What's in the News? 2.0

[Beguile's Mistress]

Several injured in Vienna shooting described by Austrian interior minister as an ‘apparent terrorist attack’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/vienna-austria-shooting/2020/11/02/0c2ab888-1d47-11eb-ad53-4c1fda49907d_story.html?wpmk=1&wpisrc=al_news__alert-world--alert-national&utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wp_news_alert_revere&location=alert&pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJjb29raWVuYW1lIjoid3BfY3J0aWQiLCJpc3MiOiJDYXJ0YSIsImNvb2tpZXZhbHVlIjoiNTk2OTljNzk5YmJjMGY2ZDcxYzU3ZmZkIiwidGFnIjoid3BfbmV3c19hbGVydF9yZXZlcmUiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy53YXNoaW5ndG9ucG9zdC5jb20vd29ybGQvdmllbm5hLWF1c3RyaWEtc2hvb3RpbmcvMjAyMC8xMS8wMi8wYzJhYjg4OC0xZDQ3LTExZWItYWQ1My00YzFmZGE0OTkwN2Rfc3RvcnkuaHRtbD93cG1rPTEmd3Bpc3JjPWFsX25ld3NfX2FsZXJ0LXdvcmxkLS1hbGVydC1uYXRpb25hbCZ1dG1fc291cmNlPWFsZXJ0JnV0bV9tZWRpdW09ZW1haWwmdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPXdwX25ld3NfYWxlcnRfcmV2ZXJlJmxvY2F0aW9uPWFsZXJ0In0.Ed9EsF3TQuD5k4bn9wDnoT5GO4DMdCyDFsFrPDeWOAs

[Haibane]

And the BBC report of the same incident.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54788613

What can the western nations and the moderate/peaceful Islamic leaders do about this problem? How do we fix it?

[Sara Nilsson]

Ever wondered why the cops in USA are so often so .. fucked up?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/11/02/kentucky-state-police-hitler-slideshow/?fbclid=IwAR3GLewcLKrmwIiIIcnuaYkyYhmbI8d9OItavFUxiqCngM3csCLVBQdwFkw

The 33-page slide show used to train cadets for the Kentucky State Police encouraged ethical and moral decision-making, selflessness, pride and honor. But in doing so, the police also quoted Adolf Hitler and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and encouraged trainees to pursue violence at all costs.

“The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence,” Hitler wrote in his anti-Semitic manifesto “Mein Kampf,” which was included on a police training slide titled 'Violence of Action."

Wait what?! oh ffs

[Sara Nilsson]

and update:

Kentucky police commissioner resigns after report on training slideshow with Hitler quotes

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kentucky-police-commissioner-rodney-brewer-resigning-training-slideshow-hitler-quotes/

the commissioner resigns effective Wednesday. So thats at least something. Not just claiming everything is fine.

[Haibane]

The thing is the world now knows this is going on. And police chiefs and cops themselves know the world knows. That is a start, that is a place the US can go forwards from. I think 2020's (very thin) silver lining may well be that it was the year that US police reform began. I feel sure that if the Democrats get elected then the ball will roll faster and faster on the subject. Training and attitude are key. Teaching that "your firearm is not your first line of defence; it must be your LAST" is key as well.

[Lilias]

Author Rachel Caine has died. #FuckCancer

https://www.tor.com/2020/11/02/morganville-vampires-author-rachel-caine-has-died/

[Blythe]

So I know the presidential elections have most people's attention, but my state did something a little surprising with our state's house of representatitives.

Oklahoma has elected the first non-binary person to a state legislature in the USA. (In addition, Turner is Muslim, and given Oklahoma's issues with bigotry, it's impressive Turner made it. They should be proud of their new seat and I hope they do well in office!)

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/11/oklahoma-elects-non-binary-black-muslim-millennial-state-house/

[Beorning]

Back here, our  government's ideological madness seems to deepen and deepen. Apparently, there will be changes to the regulations concerning pharmacists - and now, a pharmacist will be allowed not to sell a patient contraceptives, including condoms and intrauterine devices...

[Sara Nilsson]

Back here, our  government's ideological madness seems to deepen and deepen. Apparently, there will be changes to the regulations concerning pharmacists - and now, a pharmacist will be allowed not to sell a patient contraceptives, including condoms and intrauterine devices...

oh ffs...

They are fucking insane!

[Haibane]

Back to the 19th century.

Poland is a member state of the EU... aren't there a stack of EU regulations and laws that prevent this sort of medieval thinking?

Brexit was in part about a perceived over-regulation from Brussels and yet Poland's government can do shit like this?

[Haibane]

The gunman who killed 4 and wounded 23 in Vienna was a known Islamic extremist who had been released from prison last December early due to his "youth" (he was 20). He had been imprisoned for trying to travel to Syria to join IS. In July he went to Slovakia and tried to buy AK-47 ammunition but failed due to not having a license. The Slovak police alerted the Austrian authorities but the Austrians failed to act. What a tragedy.

In a doubly agonising twist, had he been allowed to travel to Syria to join IS he may well have died in the subsequent fighting and 27 Austrian lives would not have been impacted; though its impossible of course to say what impact his presence may have had over there.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54810906

[Beorning]

oh ffs...

