#because not once in British history has a British king ever presided over a peaceful and progressive era

[realasslesbian]

My final post on it (unless it’s not) but y’all out here with ‘lists of countries that have been invaded by the British’, but where’s your ‘list of countries still under British rule’? Oh yeah right, we can’t acknowledge the actual fact that Queen Elizabeth single-handedly performed the absolutely monumental feat of stopping and reversing British colonialism and has basically spent her entire time as queen dealing with the mistakes of the men around her. No siree, if we talked about that it might paint a woman in a positive light and we can’t have that now, can we?

#I think the reason it gets to me is bc when I studied my law degree #it was always the rare queen that was a real breath of fresh air in the law book #you can read a whole tome about all the shitty things every British king did #but British queens have always been extremely progressive for their time #And Queen Elizabeth was no exception to that #if anything I'm actually hell concerned about this King Charles situation #as should anyone else who actually gives a real and credible fuck about British colonialism #because not once in British history has a British king ever presided over a peaceful and progressive era #especially following a queen #y'all's concern is in the wrong fucking place rn #feminism #queen elizabeth

[newstfionline]

Saturday, May 22, 2021

Record heat scorches western Russia and central Canada (Washington Post) It’s only May, and temperatures near the Arctic Circle in northwestern Russia are approaching 90 degrees. In Moscow, temperatures have shattered records on consecutive days. It has also been unusually warm in central Canada, where raging wildfires in Manitoba are sending plumes of smoke across retreating ice in Lake Winnipeg. Summer has yet to begin in the northern hemisphere, but temperatures in high latitudes are already alarmingly warm, portending another brutally hot season while signaling more climate troubles. Since last week, historic warmth has swelled over much of western Russian and bled into eastern Scandinavia. On Thursday, the mercury surged to 87.8 degrees in Naryan-Mar, Russia, a town near the Arctic Ocean.

House narrowly approves $1.9B to fortify Capitol after riot (AP) The House on Thursday narrowly approved $1.9 billion to fortify the Capitol after the Jan. 6 insurrection, as Democrats pushed past Republican opposition to try to harden the complex with retractable fencing and a quick-response force following the most violent domestic attack on Congress in history. The bill’s 213-212 passage came a day after the House approved the formation of an independent commission to investigate the deadly mob siege by President Donald Trump’s supporters. The two measures now face an uncertain outcome in the evenly divided Senate as most Republicans have objected to both. Tensions are running high at the Capitol.

Biden Is Facing an Uneasy Truth: North Korea Isn’t Giving Up Its Nuclear Arsenal (NYT) North Korea’s arsenal of nuclear weapons and its stockpile of fuel have roughly doubled in the past four years, a steady rise that proceeded even as President Donald J. Trump held high-drama meetings with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader. The best unclassified estimates are that the North has at least 45 nuclear weapons, and appears headed to an arsenal roughly the size of Pakistan’s, another nuclear state the United States once demanded must disarm, and now has all but given up that it ever will. For the North, that has always been a model to follow. In private, officials in the Biden administration admit they harbor no illusions that North Korea will ever give up the entirety of its program. Yet, like his predecessors, Mr. Biden has made the decision not to officially acknowledge the North as a nuclear state, aides say. It is a little like pretending that the Yankees do not play baseball. But maintaining the myth has a purpose, for both the United States and South Korea. Any official acknowledgment that the North Korean arsenal is here to stay would revive the long-simmering debates about whether U.S. allies like South Korea and Japan can depend on the American nuclear umbrella—essentially a security net for countries that do not have nuclear weapons of their own.

Young British people want to ditch the monarchy, poll suggests (Reuters) Young people in Britain no longer think the country should keep the monarchy and more now want an elected head of state, with their mood souring over the last couple of years, a poll on Friday showed. The British monarchy traces its history back to William the Conqueror who invaded England in 1066, though royals ruled the patchwork of kingdoms which stretched across what became England, Scotland and Wales for centuries before that. According to the survey by YouGov, 41% of those aged 18 to 24 thought there should now be an elected head of state compared to 31% who wanted a king or queen. That was a reversal of sentiment from two years ago, when 46% preferred the monarchy to 26% who wanted it replaced.

Europe freezes China deal (Foreign Policy) The European Parliament voted on Thursday overwhelmingly in favor of freezing the ratification of a new investment agreement with China. The move was a further tit-for-tat after Beijing sanctioned 10 EU parliamentarians in retaliation for Western sanctions over the treatment of its Uyghur population in Xinjiang.

Greek firefighters battle forest blaze near Athens (Reuters) Greek firefighters battled for a third day on Friday a wind-driven blaze that burned through pine forests about 60 km (37 miles) west of the capital Athens and forced hundreds of people to evacuate from their homes. Firefighters battled overnight to contain the fire that burned homes as black smoke filled the sky above costal villages where police was calling on citizens to leave. More than 10 villages and two monasteries have already been evacuated. The blaze broke out in a forest at a small seaside holiday resort on the Gulf of Corinth on Wednesday and moved eastward into the western Attica province on Thursday, fanned by strong winds.

Spiraling conflict in Myanmar sends thousands fleeing as military targets rebels (Washington Post) The group of men from a quiet, rural town in Myanmar’s hilly northwest often hunted birds and rabbits. But in late April, they turned their rifles on the military, killing more than a dozen soldiers over the ensuing weeks. Retribution came swiftly. The military seized the town of Mindat. Troops arriving in helicopters fired heavy artillery at civilians, according to residents, and cut off the supply of food and water. Soldiers raided homes where they suspected militia fighters were hiding, and shot a 10-year old girl in the neck, local media reported. Most of the 12,000 residents in the urban area fled into the hills, where they forage for food and sleep in makeshift shelters. Almost four months since Myanmar’s military ousted the civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, resistance to the coup is intensifying beyond street protests and civil disobedience. Though the cost of fighting back is high—more than 800 have been killed, mostly peaceful protesters and bystanders—militia groups are now taking up arms against the overextended military as the country speeds toward collapse and thousands of refugees pour into India, Thailand and China.

As Olympics loom, Japan health care in turmoil (AP) As she struggled to breathe, Shizue Akita had to wait more than six hours while paramedics searched for a hospital in Osaka that would treat her worsening COVID-19. When she finally got to one that wasn’t overwhelmed with other patients, doctors diagnosed severe pneumonia and organ failure and sedated her. Akita, 87, was dead two weeks later. “Osaka’s medical systems have collapsed,” said her son, Kazuyuki Akita. Hospitals in Osaka, Japan’s third-biggest city and only 2 1/2 hours by bullet train from Summer Olympics host Tokyo, are overflowing with coronavirus patients. About 35,000 people nationwide—twice the number of those in hospitals—must stay at home with the disease, often becoming seriously ill and sometimes dying before they can get medical care. As cases surge in Osaka, medical workers say that every corner of the system has been slowed, stretched and burdened. And it’s happening in other parts of the country, too.

Bathroom break (Foreign Policy) A driver of a Japanese bullet train is facing disciplinary action after he left the controls unattended to take a bathroom break while the train and its 160 passengers were traveling at more than 90 miles per hour. The driver left the cockpit for three minutes in total, as an unqualified train conductor remained behind. According to Central Japan Railway, the trainline’s operator, the driver felt abdominal pain and wanted to avoid delaying the train by having to stop at the next station. The driver may have gotten away with the infraction had the company not noticed an extremely rare occurrence for Japan’s Shinkansen trains: It was running one minute behind schedule.

South Korean bullying (NYT) South Korea is undergoing a reckoning over bullying. Anonymous accusations have surfaced on social media alleging that sports heroes, K-pop stars and actors bullied others when they were teenagers or younger. The wave has started a national conversation about bullying, and some experts ask whether South Korea’s hypercompetitive society may be partly to blame. Han You-kyung, head of the Institute of School Violence Prevention at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said that surveys do not show bullying is more serious in South Korean schools than in other developed countries. But Han called South Korea “a culture that puts achievement at the center” and a system that inflicts weak punishments on bullies.

Palestinians claim victory in Gaza (AP) Palestinians rallied by the thousands early Friday after a cease-fire took effect in the latest Gaza war, with many viewing it as costly but clear victory for the Islamic militant group Hamas over a far more powerful Israel. The 11-day war left more than 200 dead—the vast majority Palestinians—and brought widespread devastation to the already impoverished Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. But the rocket barrages that brought life to a standstill in much of Israel were seen by many Palestinians as a bold response to perceived Israeli abuses in Jerusalem, the emotional heart of the conflict. Thousands took to the streets of Gaza as the cease-fire took hold at 2 a.m. Young men waved Palestinian and Hamas flags, passed out sweets, honked horns and set off fireworks. “Life will return, because this is not the first war, and it will not be the last war,” said shop owner Ashraf Abu Mohammad. “The heart is in pain, there have been disasters, families wiped from the civil registry, and this saddens us. But this is our fate in this land, to remain patient.” (Foreign Policy) The destruction in Gaza will take years to rebuild, according to Matthias Schmele, the Gaza director of UNRWA, the U.N. agency responsible for Palestinian refugees; 16,800 housing units were damaged in the bombings, with 1,000 completely destroyed, according to Gaza’s housing ministry. “The biggest damage out of all of this is trauma,” Schmele told Foreign Policy, adding that mental health support needs to be part of any future investment. “Buildings you can rebuild. But people’s lives, that won’t be easy.”

#headlines #news

[dubsism]

Today’s Movie: A Woman Called Golda

Year of Release: 1982

Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Ned Beatty, Franklin Cover

Director: Alan Gibson

This movie is not on my list of essential films.

NOTE: This installment of Sports Analogies Hidden In Classic Movies is being done as part of something called The 5th Wonderful Ingrid Bergman Blog-A-Thon being hosted by The Wonderful World of Cinema. She hosted the first blog-a-thon in which I ever participated; you might say she helped create the monster you see now some 90 episodes later.  At one time, I wondered why she kept having me in these events; after all, she has to be smarter than that considering she just earned an advanced degree in “filmy stuff.”  Then I realized her genius…she has me around as my thick-headed slop makes the other participants look that much better 🙂

You can see all the contributors to this blog-a-thon here:

Days One, Two, and Three

The Story:

Have you ever heard the old saying “save the best for last?” No doubt, there are some hardcore Bergman-o-philes who might recoil in horror at what I’m about to suggest, but for my money, Ingrid Bergman’s final performance may very well be one of her best.

For purposes of full disclosure, I’m not the world’s foremost Ingrid Bergman fan. I don’t get far off the “beaten path” when it comes to her work; I couldn’t take a discussion much beyond “Casablanca,” “Gaslight,” or “Notorious.” I could barely tell you if Rossellini is a pasta dish or a director, but I can tell you this. Anybody who does consider themselves a fan of Bergman needs to have this movie in their “watched” folder.

The Necessary Backstory

If it weren’t for “Movie for a Rained-Out Ball Game,” I wouldn’t have discovered this gem either.  Now, you can’t be a “movie snob” and still appreciate “A Woman Called Golda.” Going in, you have to understand this is a “made for television” effort; it has the inherent flaws of such a movie.

First, it’s pretty clear this movie lacked the luxury of a large budget. Second, having such low overhead is why local television stations had this film in the bank ready for the “rainy day.” Lastly, there’s the issue of casting. Most such films have three core characteristics:

1) A Collection of “That Guy” Actors

This is a tactic shared by disaster movies as I explored in the low-budget Martin Milner 1976 TV epic “Flood!” The difference is the price tags on the cast of familiar faces.  “A Woman Called Golda” is no exception.  The first-time viewer of a sufficient age is certainly going to recognize some faces of the time.  If you were a fan of “The Jeffersons,” you might recognize Franklin “Mr. Willis” Cover playing Senator Hubert Humphery.  Fans of the “Star Wars” franchise might recognize this movie’s “Mr. Macy” as General Rieekan from “The Empire Strikes Back;” the guy who looks like he’s wearing throat lozenges on his uniform.  Then’s there’s the ever-present Ned “Squeal Like a Pig” Beatty.

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That’s just for openers. If for no other reason, you need to watch this movie to spot all the familiar faces. This cast features one Oscar winner and four Oscar nominees in a melange of the recognizable. You can even make a drinking game out of spotting them all.

2) A Television Legend

Arguably the biggest legend to date is television history in William Shatner.  But if his first series didn’t become so iconic, Shatner is likely little more than a footnote in the grand scheme of the small screen; he’s forever the guy who sees gremlins on the wing in “The Twilight Zone.”

Let’s be honest, “Star Trek” doesn’t become a staple of television history with out Leonard Nimoy; Shatner lived long and prospered because of “Spock.” In the very same vein as the green-blooded Spock did for Captain Kirk, Nimoy’s presence in this film as Golda Meir’s husband lays the foundation for the capital piece of casting for any film of this ilk…

3) Honest to Goodness Hollywood Royalty (albeit an aging one)

Character actor extraordinaire Robert Loggia’s portrayal of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat offered the opportunity to portray one of the great dynamic characters of all time. Sadat was one of the military officers who staged a coup d’état against King Farouk in 1952. He became prominent in Egyptian politics serving as Vice President and Minister of State under President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Sadat succeeded Nasser as President of Egypt in 1970, the year after Golda Meir became the Prime Minister of Israel.

The problem is Loggia was normally known for playing “Mob” type uber-hoodlums and he simply just wasn’t up to the task of playing a statesman like Sadat.

Frankly, there are times when Loggia’s performance borders on the clownish, but putting him in that role was either the definition of “accidentally successful” or pure, unadulterated genius. If an actor capable of exploring the depth of a character like Anwar Sadat had been cast in that role, it very easily could have forced a pivot in perspective of the whole film.  If they had been able to put Anthony Quinn in that role, they might as well have re-worked the whole picture to “A Man Called Anwar” rather than “A Woman Called Golda.”

In terms of world history, the tales of Anwar Sadat and Golda Meir are inextricably linked, which makes telling the tale of one without making a co-star of the other intrinsically difficult. Besides, as previously mentioned, Paramount Domestic Television only had budget for one Hollywood monarch, and that was Ingrid Bergman.

