic order based on sovereign equality, sustainable development, and biological diversity.
VIDEO: https://youtube.com/watch?v=hfcvmxieug4
Sources and more information here: https://multipolarista.com/2022/12/22/west-un-vote-economic-system-equality
EXCELLENT interview with Jesús Rodríguez Espinoza @ Orinoco Tribune on Venezuela 2023, esp: - US opposition continues, but retreating - EU joins rest of world in dropping US-UK puppet Guaidó - sham opposition still holds ~40 G$ in Venezuelan assets - US lawfare and corrupt legal firms attempting to steal Citgo assets - economic improvement, but not enough: gotta make investments in petroleum sector while helping strapped Venezuelan poor (inc public-sector sorkers) - Venezuelan social programs: Chavez legacy continues - Venezuelan regional relations, esp Colombia, Brazil, Peru - how Chavez rose. common misconception that Chavez had military support from beginning=1999, when actually military support was grown over time (largely by repelling US coups)
The US claimed unelected coup leader Juan Guaidó was "interim president" of Venezuela from January 2019 to December 2022, when his former allies in the right-wing opposition removed him from the position. Washington however still refuses to recognize elected President Nicolás Maduro.
Geopolitical Economy Report editor-in-chief Ben Norton discusses the end of the meme-worthy character with Venezuelan journalist Jesús Rodríguez Espinoza, who runs the independent news website Orinoco Tribune.
VIDEO: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sTjKvZmY7w4
Support Orinoco Tribune at https://orinocotribune.com
VERY EXCELLENT--file is huge, but audio is only ~90 min
Matt Taibbi joins The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal and Aaron Maté to discuss his reporting on internal Twitter files exposing US government pressure on the social media giant to validate Russiagate propaganda — and censor dissenting voices.
Guest: Matt Taibbi, https://taibbi.substack.com/.
Support Pushback: https://www.patreon.com/aaronmate
Just bant (but funny throughout, ranging as usual over most of Europe and adjacent) before EXCELLENT turn (~49 min to end) to focus on German politics, esp
- Lützerath and antilignite protests - German energy-policy and -discourse hypocrisy - ... and how German politics (esp The Greens) and discourse suck more generally
The whole gang is back together again to talk about Lützerath and a whole other load of bullshit.
Zotero integration. pullquote: > His system is tightly integrated with Zotero to manage the papers he reads and takes notes on. He lets Zotero handle the bibliography and capturing of papers and websites.
Dominik Honnef has a nifty post that describes his Org-roam based workflow for taking notes and writing articles. It’s a very thorough and complex system that captures notes, articles that he reads on the web, articles for his blog, and miscellaneous notes as they occur to him. The system automatically maintains a bibliography and can massage a note intended for his blog to make it compatible with Hugo, which he uses to publish his blog.
His use of Org-roam is a little idiosyncratic. He doesn’t follow Luhmann’s Zettelkasten method as described, for example, by Ahrens’ How to take smart notes: one simple technique to boost writing, learning and thinking. Rather, he uses it as a sort of Wiki to save and index all his notes and the data they pertain to. Org-roam is perfect for that because it maintains forward and backward links between notes and makes it easy to maintain the relationship between notes and index them for easy retrieval.
His system is tightly integrated with Zotero to manage the papers he reads and takes notes on. He lets Zotero handle the bibliography and capturing of papers and websites. Although he provides much of his configuration in his long and detailed post, he doesn’t provide a link to his whole configuration so it may be hard to adapt his approach.
It’s a good post and well worth spending the time to read.
Growing up surrounded by gangsters and a dysfunctional family, this is the story of Ashley - a tall comedian who loves William Shatner and hates textured fabrics.
Glasgow's nightlife in the early 1980's was still flying the flag for disco, bell bottoms and oversized lapels, and it was outside the local club in Shettleston where Ashley's parents met for the first time, starting the story that led to an unexpected marriage and a family feud that was never resolved.
