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benychamp · 6 years ago

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Chernobyl victims ‘were people like us’

Image copyright Sky

Image caption The five-part series Chernobyl focused on the causes and fallout of the disaster

The world’s worst nuclear disaster has been brought back into sharp focus by the Sky Atlantic drama Chernobyl. But 33 years after the event charities in England are still helping those affected by the fallout.

Jostling for position among the usual array of bakeries, hairdressers and newsagents in a market town’s shopping street is a rather unusual store.

It is a charity shop set up with one aim – to help those affected by a nuclear disaster more than 1,300 miles (2,000km) away.

“They were people like us,” shop manager Gerald Hirst said, when asked why the people of Crook in Durham decided to help those so far away.

“They were every day normal working people with families.”

Image caption Gerald Hirst said the people of Crook were moved to help

The shop opened in 1987 in response to the devastation caused when reactor number four at the nuclear power station in Chernobyl, Ukraine, exploded in the early hours of 26 April, 1986.

The event has been revisited by the Chernobyl drama, which focuses on what caused the disaster and the political and personal fallout.

“Because of the show, more people have been stunned than anything else,” Mr Hirst said.

“They cannot believe what happened and what is still happening to this day.

“People do come to this shop because they want to help.”

The shop’s initial aim was to raise money to fund medical aid, but soon it became one of a number of hubs around England hosting visits of children from Belarus affected by the fallout.

Image copyright Chernobyl Children’s Project (UK)

Image caption The Chernobyl Children’s Project (UK) brings children from Belarus to the UK for four weeks at a time

Six years ago the Crook store became part of the Chernobyl Children’s Project (UK), which was set up by Linda Walker in 1995 and is one of a number of Chernobyl-related charities across the country.

The Glossop-based charity has brought more than 3,000 Belarusian children to the UK for four-week long holidays.

Ms Walker said people in the most contaminated areas have large amounts of caesium-137 in their systems, a long-lasting radioactive substance which infiltrated the land and food and impairs the immune system.

“Doctors in Belarus say four weeks of clean air and food makes a big improvement to the children’s immune systems thanks to a drop in the caesium,” Ms Walker said.

“We have more recently been bringing over children and teenagers with cancer which offers a fantastic psychological boost for them to realise people in other countries care about what is happening to them.”

Image copyright Chernobyl CHildren’s Project (UK)

Image caption Linda Walker said four weeks away from the contaminated area provides a big health boost to children

The charity also sends workers out to Belarus to run holiday camps, respite centres and education on disability.

The Sky drama tells viewers there was a spike in cancer and disabilities after the blast, particularly in children, with estimates of the number of deaths caused ranging from 4,000 to 93,000.

The official Soviet Union figure, unchanged since 1987, is 31.

Mrs Walker said it is impossible to get finite figures or confirmation about how many people have been affected by the blast, but said it would seem people who were children at the time are now “carrying problems over” to their own offspring.

“No-one knows what will happen in future generations,” Ms Walker said, adding: “But I’m sure it will affect people for decades to come if not hundreds of years.”

Image copyright Chernoby Children’s Project (UK)

Image caption Linda Walker founded the Chernobyl Children’s Project (UK) in 1995

The Sky drama has already resulted in a huge volume of calls to the charity, she said.

“People have been sending donations and wanting to know more about what is being done to support those affected by the accident,” she said.

Ms Walker said she also hopes it will motivate more UK families to host Belarusian children, with numbers dropping off because a lot of people thought the disaster was “so long ago”.

Image copyright Chernobyl Children’s Project UK

Image caption The Chernobyl Children’s Project (UK) has also sent volunteers to Belarus to teach about education

“Maybe this drama will make a difference,” she said.

“It was very accurate, it was quite eerie seeing it.

“It would be great if they could make another series about what happened afterwards.”