Even if they hadn’t re-worked the picture, the Sadat character could have easily stolen the movie.  When Sadat comes to power in 1970, he is the leader of a nation orders of magnitude larger and more powerful than Israel.  Not only is that nation thirsty for revenge for the loss of the Sinai Peninsula during the 1967 “Six-Day War,” but the Soviet Union is Egypt’s main source of foreign aid and also wouldn’t mind seeing the Jewish state wiped off the map. Sadat know that being hostile to both the United States and Israel was a hindrance to industrialization and modernization of Egypt, but changing those things was not going to be an “overnight” project.

But by 1973, the Arab states, particularly Syria, Jordan, and the Egyptian Army – those who had lost territory to Israel in 1967 – were ready to unleash the dogs of war yet again in a bid to recapture the Sinai, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the other lands lost in the previously. This leads us to the defining moment of Golda Meir’s life.

The Brilliance of Ingrid Bergman

Golda Meir with Anwar Sadat during his visit to Israel in 1977.

“A Woman Called Golda” was a four-hour “made for television” movie originally aired in two-hour halves in 1982.  As the aforementioned “Hollywood Royalty,” Bergman’s main role was to lend gravitas to the film. The film opens in 1977; the scene being Golda Meir has returned to her old school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is telling the students the story of her life.  Through a series of flashbacks woven together with Bergman’s narrative, the audience is drawn into the story-telling. In one fell swoop, all the problems are solved. The way this movie was made eliminated issues created by the the quirky casting, the also aforementioned “Sadat” problem, and opens the door for Bergman to deliver a tremendous performance for a story which richly deserved it.

Meir was born on May 3, 1898 as Golda Mabovitch in Kiev, Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine). Her father went to find work in America in 1903, and once he had saved enough money, the rest of the family emigrated to Milwaukee in 1906 to escape the ever-present persecution of Jews throughout Europe. Those struggles fed Golda’s dream of an independent Jewish state.  In the meantime, she attended college, became a teacher, met and married Morris Meyerson (played by Leonard Nimoy) in 1917.

Morris and Golda moved to the British Mandate of Palestine (land that would eventually become Israel) in 1921 to live and work on a kibbutz.  While Golda was not performing her duties of picking almonds, planting trees, tending chickens, and running the kitchen, her leadership abilities were noticed. As a result, the other members of the kibbutz chose her as its representative to the General Federation of Labor known as the Histadrut.

Despite the fact they left the kibbutz in 1924, Golda’s rise in the political world would continue.  The couple eventually settled in Jerusalem where they have two children; a son Menachem and a daughter Sarah.

The next step in Golda’s ascension took place in 1928 when she was elected secretary of the Working Women’s Council (Moetzet HaPoalot).  This position required her to spend two years as an emissary in the United States. While this was a major step for her, it also marked the beginning of the end of her marriage to Morris.  The children went with Golda to America, but Morris remained in Jerusalem. Over the next two decades Morris and Golda grew apart, but never divorced; despite their estrangement, they remained married until his death in 1951. The next two decades saw Golda serve in a variety of roles in service of Israel.

Meir with President Kennedy when she was Israel’s Foreign Minister. 1962

By 1969, Meir was in a state of semi-retirement due to health concerns, but after prime minister Levi Eshkol’s sudden death, Meir was elected as his successor.  She took office in March of 1969 and maintained the coalition government between her own Mapai party and two others, the Rafi and Ahdut Ha’Avoda. Eventually, these three would officially merge to form the Israeli Labor Party.

But early in her term as prime minister, Meir eschewed politics to court other world leaders regardless of their ideology with her own vision of peace in the middle east. This included the President of the United States Richard Nixon, Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceausesçu, and and Pope Paul VI. In a highly controversial move, Meir even hosted a visit to Israel by West German chancellor Willy Brandt in 1973.

Through Bergman’s portrayal and narration, viewers start to see Meir’s overall strategy of making Israel a sympathetic figure by being the side seeking peace.  This is only exacerbated in the wake of the Palestinian terror attack on the 1972 Munich Olympics in which 11 Israeli athletes were murdered. This strategy becomes pivotal in Meir’s finest moment.

Early in 1973, Meir cemented her relationship with American President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger when she agreed to Kissinger’s peace proposal based on “security versus sovereignty” in which Israel would accept Egyptian sovereignty over all of the Sinai Peninsula, while Egypt would accept Israeli presence in some of the Sinai’s strategic positions. However, this back-fired; in October of 1973 the Arab states began massing troops on the Israeli borders.

Prime Minister Meir, President Nixon, and Secretary of State Kissinger in 1973.

This is the moment when Bergman’s portrayal fulfills the “gravitas” role – and then some – because this is the moment where Meir is faced with a decision with the fate of a nation hanging in the balance.

On the eve of the October 1973 “Yom Kippur” war, Israeli intelligence could not conclusively determine that an attack was imminent, but the signs of a heavy troop build-up in the Golan Heights and in the Sinai were clear. Meir was convinced this was a set-up identical to the Six-Day War six years earlier. On one hand, there were advisors telling her an attack was not likely. The Israeli public shared that sentiment, especially given the crushing defeat which was  inflicted on the Arab states in 1967.  Despite the fact she had complete authority to order a full-scale mobilization for war, Meir did not do so.

But a few days later, it became clear an attack was imminent, and Meir’s delay only allowed the enemy forces to grow in strength. Mere hours before the outbreak of war, Meir met with Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan and Army Chief of Staff General David Elazar. While Dayan continued to argue that war was not likely and felt that only the Israeli Air Force and two Army division needed to be called up, while Elazar felt a full-scale mobilization was necessary along with launch of a devastating preemptive strike on the Syrian and Egyptian forces.

Meir agreed to the complete mobilization of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), but would not order the preemptive attack. Meir told Dayan and Elezar that Israel’s survival would depend on foreign aid. To that end, she believed they were not able to depend on European nations to supply Israel with military equipment, and the only country which would possibly come to Israel’s defense was the United States, but that wouldn’t happen if the Americans felt Israel initiated the hostilities. Meir placed her bet; million of lives including her own and the survival of a notion were at stake.

At 2 p.m. on October 6th, the armies of Syria and Egypt poured into Israel. The IDF launched a series of blocking actions against the Syrians and launched a mostly ineffective counter-offensive against the Egyptians in the Sinai.  By October 11th, the invading forces had been pushed back by the IDF, but the Israeli Air Force and Army had suffered massive casualties and had no reserves.  If the Arabs counter-attacked at this point, the Israelis could have easily suffered a defeat ensuring the destruction of the entire nation and a blood-bath of unimaginable scale.

But Meir’s gamble paid off. On October 12th, President of the United States Richard Nixon ordered the launch of Operation Nickel Grass, and within 24 hours American military hardware began flooding into Israel. Within days, the re-armed and re-supplied IDF was back on the offensive with forces across the Suez Canal threatening Cairo and breaking out of the Golan Heights on the road to Damascus.

One of the reasons why Meir made the right call on the preemptive strike is she hedged that bet by letting Nixon and Kissinger know her decision and why she made it. After Operation Nickel Grass was launched, Kissinger told Meir that she made the right choice; that if she had ordered the firing of the first shot, he and Nixon “wouldn’t have given Israel so much as a nail.”

Ironically, it was Meir’s triumph in the Yom Kippur war which led to her political downfall. In the aftermath, the Israeli public demanded answers for why the IDF seemed so -ill-prepared for the initial attack which led to it taking such heavy casualties. Both Meir and Chief of Staff Elazar became scapegoats and were forced to resign.

The Legacy of Golda Meir

Israeli 10 Sheqalim Banknote commemorating Golda Meir

The film ends by coming full circle with Ingrid Bergman bringing the tale of Golda Meir’s life story to a close with the audience of school children. Meir died shortly after this trip to her school; she had been suffering from lymphoma for years. Bergman passed away on her 67th birthday only a few months from the end of filming “A Woman Called Golda.”  Like Meir, Bergman was also suffering from cancer.

But despite the ignominious end to her political career, Golda Meir is still a revered figure in Israel.  Not only is she on a bank note, she is buried on Mount Herzl, the site of Israel’s national cemetery. The first and only woman to hold the office of Prime Minister in Israeli history to date, and only the fourth woman to be a head of state in the world at the time, Golda Meir was known as the “Iron Lady” of Israeli politics; this term would later be used to describe Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Former Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion called Meir “the best man in the government” and “strong-willed, straight-talking, gray-bunned grandmother of the Jewish people.”

Similar glowing words for Ingrid Bergman came from her daughter Isabella Rossellini after she had seen “A Woman Called Golda.”

She never showed herself like that in life. In life, Mum showed courage. She was always a little vulnerable, courageous, but vulnerable. Mother had a sort of presence, like Golda, I was surprised to see it…When I saw her performance, I saw a mother that I’d never seen before – this woman with balls.

Like I said, if you consider yourself a fan of Ingrid Bergman, and you’ve never seen this film, you need to change that. Even if you already agree with the words of her daughter, once you see “A Woman Called Golda,” you’ll have a whole new appreciation for them.

Look what it did for me…the guy who still thinks Rossellini is something that comes with a red sauce.

The Hidden Sports Analogy:

Give or take a few years, Golda Meir was born right around the same time as Joan Whitney Payson.  They both died within a few years of each other as well. But other than today’s hidden sports analogy, the similarities stop there.

Meir came to America as a penniless immigrant escaping the pogroms of Russia of the turn of the 20th century. Her father was a carpenter who sweated for every cent he ever had. Payson was the essential “trust find baby;” She inherited a trust fund from her grandfather William C. Whitney of the prominent Whitney family and on her father’s death in 1927, she received a large part of the family’s fortune…which goes all the way back to the colonial days.  She was “old money” of the first order, was pedigreed at Barnard College, and was known as a businesswoman, philanthropist, patron of the arts and renowned art collector.

Joan Whitney Payson

But Payson was also a dedicated sports enthusiast who also happened to be a minority shareholder in the old New York Giants baseball club. Albeit on a different scale, post World War II Palestine shares a crucial characteristic with Major League Baseball of the same time; for both this was a time of complete upheaval. The effect of establishing a Jewish state in land held by Muslims since the Crusades speaks for itself.  But the 1950s represented an equally tectonic shift in the demographics of the United States…and consequently those of it’s biggest sport at that time.

The Baseball Diaspora

The 1950s ushered in an era for franchise relocation and expansion for Major League Baseball. By 1957, the lure of new and untapped markets was so strong it reached the de facto capital of baseball, New York City. The “Big Apple” was home three teams; two of them being the biggest franchises in the game. To this day, no team has won more games than the Giants, and no team has won more championships than the New York Yankees. Conversely, the Brooklyn Dodgers were the “red-headed step-child” of New York baseball.  The Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley wanted to buy land on which to build a stadium to replace the dilapidated Ebbets Field. For a host of reasons, this proved difficult.

Meanwhile, emissaries from the city of Los Angeles were looking to entice a team to move to California.  After the war, the advent of transcontinental airline travel meant the obstacles of slow rail travel and the distance to the west coast were no longer in play.  Nobody really thought a team would leave New York; as such the Angelino’s target  to move west was the Washington Senators.  It was no secret that Senators’ owner Calvin Griffith was open to be courted for a move.  But when stories began to appear of O’Malley’s dissatisfaction with New York, the faction from Los Angeles shifted their focus.

In no time, O’Malley and the city of Los Angeles had a deal in place, but there was one snag. Citing travel and scheduling concerns, National League president Warren Giles would not allow O’Malley to move the Dodgers to the West Coast unless he could find another owner also willing to move. O’Malley began to put out feelers, but It was starting to look like Giles’ mandate was going to kill the deal. There were only eight teams in the National League at the time; the process of elimination left O’Malley with what he thought were no “real” options.

August Busch just had the city of St. Louis handed to his Cardinals as their exclusive market when the American League’s St. Louis Browns left to become the Baltimore Orioles in 1954, so there was no way he was moving. One of the biggest proponents of westward expansion was the Chicago Cubs’ owner William Wrigley; the Cubs were the first team to move their Spring Training facilities out of Florida, and he already owned the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League. But for a host of reason, the idea of the Cubs abandoning Chicago was almost heretical as a team leaving New York.  The one team which might have moved west with him was the Boston Braves, but they already made their move when they headed to Milwaukee in 1953.

Just when O’Malley was about to give up on the Los Angeles deal and the Brooklyn fans were beginning to rest assured they weren’t going to lose “dem Bums,” the bombshell hit that both the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants were leaving the “Big Apple” for Los Angeles and San Francisco respectively.

Horace Stoneham and Walter O’Malley right before they head for the airport.

What nobody knew that O’Malley discovered was the Giants’ majority owner Horace Stoneham was having similar difficulty finding a replacement for his team’s antiquated home stadium, the Polo Grounds. While all this was going one, the city of Minneapolis was already constructing Metropolitan Stadium in an attempt to lure a baseball team and/or a football team to the upper mid-west. The Minneapolis Millers were the New York Giants top minor-league affiliate at the time and Shoreham was noted to have said “there were not two better major league stadiums.”

That’s when O’Malley put “two and two together” deducing Shoreham was at least entertaining the idea of moving the Giants to the Twin Cities.  Being open to leaving New York was the only opening O’Malley needed; he persuaded Shoreham to move the Giants San Francisco, fulfilling Warren Giles’ dictate the Dodgers would have a National League rival closer than St. Louis.

Redrawing Baseball’s Borders

As a minority owner of the the New York Giants, Joan Whitney Payson was staunchly opposed to the move. She knew what this would do to the fans. Baseball fandom in New York in the 1950 enjoyed the same fervor as any religion.  It was a major component of your personal identity; race, creed, national origin, and Dodgers, Giants, or Yankees. It was that simple and well-defined, and you couldn’t change any of them.

In one fell swoop, legions of New York National League fans were cast into the baseball desert. Their teams were gone, and there was nothing they could do about.  While Dodger and Giants fans enjoy of the great rivalries in all of sports, they do have one unifying factor. They both have an eyeball-splitting hatred of the New York Yankees.