A Dabster production for BBC Radio 4
Written by Ashley Storrie
Produced by Julia Sutherland
Here’s a nifty bit of Elisp to make opening a file as root a bit easier:
#Emacs Tip of the day: Opening a file as root (screenshot attached).
If you `M-x uf/sudo-edit`, it will ask for a filename and open it as root. If you `C-u M-x uf/sudo-edit`, it will reopen the file visited by the current buffer as root. pic.twitter.com/9KmgR8g02A
— Vedang Manerikar (fosstodon.org/vedang) (@vedang) January 12, 2023
When I first saw it, the idea seemed familiar and it is, in fact, very similar to some code offered by Bozhidar Batsov. I (very) slightly prefer Batsov’s version because it handles my most frequent use case by default. Most of the time when I want to edit a root file, I forget to open it with the sudo tag and have to abort the edit and reopen it. Batsov’s version handles this automatically.
usecase/pulllquote (lightly edited): > I need [to] copy of a list of files / directories in plain text[--]basically basenaming; for example:
> Backup > Camera > content > .directory
> [instead of]
> drwxr-xr-x 4 4.0K Jan 15 19:35 Backup > drwxr-xr-x 3 4.0K Jan 14 19:33 Camera > drwxr-xr-x 22 4.0K Jan 15 19:01 content > -rw-r--r-- 1 65 Dec 31 16:34 .directory
- Rectangle copy/paste fails (inserted format is weird). Instead:
1. In a dired buffer, type `(` -> `dired-hide-details-mode`. (and type `(` again to toggle/exit `dired-hide-details-mode`)
- ... at this point, normal copy via `M-w` *still* fails! It still copies the full details !-( so ...
2. select the desired region, and ... 3. `M-x org-copy-visible`
Just a quick one.
Often it seems I need a copy of a list of files / directories in plain
text without any gubbins such as a path, permissions, date and all
those shenanigans, basically basenaming; for example:
So how can I achieve this in emacs? I would really prefer to use
dired somehow rather than shell / ls (which was my first thought)
Below is my typical dired listing:
drwxr-xr-x 4 4.0K Jan 15 19:35 Backup
drwxr-xr-x 3 4.0K Jan 14 19:33 Camera
drwxr-xr-x 22 4.0K Jan 15 19:01 content
-rw-r--r-- 1 65 Dec 31 16:34 .directory
Rectangle marking first came to mind but the paste seems to have a
weird format and strangely inserts the text.
So I came up with the following process:
In dired, select ’(’dired-hide-details-mode which toggles off
all the details and gives:
Backup
Camera
content
.directory
This looks very promising and surely a simple M-w (kill-ring-save)
will work?. It doesn’t work. It still copies the full details :(
However if org-copy-visible is used it does the same as in org mode in
that it only copies the visible parts of the region. I had no idea
that functions from one mode can be used in another!
After 1st 3 min (following [theme tune, standard opening statement/pitch, special SRB-hiatus announcement from host Sean Guillory (SG)]), audio is a mostly VERY EXCELLENT interview (excepting bit much Ukraine-stan-ing for my taste) with Christian Raffensperger ('CR', professor @ Wittenberg University (Ohio)). Following topics /mostly/ in temporal order, but some reordering to maintain conceptual {hierarchy, tree structure}:
how CR got into 'Russian stuff' and 'medieval stuff'
field challenges - limited sources - lack of interest in medieval work outside western Europe
knyaz as prince vs king: - why matter of importance - king != monarch: co-rulership (multiple simultaneous kings, queens) is not unique to Rus - feeds into larger topic of othering Rus (much more below
Rus - how decentralization (for awhile) resisted chaos/breakup - similarities to early France - lateral succession: brothers over sons, not unique to Rus ----- western medievalists prejudice for primogeniture fails with (e.g.) [the Anglo-Norman Anarchy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anarchy) - social and cultural sources ----- great bit ~23:25 on pigfucking ----- Povest Vremennykh Let aka PVL aka Rus Primary Chronicle - Orthodoxy and othering ----- 1054 Schism as "read back" from 1204, but unimportant/unnoticed at the time ... ----- at the time (roughly between [Byzantine Patriarch Photius' announcement 867, c988 Vladimir the Great baptism at Chersonesus]), most people (outside upper clergy esp theologians) thought Christianity was unitary: concepts