Image copyright Alex Smith

Image caption An enormous shelter has been built over the remains of the reactor

Related Topics

Crook

Chernobyl disaster

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Chernobyl victims ‘were people like us’ was originally posted by NewsToday

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benychamp · 6 years ago

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5 Customizable Bridal Gifts For Every Type Of Bride Betches

One of the hardest things about weddings (other than nosy guests, dress codes, and unexpected bridal party costs) is figuring out the perfect gift for the bride. You want your gift to stand out from everyone else’s (duh), but not in a “I spent $5,000 on this just because I can” kind of way. (Or in that way! If you’re attending my wedding, certainly in that way. I just can’t afford to return the favor.) Anyway, when it comes to bridal gifts, you don’t want to phone it in and get her something average that everyone else will get her (how many Instant Pots does one couple need?). Customizing gifts is an easy way to make it seem like you put in a ton of effort and prove to everyone what a good friend you are (without spending that much more money or time). If that sounds interesting to you, check out these five customizable bridal gift options below. You’ll find something even your fussiest friend will secretly covet, guaranteed.

Rae Of Light Clutches

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A post shared by Rae of Light (@raeoflightcustom) on Apr 1, 2019 at 6:54am PDT

Rae Of Light is a brand offering small, customizable handbags, and they just rolled out a full bridal collection. Yes, that means clutches that say “Bride” (pictured above) “I DO,” “Mrs.” etc., each in a more hype shade of glitter than the last. And those are just their pre-made designs; you can (and should) also order custom bags with the bride’s new last name, wedding date, or bachelorette party hashtag. Because frankly, the only thing better than a clutch that reminds people you’re getting married is one that also reminds people of how f*cking epic your bachelorette weekend in Tulum was. These bags don’t only make a great gift for the bride, but also for the entire wedding party as well. And for a limited time, Betches readers can get their first bag for 10% off using the code BetchesBrides at checkout! So, really, you have no reason not to get one.

Wedding Favorites Sun Hats

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Personalized Mrs Gifts make the cutests bridal shower gifts for the bride to take on her honeymoon! ☀️💕😎⁣ .⁣ .⁣ .⁣ .⁣ .⁣ #WeddingFavorites #bridalshowerideas #bridalshowergift #bridegift #bacheloretteparty #bacheloretteweekend #bridestyle #bridebabe #bride2be #brideinspo #bridegoals #misstomrs #mrs #engaged #weddingideas_brides #weddinggift #honeymoongift #justhitched #2019bride #bridetobe #justengaged #engagementgift #newlastname #justmarried #sunhat #clutchbag #stylishbride #bridalstyle #floppyhat #beachhat

A post shared by Weddingfavorites Bridal Shop (@weddingfavorites) on May 3, 2019 at 12:00pm PDT

Does the bride’s bachelorette party take place at a beach locale, by any chance? Great, your work is done here. These sun hats can be customized with each person’s name (and are affordable enough that you can splurge on a set for the full bridesmaid crew). Have a few members of your crew who are terrible at putting on sunscreen, burn on day 1, and complain about it the whole time? Not anymore. Tie this hat on them and tell them the bride says they’re not allowed to take it off. Once they see how cute group pics are with these matching hats, I doubt they’ll be complaining.

CuteSayings Swim Suits

I’m giving you more than one option for a customizable beach bachelorette gift, both because I’m incredibly generous and because the beach-bound bachelorette trip is a classic, and you’ll definitely go on more than one. (Thank god! Isn’t going to the beach all anyone wants to do anyway?) These swim suits from CuteSayings have a bridal line with logos like “Team Bride,” “Bride Squad,” “Final Fiesta,” or whatever the f*ck you want. It’s fully customizable, so feel free to put some inside joke from 5th grade that you have with the bride, or go for more a more neutral theme if you’re shelling out for a group.

Shop Betches Jackets

Is the bride more of a city girl? Does she call bridal showers “too girly” and insist she doesn’t want any gifts (then freak out over the ones she really loves)? Yeah, you’ll want to get her a Shop Betches jacket, and customize it so well that she feels like she designed it herself. If that sounds impossible, just take a look at the customizing options. If you’re friends with someone whose personality doesn’t revolve around champagne, pizza, dogs, diamonds, and being rude to people, is she even really your friend?