Imagine what would have happened if in 1973 Golda Meir had said something like “In order to escape the never-ending cycle of war, we’re going to move the State of Israel to Utah. It’s just like Palestine; it’s got a big, salty lake and plenty of desert. It’ll be great!” Granted, that comparison leans a smidge to the absurd side, but it makes the point. It also sets the table for something even more absurd which actually happened.  Imagine that after Israel made the move to Utah, somebody told the Jews left in Palestine that they could always just convert to Islam.

That’s essentially what National League president Warren Giles told Dodger and Giant fans after their teams were ripped out from underneath them.  Giles was a huge proponent of expansion or relocation; anything that would put his league into new markets. During his term as president from 1952 to 1969, the National League broke out of it’s borders not having any teams farther south or west of St. Louis. In much the same way the borders of Israel were redrawn by military conquest, the borders of baseball territory were being redrawn by Warren Giles and his quest to chase the ever-shifting American population demographics.

The first step was the two New York teams heading for California. But it was in the 1960s when the expansion of baseball really took off. At the dawn of the decade, Giles announced plans to add four teams to the National League, with two being added in 1962 and two more in 1969. The plan called for the 1962 expansion to target Texas and the South, while the 1969 additions would focus on the West and possibly even a foray into Canada.

When questioned as to why there was no thought towards establishing a new National League presence in the “Big Apple,” Giles’ notorious reply “Who says you have to have a team in New York?”

The Rise of a New Baseball State

Naturally, Giles’ comments didn’t sit well with New Yorkers.  But what baseball fans didn’t know was Giles’ visions of expansion were the direct result of the founding of a third Major League. While the Continental League never played a game, the fact that it had investors ready to move big-time baseball into cities where it did not exist yet made both the National and American leagues take notice.

Founded in 1958 by prominent attorney William Shea, the Continental Baseball League (CBL) had prominent prospective franchise owners like Bob Howsam (who would help create the American Football League and become the founder of the Denver Broncos), Wheelock Whitney, Jr. (who was influential in bringing professional sports to Minneapolis and was an owner of the National Football League’s Minnesota Vikings) and Toronto’s Jack Kent Cooke (who at one time owned the NFL’s Washington Redskins, the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers, and the Los Angeles Lakers of the NHL.). That was a formidable line-up, but the CBL acquired its gravitas when Joan Whitney Payson threw open the door of her Fort Knox-ian bank vault to fund the start-up league.

Once she knew she couldn’t stop the Giants from leaving New York, Payson immediately sold her interest and began efforts to get another team in the “Big Apple.” But once she heard Warren Giles’ comments about New York, she knew the National League president did not want to give her an expansion team.  But once she heard of the Continental Baseball League, Payson knew one way or another she was going to bring baseball back to Brooklyn and Queens.

When Warren Giles found out that Payson had just been awarded the CBL’s New York franchise, he knew he could not have somebody with her wealth and dedication to New York as a rival in the nation’s largest market. As a result, Warren Giles and the National League awarded an expansion franchise in 1960 for New York City to Joan Whitney Payson.  At this point, both her and Shea abandoned the CBL to focus on their new National League franchise. This effectively marked the end of the CBL, which formally disbanded later that year.

Many have speculated over the years that the CBL was simply a canard used by Shea and Payson to illicit an expansion franchise out of Warren Giles. True or not, the fact is they brought the National League back to New York. The rest is history.

The Legacy

The New York Mets took the field for the first time in 1962. They had a record of 40 wins and 120 losses, making them easily the worst team in all of Major League Baseball.  The wins and losses didn’t matter; what was important was baseball was back for Brooklyn and Queens. In those boroughs, there was no baseball; the hated Yankees were for Manhattan and the Bronx.  Building on that,Payson managed to merge the fan bases of the departed Dodgers and Giants in much the same manner Golda Meir unified three political parties in Israel. The Mets’ uniforms featured both Dodger blue and Giant orange, and for their first two seasons they played their home games in the Giants’ old home, the Polo Grounds.

William Shea and the stadium that would bear his name.

In 1964, the Mets moved into the newly-constructed William H. Shea Municipal Stadium, or “Shea” for short. Payson insisted the new venue bear Shea’s name in tribute for all he did to bring the Mets to New York.  As for Payson, she retained majority ownership of the Mets and functioned as the team president from it’s inception until her death in 1975.  But she was no “figurehead” in the corner office. Payson was “hands-on” for the day-to-day operations of the New York Mets every day of her life. She was a fixture in the team’s facilities and was well admired by the team’s personnel and players, and all around baseball as well.

Joan Whitney Payson was the first woman in a major North American sports league found a franchise from the ground up, to buy majority control of a team rather than inheriting it, and as such was the first to have her team capture championship when “Miracle” Mets won the World Series in 1969.

Joan Whitney Payson was there from Day One of the New York Mets, and she gambled hard with her own money to bring the dream of a new franchise in New York to reality.  Golda Meir was there from Day One with Israel, and she literally bet her own life to save her dream of an independent Jewish state. As mentioned, Payson and Meir came from very different backgrounds; Payson had money, and Golda Meir ended up on money.

But they both created something which means a great deal to a great many people to this day.

The Moral of the Story:

Even the largest of historical figures can’t make history alone. but Joan Whitney Payson and Golda Meir got pretty damn close.

FUN FACT: There was a television mini-series made in America in 1983 about the life of Anwar Sadat. He was played by Louis Gossett, Jr. and it was banned Egypt.

BONUS FUN FACT: This is not the first time Ingrid Bergman’s portrayal of Golda Meir has been mentioned on Dubsism. She was actually one of our first Sports Doppelgangers.

Check out Dubsism’s Movies and Blog-A-Thons page for a full schedule of projects past, present, and future!

Got a question, comment, or just want to yell at us? Hit us up at  [email protected], @Dubsism on Twitter, or on our Pinterest,  Tumblr, Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook pages, and be sure to bookmark Dubsism.com so you don’t miss anything from the most interesting independent sports blog on the web.

Sports Analogies Hidden In Classic Movies – Volume 90: “A Woman Called Golda” Today's Movie: A Woman Called Golda Year of Release: 1982 Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Ned Beatty, Franklin Cover…

#Baseball #Classic Movies #Golda Meir #History #Movies #New York Mets #Sports Analogies Hidden In Classic Movies

[latestnews2018-blog]

'Queen of Soul' Aretha Franklin has died

New Post has been published on https://latestnews2018.com/queen-of-soul-aretha-franklin-has-died/

'Queen of Soul' Aretha Franklin has died

Family issues statement: ‘It brings us comfort to know that her legacy will live on’

Detroit:  The great American soul singer Aretha Franklin has died at the age of 76, her representative has said. She was reported to have been gravely ill with her family at her bedside. She died of advanced pancreatic cancer.

Her family has addressed her fans in a statement issued by her publicist.

“It is with deep and profound sadness that we announce the passing of Aretha Louise Franklin, the Queen of Soul,” the statement said.

“In one of the darkest moments of our lives, we are not able to find the appropriate words to express the pain in our heart.

“We have lost the matriarch and rock of our family. The love she had for her children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and cousins knew no bounds.”

Funeral arrangements would be announced in the coming days, the family added, thanking fans around the world for their “incredible outpouring of love” since it first emerged earlier this week that she was gravely ill.

“We have felt your love for Aretha and it brings us comfort to know that her legacy will live on. As we grieve, we ask that you respect our privacy during this difficult time.”

Franklin had been in ill health since 2010, when she was diagnosed with a tumour but returned to intermittent live performance after undergoing surgery.

  An Aug. 30, 1988 file photo of Aretha Franklin and George Michael during his Faith World Tour in Auburn Hills, Michigan.

Despite having announced her retirement from performing in 2017, she was due to headline two shows at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest this April but cancelled on doctor’s orders. Her last performance was at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City during Elton John ‘s 25th anniversary gala for the Elton John Aids Foundation on 7 November 2017.

Known as “the queen of soul”, Franklin sold more than 75m records in her lifetime and won 18 Grammy awards. She had 77 entries in the US Billboard Hot 100 and 20 No 1 singles on the R&B chart.

Graphic showing the songs sung most often by Aretha Franklin in concert since the start of her career. #Aretha

Source: @setlistfm pic.twitter.com/Jetjbi0qm1— AFP news agency (@AFP) August 16, 2018

Her last album was A Brand New Me, released in November 2017, which paired archival vocal recordings for Atlantic Records with new orchestral arrangements by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Her last original recording was Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics in 2014, which included her take on Adele’s Rolling in the Deep. 

“American history wells up when Aretha sings,” former US president Barack Obama said of her performance of (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman at the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors. “Nobody embodies more fully the connection between the African-American spiritual, the blues, R&B, rock’n’roll – the way that hardship and sorrow were transformed into something full of beauty and vitality and hope.”

Franklin was born on 25 March 1942 in Memphis, Tennessee. The family moved to Buffalo, New York, when Franklin was two years old, and settled in Detroit, Michigan two years later. It was in Detroit, shortly after her mother’s death, that the 10-year-old Franklin started singing solos at New Bethel church, where her father was a preacher whose political sermons led Martin Luther King to stay with the family when he visited Detroit.

Clarence LaVaughn (CL) Franklin began managing his daughter and included her in his “gospel caravan” church tours. He assisted Franklin in signing first to JVB Records, which released her debut, Songs of Faith, in 1956, then to Columbia to pursue a pop career. After a first flush of success in the early 1960s, Franklin signed to Atlantic in 1966, where she flourished with an extraordinary run of singles including her cover of Otis Redding’s Respect, (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman and I Say a Little Prayer. In 1972, she released the live album Amazing Grace, which showcased her gospel background.

While her success had dimmed by the mid-1970s, Franklin revitalised her career in the 1980s thanks in part to a series of astute collaborations. Now signed to Clive Davis’s Arista Records, she duetted with George Benson, George Michael and, on their 1985 single Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves, the British synth-pop duo Eurythmics.

Franklin continued to release albums and perform throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and received the Grammy award for lifetime achievement in 1994. In 2005, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2009, she performed My Country, ‘Tis of Thee at Obama’s first inauguration.

Franklin announced her retirement from performing in February 2017 (though she would later return to the stage). Stepping back from performing was bittersweet, she said. “This is what I’ve done all of my life.” But, she added: “I feel very, very enriched and satisfied with respect to where my career came from and where it is now.”

Franklin was working on an as-yet unreleased album featuring collaborations with artists including Stevie Wonder , Elton John and Lionel Richie, she told Billboard in June 2017.

In January 2018, Franklin’s long-term collaborator Clive Davis confirmed that the singer Jennifer Hudson would portray Franklin in the upcoming biopic Queen of Soul . Franklin had described Hudson as one of her first choices for the MGM film.

Franklin’s musical influence is immeasurable. “The soulfulness comes from the gospel,” Beyonce once said. “It comes from Aretha, who listened to all of that, who sang in the church.” She has been sampled by artists including Kanye West, Outkast and Alicia Keys.

REMEMBERING ARETHA FRANKLIN: AP Global Entertainment Editor Nekesa Moody talked to #ArethaFranklin over the years and reveals what the late #QueenofSoul was like. pic.twitter.com/bjIENn5bJN— AP Entertainment (@APEntertainment) August 16, 2018

It is almost matched by her political legacy. Her father CL helped Martin Luther King organise the Walk to Freedom; at King’s funeral in April 1968 she performed Thomas Dorsey’s Precious Lord. Respect, meanwhile, became hailed as a defining song of both the feminist and civil rights movements. In a 2015 interview with Vogue , Franklin said that neither song was recorded with political intentions. “It’s important for people,” she said of Respect. “Not just me or the civil rights movement or women – it’s important to people. And I was asked what recording of mine I’d put in a time capsule, and it was Respect. Because people want respect – even small children, even babies. As people, we deserve respect from one another.”

Franklin is survived by her four sons. She gave birth to her first, Clarence, when she was 13, and her second, Edward, aged 14. Ted was born in 1964, followed by Kecalf in 1970.

Stars pay tribute

“It’s difficult to conceive of a world without her. Not only was she a uniquely brilliant singer, but her commitment to civil rights made an indelible impact on the world.” – Barbra Streisand, via Twitter.

“What a life. What a legacy! So much love, respect and gratitude. R.I.P.” – Carole King, via Twitter.

“I’m absolutely devastated by Aretha’s passing. She was truly one of a kind. She was more than the Queen of Soul. She was a national treasure to be cherished by every generation throughout the world. Apart from our long professional relationship, Aretha was my friend. Her loss is deeply profound and my heart is full of sadness.” – Clive Davis, in a statement.

“Her voice” her presence” her style No one did it better Truly the Queen of Soul I will miss you!” – Lionel Richie, in a statement.

“Salute to the Queen. The greatest vocalist I’ve ever known.” – John Legend, via Twitter.

“The loss of Aretha Franklin is a blow for everybody who loves real music: Music from the heart, the soul and the Church. Her voice was unique, her piano playing underrated – she was one of my favorite pianists.” – Elton John, via Instagram.

“One of the highlights of my career was singing with #ArethaFranklin at The Tony Awards. It was an out of body experience for me. One of greatest singers of all time. You will be missed by all.” – Hugh Jackman, via Twitter.

“For more than 50 years, she stirred our souls. She was elegant, graceful, and utterly uncompromising in her artistry. Aretha’s first music school was the church and her performances were powered by what she learned there. I’ll always be grateful for her kindness and support, including her performances at both my inaugural celebrations, and for the chance to be there for what sadly turned out to be her final performance last November at a benefit supporting the fight against HIV/AIDS. She will forever be the Queen of Soul and so much more to all who knew her personally and through her music. Our hearts go out to her family and her countless fans.”  – Bill Clinton, in a statement.

“Feeling overwhelmingly sad. Thank you Aretha Franklin for the gift of your voice and your soul. Rest in peace.” – Lester Holt, via Twitter.

“Lucky enough to have seen Aretha live exactly once, and this was it. Thank you for the music, we will be listening to you forever.” – Lin-Manuel Miranda, via Twitter.

“Aretha Franklin was simply peerless. She has reigned supreme, and will always be held in the highest firmament of stars as the most exceptional vocalist, performer and recording artist the world has ever been privileged to witness.” – Annie Lennox, via Twitter.