regarding early church divisions also seem mostly "read back" - marriage alliances with western Europe dynasties ----- vs myth of Rus 'isolation from the West' ----- medievalists tend to minimize importance, since who travels is almost totally women ----- as equivalent to embassies, since --------- the women often receive diplomatic instruction --------- 'these people go with an entourage' (guards, churchmen, servants) ----- case of [Anna Yaroslavna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_Kiev) (c1030-1075), 1051 marries Henry I of France, 1060 becomes son's regent - Rus decline (c1054-c1240) ----- decentralization and geographical fragmentation ----- 1204 sack of Constantinople ----- Mongols move west - othering because Rus did not survive to form a state: ~"Rus is not Russia, Rus is not Ukraine" ----- contemporary claims on Kievan Rus ----- modern nations (e.g., France, Spain) are mostly late creations ... esp England, which Western medievalists tend to use as norm in both empirical and normative senses ----- 'Rus can be the basis for Ukraine, and for Russia, and for Belarus!' à la multiple claims on (western) Roman Empire - Rus relations to south (e.g., Muslims) and east (e.g., Mongols): topic raised but not much discussed
importance of recognizing integration of Rus into medieval Europe ... turns out to be - per CR: weaponization: it's good for promoting support for Ukraine and NATO's proxy war :-( - per SG (host): 'you could even also include Russia' 'as being part of that wider European civilization, and not outside of it' ... no response from CR, SG moves to next topic
Guest: Christian Raffensperger on the place of Kyivan Rus' in the wider European medieval world.
1st 3 segments 1. Matt Stoller on FTC vs 'non-compete agreements' aka bosses forcing 'contract' language on workers (and labor markets) 2. Status Coup {interviews, "found audio"} on NYC strikes by nurses and Uber drivers 3. James Li on the Axis of Obesity that is US Big Food, US Big Tobacco (which now owns much of Big Food), and US Big Pharma 4. Max Alvarez on the continuing fight for justice for Evan Seyfried vs Kroger are VERY EXCELLENT. The 4th/final segment on Seyfried/Kroger is good, but suffers from Alvarez's tendency to get maudlin.
All the best recent segments from our amazing partners on Breaking Points including recent FTC actions, nursing/Uber strike footage, the obesity crisis, and an important Kroger lawsuit.
VERY EXCELLENT critique of the 12 Jan 2023 Emmanuel Todd interview with Le Figaro
Prominent French intellectual Emmanuel Todd argues the Ukraine proxy war is the start of WWIII, and is “existential” for both Russia and the US “imperial system”, which has restricted the sovereignty of Europe, making Brussels into Washington's “protectorate”.
VIDEO: https://youtube.com/watch?v=82WPLWEN_9M
Sources and more information here: https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/01/14/world-war-3-us-russia-china-emmanuel-todd
French ambassador: US ‘rules-based order’ means Western domination, violating international law: https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/11/21/gerard-araud-france-us-rules-based-order
CIA and NATO are waging sabotage attacks inside Russia: https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/12/29/cia-nato-sabotage-attacks-russia
The content of Matt Hancock’s Covid diaries, the reason why Sir Keir Starmer may soon be out of a job, and a behind-the-scenes look at the King's preparations for his Christmas message.
Performed by Jon Culshaw, Lewis McLeod, Jan Ravens, Duncan Wisbey, Naomi McDonald and Anil Desai.
Written by Written by Tom Jamieson and Nev Fountain, Laurence Howarth, Sarah Campbell, Tom Coles and Ed Amsden, James Bugg, Cody Dahler, Toussaint Douglass, Robert Darke, Sophie Dickson, Katie Sayer, Peter Tellouche and Edward Tew.
Produced and created by Bill Dare.
Production Co-ordinator: Caroline Barlow
as their global empire fails, expect even more lying from its corporate-funded media
The latest iteration of Washington’s regime-change efforts against the democratically elected Venezuelan government came to an end. On December 30, an opposition-controlled parliament whose term ran out two years ago voted to end the US-backed “interim government” headed by Juan Guaidó.