Mark & Graham Wine Glasses

Finally, a gift that ~truly~ every bride will thank you for. I feel very strongly that stemless wine glasses are the way of the future—and if you’ve ever been in a room full of drunk women, I imagine you understand why. The customizing on these glasses means you can take them in pretty much any direction: if they’re functioning as a bachelorette party gift, spring for colored glass and raunchy slogans (or bridesmaid initials, if you’re feeling cute); if you’re hoping they’ll actually last the couple a while, you can do a sleek monogram on clear glass (pictured above). Either way, I’ve never heard someone say “sh*t, why do I have so many wine glasses?!” Have you?

There you have it, my friends. Easy (and shockingly affordable) customizable gifts that tell the bride in your life “I love you, I made this just for you, and I want you to remember how good at gifts I am when my own wedding comes around.” The best part? You can get them all without leaving your couch—as God and Jeff Bezos intended.

Images: @raeoflightcustom; @weddingfavorites / Instagram, @CuteSayings / Etsy, Shop Betches, Mark & Graham

Original Article : HERE ; This post was curated & posted using : RealSpecific

5 Customizable Bridal Gifts For Every Type Of Bride Betches was originally posted by NewsToday

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benychamp · 6 years ago

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Cindy Sherman: I enjoy doing the really difficult things that people cant buy

Ahead of a major London show, the artist talks about her childhood, therapy and her tricky relationship with success

Perhaps the most intriguing exhibit in Cindy Shermans forthcoming retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery is the first, Cindy Book, a family photo album she began making when she was just six years old. It comprises 26 snapshots pasted on pages torn out of a school exercise book and placed inside stapled-together plain covers that are now stained and discoloured with age. For all sorts of reasons, it is a good place to start.

There is no artifice in the actual photographs. They trace ordinary moments in Shermans early life from infancy to adolescence: cute baby pics, family gatherings, snaps of her as a child at the beach and portraits of her as a teenager standing gauchely alongside awkward young men. What is striking is the sense of an almost stereotypical all-American suburban childhood. As is always the case with Sherman, though, nothing is quite what it seems.

In green ink, she has circled herself in each photo and underneath written Thats me,. That comma is fascinating, perhaps a childs grammatical error, yet already implying, as curator Paul Moorhouse notes in his catalogue essay, an unfolding process. When Sherman rediscovered Cindy Book as a 21-year-old art student, the process unfolded some more, as she added extra photos to the album and, as she puts it, made the handwriting seem to grow up along with the images. Does she consider the original handmade album the beginning of her long and singular art practice (Thats me, or is it?) or does it start in earnest with the later intervention?

The original book is interesting to me because it was more about my fascination with our family snapshots, she says. They were kept in a shoebox and, as a child, I loved to pore over them looking for pictures of myself as a baby, but also to identify all these characters that existed before I was born. There was such a big age gap between my older siblings and myself, so I think now I was somehow finding myself in the family through the snapshots. When I came back to the album as a student, that was definitely the more knowing artist coming into play.

Pages from A Cindy Book, c1964 75. Photograph: Courtesy the artist/ Metro Pictures, New York

Somewhere between those two creative impulses, one instinctive and psychologically revealing, the other conceptual and wilfully deceptive, may lie the enduring fascination of Shermans art. For nigh on 50 years, on the strength of one enduringly brilliant idea turning the camera on her transformed self in order to exaggerate and illuminate the archetypes that are all around us, so familiar as to go almost unnoticed Sherman has been hiding in plain sight as one of the great artists of our time. In that time, she has redefined photographic portraiture, her approach being, as her friend the writer and editor Ingrid Sischy noted in 1991, more akin to that of a cinematic auteur. Shes the director, the producer, the set designer, the costume mistress, and the star as well… In her hands, images arent straitjackets but vehicles to show the infinite possibilities of who she could be.

As the NPG retrospective will show, hers is an art of shape-shifting and disguise, artifice and camouflage. It draws on high and low culture: European and Hollywood films, 1950s television sitcoms, art history, high society, fashion, forensic science, drag, pinups and pornography; the esoteric and the everyday, the glamorous and the grotesque. All her major series are here, from the still resonant Untitled Film Stills, which she began when she first moved to New York in the late 70s, through the controversial Centerfolds, the even more controversial Sex Pictures (surely the most grotesquely provocative images ever exhibited in the gallery), the acerbic Fashion pictures, the History Portraits, the Flappers and the Street Style Stars.