“Let’s all take a moment to give thanks for the beautiful life of Aretha Franklin, the Queen of our souls, who inspired us all for many, many years. She will be missed but the memory of her greatness as a musician and a fine human being will live with us forever.” – Paul McCartney, via Twitter.

“Aretha Franklin – I want to thank her for her wonderful voice singing the theme song of ‘A Different World.’ She made a big, strong positive impact on that series. I am playing a cut from her CD – the title of the song is ‘Wholy Holy’ – and she’s live in a church. Bon Voyage.” – Bill Cosby, in a statement.

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[clusterassets]

New world news from Time: Prince William Is Visiting the Middle East. Here’s What to Know About Britain’s Controversial Role in Shaping the Region

When Prince William arrives in Tel Aviv on Monday for a trip that will include time in Israel and the West Bank, he will become the first-ever member of the British royal family to undertake an official visit to those places. For a region with a long history of controversial British involvement, that’s a significant milestone.

William’s spokesperson says the visit is “non-political,” in keeping with the royal family’s ceremonial constitutional role. But for people across the region, the visit will carry political undertones, not least because — alongside engagements to play soccer with schoolchildren and help refugees in the West Bank — he is scheduled to meet with both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. And the visit comes at a time of increased tensions, just months after deadly clashes on the Gaza border and President Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

It is an area of the globe that cannot escape its history, a history in which Britain has played a major part. So, on the eve of what the British Foreign Office hopes will be a bridge-building tour, here is a short guide to Britain’s complicated role in the modern history of the region.

The Balfour Declaration

It was an agreement signed over 100 years ago, but the 1917 Balfour Declaration is still cited today as one of the defining factors in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The declaration, in the form of a letter from the U.K. foreign secretary James Balfour to a prominent Zionist, Lord Rothschild, committed Britain to supporting the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

The Zionist movement had grown in the late 19th century as advocates spread the idea that the Jewish people, too long persecuted in Europe, formed a nation that should have its own state, and that such a state should be located in its Biblical homeland of Israel. At that time, that land was under the control of the ailing Ottoman Empire, which would collapse following defeat in World War I. In 1916, as it became clear that such an outcome was approaching, Britain had struck a secret agreement with France over how to divide up the Ottoman Empire’s levantine territories. It was in this climate that the Balfour Declaration was signed.

By 1920, the drawing-up of the British Mandate for Palestine, by command of the newly established League of Nations, formalized British control over what is now Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This meant that the ideas expressed in the declaration could be turned into reality.

While the British now ruled the area, the Mandate explicitly gave Britain the responsibility to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Mandatory Palestine, as it became known, came into existence in 1923; though Israel did not yet exist, hopeful Jews quickly began arriving from Europe. They joined a small Jewish population that had lived in the area under Ottoman rule and that had already begun to swell with early waves of Zionist immigration; in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the region was about 8% Jewish.

However, while the victorious powers had been deciding what to do about Ottoman territory, the Palestinian people were not consulted. When new arrivals said they had been told the land was to be theirs, the people who already lived there were understandably hostile. Already by 1929, disputes over land — specifically Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall — were so deep they resulted in violence. In one deadly week that August, rioting Arabs murdered over 100 Jews, while over 100 Arabs were killed by British police trying to suppress the unrest.

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

The White Paper of 1939

Fast forward to 1939, and Britain realized it had a problem largely of its own making: nothing it could do would satisfy both the Arabic and Jewish populations.

A plan to divide the land into two states was rejected by both sides; between 1936 and 1939, an ongoing Arab revolt demanded a complete end to Jewish migration to Israel. In response to this unrest, British lawmakers issued the White Paper of 1939, which limited Jewish migration to 75,000 over five years.

This attempt to mitigate the problem was unfortunately timed to coincide with Hitler’s increasing persecution of the Jewish people in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Britain’s policy infuriated Jews, who continued to migrate regardless of the quotas, and also infuriated Palestinians, who saw no guarantees of long-term self-determination. “If immigration is continued,” the paper stated, “the situation in Palestine may become a permanent source of friction amongst all peoples in the Near and Middle East.”

In 1947, with immigration quotas still in existence, the SS Exodus, a boat carrying holocaust survivors who intended to migrate to Mandatory Palestine, was boarded by British forces, who killed three and returned the rest to refugee camps in Europe.

Having had their plan for dividing Mandatory Palestine into two states rejected, the British government decided in the White Paper of 1939 that an independent Palestine, jointly administered by Arabs and Jews, should be established within 10 years. The sharing of power, it said, should be done “in such a way as to ensure that the essential interests of each community are safeguarded.”

Britain tries to disengage

The Second World War forced Britain to put the issue of Palestine to one side soon after the White Paper was issued. But when peace arrived in Europe, the question could no longer be ignored.

After the war, a Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine put pressure on the British. In 1946, militants bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, Britain’s administrative headquarters, killing 91 people. Prince William is scheduled to stay at the hotel during his trip.

In 1947, a war-weary Britain decided to pull out. It handed responsibility for deciding the future of Mandatory Palestine to the United Nations, which had recently been established. (The decision to pull out of India was made the same year.) The U.N. came up with a plan to divide the territory, but it fared little better than Britain had. Yet, even though the U.N.’s plan to divide up the territory was rejected by Arab side — it was seen as too generous for offering 56.5% to the Jewish side, which is far less land than is covered by the current borders of Israel — Israeli politicians moved ahead with it on their own anyway, and in May of 1948 publicly issued a declaration of independence.

The Arab side was outraged. The following day — May 15, 1948 — Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq invaded Israel. With British-Israeli relations still soured following the insurgency, the Arabs enjoyed tacit British support. The Royal Air Force engaged in skirmishes with Israeli planes, but Britain never fully committed to the war. Nor did its support extend to doing anything to help the roughly 700,000 who were forced to leave their homes during the war, in what has become known as the Palestinian Exodus or “Nakba,” meaning catastrophe. (Throughout the 1920s, much of the violence in Mandatory Palestine was perpetrated by Arabs against Jewish settlers. By the 1930s that balance had reversed.)

At the end of ten months of fighting, Israel had increased its land area by a third — meaning that its borders now extended to land originally allocated to Palestinians by the U.N. — and Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip, while Jordan controlled the West Bank. Those borders stood until 1967.

After the war, Britain recognized Israel as a state. The Palestinian government, which had just been set up to govern Gaza, did not receive separate diplomatic recognition from Britain — and never has.

Britain’s lingering role

Britain had, officially at least, left the area. But it also left a mark.

Palestinians resented Britain for parceling out their land to Israel, while Israelis resented Britain for what they saw as halfhearted support of a project that the U.K. had once promised to see through.

And even as a distant observer, no longer directly involved in the management of the region, Britain’s role remained complicated in the years that followed. Britain sold Israel weapons, for example, which would be used in a series of wars that led to the expansion of Israel’s power and territory. And such controversial arms sales continue, despite the fact that in 2016 Britain supported a U.N. resolution that stated that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank was in “flagrant violation” of international law.

On the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration last year, Prime Minister Theresa May welcomed Netanyahu to London and said that she was “proud of [Britain’s] pioneering role in the creation of the state of Israel.” She also affirmed Britain’s “renewed resolve to support a lasting peace that is in the interests of both Israelis and Palestinians.” And, following violence at the border in April and May of this year, she called for an independent inquiry into what she called “deeply troubling” use of force by Israel. Those riots, at the Gaza border, ended with the deaths of 123 protesting Palestinians and left only one Israeli wounded.

However, soon after, new figures revealed that British arms sales to Israel had reached a record high in 2017.

The press release announcing Prince William’s visit refers to “The Occupied Palestinian Territories,” the internationally recognized umbrella term for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which are occupied by Israel. In the Hebrew version of that press release, however, the Prince’s office dropped the word “occupied.” Seventy years after Britain learned the difficulties of the region the hard way, the discrepancy shows that as much as Prince William might like, nothing in the region is “non-political” — especially if you represent the United Kingdom.

June 25, 2018 at 02:27PM ClusterAssets Inc., https://ClusterAssets.wordpress.com

#Time #world #news #ClusterAssets #ClusterAsset #Cluster Asset Inc. #ClusterAssets Inc.

[wionews]

'The colour of hatred'

In the beginning, there were cave fights: over food, shelter and objects. Then came civilisation, the "Age of Reason", the realisation that man was far superior to other living creatures in one unique way. He was endowed with the powerful tool of intellect, a brain more sophisticated than anything technology can ever beat.

Choices are yesterday’s news, polarisation is the hallmark of today’s world.

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When man began to share spaces, towns and cities were born. When man began to argue, politics came into being and when prophets were born around the earth, mankind’s other peculiar endowment - religion was born. Crimes were committed, wars have shattered the world. But somehow and over at least this past century, milk went with water, wine with salt, as long as there was mutual respect, it was a matter of personal choice. That freedom of choice, it seems, is a thing of history today. Now, it’s black versus white, Islam versus Christianity versus Hinduism versus Judaism. It’s Democrat versus Republican, BJP versus Congress. But what’s different about today? That it’s either my way or the highway. You are either with us or against us. Choices are yesterday’s news, polarisation is the hallmark of today’s world.   White versus black, Caucasian versus Asian. American civil rights leader Martin Luther King ominously described it as the "starless midnight of racism." Be it in the USA or Japan, in Europe or Africa, in India or China and for all the superior abilities man is endowed with, racial discrimination has run like a bad genetic strain through all societies in the world.   America:

White supremacy has led to horrific crime in the history of North America, yet somewhere down the line, reasoning and rationale did gain the upper hand. Take one of the world’s most famous civil rights activists, Martin Luther King Jr. His belief was Christianity, his tactics drawn from everywhere. King persisted with civil disobedience till African-Americans and other minorities were granted equal rights in the country. He overturned segregation laws in Georgia and helped organise protests both in Alabama and Washington, where he delivered his most famous speech of all.

Martin Luther King’s civil disobedience movements were successful because he combined his own value system with that of others who inspired him like Mahatma Gandhi.

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"And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream," the legendary rights activist declared. "It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, that all men are created equal."   Martin Luther King’s repeated civil disobedience movements were successful because he combined his own value system with that of others who inspired him like Mahatma Gandhi. The Mahatma had once remarked that South Africa, where he had lived in his earlier years, would be a "howling wilderness without the Africans". The Ku-Klux-Klan hasn’t gone away, neither have the Nazis in Europe. There were and are descendant groups of both around the world. Tough laws temper their outbursts, the hate they preach is mostly restricted to their paranoid but small folds.

But statistics show that white supremacy in the United States has been on the rise. And not coincidentally, since 2016, making it seem as though divisive statements by President Donald J. Trump, first on campaign trail acted as a reassurance. It began to seem as though under Trump, racists will be able to speak their minds freely and have nothing to fear. Coincidence? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Residents of a town in Alabama woke up to flyers in November 2016, the day after the United States elected their new president. "Join the only group that has ever stood for the white man", it read. "Black radicals have reverted back to savages", read another.

There have been more than 450 recorded incidents of unabashed racism directed against Jews, Chinese, Asians

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On the same day, swastikas and pro-Nazi graffiti appeared in Philadelphia. Sprayed inside a boys’ bathroom in a Minnesota school were the following messages: Go back to Africa, whites only, White America and Trump train, "make America great again". Between November 2016 when the United States voted for a new president and August 2017, there have been more than 450 recorded incidents of unabashed racism directed against Jews, Chinese, Asians – in short, anyone who is not Caucasian.

It would be absurd to lay the resurgence of racism at President Trump’s doorstep alone. The US President’s argument that democracies must allow all including racists to be heard, is a valid point. It’s a successful tactic, the same employed by African-American jazz musician Daryl Davis to neutralise many white supremacists by engaging or befriending them. But here’s a thought could Trump’s incendiary talk have polarised American society by acting as a magnet to what already lay simmering beneath the genteel surface of the political correctness that has dominated public speech and opinion over the past several decades?

Wages for software engineers in America would be 10 per cent higher if H-1B visas were not implemented.

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It seemed that way some weeks ago when white supremacists took to the streets in Charlottesville and violence erupted. Significantly, they felt no need to disguise themselves. The masks were off and so were the white hoods. Alec Kerrigan and “Reverend” James Logsdon were enthusiastic participants in Charlottesville. Both spoke to WION’s Andy Roesgen and unsurprisingly, hatred of immigrants from India seems to be the "new normal".   "The problem with races such as Indians entering the country is that they don’t integrate at large", Kerrigan told WION. They build their own communities and don't trust their neighbours and they give less to charity. Wages for software engineers in America would be 10 per cent higher if H-1B visas (given to Indian software engineers) were not implemented. In other words, bringing in highly-skilled immigrants from other countries is bad for the highly-skilled natives.   Racism watchdog Southern Poverty Law Center told WION that  Reverend James Logsdon's "Creativity Movement" is neither holy nor creative. It’s nothing but a hate group. Here's what Logsdon told WION.    "Indian immigration is not similar to any other racial group, not Mexicans or Arabic Muslims because Indians don't come here and commit crimes, they don't come here and rape or kill like you see with Mexicans and the worse elements. You have a lot of highly educated Indians in the medical field in America who do benefit our society. But you also have a lot of them who come with degrees that are falsified, education documents that are falsified, they get IT jobs and they're trained by other people who have been here longer to do the jobs properly, essentially getting into the country by lying and taking American jobs."   But why was Logsdon in Charlottesville during the riots? After all, that demonstration had nothing to do with Indian software engineers and all to do with protecting America’s white architectural heritage, statues of erstwhile supremacists.   "No, I personally don’t care about old statues," argued Logsdon. "But I understand what they were fighting for. Imagine for the sake of argument, that political correctness affected all of the people in India and affected the caste system. And they decided that the Hindu system was racist and oppressive and the people pushing political correctness decided that all the statues that honoured their gods and their system were to be forcibly torn down. How would Indians feel about that? This is the type of thing that's happening in America today. They're trying to destroy any semblance of our culture and our history. No matter how you feel about being good or bad, our history is our history. You should not tear those things down, just to make them feel better in their safe spaces."

The United Kingdom, Portugal, The Netherlands, Spain and France rapaciously exploited North Africa, South America, sub-Saharan Africa and much of Asia including and especially India.