A few outlets recognized that the latest developments represented “a blow” (New York Times, 12/30/22) or “a failure” (Financial Times, 1/8/23) for the United States, but for the most part the media’s goal seemed to be to solidify the biased premises underlying the regime-change operation. Corporate media remain as unwilling as ever to question US foreign policy, regardless of its deadly consequences.
The Guaidó-led operation had earned the wholehearted support of the media establishment from the get-go (FAIR.org, 1/19/19, 1/31/19). However, its end did not lead to a reckoning or reevaluation of past coverage. The loyal stenography from Western pundits is as reliable as ever (FAIR.org, 6/13/22, 5/2/22, 4/15/20, 1/22/20, 9/24/19).
The Big Lie
Guaidó “declared Venezuela’s authoritarian president an illegitimate ruler,” making himself “the most serious threat to President Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian government,” this New York Times story (12/30/22) reported in its first two paragraphs.
The coverage of Guaidó’s demise saw media pundits dust off some of their Venezuela bias greatest hits. The New York Times (12/22/22) used the “authoritarian” label in reference to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro three times in the teaser and the opening two paragraphs of an article. Other favorites like “strongman” (Wall Street Journal, 1/5/23) and “autocratic” (LA Times, 1/5/23) were not far behind.
Likewise frequent were gushing tributes to the “hope” that Guaidó signified (AP, 1/5/23; New York Times, 12/30/22), as if the unelected US-backed pretender naturally represented the aspirations of the Venezuelan people. Some sources made the even bolder claim that “the failure to drive out Maduro frustrated Venezuelans” (AP, 12/30/22; Al Jazeera, 12/31/22). This is the common maneuver of presuming that all Venezuelans support the opposition, while also ignoring the overwhelming popular rejection of foreign meddling.
The opening act of any Guaidó story is always the Goebbelsian claim that Maduro’s 2018 electoral win was illegitimate (FAIR.org, 5/23/18), despite the lack of evidence of irregularities and the presence of international observation missions who vouched for the vote’s integrity (Venezuelanalysis, 5/31/18).
The unsubstantiated claims about the contest go from “disputed” (BBC, 12/31/22; Reuters, 12/22/22), to “widely deemed” or “believed” or “seen as” or “considered” or “condemned as” “fraudulent” (see Bloomberg, 12/30/22; Miami Herald, 12/23/22; AFP, 1/4/23; LA Times, 1/5/23; Washington Post, 12/30/22), all the way to “a sham” (Wall Street Journal, 1/5/23; New York Times, 12/22/22; Reuters, 1/4/22).
Once this false premise was established, another one followed: the alleged “constitutional” grounds behind the self-proclaimed “interim government.” Whether by allowing Guaidó and acolytes to repeat the claim (Wall Street Journal, 12/30/22; Washington Post, 12/30/22), or by casually stating it (AP, 1/9/23, 1/9/23; Reuters, 12/29/22; New York Times, 12/22/22), Western outlets were eager to paint the US-backed presumption with a varnish of legitimacy.
Nowhere to be found was the text or a link to the invoked constitutional article. Because anyone who read Article 233 of the Venezuelan constitution would immediately realize that: a) none of the conditions to declare the presidency “vacant” were met, as Maduro had not died, resigned, been removed by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, become permanently physically or mentally disabled, abandoned his position or been removed by a popular vote; and b) even if one were, it would lead to nothing remotely resembling this parallel government that lasted nearly four years. (Instead, the constitution calls for new direct elections to be held within 30 days.)
Having taken their gaze off of Venezuela as regime-change efforts faltered, corporate journalists needed some dishonest gymnastics to report Guaidó’s demise. In particular, they had to explain why a National Assembly whose term expired two years ago was still around. Their experience in discarding elections boycotted by the opposition and won by Chavismo came in handy (FAIR.org, 12/3/21, 1/27/21, 5/23/18).