Seeing her creative journey unfold, from her use of cheap wigs and secondhand clothes through her discovery of prosthetics and on to her current Instagram experiments in digital face manipulation, what really fascinates is the consistent cultural resonance of her work. Shermans target is the look of the modern world, notes Moorhouse, with whose manufactured character she evidently has a lovehate relationship. And, if her personas have often echoed the way in which our image-obsessed culture has elevated style and appearance, they have also of late become freighted with new meaning in the so-called post-truth age, as the idea of the blatantly fake has taken on more ominous meaning, becoming an acceptable part of our degraded political discourse.

Untitled #92 by Cindy Sherman, 1981. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York

As an interviewee, Sherman is incredibly accommodating, but somehow elusive, upbeat but slightly detached. A friend once memorably described her as having the banality of a great actress, which may be a clever way of keeping the world at bay, but one can see why she connected with the art-rocker David Byrne they were an item for several years who evinces a similar kind of not quite normal normalness.

Before that, she was married for 15 years to video artist Michel Auder, who was addicted to heroin for most of the relationship. They split up in 1999. She described a subsequent short relationship with struggling film-maker Paul H-O as real fucked-up. She is currently contentedly single, sharing her Manhattan loft apartment and her house in the Hamptons with a macaw called Mister Frieda, which she has owned for nearly 28 years. Hes been the longest companion Ive ever had, she said recently, although its like having a perpetual two-year-old.

Sherman came of age when postmodern theory occupied a place in art discourse that it no longer does; perhaps this is why her work has endured much better than some of her peers: because of its implicit and sometimes explicit feminist politics. Im not personally articulate, she says when I mention this. I dont even like giving lectures, and I certainly couldnt debate with anyone, but I have strong personal stances. I couldnt be an advocate but, through my work, I can be outspoken. Whats also important, though, is that the work is always ambiguous, that it lends itself to interpretation. Im not a message artist.

Cindy Sherman and her macaw, Mister Frieda, in 2014. Photograph: Sonia Moskowitz/Getty Images

That much was clear from the start. Likewise the love-hate relationship with her subject matter that Moorhouse identifies. Both, as with her fascination with dressing up, may have their roots in her childhood. Born in New Jersey in 1954 and raised in Long Island, she grew up in thrall to Hollywood B-movies and television sitcoms of the time, many of which portrayed suburban America as an idyll of domesticity, traditional family values and untrammelled aspiration.

I remember, as a child, being drawn to shows like I Love Lucy, she recalls, but, even then, realising the artifice in them, the goofy sentiment of all those perfect mums with the perfect homes and perfect men. Growing up in the actual suburbs made me look at what was being portrayed and realise that it was fake. So I was both attracted and repulsed by those films and shows. I think that paradox somehow found its way into the work.

The young Cynthia Shermans family dynamic was complex. Her father, an aircraft engineer, was 49 and her mother, a high-school teacher, 45 when she was born. She was the youngest of five children, all of whom were much older 19 years separated Cynthia from her eldest sibling. She first began dressing up as a young child, often in the sanctuary of her bedroom. Was it, I ask, a form of attention-seeking, maybe even a cry for help? Its something Ive talked about in therapy in recent years, she says, matter of factly. I know that I wasnt dressing up to entertain my family. It was more about me thinking, maybe theyll like me better this way. I guess I felt I wasnt accepted somehow. My parents had thought they were done with raising children when I came along. I dont think I picked up on all that until I began talking about it to my therapist.

In past interviews, Sherman has described her childhood as normal and happy, which is certainly the sense you get from the Cindy Book. However, in one interview, she described her father as a creep who would criticise with hate and, in another, called him a bigot and racist. As an adolescent, she experienced family tragedy up close, when her brother Frank took his own life. He had moved back into the family home in his mid-20s and belatedly bonded with his younger sister, who was 15 and had just made the decision to apply to art school when it happened. His death inevitably casts a long shadow. In 2016, when the Observers Tim Adams broached the subject, she burst into tears and spoke of her subsequent time at art college as a kind of therapy.

