What's in the News? 2.0

[Formless]

https://www.gulftoday.ae/news/2021/04/13/saudi-student-risks-life-to-rescue-94-year-old--australian-from-fire-in-adelaide

[Lilias]

Actress Helen McCrory (most notably Narcissa Malfoy in the Harry Potter Films and Polly Gray in Peaky Blinders) has died from cancer. She was only 52.  :'(

https://www.southwalesguardian.co.uk/news/national/19239376.actress-helen-mccrory-dies-aged-52/

[Beorning]

Oh crap. She was great in Penny Dreadful...  :-(

[Haibane]

This is tragic. Putin tried to kill him with Novichok and will obviously be delighted if he dies by hunger strike.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56786266

[Haibane]

Things are escalating. We're back in a Cold War again.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56790053

[ShadowFox89]

Things are escalating. We're back in a Cold War again.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56790053

The cold war never ended, we just stopped being so loud about it.

[gaggedLouise]

Watched the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh yesterday afternoon - very moving and beautifully staged and carried out. The scaled-down format took away nothing of the power of the occasion, the rituals and the music, in a way it only made them more intimate and telling.  :-)

[Haibane]

Us Brits are very good at putting on a great show when it comes to tradition and ceremony. The last post was especially moving.

[Haibane]

Things are escalating. We're back in a Cold War again.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56790053

Investigative work by Czech intelligence has assembled a pretty damning account of various persons and their movements, all linked to the GRU.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56790053

[Haibane]

Sorry about the multi-posts but the pressure is piling on.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-56794744

[gaggedLouise]

Us Brits are very good at putting on a great show when it comes to tradition and ceremony. The last post was especially moving.

Yes, I remember hearing that long ago there was a rowdy and particularly ill-organized royal funeral (not necessarily of a king) at some time before the ascent of Victoria to the throne - after that one Victoria and the court decided "Never again!" and made sure that such occasions must now happen in an inspired, rehearsed and well-organized manner. :)

Sad news: a major bush fire spreading from the Tafelberg near Cape Town entered the university campus and swept into the University Library, which has unique collections on the early history of South Africa and its peoples. Some of the collections are digitally copied and some kept behind fireproof doors: it's so far uncertain what and how much may have been lost.  :-(

[Annaamarth]

And in addition, if we're going to discuss the fallacy of "members of that group wouldn't tolerate bigotry against the group" - cops who grow up IN troubled neighborhoods full of people who look like them, being violent, doing drugs, and generally doing the very things people are stereotyped as doing, they carry that with them when they become cops. They are usually witnesses to the worst their community has to offer. They can be THE MOST BIGOTED. They have seen their group - no matter the race, as this impacts white people as well - doing the things they are vehemently against. The argument that race would somehow be a factor falls flat.

A young white man growing up in a poor white neighborhood full of drug abuse, domestic abuse, and violence, is going to see those things every time he sees people who look like those he grew up with - because that is how human beings work. We see our experiences reflected onto others who LOOK like the people we knew, or on neighborhoods and places that resemble where we came from or where we saw this. There's bias against poor people - a lot of cops are pretty damn poor. There's bias against black people - plenty of cops are black. There's bias against drug and alcohol users - the rate of drug and alcohol use in the police force is not small. There's bias against domestic abusers - domestic abuse rates by cops are record highs.

This may be a bit of necro and I apologize if so - but I have relevant (if anecdotal) experience here.

For about half a year my job was to catch shoplifters at a big retailer - I'm not going to tell you which one - and interface very closely with local PD.  I filed police reports and (years and two cities later) I'm still in the habit of keeping the local PD non-emergency line programmed in my phone.  I led the local cluster of stores in successful shoplifting stops and local PD loved me for my tendency to have all of the paperwork in order, as well as a well-edited sequence of video burned to disc attached to my statements.  Impeccable documentation.

My senior partner and the guy who trained me in the role was a US military veteran who happened to be a black guy who spoke with a 'typical' west-coast accent with a hint of DC - unless he was interfacing with people he described as thugs.  Then he "let the ghetto out."  His words.

The only people I have personal experience using the Hard R, as it were, were openly white supremacists - and this veteran who "didn't talk like he was from the ghetto because he learned to talk right after he got out."  Again, his words.