For example, AFP said the former parliament “was replaced by a legislature loyal to Maduro” (12/31/22), ignoring the fact that it was “replaced” through the regularly scheduled elections. But the Associated Press (12/22/22, 1/9/23, 1/9/23) went a step further by calling the newly elected parliament “Maduro’s rubber-stamping legislature/National Assembly,” as if there is something sinister about a party with a legislative majority supporting a president from the same party. It is not the government’s fault that the opposition, with US encouragement, decided to boycott elections and pin its hopes on an outright coup.
Inconvenient truths
The LA Times (1/5/23) described the US recognizing a lawmaker with no constitutional claim to power as the actual government of Venezuela as an “audacious gamble.”
With all the effort to double down on well-crafted narratives, it was hard to expect any contrition from Western media that cheerfully endorsed Guaidó’s baseless claims to power. Instead, his failure was attributed to Maduro, currently serving his second constitutional six-year term, having a “grip on power” (Wall Street Journal, 1/5/23) that was “maintained” (Reuters, 1/4/23), “tightened” (AFP, 12/30/22) or “proven durable” (Washington Post, 12/30/22).
For all the talk of Guaidó’s commitment to “restore democracy” (AP, 1/9/23; LA Times, 1/5/23; New York Times, 12/30/22), there was little detail as to how he actually tried to accomplish it.
The opposition frontman’s most serious initiative to overthrow Maduro was a military putsch on April 19, 2019. Yet only a few outlets explicitly mentioned this episode (Wall Street Journal, 12/30/22; New York Times, 12/30/22). Most included only vague references to a failure “to win over” (AP, 12/30/22) or “recruit” (Bloomberg, 12/30/22) the military. The Associated Press (1/5/23) went so far as to falsely describe the Venezuelan armed forces as the country’s “traditional arbiter of political disputes.” It seems that the preferred means to “restore democracy” in the South American nation was a good old-fashioned military coup.
Not mentioned at all by the establishment outlets was the hardline opposition’s calls for a foreign invasion (Venezuelanalysis, 5/13/19) and, more damningly, Guaidó actually hiring a mercenary company to topple Maduro and put himself in power (Venezuelanalysis, 5/17/20). The best hope was always that US economic sanctions would generate enough suffering to force the government out.
While the “interim government” made no inroads to take power, it was handed control of a number of foreign-held assets worth billions by Washington and allies, among them US-based refiner Citgo.
Corporate outlets reported that these assets need to be “protect[ed]” (AP, 12/30/22) or “shield[ed]” (AP, 1/9/23) from creditors, and that the opposition’s control might be jeopardized by Guaidó’s ouster. Spain’s El País (12/30/22) baselessly claimed these resources would be “embezzled” by the Maduro government.
Out of sight is the string of corruption allegations pertaining to opposition (mis)management of foreign assets (Venezuelanalysis, 10/14/21), which came from the anti-government camp itself. The most publicized case was Colombia-based agrochemical producer Monómeros. Humberto Calderón Bertí, who served as opposition “ambassador” in Colombia, accused the different factions of treating the company like a “piñata.”
Likewise unmentioned is a series of actions by Guaidó’s camp that have endangered Citgo, from not showing up in court to striking under-the-table deals with creditors to suspicions of conflicts of interest (Venezuelanalysis, 9/25/21, 10/4/21, 10/23/21).
‘Regardless of what form’
The Washington Post (12/30/22) writes about “the opposition-controlled National Assembly” as if there haven’t been legislative elections in Venezuela since 2015.
The heightened regime-change attempts by Washington in recent years were cheered at every step by the Western media establishment. By falsely trumpeting Guaidó’s credentials and whitewashing his anti-democratic actions, corporate journalists were free to endorse any and all efforts to place him in power, especially deadly economic sanctions.
Human rights experts estimate these measures have killed over 100,000 people over the past five years. But some pieces managed to not mention them at all (AP, 12/30/22; Bloomberg, 12/30/22; El País, 12/30/22). The New York Times (12/22/22, 12/30/22) euphemistically wrote that sanctions were “designed to assist” Guaidó, but as it happened ended up “forc[ing] Venezuelans to focus on daily survival, not political mobilization.”