In 1972, she began studying for an art degree at Buffalo State College, where she initially excelled at drawing and painting but, ironically, failing the compulsory photography course because of her lack of technical skills. When forced to repeat it, she came under the tutelage of Barbara Jo Revelle, the first person to make her aware of conceptualism. She felt that to have an idea was what mattered, Sherman told the New Yorker in 2000, and right away that made so much more sense to me.

At Buffalo State College, Sherman began going out with an older artist, Robert Longo, and it was in their shared apartment that she made the first picture of herself stark naked, like a deer in the headlights as a way to confront her own suburban prudishness. In 1974, while working as an assistant in the nonprofit gallery Hallwalls she set up with Longo and others, she began turning up to openings disguised as someone else in thrift-shop clothes and makeup, standing quietly and without explanation amid the art works.

The pair moved to New York soon afterwards, living in a loft in Fulton Street in lower Manhattan in the shadow of the newly built World Trade Center, when rents were cheap and the now-gentrified neighbourhood was a ghost town after dark. I never felt scared walking home at 4am, she says. There was no one to rob, so there were no criminals.

Untitled Film Still #56, 1980. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York

At first, she stayed in a lot, dressing up and taking pictures of herself. For a time, she worked as a receptionist in a downtown gallery, Artists Space, again sometimes turning up in disguise once in a nurses outfit, another time as a 1950s secretary. One day, she showed a small selection of her photographs to the gallery director, Helene Winer, who told her she was on to something. It was the beginning of what would become her breakthrough series, Untitled Film Stills, in which she posed as archetypal characters from American B-movies and European art house films: the femme fatale, the bored housewife, the city girl, the vamp.

Despite their postmodern knowingness, those early images still fascinate. The generic female characters she inhabits furtive film actresses, harassed looking housewives, prim librarians are ambiguous creations, identifiable as archetypes of femininity but also marooned from their contexts, freeze-framed in some bigger, more mysterious narrative. They are photography as elaborate performance: cerebral, ironic, deadpan. As in all of the series that follow, Sherman is present in the images as photographer, art director and performer, but absent insofar as they tell us nothing about her in the way a traditional self-portrait might. Instead, they are pure persona.

My early work was more about creating still lifes in a way, she says. Over time, its become more about portraiture, but its never been about self-portraiture because I dont feel like it is revealing anything of myself. Its about obscuring my identity, erasing or obliterating myself. Its not fantasy or pretending or narcissism. Its not about me.

Alongside Jeff Wall, whose elaborately staged scenarios echoed traditional documentary photography while simultaneously subverting its style and its supposed truthfulness, Sherman made photography into a conceptual art form by foregrounding its deceptiveness (I know the camera always lies, she once said). Though not much commented upon, there is an element of play, as well as playacting, in all she does. Oh yes. Its fun, she says, cheerily. Its literally playing in my studio. Thats why I like to work alone, because I can be less inhibited. I often dont know what I want until the end. Its very liberating.

Can she remember the initial thrill of finding her own style, her language? Initially, it was just me retreating into my room and playing with makeup for fun. It was Longo who told me I should document my transformation from my normal self, which was masculine and boyish, to this vamp. When I did that, people were immediately interested. Thats when I could really say: this is my art.

The transformation was not altogether straightforward, though, as she elaborates. I thought I had found my place as an artist, but the problem was that, back then, photography was not a medium that was condoned by the art world. I felt I really wasnt accepted in the art or the photography world because I wasnt either.

When did that change? Not until the early 90s. Really? That late? Oh yes, she says, still sounding slightly indignant. I remember, back in the early 80s, I was included in a group show at MoMA and certain collectors saying, I love your work, but I dont collect photography. She pauses and, then, laughing, adds: In fact, someone said that to me just a few weeks ago in Venice during the Biennale. It still happens, but rarely.