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Europe:   It’s the geographical venue of one of the worst genocides in the history of mankind, the Holocaust under Germany’s Nazis saw 6 million men, women and children murdered. They were not armed separatists, nor criminal mafia. Their biggest crime is that they were born Jewish, not within Europe’s Christian majority. Germany learned its lessons and remains deeply repentant. And yet, rightwing movements are on the rise. There were more than 900 terror attacks by Islamist terror groups in Europe between 2001 and 2017. But that’s not the only reason. There’s also a certain, God-given superiority that colonising forefathers from France, the UK and the Netherlands vested in themselves.

To racist British citizens, all South Asian migrants are "Pakis", to some xenophobic French, northern Africans are "dirty Arabs", to Dutch supremacists, foreign migrants are "scum". The United Kingdom, Portugal, The Netherlands, Spain and France rapaciously exploited North Africa, South America, sub-Saharan Africa and much of Asia including and especially India. When nations grow more powerful than others off stolen wealth, their citizens feel endowed with divinity. But the recession, unemployment and fiery rhetoric from those who rule or aim to rule, are natural catalysts for polarisation.

There’s growing religious paranoia and inflammatory rhetoric mainly under Saudi Arabian influence. It has caused a backlash. Hindus are mobilising themselves.

  ×

Asia: But is racism restricted to countries where the majority population is white? Not at all. Let’s take a look at South East Asia. Indians have been in Malaysia since medieval times. People of Indian origin constitute 86 per cent of Malaysia’s total population of 31.19 million. Here, it’s brown versus brown. It’s been largely peaceful. And yet, growing radicalisation of the country’s Islamic majority through an alien brand of Wahabi Islam has resulted in growing polarisation. Temples built hundreds of years ago on private land have been demolished. There’s growing religious paranoia and inflammatory rhetoric mainly under Saudi Arabian influence. It has caused a backlash. Hindus are mobilising themselves. Sanjeev Ramakrishnan and his NGO Mywatch, fight against such discrimination.   "There is very clear discrimination in education when the maximum number of seats are given to Malays and next to Chinese. Indians hardly get any seats. Major courses like medicine and law are not given to Indians. I ask why they don’t go on merit? I am a Malaysian and by race I am Indian. But if I bid for a government contract, I must have a Malay partner with a 51 per cent stake in the business. They should surely not award contracts based on race"

Ramakrishnan says this is true of every walk of life in Malaysia. People of different races live peacefully in Malaysia but the people who rule are us are trying to create a divide. Recently in a school, cups for drinking water were separated for Muslims and non-Muslims. We are fighting for the right to live as Malaysian. We are not refugees here, we are not immigrants here. My grandfather came from India but my father was born in Malaysia. So, I think I am rightfully Malaysian. A lot of Indian don’t have citizenship even if they are born here. But more Pakistani and Bangladeshi are now coming to Malaysia and are being given citizenship. Politicians in parliament have said, "if you don’t like Malaysia get out, go back to India."

Indians are more affluent today, travelling a lot more today, seeing a lot more of the world today. And yet, African students in India have borne the brunt of blatant racism, not in some remote village but right in the heart of India’s capital New Delhi.

  ×

We are obsessed with fair skin, a hangover of the British Raj when it all started. The belief that the white man, his white skin, must be superior in many ways. It’s strange because, in Hindu mythology, gods like Krishna and Shiva are painted blue. This blue is meant to indicate skin so black that it appears blue. To be dark-skinned in ancient India, was to be beautiful and god-like. But that’s far from the case in modern India. When it comes to brides and bridegrooms, fair skins come at a premium. That’s now begun to take on dismaying proportions. Indians are more affluent today, travelling a lot more today, seeing a lot more of the world today. And yet, African students in India have borne the brunt of blatant racism, not in some remote village but right in the heart of India’s capital New Delhi.   Polarisation: A pandemic, a frightening phenomenon. Whether we blame it on President Donald Trump, or, on the rise of the rightwing in Europe; whether we blame it on Saudi Arabian influence in the far east, or, on growing affluence and arrogance in India, there is no doubt that communities and races are huddling together, displaying absolute intolerance for the mere existence of any other than their own kind. Racism is not the only manifestation. There’s that other powerful catalyst of hate i.e. Religion.

This is the first of WION's three-part series "Poles Apart".

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[cepmurphy]

20 Elections - 20 Notes

During the general election, I wrote twenty different alternate history shorts. Here’s the thinking and points of diversion behind them: (SPOILERS) #1: You Won’t Get Me, I’m Part Of The Union This one, you can tell it was written when Le Pen was clearly going to make it Round 2 of the 2017 French elections. (Banks is in UKIP financier Aaron Banks) The title is from a hit song in the 70s about trade unions. Famously, a desperate French President Reynaud in 1940 proposed a vaguely defined “Anglo-French Union” in the hope of keeping his government going and France fighting. Any such union would, of course, stick together only in conflict. Of the other three union members, Ireland was secretly offered Northern Ireland back if it joined the war effort in 1943 and Gabon did hold a referendum on independence or remaining part of France. Britain was lucky in that it’s the only European empire to have escaped decolonisation without a long, bloody war (for us rather than the locals) to retain colonies that we then lost anyway. France fought two such wars in Algeria and Vietnam - if we were bonded to them, we wouldn’t be so lucky as real life. #2: A Popular Mandate The title is a mean dig at pro-Brexit’s talk of mandates but the story is based on Erdogan’s increasingly autocracy in Turkey. (And he too held a referendum) The POD is another famous one: the coup plots against Harold Wilson by a few idiots in MI5 and press magnate Cecil King, with Lord Mountbatten intended as the interim leader. In real life it was a damp squib but if it had happened, then the door would be opened for more coups - the spell that we call “peaceful exchange of power” would be shattered and, like a few other countries, we might never get it back. Dimbleby as in David Dimbleby, the BBC’s undying election night host. #3: These Colours Don’t Run IRON MAIDEN!!! One of their many songs about war and armies, of course. The Iraq War was a hugely defining event, the two of the one-two punch that started with September 11. It hangs over every foreign military engagement for a dozen countries and makes people leery of any big involvement. And the Iraq War happened solely because George Bush and his chums won, and were given an opening by 9/11 - so you just need the votes in Florida to change and then, we just have a string of successful, “cheap” interventions from Falklands on (or so we’d remember them). Is that notoriously gobby Jess Philips as Labour leader, battling against notoriously urg-not-HIM Liam Fox? I can’t possible comment. #4: Carry On As in “keep calm and”, written not so long after a terrorist attack. A statement had to be made. #5: Meet The New Bosses This one comes from two things: the unprecedented success of Macron in France and the collapse of the big parties that allowed it, and the many, many fluctuating polls in our election. Labour and the Tories seem like stable, unstoppable forces but such certainties can change - as seen by the obliteration of the Lib Dems and SNP eating all other parties in 2015, as well as France. All it would take is a bit of time and both parties screwing up - the wrong leaders at the wrong time, rather than the zeitgeist-nabbing Blair and Cameron. (Danzcuk was exposed as a creepy sexter after seeming like a righteous campaigner so imagine if he’d got power...) Cole from story #1 is back but in a different role due to the different timeline. That comes from Kim Newman’s Life’s Lottery, where the same cast appear over and over in different roles & personalities depending on what choice the reader makes. (Vince as in Cable, Abbott as in Diane) Why Dundee? Cos the Beano, home of Roger the Dodger, is from there. The Yorkshire Party is actually real but has never won a thing. The BNP hasn’t either, but here they benefit from UKIP never supplanting them and stand as the Front National standins. #6: Status Quo Statistically, it’s weird that we not only have had only two women PM’s who were the only two female party leaders at UK level and so few women seriously run for the job. I wonder what could ever be the reason for that. I wonder. All female leaders mentioned are real prominent politicians, some more than others. Davidson is Ruth Davidson, Scottish Tory leader and at the time of writing, I didn’t expect her to be the Tory’s shining light in 2017, the one gaining them seats without loss. Maybe she will be a potential PM soon.... #7: The Old Familiar Stain The title comes from the song Hurt, by NIN and then Johnny Cash. A recurring claim in Britain is the Empire wasn’t so bad and we brought civilisation to the heathens, even if we know not to say White Man’s Burden now - this even as we hear time and again about atrocities we glossed over at the time. (Kenyans who were tortured during the Mau Mau uprising did go to the High Court a few years ago) Surely we’d not think that if we’d been good socialists, right? Politicians mentioned are all key Labour people through history - including party founder Keir Hardie - with “Uncle Arthur” a nickname for Arthur Henderson. Only Ramsay Macdonald got to be PM in real life, and in difficult circumstances. #8: The Big Society Title is, of course, a mean dig at a Cameron slogan. A bunch of alternate history and sci-fi stories have multinational megastates and power blocks. Council elections are often meagre because they’re considered to not really be powerful - why wouldn’t that happen in a hypothetical ‘megastate’? The POD here is no American Revolution, leading to increasingly powerful dominions within empire, leading to here. Philadelphia was America’s prime city before the revolution and temporarily a capital. #9: A Sense of Proportion I was in a defiantly optimistic mood for this one. Back in 2011, we decided not to move to a different electoral system - alternative vote rather than this timeline’s single transferable - but stick with first-past-the-post instead. Voting models show this would prevent a majority Tory government and lead to UKIP's 4m voter surge giving them more than one seat. That would not have been sustainable, hence the early election after all. Ed Miliband really has had a change of reputation in certain circles: once he was no longer party leader, he started to be quite funny and play social media like a fiddle. That, it seems, was the real Ed all along and he was covering it up. Once you take fear away... #10: Special Relationships You can all tell what this one’s about. Ruth Davidson returns, this time with Louise Mensch, former MP and major Trump & Putin hater. Having her be in Cabinet is a stretch but hey, narrative. Operation Sea Lion is the famous Nazi plan to invade Britain - and in violation of alternate history, most historians are pretty sure Sea Lion would have failed. If that had happened, you alter the shape of World War Two. The barbed comments about America “being late” for the war are still made now, after we were allies together, and if America had never shown up at all (and without Pearl Harbor it may not have) then all we ‘know’ about transatlanic relations is out the window. #11: The Great Blue Hope Popularly, the Falklands was what saved Thatcher’s first term. A divisive government, high unemployment, and an eyecatching new opposition party in the SDP could have nobbled her without the war - and the war could have easily gone against us. And once you’re a failed party, you can be a failed party for a generation. The many annoying answers to door-knocking are all things that I’ve seen or heard canvassers & politicians mention. It’s a right slog.

#12: Clever, Clever, Clever I Don’t Like Michael Gove: The Novelisation. Gove really did backstab Boris Johnson in the real world’s 2016 party race. Now we know that’s what Mr “I Don’t Want To Be PM” would do. We also have allegations he was at dinners with Trump allies that Cambridge Analytica set up. He was a Brexiteer - and once the Prime Minister is taking a stance, that side can no longer claim to be the anti-establishment vote. Labour and the Lib Dems going into coalition in 2010 is a recurring ‘what if’ in political thought. It’s public record how many people in Labour didn’t want to, however, and if the Lib Dems were doomed for helping Tories imagine if they’re propping up a ‘failed’ government. It’df definitel;y be Tories winning next. Liz Kendall came nowhere near winning the Labour leadership in our time but she did get brief attention for playing the Young One card - after 17 years of power and looking tired in public, Labour would want young. #13: Frankenstein Must Vote The further we get from the 80s, the dafter the “video nasties” thing seems. A bunch of horror movies, many not that bad except in production value terms, being effectively banned in the UK, that far into the 20th century? The past is another country. Hammer Horror did not, in real life, survive the mid-70s but it could have, maybe, with a bit more effort. Zepellins vs Pterodactyls really was a planned film. There’s Cole again! (And Ansari from #5, in passing) Yeovil is a penname for Kim Newman. #14: Mission Control A Newquay spaceport is a controversial idea the Tories pitched this year. Could it even work? We may find out, we may not. British space agencies have never quite worked the way we dream about them. Black Knight was almost a real rocket system but, in the end, did not happen. Money was only going to pay for so much and realistically, any UK NASA would be limited. However, it could change us despite that - as Warren Ellis once argued for Ministry in Space, our space fiction is the cry of a declining Britain, hungry to believe there was something else to do. Another big nation involved in space flight would also transform the space race, even if it sucked at it. Charles Kennedy never became PM but could - maybe should - have. #15: And I Would Make Five Hundred K The SNP once helped keep Labour in power in the 70s and in exchange, they got a referendum on devolution - one that did not succeed. If it had, it is possible independence may have happened earlier, and (for the plot to work) we’re saying Scotland was less hit by Thatcher’s policies and instead turned them into Scotland’s own. With oil and financial dealings, an independent Scotland could prosper - and would be prey to large foreign sharks. We often think of an independent Scotland as mega-left because we assume the modern SNP will run it and start it off. It’s not a hard law. Oor Wully (”Our Willy” in phoenetic) is a long-running Scottish comic strip. Trump’s mother came out of Scotland and if this was blowing up at the time his businesses were doing bad in the States, I can see him shifting. #16: The Glorious Status Quo The Glorious Revolution - named by English people as for us, it was bloodless - saw parliament call in foreign Protestant monarchs to replace a more catholic-friendly one. This was a huge influence in our politics (and killed thousands upon thousands in Scotland and Ireland) as well as global, ending the Anglo-Dutch rivalry. Catholic-Protestant divides of the time mean even if it didn’t happen, something would at some point. Now this one was a toughie because with this far back a diversion, the world needed to be as different as I could get it without being incomprehensible. The tech, the landmarks, the ethnicities (Native American immigration) all get tweaks. For Tradesman Party, read Labour.

#17: Rock The Vote One thing that keeps going around is that Tony Blair - this is honestly the truth - wanted to get into music and was part of a student rock band. It would only take a bit more success on that front and Blair could have done that for a career instead of becoming an MP. I can’t say if he’d ever be that great a musician but in New Labour’s heyday he had the charisma, the drive, and ability to connect with the common man that, if he did have talent, would make him a star.