They are fucking insane!

Back to the 19th century.

Poland is a member state of the EU... aren't there a stack of EU regulations and laws that prevent this sort of medieval thinking?

Brexit was in part about a perceived over-regulation from Brussels and yet Poland's government can do shit like this?

Wait a minute, guys, it seems like that might've been a fake news after all - some really strong dementi by the Chief Apothecary Chamber just appeared.

... still, it's telling that with this government, we can perfectly imagine them doing something like this. It's not like some fundamentalists aren't calling for exactly this kind of law - and it's like there aren't already pharmacists who *do* refuse to sell contraception to clients, even thought it's illegal for them to do so.

And this government has already effectively banned any kind of post-act emergency contracteption, as they already implemented a law that any who woman who wants to get an emergency contracteptive (after, say, being raped) must first get a prescription for it. So, if you get raped etc., you have 72 hours tops to take a contraceptive... and, in this time, you need to get an appointment with an gynecologist (not always that easy), then that doctor must agree to issue the prescription (and the doctors *are* currently allowed to decline that on moral grounds!) and *then* you have to find a pharmacy where no fundamentalist pharmacist will decline to fill the prescription... Poland 2020, people! 

[Mechelle]

This amused me, although it's probably not very funny really.

There was an anti-mask protest in London today, but the organisers recommended that people should wear Guy Fawkes, er, masks, as worn by Anonymous. It is the 415th anniversary of the capture of that terrorist today, so it might be a weird sort of commemoration, but I always find those sort of masks very sinister, besides the obvious hypocrisy.




https://www.vice.com/en/article/7k9vzy/anti-maskers-anonymous-guy-fawkes-masks
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-54827535

[Beorning]

I admit I'm kind of frustrated by how many people outside of Britain seem to be in love with Guy Fawkes, November 5th etc. Ever since the V For Vendetta movie Fawkes seem to have become a symbol for anarchists, liberal-minded people etc... and they keep forgetting that this is just a re-intepretation of him that originated with Alan Moore. And that historical Guy Fawkes was a religious terrorist, not a defender of freedom...

[Mechelle]

I admit I'm kind of frustrated by how many people outside of Britain seem to be in love with Guy Fawkes, November 5th etc. Ever since the V For Vendetta movie Fawkes seem to have become a symbol for anarchists, liberal-minded people etc... and they keep forgetting that this is just a re-intepretation of him that originated with Alan Moore. And that historical Guy Fawkes was a religious terrorist, not a defender of freedom...

Absolutely, Beorning. I was going to write  "religious terrorist"  but decided against mentioning "religious". I can't take the right-wing website Guido Fawkes seriously when it's named in his honour (Guido was his full name, but he could only sign his name as  the shorter Guy after torture following his arrest).

November 5th is  a much smaller event in England than it once was, I might add.

[Haibane]

November 5th is  a much smaller event in England than it once was, I might add.

I wouldn't say it was a smaller event. I think its focus has changed. Most people these days enjoy fireworks at organised events. Small private firework parties in people's back gardens are very much a dwindling thing though due to the rising cost of them plus the many many injuries suffered over decades of amateur firework parties. There is also the fact that few people now regularly have bonfires at all in their gardens at any time of year due to the smoke free zones / clean air act, so its been a gradual social change.

When I was very small I have vague memories of my dad having bonfires in the autumn burning the fallen leaves but that must have been when I was extremely young. He would roast sweet chestnuts in the ashes which is a taste I always associate with this time of year and my earliest memories. By the time I was in school that had stopped.

Major organised displays though in the UK are a huge industry. Lots of villages and small towns hold them, as do rural pubs, etc.

But on the subject of the hijacking of Guy Fawkes as a symbol by the anti-establishment, I agree.

[Oniya]

This amused me, although it's probably not very funny really.

There was an anti-mask protest in London today, but the organisers recommended that people should wear Guy Fawkes, er, masks,

r/ThereWasAnAttempt...

[Regina Minx]

r/ThereWasAnAttempt...

My mask leaves no doubts that I am against mask wearing.

[Beorning]

But on the subject of the hijacking of Guy Fawkes as a symbol by the anti-establishment, I agree.

The most annoying thing is that the hijackers don't realize they are doing the hijacking. I remember that, a few years ago, some anarchist dude on the web furiously tried to convince me that Guy Fawkes "has always been" an anarchist symbol etc. Seriously?

I don't blame Alan Moore for this - in fact, I love V For Vendetta, it's a brilliant graphic novel. I'm not sure I even blame the Wachowskis who turned Moore's anarchist terrorist into a pro-democracy freedom fighter. I do blame, though, all these people who can't separate fiction with historical reality and don't bother to do any research into what they are celebrating.

[Iniquitous]

I swear Russia is just trolling Trump now.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/06/europe/russia-presidential-immunity-bill-intl/index.html

[Haibane]

Regarding Fawkes masks, it is an emotive and grey area though and one's views depend on where you sit. Fawkes was Catholic and he and his co-conspirators planned to detonate barrels of gunpowder in a cellar beneath the houses of parliament and kill King James I who was opening parliament. Back in the late 1500s and early 1600s your religion was the measure of you as a political person. Today that is less the case. But back then it was everything, especially in Britain where the Catholic/Protestant collide had been see-sawing back and forth ever since Henry VIII and his break from Rome in 1533 over his wish to divorce Catherine of Aragon who allegedly could not bear him a male heir.