Washington imposed, among many other measures, heavy sanctions on the oil sector of a country that depended on oil sales for over 90% of its export revenue. And the resulting widespread suffering is somehow an unforeseen consequence for the Times! Moreover, not only are the unilateral measures a form of collective punishment against civilians, they actually preceded Guaidó.
Other media only brought up sanctions to echo US officials saying they can be used “to pressure Caracas” (Wall Street Journal, 1/5/23), since the US “hold[s] all the cards” (Washington Post, 12/30/22). State Department spokesperson Ned Price was quoted as saying sanctions will “remain in place,” and could even be expanded should the Venezuelan opposition say so (AFP, 1/4/23).
As usual, the New York Times (12/22/22, 12/30/22) outdid all others in covering for US economic blackmail. The Biden administration recently released around $3 billion in frozen Venezuelan funds, to be used in social programs via UN agencies, after the Venezuelan government restarted talks with the hardline opposition. The Times (12/22/22) outrageously described it as Maduro “agree[ing] to” allow these funds to be used for aid. Caracas has repeatedly demanded that its assets be released, and even suggested this kind of arrangement. During the pandemic, the government asked that the frozen gold in the UK be sold to buy food and medicine through the UN. The Venezuelan opposition and its foreign backers refused.
The latest coverage was just another demonstration that Western media will unflinchingly back Washington’s Venezuela policies no matter what. Even when anonymous officials callously say that the US will continue to recognize the opposition’s “interim government,” “regardless of what form it takes” (AFP, 12/31/22; Al Jazeera, 12/31/22; Washington Post, 12/30/22), loyal stenographers will not hesitate in presenting it as democracy promotion.
It is worth recapping: The media establishment followed Washington’s lead in declaring the 2018 elections fraudulent with no evidence, echoing Guaidó’s “constitutional” claim, backing all sorts of coup attempts, as well as supporting and whitewashing murderous sanctions and the theft of Venezuelan assets. The US’s surrogates can come up with whatever scheme they can think of, and the imperial regime-change arsenal is at their service. And that includes media coverage as dishonest as necessary.
The corporate media pretend to defend the truth and hold those in power accountable. Their claim is just as legitimate as Guaidó’s self-proclaimed “interim presidency.”
EXCELLENT, informative, slightly marred by Bragg's attempt to hector a guest by completely misrepresenting the guest's stated position (something Bragg has done before, unfortunately)
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Orson Welles' film, released in 1941, which is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, films yet made. Welles plays the lead role of Charles Foster Kane, a newspaper magnate, and Welles directed, produced and co-wrote this story of loneliness at the heart of a megalomaniac. The plot was partly inspired by the life of William Randolph Hearst, who then used the power of his own newspapers to try to suppress the film’s release. It was to take some years before Citizen Kane reached a fuller audience and, from that point, become so celebrated.
The image above is of Kane addressing a public meeting while running for Governor.
With
Stella Bruzzi
Professor of Film and Dean of Arts and Humanities at University College London
Ian Christie
Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck, University of London
And
John David Rhodes
Professor of Film Studies and Visual Culture at the University of Cambridge
unexpectedly eloquent tribute to Ana Belén Montes, who fought against US terror attacks on Cuba
Former DIA analyst Ana Belén Montes was imprisoned for 20 years for sharing intelligence with Cuba that helped it prevent US attacks and sabotage. Upon being released, she condemned the “suffocating embargo” that makes Cubans “suffer.”
VIDEO: https://youtube.com/watch?v=KuE7tVbD7qY
Sources and more information here: https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/01/10/ana-belen-montes-20-years-prison-cuba-blockade
Illegal US blockade against Cuba continues harming millions on 60th anniversary: https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/02/03/illegal-us-blockade-cuba-60th-anniversary
Entire world votes 185 to 2 against blockade of Cuba – US and Israel are rogue states at UN: https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/11/03/un-vote-blockade-cuba-us-israel