He used to be further left in his youth but got turned off by the hard left, as he says here. Blair was one of the main people pushing for action on Kosovo so sadly without him, that’s not stopped. #18: Heard Around The World Britain did not go fascist, unlike many other European nations. If we had, it would have eventually ended - but as with #2, once you’ve opened that bottle, the genie isn’t going back in. (You could also be sure America would back a right-wing post-fascist government over a socialist one) We’ve seen time and again that when certain governments get into power in certain countries, they may not last long.

Part of the inspiration was the Gambia, where the recent election had ended in the incumbent ignoring the result and the winning party have to flee abroad to get aid from the African Union.

Paisley as in the notorious Reverend Iain Paisley, Creasy as in Labour’s Stella Creasy, and Labour heavyweight Aneurin Bevan was from Wales.

#19: Big Boy’s Rules Britain is a big nation that’s not as big as it once was and ones to be bigger again. That compulsion to be big won’t go away. As noted before, Suez was what did us in as an imperial power - and made it clear Europe was out, the US and USSR were in. But militarily, it almost worked. A bit of extra time and we’d have won. And if we’d won, we wouldn’t care about the murkiness and the morality. #20: It’ll Be Alright On The Night Writtem very shortly before the vote. Simple diversion: Brexit does not happen. Everything follows on from there. To keep things as unclear as they seemed in our time, I arranged for both Tories and Labour to have weak, unpopular leaders - both seen as shifty. In hindsight, I’ve set up Labour to be stuffed unless it gets a coalition deal and I, like many, overestimated the third party vote collapse.

#20 elections #alternate history #alternative history

[thecloudlight-blog]

New Post has been published on Cloudlight

New Post has been published on https://cloudlight.biz/a-kingdom-on-wheels-the-hidden-world/

A Kingdom On Wheels The Hidden World

N the steps above the makeshift stables, the circus priest is getting nostalgic.

“I did a baptism once in Fort Worth, Texas. … I came in on an elephant wearing the child, which become four weeks old,” the Rev. Jerry Hogan says. “Now that infant is 15. I’ve married a whole lot of these youngsters and I’ve baptized their kids, and watched them develop.”

It’s past due April at Baltimore’s Royal Farms Arena, in the ultimate weeks of the Ringling Bros. And Barnum & Bailey’s “Out of This World” excursion.+

The closing-ever display is Sunday night time in Uniondale, N.Y.

The circus isn’t always worthwhile any extra, in line with the business enterprise that runs it. And specifically, as soon as the elephants had been long past — after public battles with animal rights activists — ticket income simply couldn’t preserve it afloat.

That manner the give up of the well-known journeying circus show, with a ringmaster and huge cats and clowns and trapeze acts … The stuff of nostalgia for generations.

But it’s the ease of a whole lot more than just a show, Hogan says.

“The overall performance is 2 half of hours,” he says, as horses are saddled and children carried beyond us to the nursery. “The circus is the whole revel in.”

It’s baptisms on elephants, pies within the face on birthdays, raising an own family on the circus educate as the American landscape rolls by. And it is fantastic acts of skill within the jewelry and outside them — a logistical feat polished over 146 years and making ready for the very last curtain name.

‘A metropolis that folds itself up like an umbrella’

“The Greatest Show on Earth” started out in 1871 as a visiting museum and menagerie under the imprimatur of P.T. Barnum.

In 1895, the magazine McClure’s wrote that “man’s intelligence has devised nothing more compact, extra orderly, extra admirably tailored to its purpose, than the train of an outstanding modern circus”:

“It is a state of wheels, a metropolis that folds itself up like an umbrella. Quickly and hastily every night it does the paintings of Aladdin’s lamp, picking up in its magician’s hands theater, resort, schoolroom, barracks, home, whisking all of them miles away and putting them down before sunrise in a brand new area.” More than a century later, little has changed. The circus nevertheless rolls across the country wearing loads of performers, stagehands, and kids in a mile-long train. These days, they name it a “city without a ZIP code.”

“It’s the most important theater performance in human history at the longest passenger train in human history,” says Rhett Coates, a behind the scenes team member, as he stands in a vestibule of the teaching. He’s labored off and on for Ringling Brothers because the 1980s and has an encyclopedic understanding of the circus trains

Reasons Why The Heavenly Kingdom Is The Best For Humans

Every a hit government ought to be absolutely capable of address the problems confronted through its topics. It is, however, regrettable to understand that the various kinds of government have failed as human beings in their try to arrest their maladies. Humans have attempted autocracy, democracy and different forms of governance, however, all of them have not been able to hit the needy spot of mankind. Thus, truly outspoken, people can’t govern themselves due to the fact we have been no longer given that responsibility by means of our author. Humans again then in the Garden of Eden had been assigned the task of taking care of the come what may lesser dealers, the animal kingdom. As for governance, it became entrusted to the strong and able hands of our author.

It is proper that human governments through the years have tried of their quest to improve the livelihood in their subjects. For example, a few governments to some degree provide food safety, satisfactory fitness care, employment, road networks and other sensitive needs for its human beings. Yet, human governments have failed in its attempt to rid our earth absolutely of struggle, famine, illness, unemployment, corruption, violence, and the apprehensive quit of man, demise. Thus, many human beings consider are beyond the abilities of people and it’s far perfectly proper. Imperfect as we are, we’ve barriers in connection with what we are able to do.

However, God is all-powerful, loving and ever equipped to address the ills of humans very soon. Through the Messianic state of His son, Jesus Christ, He has made plans to opposite matters as they have been before our first parents, Adam and Eve trashed human beings into the cold palms and slavery of sin and death. Why is this heavenly country in an effort to quickly govern the whole world the first-rate government for human beings? Every accurate authority needs to have charismatic and truthful leaders. Jesus Christ being the king of the heavenly kingdom is loving, kind and honest in all his ways. In truth, we are able to vouch for his superb developments by means of his dealings whilst he walked the earth within the Holy ebook, the Bible. The group or members of parliament who policies with him are loyal worshippers with integrity and apprehend the rigors of humans!

Moreover, because of the surpassing strength of Jesus Christ

He’s going to put to rest the difficult woes of humans like famine, illnesses, or even loss of life! While on the earth, he accomplished these responsibilities comfortably and love. Wicked folks who are corrupt and make our international a difficult vicinity to stay in will be destroyed for all time and people will now not want to quake with worry at night time or whilst walking in a remote place. God’s heavenly country guarantees a land of peace, good citizenry, pleasing employment and private refuge for all.

These and many other motives underscore why the heavenly kingdom surpasses all forms of human governments and is the first-rate antidote for pleasing every choice of mankind. Thus, we want to steer right ethical lives consistent with the standards and laws of our loving creator as spelled out in His phrase that offers the best comfort, the Bible. As we anticipate this glamorous country, allow us to vigorously marketing campaign for it to others thru the work of preaching to enlighten all of us approximately the mind-blowing heavenly state and what it’ll do for mankind. Doing this has a stake in our own survival. In truth, there is no form of the presidency that can ever come close to the heavenly nation that guy awaits!

The World’s Most Beautiful Bridges

They may be small or they’ll be large, they will be wood or concrete- but bridges are something that may be determined nearly anywhere all over the world. However, this newsletter makes a specialty of the bridges that make our heads turn round. These bridges are architectural miracles that simply have the capability to take our breaths away. So without in addition ado, we carry to you a listing of bridges around the arena which are just the element you need to go to. (Also, here is a seasoned journey tip for you – make sure you check out British Airways whilst you ebook your flights)

1. Brooklyn Bridge, New York:

Featured closely in many movies which include the famed Batman Trilogy, this bridge is a cable suspended bridge that paves the manner out of New York. It is thus far, one of the oldest and most complicated bridges of New York. The towers giving balance to this bridge are without a doubt manufactured from granite, limestone, and cement. The maximum awesome factor is this bridge turned into constructed in 1833 and is still surviving until nowadays.

2. Golden Gate Bridge:

This Bridge, additionally positioned in the United States of America, links the metropolis of San Francisco with Marin County and is a nicely diagnosed image of California and even the entire of America. This bridge is likewise covered in the present day wonders of the arena. Before the bridge become built, the most effective manner to journey among the 2 edges turned into using a ship. This bridge turned into constructed in a time span of four years. This bridge has additionally been featured in lots of films around the world.

3. Tower Bridge, London:

This Bridge is also an icon and worldwide consultant of the vicinity in which it becomes made – London. This bridge took eight years to construct and became constructed among 1886 and 1894. This bridge has two towers which had been linked through two walkways and consist of sections which might be suspended on both sides of the tower. These sections than in flip stretch toward the banks of the Thames. At the time of its construction, this bridge changed into the most important and most state-of-the-art bridge within the international.

Four. Sydney Harbor Bridge:

This Bridge becomes opened for public use in 1932. This combined with the Opera houses of Sydney are a chief cultural image for Australia at some point of the world. This bridge is known to host the satisfactory New Year Celebrations in Australia. This bridge holds the report for the arena’s biggest metallic bridge. However, it is not considered to be the longest. It took eight years to construct this bridge with a hard work of 1400 men.

Now that you understand the great bridges that you need to visit, it is time to percent your baggage and takes a journey to these top notch places. Also, make certain that on every occasion you are buying tickets, you check out British Airways to get great in relation to travel and airfare.

The Hidden Agenda

With his henchmen in the back of him, Donald Trump continues his sporadic, neurotic and self-causing behavior that typifies someone on the threshold. This wouldn’t be so terrible in itself but whilst we’ve got a President of the USA behaving as handiest the Trumpeter is aware of a way to do u. S . And the relaxation of the sector is starting to realize that this one character ought to, in fact, unleash untold harm to the republic of the US and could realistically shove this state towards global conflicts that might result in an international war. That being said the fact of the problem is history is already repeating. To understand that Trump’s behavior could be very similar to one in every of histories maximum diabolical dictators is a fact that can not be neglected any further. The instigator of the Holocaust and the mastermind of evil that ushered in World War II reminds us that history can and frequently does repeat with disastrous consequences.

[djrelentless]

Martin Luther King Day 2015

(Selma, Ferguson, Staten Island and Other Destinations)

January 14, 2015 at 6:46am

It took me a couple of days to ponder what I was going to write in this blog. Being a gay black man married to a gay white Canadian man watching the film, Selma in a Toronto theatre on one of the coldest days of 2015 (so far), I cried a little for all the people who fought and died for me to have the right to be who I am today.

To say that Selma is required viewing is an understatement. It's phenomenal that in major cities across the United States businesspeople came together to ensure 7th, 8th & 9th graders to see the film for free. I recall back in 2006 when 50 Cent was quoted as saying that Oprah's demographic was little ol' white women and how that must have really affected her. She buried the hatchet with him in 2012, but has really put her money where her mouth is. Since his comment, Oprah introduced the common American to Barrack Obama. She's produced important films like The Butler and now Selma.

It's strange to me that so many black people and award shows (as far as giving her an award goes) dislike Oprah. It almost seems like if her name is attached to a project that theOscars automatically disqualify her efforts. I hope and pray this is not the case this year. Perhaps they are upset with her because she left daytime TV. But she has definitely made a huge impact on American Culture in general. I love that she is doing her part to ensure our history is preserved and shared.

When I think about the history lessons that Public Enemy rapped about in the 80s and how dumbed down the rap game is today, I cry. It saddens me because I don't think that this is where we as black people (especially African Americans) should be. This obsession with The Housewives of Atlanta and World Star Hip Hop is such a distraction from Dr. King's dream. I mean….wouldn't you prefer to watch NeNe & Kenya fighting at a dinner party than understand how our civil rights leaders of the 60s had to walk the fine line that Obama has to walk on a daily basis? (Yes, that was sarcasm).

The entire time I was watching the film I couldn't help but see the parallels between the police brutality of yesteryear and today. Watching the police kill Jimmie Lee Jackson echoed the shooting of Michael Brown or the chokehold of Eric Garner. The more things change the more they stay the same. But do things have to stay the same? The main point of this march in Selma was the right to vote, but statistics say that most African-Americans don't. Did all those people fight and die for today's black young voters to ignore their right to vote? Did all these people of different races and faiths come together for club promoters to useMartin Luther King Day Weekend for twerk contests?

Back when MLK Weekend came up and I was part of the Tea Dance from 1998-2010, theSunbeam Sundays team at Escuelita in New York City, we would hold contests to see who could actually recite the "I Have A Dream" speech. We focused on Black History in our trivia. But I think all that has been lost and forgotten. Today's club-goers could care less about the history of their culture. And because much of today's Hip Hop Culture is not engaged in Black History perhaps that's why there are so many British black actors playing African-Americans in these historical pics. I guess that's what seemed weird to me as an African-American watching this film in Canada (where MLK Day is not observed in any official capacity). My husband and I noticed that the theatre was not packed and didn't have very many black people in it. Probably because the black community here in Toronto are mainly from the Caribbean and feel that this is American history and not theirs. Interesting that the film starts with Dr. King in another country about to receive his Nobel Peace Prize, but his legacy is not celebrated around the world. I find it ironic because the racism that still exists today seeps across the border in many different forms.

I loved Selma! Every detail was exquisite. Probably the only detail that I questioned was a scene where Martin is changing a garbage bag in the kitchen and Coretta handed him a clear plastic trash bag. As far as the casting…..David Oyelowo was Martin Luther King! And Carmen Ejogo embodied Coretta Scott King. Tim Roth had me convinced as George Wallace……all British actors. I hope that David and Carmen both get best actor and actress nominations. I felt happy for Common and John Legend as they won best song at The Golden Globes.

http://youtu.be/ZzbKaDPMoDU

When my husband and I sat down there was a very chatty white couple who sat behind us. I have never understood in situations where the place is not crowded why people will come and sit right next to another couple or group (including waiters and hostesses who seat guests right next to your table). I was worried that they were going to talk through the entire film. But from that opening explosion of the four girls who were killed in their church, you could hear a pin drop throughout the theatre. Quite a difference from watching a movie in the states (no matter what it is…still having nightmare of the white girl masturbating her boyfriend during Oprah's "Beloved" back in the 90s).