Untitled #307, 1994. Photograph: courtesy the artist / Metro Pictures, New York/Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York

These days, though, it no longer rankles. In 2011, Sherman made headlines when one of her Centrefolds series, Untitled #96, sold at auction for $3.89m, making it the most expensive photograph ever at that time. (It has since been superseded by Andreas Gurskys Rhein II and Richard Princes Spiritual America, but five of her other works feature in the top 20 most expensive photographs of all time.) I didnt start to feel super-successful, she says, until I did the paintings show. (Shes referring to the History Portraits, which she completed in 1990, using prosthetics as well as wigs, makeup and period costumes, to recreate the style of old master artworks.)

I think they sold, she adds, pointedly, because they looked like old paintings. That must have been satisfying, though. In a way, yes, but their popularity made me feel very guilty. I went straight into the Sex Pictures afterwards.

The Sex Pictures (1992), alongside an earlier series that has come to be known as her Disaster pictures (1986-89), represent two viscerally angry, but nevertheless complex, responses to her own success in an art market not immune to peddling bad art in the guise of provocation. The latter series is both intentionally tasteless and compositionally intriguing: rotten food, vomit and fake body parts all photographed up-close and large-scale so that, from a distance, they look like abstractions. Intriguingly, she was mostly absent from the meticulously constructed ugliness, appearing as a ghostly reflection, as if aghast at the horror of it all.

For the Sex Pictures, she used prosthetic penises, vaginas, sex toys and distorted limbs ordered from a catalogue of medical dummies used in teaching. I had already been collecting fake tits and asses for years, she says breezily, because I thought that at some point I could do really explicit nudity, but not of myself.

The work features all the motifs of hardcore pornography but rendered grotesquely unreal and all the more unsettling for that. It was in part a response to the culture wars of the late 1980s, when the National Endowment for the Arts came under intense pressure from the Christian right for funding inappropriate work by the likes of Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano. It was also a riposte to Jeff Koonss Made in Heaven series, which comprised pornographic photographs of the artist and his bride to be, porn star Ilona Cicciolina Staller. I found them so lame and tame and not shocking at all, she says. They just made me kind of angry.

The Sex Pictures leap out of the catalogue for the NPG show, their visceral power to shock and disturb undiminished by the years. Their elaborate unrealness somehow makes them more shocking than Koonss empty porn pastiche or even the most hardcore photograph by Mapplethorpe. I cant imagine they were fun to make, though. I guess in a different way, they were, because I also enjoy doing the really difficult things that people cant buy. Its a reaction against the commerce of the art world, because I do feel guilty about it.

Untitled #204, from the History Portraits series, 1988-90. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York

Her work has calmed down since, as has, post-therapy, her life. She remains something of an enigma in the art world, both a product of it and a somewhat reluctant star within it. Her extraordinary success, though somewhat belated, seems to have taken her by surprise and, one senses, precipitated a long period of adjustment. It all happened to me much faster than it did for a lot of my friends, who werent as successful, she says. That was difficult for me, but it has passed. I have accepted it more now.

Nevertheless, her status still rankles even some of those supposedly closest to her. There are a couple of friends I only see once a year when I have a Christmas party, she says, Otherwise, I dont have anything to do with them because I can feel their resentment so strongly. Even one of my family members is that way.

She is not, she says, much given to schmoozing at big, groovy openings, but is certainly a presence on social media, where her Instagram feed, featuring regular posts of her face bent out of shape via digital manipulation, has 255,000 followers. It is, she says, more about goofing around a lot than an extension of her art practice. Someone showed me an app which people use to make themselves look better online, she says. I use it to make myself really not look better.

If one wanted to measure how deeply Cindy Shermans art of disguise has seeped into the public consciousness, you need look no further than an episode of the popular podcast This American Life. In 2012, when MoMA in New York hosted a retrospective of her work, Ira Glass, the podcast host, recalled an encounter in which a woman upper middle class, aged 55-60, wearing wire-rimmed spectacles had approached him and his friend in the gallery claiming to be Cindy Sherman. She told them that she came to the exhibition every day in disguise to see how people reacted to the work.