Today we'd call someone who plants a bomb in a major civic building a terrorist, and rightly so, but look back in time to when it happened and that isn't the case. There was no such thing as terrorism back then.

So if you look through the lens of the times and you were a Catholic then it can honestly be said that Fawkes and his team were freedom fighters against an establishment that was anathema to their strongly-held beliefs.

One other issue that clouds things is the awful fate that befell Fawkes and some of his team. Terrible torture and public execution with confessions signed under the most extreme duress. That factor also adds to the "hero" concept of the man.

One should look at the historical events as much as you can with the mind's eye of a person of those times, which is extremely hard. Of course many do not which is why since V for Vendetta we have this double-view of whether using the now famous mask is a legitimate form of protest or not. To some I am sure it's simply "cool" and of course there's the cosplay aspect which I've seen at the Forbidden Planet store in London, the costume Hugo Weaving wore was, let's face it, extremely cool and that aspect appeals to some people, even if they are not making a political statement.

As in all things there are lots of greys between the white and black ends of the spectrum.

[Mechelle]

I do agree that you do need to look at the standards of the time when judging someone's actions.
Fawkes would have been seen as a traitor rather than a "terrorist" as the latter did not exist, as you say. The typical belief of his time was that  the people should conform to the religious views of their monarch, and those who did not would face various penalties.  England and Scotland were small, or relatively small, Protestant countries who felt threatened by Catholic countries like France and Spain, so Catholics were linked to their own countries' enemies, even if they were loyal themselves (Scotland is a bit strange in this context because of its traditional alliance with France).

The right-wing Conservative website Guido Fawkes is another strange inheritor of his name.

[TheGlyphstone]

Strictly speaking, the Anglican church at the time of Guy Fawkes wasn't Protestant. IIRC, one of the major issues leading to the rise of the Puritan faction was that it wasn't Protestant enough and still maintained too many of its Catholic traditions even after the schism. Sometimes Protestants were oppressed as harshly as Catholics, and who was or wasn't in favor changed fluidly with each monarch.

[Kristen]

Hello everyone. I don't want to say this story is 'new' to me but I haven't been following a lot of the hubbub recently. This ended up on my youtube channel heh...

https://www.youtube.com/post/UgzcY0UjBEW350Cvjzd4AaABCQ

So just browsing some of the comments initially, a very surface view of the conversation seems to be:

- Johnny Depp and Amber Heard had some drama regarding abuse.

- Evidence was put forth demonstrating the abuser (mental and physical?) came predominantly from Amber?

- Johnny Depp is asked to step down from his role as the character Grindewald.

- Amber Heard retains her role as Mera in Aquaman or hasn't been asked to step down from her roles?

I'm wondering if someone else here on E is more familiar with this story or might be able to shine a little light on whether or not this is something I'm misinterpreting or misunderstanding? I know the comments provide some context and are very opinion heavy so I tend to go over a lot of them but if there's anyone here who has an opinion or a thought on this, I'd love to know.

Thanks!

- Kristen -

[Kristen]

Hello everyone. I don't want to say this story is 'new' to me but I haven't been following a lot of the hubbub recently. This ended up on my youtube channel heh...

https://www.youtube.com/post/UgzcY0UjBEW350Cvjzd4AaABCQ

So just browsing some of the comments initially, a very surface view of the conversation seems to be:

- Johnny Depp and Amber Heard had some drama regarding abuse.

- Evidence was put forth demonstrating the abuser (mental and physical?) came predominantly from Amber?

- Johnny Depp is asked to step down from his role as the character Grindewald.

- Amber Heard retains her role as Mera in Aquaman or hasn't been asked to step down from her roles?

I'm wondering if someone else here on E is more familiar with this story or might be able to shine a little light on whether or not this is something I'm misinterpreting or misunderstanding? I know the comments provide some context and are very opinion heavy so I tend to go over a lot of them but if there's anyone here who has an opinion or a thought on this, I'd love to know.

Thanks!

- Kristen -

Hello again everyone. Sorry for some reason the page didn't work. I ended up going on a bit of a google hunt and came across:

https://people.com/movies/johnny-depp-agrees-to-resign-from-fantastic-beasts-role-after-losing-wife-beater-libel-case/

"Most troubling is the Judge’s reliance on the testimony of Amber Heard, and corresponding disregard of the mountain of counter-evidence from police officers, medical practitioners, her own former assistant, other unchallenged witnesses and an array of documentary evidence which completely undermined the allegations, point by point," said attorney Jenny Afia in a written statement.

In reading the article I wondered if it was just a case of he-said-she-said, and again I'm not too sure what evidence exactly has come out, what's truly been proven or not, so I'm pretty curious. I'll probably glance into it some more and see what I can find but if someone here happens to know more about it, I'd love to hear your view!

- Kristen -