Another thing that occurred to me was my joy that we now have all these historical films likeSelma, The Butler, 12 Years A Slave, Get On Up, Ray, Bamboozled and Malcolm X. Remembering a time when there was the us and them films when blacks were not allowed in mainstream films and marveling over daring films like Pinky and Imitation Of Life that took chances by presenting black characters in major roles. And I'd like to applaud Steven Spielberg for making The Color Purple before embarking on Schindler's List. And another remarkable thing about Selma is that it actually had some of the real people who were actually there on that day of the march. One in particular was Amelia Boynton Robinson(played in the movie by Lorraine Toussaint who reminds me of Macy Gray for some reason) who was born on August 18th, 1911. Imagine all the things she has seen in her lifetime. All the news of Civil Rights to our first Black President……what an amazing journey to call a life. Unfortunately she was unable to attend the Hollywood premiere, so they brought the film to her and held a special screening just for her. I love the fact that there are still people here who lived our history. In this youth obsessed culture that exist today, nothing compares to the wisdom and experience of someone who was there. We should honor all of our elders.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/09/us/selma-civil-rights-matriarch/

The other thing that occurred to me that the release of this film is perfect. We need this film more than ever after the turn of events of last year. So many of our black youth clashing with the police in the states. It almost seemed like it was hunting season….all because of the hatred of the fact that a black man was elected into the biggest office in America. And unfortunately it is not over. It won't even be over when he leaves office because the bar has been set very high. The parallels between the Obamas and the Kings are so apparent throughout the film. The elegance and resilience of Coretta and Michelle makes me happy and sad at the same time. I remember when Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee died. Both marched with Dr. King and were activist for Civil Rights. That African-American royalty seemed to have lost its shimmer when they passed. Who would replace them? They, theKings and the Obamas were like the Kennedy(s) to Black Culture. Who are the people who replace these historical couples? I would say Beyonce and Jay Z would be in line, but her music videos and the video of him slapping some African woman on YouTube might hold them back. If you let Harry Belfonte tell it…..they don't do enough for the Black Community, but I see the work they do behind the scenes. Slowly they are investing in the future of Black Culture. Top 5 (the movie), Fela (the Broadway Musical) and giving Christmas gifts to all the kids in The Marcy Projects where he grew up……Jay Z gives back. And say what you will about Beyonce, she handles all of her business with grace and I did enjoy her remake of "Carmen" and her in "Dreamgirls" and her as Etta James in "Cadilac Records". You won't find any videos or tweets of her dissing anyone. So, I guess they are the closest to black royalty in Hip Hop America at the moment.

I hope that everyone goes out to see Selma. It's probably one of the most important films of the past five years. I would say it and 12 Years A Slave are required viewing to get a true grip around what the racial divide is all about in the U.S. today. I don't believe any racist could watch either and not leave with a different perspective of what it is like for the African-American. Shirley Bassey once sang "It's just a little bit of history repeating" and no truer words ever passed anyone's lips.

Here's my MLK Weekend Mix: http://www.mixcloud.com/djrelentlessny/martin-luther-king-weekend-mix-2015

[gunboatbaylodge]

Things to Do in Vancouver this Weekend: March 23, 2017

It’s the first weekend of spring, and you can let the theme be life, renewal, and new beginnings – because that sounds like a pretty nice way to begin the next few days! Get in touch with your humanity and the world with films like Kedi and I am Not Your Negro, make new connections by trading art cards with friends and strangers, share time with your loved ones at Family Fuse at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and marvel at orchid blooms at the Van Dusen Garden. (Or – just go watch some creepy burlesque clowns. Choice is yours!)

Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Ongoing

Friday March 24

Vancouver Fashion Week

Vancouver Fashion Week Where: Various locations What: Fashion shows and events by designers from Vancouver and from around the world – closing parties and shows are on all weekend. Runs until: Sunday March 26, 2017

The Daisy Theatre

The Daisy Theatre Where: The Cultch Historic Theatre What: Each performance will be different, daring, ridiculous, and on the edge of the hands of renowned puppeteer provocateur Ronnie Burkett and his resident company of over 40 marionettes. No two performances will be the same, making this a performance to see more than once. Runs until: Sunday April 9, 2017

The Lost Fleet Exhibit Where: Vancouver Maritime Museum What: On December 7, 1941 the world was shocked when Japan bombed Pearl Harbour, launching the United States into the war. This action also resulted in the confiscation of nearly 1,200 Japanese-Canadian owned fishing boats by Canadian officials on the British Columbia coast, which were eventually sold off to canneries and other non-Japanese fishermen. The Lost Fleet looks at the world of the Japanese-Canadian fishermen in BC and how deep-seated racism played a major role in the seizure, and sale, of Japanese-Canadian property and the internment of an entire people. Runs until: Winter 2017

Valley Song Where: Pacific Theatre What: Torn between the hope of the new South Africa and the familiarity of all he has known, Abraam “Buks” Jonkers tills land he will never own while his granddaughter dreams of the Johannesburg stage. A heartfelt story of tradition, change, and the resilience of the human spirit. Runs until: Saturday April 8, 2017

Carded! A Trading Card Art Show Where: Hot Art Wet City What: A one-night only show of art reproduced on trading cards. The work of fifty artists is presented on trading cards and made available for art lovers to collect and trade. These 2.5″x3.5″ cards are displayed on the gallery wall and the audience is offered the opportunity to buy random cards in mixed packs of five for $ 5. If you purchase a pack that doesn’t have your desired card, get into some fast paced trading action with the people around you. How bad do you want that card?

Kedi

Kedi Where: VanCity Theatre What: My favorite quote of the film is, “If you can’t love animals, then I think you can’t really love people either.” In Istanbul, Turkey, self-reliant cats have lived freely since before the Ottoman Empire. Yet, their existence is deeply intertwined with the lives of their human counterparts, who see themselves as guardians, rather than owners, of their four-legged friends. This movie is about cats but it is also about humanity, and understanding the world through new eyes. Runs until: Thursday March 31, 2017

Playdome

Playdome Where: BC Place Stadium What: An indoor carnival with over 45 rides and attractions, as well as carnival snacks and games. Runs until: Sunday March 26, 2017

Vancouver Gem and Mineral Show | Work by German Kabirski

Vancouver Gem and Mineral Show Where: Playland What: Western Canada’s largest Gem show is featuring 80+ of the best gem, mineral and jewellery vendors from across Canada and abroad, bringing you unique gems, fine crystals, rare fossils, handmade jewellery, fancy beads and findings, lapidary art, lectures and demos, hourly door prizes and more. Runs until: Sunday March 26, 2017

Angels in America Where: Arts Club Theatre What: A tale of companionship and abandonment that takes place when the personal became political. Set in New York City at the height of the Reagan era, Tony Kushner’s modern masterpiece contrasts the lives of five individuals struggling with identity issues alongside the crippling effects of stereotypes and an incurable diagnosis. Runs until: Sunday April 23, 2017

Jon Kimura Parker plays Beethoven

Jon Kimura Parker plays Beethoven Where: The Chan Centre What: One of Vancouver’s favourite sons, internationally-renowned pianist Jon Kimura Parker returns home to perform Beethoven’s gorgeous Piano Concerto No. 1. Gifted young conductor Joshua Weilerstein leads a program that also includes Schumann’s beautiful, awe-inspiring Rhine Symphony, and Nielsen’s enchanting symphonic poem Pan and Syrinx. Runs until: Saturday March 25, 2017

The Age of Electric Where: The Commodore What: In early 1998 Age of Electric played their last show supporting Our Lady Peace in Hamilton Ontario. No announcement or press release was ever issued about their dis-banding, they simply ceased to exist as the members pursued other interests.And now they’re back!

Once Upon a Time Convention Where: The Westin Bayshore What: A convention for all those who love the TV show, Once Upon a Time.

Voices from the Sacred Fire: Indigenous Land Defenders Speak

Voices from the Sacred Fire: Indigenous Land Defenders Speak Where: SFU Vancouver, 6:30pm What: Indigenous land defenders from frontline struggles speak on protecting lands and waters and asserting nationhood on their territories.

The Pull Festival Where: Speakeasy Theatre What: An annual play Festival featuring a repertoire of six or seven ten-minute plays. Pull seeks out original, un-produced plays from Vancouver based playwrights and along with its artistic team, produces, develops, dramaturges and supports the presentation of these new works. Runs until: Saturday March 25, 2017

Back to the Nineties: A Fundraiser for Accessible Spaces

Back to the Nineties: A Fundraiser for Accessible Spaces Where: HiVE What: Get chillin’ maxin’ and relaxin’ at this 90’s themed games night (board games and an N64) with friends and Vancouver’s social impact community.

Author & Punisher Where: The Astoria What: Musician and artist Tristan Shone is a 1-person industrial doom band who uses machines that are custom-designed and hand-built by himself. This is a show where half the experience is watching him play his machines in-person and not to be missed by any fan of industrial music or machines that make noises.

East Side Flea Where: 1024 Main St. What: Over 50 local vendors, food trucks, a live deejay, artisan showrooms, seasonal drink specials, pinball and more. Runs until: Sunday March 26, 2017

    Saturday March 25

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Family FUSE Weekend Where: Vancouver Art Gallery What: Explore the galleries exhibitions through a diverse range of performances, in- gallery engagement, hands- on making activities and workshops with artists, dancers, musicians, performers and educators. Runs until: Sunday March 26, 2017

Travis Wall’s Shaping Sound: After the Curtain Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre What: Through his Emmy Award winning work on So You Think You Can Dance, Travis Wall has established himself as one of America’s favorite choreographers. These visual musicians continue to dazzle audiences as they tell the story of a man fighting to find his creative voice after the death of his one true love. Get $ 15 off your ticket through Tickets Tonight with promo code TIXTON.

Culture Evening at The Fort

Culture Evening at The Fort Where: Fort Langley What: Adults only night! Live music, snacks, First Nations storytelling and drinks inside Vancouver’s real fort.

ArtStarts presents Rhymes, Reason and Rascals with Story Theatre Company Where: ArtStarts Gallery What: For the kids! Three knights use stories from many cultures to show a king what is truly valuable. Story Theatre Company’s new production is bursting with short stories, tales and poems full of remarkable wisdom.

Pyrrha Trunk Show

Pyrrha Trunk Show Where: Nordstrom What: Nordstrom is showcasing the largest selection of Pyrrha jewelry ever available in Vancouver, and welcoming designers Danielle and Wade Papin for a special appearance. Handcrafted locally since 1995, Pyrrha talismans are created using authentic wax seals and imagery from the Victorian era.

Mother Mother

Mother Mother (show 1 of 3) Where: The Commodore Ballroom What:Vancouver-based electro alt-rock with songs like Bit By Bit and Monkey Tree.

I Am Not Your Negro

I Am Not Your Negro Where: VanCity Theatre and The Rio Theatre What: A journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter. It is a film that questions black representation in Hollywood and beyond. And, ultimately, by confronting the deeper connections between the lives and assassination of these three leaders, Baldwin and Peck have produced a work that challenges the very definition of what America stands for. Runs until: Friday March 31, 2017

Symphony: Idea of the North

Symphony: Idea of the North Where: The Annex What: Music that originated in rather cold climates – both Canadian and otherwise. Each of the pieces on this program is inspired by the cultural or geographical home of the composer.

Lisa Leblanc Where: The Biltmore What: Anyone who describes their music as “folk trash” seems pretty cool to me.

Orchid Society Show and Sale

Orchid Society Show and Sale Where: VanDusen Garden What: Join the Vancouver Orchid Society for their spring sale. Runs until: Sunday March 26, 2017

Marc Maron Where: The Vogue What: Maron is best known for his hit podcast WTF with Marc Maron, which continues to top the iTunes charts, averaging over 6 million downloads each month, with nearly 300 million total lifetime downloads. Following his historic interview with President Barack Obama last June, Marc has interviewed the likes of Lorne Michaels, Neil Young, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jeff Goldblum, and Keith Richards.

Marianne Nicolson: Artist Talk and Book Launch  Where: Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, UBC What: Nicolson will discuss her practice as it engages with Indigenous histories and politics, and relating oral traditions to methodologies of archival research.

We All Float Down Here: A Burlesque Tribute to Stephen King

We All Float Down Here: A Burlesque Tribute to Stephen King Where: The Rio What: Here’ is a burlesque, dance, and comedy show celebrating the oeuvre of Stephen King through a vaudeville lens, creating a world where the horror writer’s films collide in a Ziegfeld Follies-style explosion of glitter and showgirls.

Agnes Obel

Agnes Obel Where: The Imperial What: A Danish singer-songwriter with a classical approach.

Teenage Fanclub Where: The Rickshaw What: Rock music from Scotland.

  Sunday March 26

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Jazz Vespers Where: St. Andrew’s United Church What: Darlene Ketchum (vocals), Kelvin Ketchum (piano), Gerry Teichrob (bass), and Tyler Friesen (drums) perform a selection of classic soul, R&B, gospel, and jazz tunes as well as some originals.

Closing Event for Judy Chartrand: What a Wonderful World Where: Bill Reid Gallery What: Join artist Judy Chartrand for her special closing program for her exhibition: What a Wonderful World. Visitors will gain admission to the gallery, a copy of the official exhibition catalogue, an exclusive curatorial tour, light refreshments, and a chance to interact with the artist. This is the last chance to see this beautiful and provocative exhibit.

The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge

The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge Where: Chan Centre What: The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, clad in their iconic red and white robes, has become one of the world’s most recognized all-male choral ensembles. Every Christmas Eve, over 30 million people across the globe tune in to listen to the ensemble perform the legendary “Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols” service. This event has been broadcast by the BBC since 1928 and has helped to make the choir a household name all over the globe. As a result, the ensemble now regularly tours all over the world, selling out performances wherever they go.

Mother Mother (show 2 of 3) Where: The Commodore Ballroom What:Vancouver-based electro alt-rock with songs like Bit By Bit and Monkey Tree.

Kitty Nights: Nerdgasm Where: The Biltmore What: Burlesque for the nerdy.