When they quizzed her, studying her face for clues, she became uncomfortable, ending the conversation abruptly by saying that she was not in fact Cindy Sherman. They, of course, interpreted this as a typically Cindy Sherman thing to do. It made her very credibly Cindy Sherman, Glass concluded. But, eEven if it was not her, it was even better!,

When the podcast presenters asked for other evidence of listener sightings of Cindy Sherman at MoMA, they received three responses, none of them matching the woman they had encountered. I knew it was her was when she walked by me after making eye contact for the third time, one listener wrote. I saw her eyes and they were the same as the eyes in her work. She looked to be 300lbs in her fat suit…

Even more intrigued, Glass eventually managed to contact Sherman on the telephone. When told about the listener sightings at MoMA, she sounded fascinated, but replied that none of them was her. But, in a way, of course, all of them were.

Cindy Sherman is at the National Portrait Gallery, London WC2, 27 June-15 September

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Cindy Sherman: I enjoy doing the really difficult things that people cant buy was originally posted by NewsToday

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benychamp · 6 years ago

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People are sick of drinking. Investors are betting on the ‘sober curious’

New York (CNN Business)Getaway in Brooklyn was comfortably full for a Saturday night, when I came in to try my first “shrub” an acidic beverage made from vinegar, fruit, sugar, club soda and zero alcohol.

Getaway is a sober bar, a new kind of dry nightlife option that is cropping up in New York City. The idea is to provide outlets for people who want to socialize in a bar-like location, but without having to drink alcohol.

They are part of larger trend. People are paying greater attention to their mental health and wellness, and many Americans are specifically looking to reduce their alcohol intake. People of all ages are drinking less beer, while millennials are drinking less overall. And Silicon Valley is taking note, with tech companies reevaluating their alcohol policies and investors looking to capitalize on people who prefer not to drink.

“It’s such a part of the culture, especially here in San Francisco that I would go out for dinner and have two to three drinks everyday,” Silicon Valley entrepreneur Justin Kan, the CEO of law-tech startup Atrium, told CNN Business. He said he has seen a shift recently within his tech circle. “I was at a dinner with a lot of tech people last night and probably half the people weren’t drinking.”

Kan announced last month, in a post on Twitter, that he was giving up alcohol. He called drinking an unhealthy habit that had gotten in the way of his experiencing life. It wasn’t exactly unusual for Kan to share personal details about himself: He once livestreamed his life through the startup he co-founded in 2007 called Justin.tv, which ultimately became Twitch, the popular live streaming platform for gamers now owned by Amazon.

The same day he tweeted, Kan launched a group on chat app Telegram to connect with others who were similarly deciding to get sober from alcohol. He didn’t expect that more than 1,000 people would join.

New products for the sober — and ‘sober curious’

Their sales of alcoholic beverages have been declining, big alcohol companies, ranging from Heineken to AB InBev (the owner of popular beer brands such as Budweiser), see an opportunity: They’re investing in non-, or low-alcohol drinks. So too, startup investors and entrepreneurs are hoping to cater to the “sober curious,” people who for the sake of wellness are reevaluating their relationships with alcohol and how often they drink.

The emergence of sober bars is one of the signals that investor Anu Duggal points to when talking about the trend of not drinking. Duggal, who is based in New York City, said that like Kan, she is noticing “a number of people who are choosing not to drink.”

Duggal’s firm, Female Founders Fund — which has backed popular consumer startups such as Rent The Runway — is a recent investor in Kin Euphorics.

Kin’s first product is a non-alcoholic beverage called “High Rhode.” It is part adaptogen (a nontoxic plant that is claimed to have de-stressing effects), part nootropics (a supplement said to help with cognitive functions), and part botanics. On its website, the company notes that its statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and that its product is not intended to diagnose, prevent, treat, or cure any disease.

Rather than an indulgence, Kin reasons that the consumption of its product is more for “self-care.” It wants to create a new market of products that don’t contain alcohol but also aren’t laden with sugar.