He didn't use that language frequently - only when observing people who were likely to be shoplifting or otherwise being a nuisance (did you know that bored people from low-income areas will sometimes go in groups to a local retailer just to fuck around?) who also happened to be black.  He was also often correct in identifying problem individuals.  This doesn't justify the attitude, but the attitude can be self-reinforcing through confirmation bias - much like high crime rates in black neighbourhoods often being caused by over-policing.

Now, do I think he was openly targeting black people?  No - most of our stops were white with a good bit of other races represented - but that kinda language only came out when we were talking about black people.  So ... yeah.  Prejudice and bias is more complicated than "There are cops/soldiers/politicians/CEOs who are Black/Asian/Native/Female".

Also: Russia/Czech relations spiral wooooo:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56796324

[CyranoDeBergerac]

https://religionnews.com/2021/04/16/from-the-filibuster-to-dc-statehood-clergy-rally-around-a-growing-voting-rights-agenda/

Might be outing myself a bit here, but the way a lot of critique of Christianity is centered in whiteness really bugs me, because it makes it hard to have legitimate discussions about things like this.

[legomaster00156]

https://religionnews.com/2021/04/16/from-the-filibuster-to-dc-statehood-clergy-rally-around-a-growing-voting-rights-agenda/

Might be outing myself a bit here, but the way a lot of critique of Christianity is centered in whiteness really bugs me, because it makes it hard to have legitimate discussions about things like this.

Well, that's kind of the thing. Black Christians are quite well-known to the media, and the contrast in priorities with their white evangelical counterparts is obvious. That is exactly why, when critique is leveled against such "Christians", that the media is careful to mention "white evangelicals", instead of just "evangelicals".

[TheGlyphstone]

I will admit that when the first image for both pops into my head, Black evangelicals makes me think of gospel choruses, while white evangelicals make me think of homophobic picket lines. Which is probably a consequence of media portrayals, since as a thoroughly non-religious person I have next to no direct interaction with either group.

[ShadowFox89]

My only experience religion wise is white roman catholics, and there's a reason I'm now agnostic.

[Annaamarth]

Well, that's kind of the thing. Black Christians are quite well-known to the media, and the contrast in priorities with their white evangelical counterparts is obvious. That is exactly why, when critique is leveled against such "Christians", that the media is careful to mention "white evangelicals", instead of just "evangelicals".

Speaking as a white, uh ... Christian, as opposed to a White Christian (note the extra capital W)...

Religion and politics are always dangerous topics to discuss.  Click at your own risk.  Trigger warnings inside

TW: discussion of spouse abuse, toxic-dom culture, Westboro Baptist

I think the problem in this context isn't simply the media - it's the ... I'm struggling with a good word, but zeitgeist is close.  In my experience, many -not all- of the people who are prone to most loudly critique Christianity don't differentiate - much the way BLM protestors are often not differentiated from rioters.  White Evangelicalism is something I will always find worth critiquing - but I am careful to set my definitions.  In many -not all- of these conversations, the conversation simply goes into "religion is, itself, evil - look at all the bad that has been done in the name of religion", which... I might contend shuts down the conversation- it renders any discussion of good done by churches to whataboutism, any discussion of political or economic reasons for such things as the Crusades are written off as beside the point, because religion was the stated reason, etc.  I also might contend that it reveals biases on the part of the other party, and suggests no desire to discuss in good faith.

Which is not to say that much bad does not occur in the name of religion - it does, certainly.  I simply think that pointing to religion as a root cause of evil is gross oversimplification.  Does the husband who claims to own his wife do so because he feels God allows it?  Does religion enable this?
Perhaps yes.  But were it not for religion, would this man not seek to abuse control over his spouse and claim her as property?  I doubt the presence of religion has much impact on this.  Look at incel culture or toxic-dom culture in BDSM - many of the same themes appear there, often without religious involvement.

I think that if I were to blame the evil in the world on "religion" or "faith" then I would be providing an excuse for all of those people who choose evil, regardless of the reason.  I choose not to, and while Westboro Baptist Church can suck a bag of rat dicks I applaud the churches cited in Cyrano's article.