      Ongoing

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Vancouver International Dance Festival

Vancouver International Dance Festival (ends this weekend) Where: Various locations What: A broad spectrum of dance presentation ranging from the slow introspection of butoh to the dynamic precision of ballet. Runs until: Saturday March 25, 2017

Judy Chartrand, What a Wonderful World (ends this weekend) Where: The Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art What: Her beautiful and provocative work presents her own personal history and insights into life in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, and commentary on racism and post–colonial relations between Indigenous and non–Indigenous cultures. Runs until: Saturday March 25, 2016

Playdome

Playdome (ends this weekend) Where: BC Place Stadium What: An indoor carnival with over 45 rides and attractions, as well as carnival snacks and games. Runs until: Sunday March 26, 2017

Vancouver Gem and Mineral Show | Work by German Kabirski

Vancouver Gem and Mineral Show (this weekend only) Where: Playland What: Western Canada’s largest Gem show is featuring 80+ of the best gem, mineral and jewellery vendors from across Canada and abroad, bringing you unique gems, fine crystals, rare fossils, handmade jewellery, fancy beads and findings, lapidary art, lectures and demos, hourly door prizes and more. Runs until: Sunday March 26, 2017

Family FUSE Weekend (this weekend only) Where: Vancouver Art Gallery What: Explore the galleries exhibitions through a diverse range of performances, in- gallery engagement, hands- on making activities and workshops with artists, dancers, musicians, performers and educators. Runs until: Sunday March 26, 2017

East Side Flea (this weekend only) Where: 1024 Main St. What: Over 50 local vendors, food trucks, a live deejay, artisan showrooms, seasonal drink specials, pinball and more. Runs until: Sunday March 26, 2017

Orchid Society Show and Sale

Orchid Society Show and Sale (this weekend only) Where: VanDusen Garden What: Join the Vancouver Orchid Society for their spring sale. Runs until: Sunday March 26, 2017

Vancouver Fashion Week

Vancouver Fashion Week (ends this weekend) Where: Various locations What: Fashion shows and events all week by designers from Vancouver and from around the world. Runs until: Sunday March 26, 2017

Kedi

Kedi Where: VanCity Theatre What: My favorite quote of the film is, “If you can’t love animals, then I think you can’t really love people either.” In Istanbul, Turkey, self-reliant cats have lived freely since before the Ottoman Empire. Yet, their existence is deeply intertwined with the lives of their human counterparts, who see themselves as guardians, rather than owners, of their four-legged friends. This movie is about cats but it is also about humanity, and understanding the world through new eyes. Runs until: Thursday March 31, 2017

Kids Get in For Free Where: VanDusen Botanical Garden and Bloedel Conservatory What: Take advantage of up to two free child admissions with the purchase of a regular price adult, senior, or youth admission at VanDusen Garden or Bloedel Conservatory. Runs until: Friday March 31, 2017

I Am Not Your Negro

I Am Not Your Negro Where: VanCity Theatre What: A journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter. It is a film that questions black representation in Hollywood and beyond. And, ultimately, by confronting the deeper connections between the lives and assassination of these three leaders, Baldwin and Peck have produced a work that challenges the very definition of what America stands for. Runs until: Friday March 31, 2017

Valley Song Where: Pacific Theatre What: Torn between the hope of the new South Africa and the familiarity of all he has known, Abraam “Buks” Jonkers tills land he will never own while his granddaughter dreams of the Johannesburg stage. A heartfelt story of tradition, change, and the resilience of the human spirit. Runs until: Saturday April 8, 2017

Layers of Influence

Layers of Influence Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology What: This stunning exhibition will explore clothing’s inherent evidence of human ingenuity, creativity and skill, drawing from MOA’s textile collection — the largest collection in Western Canada — to display a global range of materials, production techniques and adornments across different cultures and time frames. Runs until: Sunday April 9, 2017

The Daisy Theatre

The Daisy Theatre Where: The Cultch Historic Theatre What: Each performance will be different, daring, ridiculous, and on the edge of the hands of renowned puppeteer provocateur Ronnie Burkett and his resident company of over 40 marionettes. No two performances will be the same, making this a performance to see more than once. Runs until: Sunday April 9, 2017

Vancouver Special Where: Vancouver Art Gallery What: The first iteration of this series and it features works by 40 artists produced within the last five years—Vancouver’s post-Olympic period. The exhibition includes many emerging artists as well as those who are more established but whose ideas were prescient. Some are recent arrivals to Vancouver, while others are long-term residents who have already made significant contributions. Others are nomadic, less settled in one place and are working energetically between several locations. Runs until: Monday April 17, 2016

Nat Bailey Stadium Winter Farmers Market

Nat Bailey Stadium Winter Farmers Market Where: Nat Bailey Stadium What: Don’t fret the summers Farmers markets packing up – winter is here, and you can still shop local for fresh produce, preserves, baked goods, and crafts. Runs until: Saturday April 22, 2017

Angels in America Where: Arts Club Theatre What: A tale of companionship and abandonment that takes place when the personal became political. Set in New York City at the height of the Reagan era, Tony Kushner’s modern masterpiece contrasts the lives of five individuals struggling with identity issues alongside the crippling effects of stereotypes and an incurable diagnosis. Runs until: Sunday April 23, 2017

Hastings Park Farmers Market

Hastings Park Farmers Market Where: Hastings Park (near the PNE) What: The Hastings Park Farmers Market features a great selection of local produce; nursery items, fish, meat & dairy; artisan prepared foods, baking and treats; local crafts, and of course, food trucks. Runs until: Sunday April 30, 2017

Susan Point: Spindle Whorl

Susan Point: Spindle Whorl Where: Vancouver Art Gallery What: Since the early 1980s, Susan Point has received wide acclaim for her remarkably accomplished oeuvre that forcefully asserts the vitality of Coast Salish culture, both past and present. She has produced an extensive body of prints and an expansive corpus of sculptural work in a wide variety of materials that includes glass, resin, concrete, steel, wood and paper. Runs until: Sunday May 28, 2017

Pacific Crossings: Hong Kong Artists in Vancouver | Sunset, Carrie Koo

Pacific Crossings: Hong Kong Artists in Vancouver Where: Vancouver Art Gallery What: June 2017 marks the 20-year anniversary of the transfer of Hong Kong sovereignty from the United Kingdom to mainland China. In the lead up to the handover, tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents immigrated to Canada, many choosing to settle in Vancouver, and among them were a significant number of artists. Pacific Crossings presents works from well-known Hong Kong artists created after their relocation to Vancouver throughout the 1960-90s. Runs until: May 28, 2017

Retainers of Anarchy

Retainers of Anarchy Where: Vancouver Art Gallery What: A solo exhibition featuring new work from Howie Tsui that considers wuxia, a traditional form of martial arts literature, as a narrative tool for dissidence and resistance. Runs until: May 28, 2017

The Lost Fleet Exhibit Where: Vancouver Maritime Museum What: On December 7, 1941 the world was shocked when Japan bombed Pearl Harbour, launching the United States into the war. This action also resulted in the confiscation of nearly 1,200 Japanese-Canadian owned fishing boats by Canadian officials on the British Columbia coast, which were eventually sold off to canneries and other non-Japanese fishermen. The Lost Fleet looks at the world of the Japanese-Canadian fishermen in BC and how deep-seated racism played a major role in the seizure, and sale, of Japanese-Canadian property and the internment of an entire people. Runs until: Winter 2017

Amazonia: The Rights of Nature

Amazonia: The Rights of Nature Where: UBC Museum of Anthropology What: MOA will showcase its Amazonian collections in a significant exploration of socially and environmentally-conscious notions intrinsic to indigenous South American cultures, which have recently become innovations in International Law. These are foundational to the notions of Rights of Nature, and they have been consolidating in the nine countries that share responsibilities over the Amazonian basin. Runs until: January 28, 2018

What are you up to this weekend? Tell me and the rest of Vancouver in the comments below or tweet me directly at @lextacular

Inside Vancouver Blog

[viralhottopics]

The ‘Grand Budapest Hotel’ and other great day trips from Berlin

(CNN)Europe’s hottest destination for tourists, Berlin offers more than bargain-priced nightclubs and Cold War nostalgia.

Some of the most interesting sights in Germany are just a few hours away — and with the deregulation of the intercity bus system, getting around is cheaper than ever.

Here’s a shortlist of three great day trips from Berlin.

Potsdam

The site of the famous “Potsdam Conference” that negotiated the end of World War II and a series of opulent Hohenzollern palaces, Potsdam lies only about an hour from the center of Berlin, with all the major attractions easily reachable by public transport.

It’s a day trip not because of the travel time, but because there’s so much to see.

Highlights include the breathtaking Sanssouci Palace (Maulbeerallee, Potsdam; [phone]), the former summer residence of Frederick the Great — who ruled the Prussian Empire from 1740 to 1786.

A pale and beautiful Rococo villa, its name means “without a care” and reflects the idyllic atmosphere of tranquil reflection Frederick sought to create with a grand, terraced vineyard to the south and sweeping views of the surrounding countryside.

An audio tour covers the palace interior, where most of the original furnishings remain just as the Prussian king preferred them, and on a fine day the huge gardens are perfect for an impromptu picnic.

Hardcore palace fans may have enough energy for a gander at the Orangery and the Spielfestung, or “toy fortress” — a miniature fort, complete with a working cannon, built for Frederick’s son.

But in our opinion it makes a better write-up than it does a visit, and it’s better to take the audio tour of the Cecilienhof (Im Neuen Garten 11, Potsdam; [phone])

This mammoth, Tudor-style mansion is where U.S. President Harry Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin negotiated the partition of post-war Germany in 1945. (As always in German museums, it’s advisable to spring for the headphones unless you’re a history professor).

Depending on where else you’re headed, the Old Town of Potsdam itself can be underwhelming — cluttered as it is with garden-variety shopping.

The varied architecture of the Russian and Dutch Quarters — built in Germany’s first, misguided effort to attract “desirable” immigrants in the 18th century — is, however, worth strolling through.

Getting there:

Pay an extra 2 euros over the standard charge for the Berlin WelcomeCard and get free travel and discounts for various attractions in Potsdam (not the biggies).

Otherwise, day passes for the A-B-C zones of the Berlin transit system — which covers buses and trains within Potsdam, as well as the so-called “regional train” — are available for 7.20 euros.

World’s biggest wine festival is NOT in France …

Leipzig

In the wake of the recent 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the nearby cultural capital of Leipzig — which was the real nerve center of the peaceful East German revolution, as well as the longtime home of Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach — makes an especially compelling day trip.

It’s two hours by bus or 70 minutes by train from Berlin.

Though it was virtually destroyed by Allied bombs in World War II, the reconstruction of Leipzig’s old town is so seamless that it’s difficult to recognize the Renaissance churches and old market square as reproductions.

Meanwhile, a growing community of artists and hipsters have created a mushrooming bar, dance club and arts scene that has some people calling it “the new Berlin” (or, more disparagingly, “Hypezig”).

For a tribute to the movement that brought down the Wall, visit the Nikolaikirche (Nikolaikirchhof 3, Leipzig; [phone]), the church where a small, East German prayer group known as “Swords into Plowshares” grew into a protest involving thousands of people.

Founded in 1165, the church is a mash-up of Roman, Gothic and Baroque architectural styles, but its moment in history gives it an atmosphere that can’t be beat.

You can get a glimpse of Hypezig at the Spinnerei (Spinnereistrasse 7, Leipzig; [phone]; guided tours by appointment) — a 19th century cotton mill that was converted into an artists’ collective in the 1990s.

Put on the map by the so-called “New Leipzig School” — which includes the post-reunification works of Neo Rauch, Christoph Ruckhaberle, Matthias Weischer and others — the complex now comprises artist studios, workshops and galleries.

For classical music fans, the Leipziger Notenspur — or “Music Trail” — links prominent sites from the city’s musical history along a 5-kilometer (3-mile) walking route.

It includes the homes of the renowned 19th Century composers Felix Mendelsohn and Robert Schumann as well as museums devoted to Bach and Ludwig Beethoven.

Regardless of your take on literature — or deals with the devil — it’s worth enjoying a meal at the Auerbachs Keller (Grimmaische Strasse 2-4, Leipzig; [phone]).

One of Germany’s oldest restaurants, it’s where 18th century poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a frequent patron, imagined Mephistopheles downing a few with his eponymous hero, Faust.

Getting there:

Tickets on the high-speed train to Leipzig can currently be had as cheap as 29 euros (around $40) from Deutschebahn.

Luxury coaches with snacks, toilets and WiFi can get you there almost as quickly, starting at just 7 euros. Try MeinFernbus ([phone]) or Berlin Linienbus ([phone]).

A spies’ guide to Berlin

Goerlitz

Wee little Goerlitz, about three hours from Berlin if you time the connections right, is a bit more off the beaten track.

But the number of Hollywood productions shot here — “The Reader,” “Grand Budapest Hotel” and “The Book Thief,” among others — testify to its status as perhaps the most picturesque prewar German town, even if it doesn’t make many guidebooks.

In many respects, it’s a place to witness Germany’s moribund East — despite thriving larger cities like Leipzig, many areas are struggling to make a comeback.

There’s not a lot in the way of tourist infrastructure, so it’s best visited when the weather is good.

It’s the kind of place where the renovation team at the famous Goerlitz Department Store (Bismarckstrasse 21, Goerlitz) — once an icon in the style of London’s Selfridges or New York’s Bloomingdales — and more recently the setting for Wes Anderson’s “Grand Budapest Hotel” — will drop what they’re doing to give guided tours.

In nice weather, there are walks along the Neisse River and across the bridge into Poland — still fun even if the days of passport stamps are long gone.

For some traditional Silesian food, such as pork cooked in plum gravy, the town has several fine sidewalk restaurants.

Other highlights include a series of late Gothic merchant houses, some of which still have interior fittings dating back to the 1500s, a stunning Schonhof, or town hall, built in 1526, as well as a street where local glassblowers still ply their trade.

The real joy of the place, though, is the feeling of discovery from exploring the streets — which really do look like, well, a film set.

Getting there:

From Berlin, regional trains run from Alexanderplatz more or less hourly for around 40 euros (about $60). But consult the schedule to avoid a wait when transferring in Cottbus.

Read more: http://cnn.it/2mWnqd7

from The ‘Grand Budapest Hotel’ and other great day trips from Berlin

#The ‘Grand Budapest Hotel’ and other great day trips from Berlin