Of course, I could be wrong.  Maybe religion - even faith itself - run too far counter to science to actually be, on the whole, a force for good.  Maybe the people I argue with are right and that everyone should be brought up in a science-only worldview, where everyone is expected to practice perfect rationality.  I am skeptical that this would be a significant improvement ... but I could be wrong.

I will admit that when the first image for both pops into my head, Black evangelicals makes me think of gospel choruses, while white evangelicals make me think of homophobic picket lines. Which is probably a consequence of media portrayals, since as a thoroughly non-religious person I have next to no direct interaction with either group.

I use the word "zeitgeist" in my spoilered bit - this is a good example - although I think more than the media is to blame.

My only experience religion wise is white roman catholics, and there's a reason I'm now agnostic.

Well ... if they were assholes, that seems a perfectly reasonable reaction.

[Annaamarth]

In more uplifting (ha) news:

Martian helicopters work.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56799755

[Haibane]

British Home Secretary Priti Patel plans to request a vote from MPs to classify the neo-nazi organisation Atomwaffen Division (AWD) as a terrorist organisation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56803647

[Haibane]

Shocking revelations of racism in the Church of England and the use of NDAs to gag whistle-blowers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56817048

I had no idea this was a thing. Disgusting. If this were happening in big industry it would have exploded all over the media a year or more ago.

[Annaamarth]

Shocking revelations of racism in the Church of England and the use of NDAs to gag whistle-blowers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56817048

I had no idea this was a thing. Disgusting. If this were happening in big industry it would have exploded all over the media a year or more ago.

It is disgusting, but I would not assume that events in big industry would explode.  In most industries I have worked there is a culture of silence - even in the face of workplace abuses.  Usually the small ones - like working through breaks instead of taking them as one ought, or just putting up with a ... mildly hostile environment - but if often continues to the bigger abuses.

I have seen more examples of sexism and anti-ltbtq in the workplace than I care to consider.

[gaggedLouise]

The proposed plans for a breakaway Super League, to give the top football clubs of western Europe a walled garden league to play in, has got fans and even many who are not defiant supporters of any one club on fire. The "big twelve" founding members would be guaranteed to stay in the league, with perhaps a few more coming in - but everyone joining after that whould have to qualify afresh for every year.

This concept feels like the final move away from football being the people's game,a locally rooted game, towards a "tv show league", more entertainment than sports really - and it could be corrosive for the national leagues those teams come from, like the Premier League. Or perhaps the outcome would look like in boxing, with several different organizations and belts, each with their own matches and champions...?  ::)

[Haibane]

I agree Louise. While personally I couldn't give a rodents bottom about British football - which in my view was turned from a sport into a money making industry in the 1980s when advertising and big sponsorship started (think "Walkers Stadium" instead of "Leicester City Football Club Stadium"), and transfer fees shot up from 100s of 1000s into millions - I think the closed super league idea is just not right. It is as many critics say, simply another money making sausage machine. Now if fans boycott it and not enough people go through the turnstiles to make it pay, it will die a natural death. I'm reminded of Kerry Packer's cricket tournaments of several decades ago.

But, some very encouraging news today during the PMs and Govts. press conference. Apparently vaccine take-up by ethnic minorities in the UK was extremely low a few weeks back but a concerted effort to combat both the natural tendency of ethnic communities to only "listen to their own voice" and a solid anti- anti-vax campaign has reaped benefits:

Dr Nikita Kanani, medical director of primary care for NHS England, says the public response to the vaccine programme has been "incredible".

But she warns that some centres have seen anti-vaccine protesters outside, and says "we will not stand for" people intimidating staff.

One area of concern has seen significant progress, she says: the uptake among ethnic minorities.

She says the numbers of people from ethnic minorities taking the vaccine have tripled compared with the national average.

- from BBC

[Beorning]

This whole "Super League" thing is just... stupid. What, people are supposed to watch the same dozen or so teams competing among themselves? What's the upside of it - for the fans, I mean?

[ShadowFox89]

This whole "Super League" thing is just... stupid. What, people are supposed to watch the same dozen or so teams competing among themselves? What's the upside of it - for the fans, I mean?

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