Kin is co-founded by Matthew Cauble, cofounder of Silicon Valley meal replacement startup Soylent and Jen Batchelor, who serves as CEO. It has already attracted venture capital firms including Canaan Partners, Refactor Capital, Weekend Fund, and Fifty Years, which aims to invest in companies using business to solve the world’s biggest problems. The company declined to disclose how much funding it has received.

“Sober curiosity is a real thing,” Batchelor told CNN Business.

Batchelor says Kin is trying to create more options for consumers. A lot of people feel their choices are to either go out and drink alcohol, or stay home alone. “If those are the two choices, then something is broken,” she said. “You can do the ‘feel good’ thing and still be out at a bar, still take a client out.”

The company is slated to release its second product later this month.

Tech’s complicated relationship with alcohol

While it’s investing in new alcohol-free companies, Silicon Valley is also reexamining its own relationship with alcohol.

Alcohol has been one of the perks associated with tech and startup cultures over the years, with young companies embracing the idea of hustling hard, but also bonding over a drink, or several, with colleagues. Inevitably, the availability of alcohol in offices has come under scrutiny when companies run into unflattering alcohol-fueled incidents. One of the more memorable ones: When HR services startup Zenefits banned alcohol consumption after reportedly finding cigarettes, beer cups and used condoms in the company’s stairwell.

After coordinated walkouts by employees and contractors in November over its handling of sexual harassment accusations, Google announced a number of changes to its work culture, including cutting down on excessive drinking. “Harassment is never acceptable and alcohol is never an excuse. But one of the most common factors among the harassment complaints made today at Google is that the perpetrator had been drinking (~20% of cases),” the company said, adding that leaders will be charged with discouraging workers from excessive drinking. Some teams limit workers to two drinks per event.

WeWork, the co-working community behemoth, said last October that it was exploring curbing beer consumption in some of its New York City locations, limiting members to four 12-ounce glasses of beer per day. WeWork previously offered an unlimited beer on tap as a perk to people renting its co-working spaces. The company’s own corporate culture and the prevalence of alcohol at company events has been called into question by an ongoing lawsuit from a former employee.

Making not drinking hip

Kin isn’t the only new brand trying to lessen the stigma of drinking a non-alcoholic beverage that is getting attention from startup investors.

Last month, Liquid Death made waves when it launched. The startup applies the bold marketing of energy drinks to a water-in-a-can beverage. Its tagline is “Murder Your Thirst.” Like an alcohol brand, it has an age gate on its website that says, “This water may give nightmares to persons under 18 years of age.”

The idea is to make consumers look cool while they keep hydrated, and to the unsuspecting eye, one may never know they’re downing simple H2O.

The original impetus, according to CEO and co-founder Mike Cessario, was to cater to heavy metal and punk rock fans. But the ability to drink water out of a can (which is more ecofriendly than plastic) and look like you’re drinking a beer or an energy drink, has broader appeal.

It has already raised $1.6 million dollars from investors including Science, an incubator and tech studio that’s backed companies like Dollar Shave Club.

Science partner Mike Jones, who lives in Los Angeles, told CNN Business that he made a choice many years ago not to drink alcohol. “There’s many people in my circle that have chosen to not drink and chosen to be selective about what they put in their bodies,” said Jones. “We’re seeing a consciousness around it more and more.”

As for Kan, he says its difficult for him to unpack why now he is seeing a growing number of people similarly giving up on drinking.

Is it part of aging (Kan is now 35 — in a very different life stage than his early years in Silicon Valley more than a decade ago)? A tech industry thing where engineers are constantly tweaking and iterating on themselves? Or, is it something broader, he mused on a recent phone call.

Whatever it is, Kan, who also invests in startups, says he’s not particularly bullish that no-alcohol alternatives will takeover. He said it’s “very unlikely” alcohol will get replaced on a broad scale. “I have a hard time seeing it disappear from the American zeitgeist.”

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MTV Nostalgia Alert! Punk’d AND Singled Out Are Coming Back… With A Modern Twist! – Perez Hilton

Everything old is new again! Especially for MTV fans!

Over the past couple years we’ve seen everything from Jersey Shore to The Hills to A Shot At Love rebooted and repackaged.

But as revivals go, this may be the most unusual…

MTV Studios announced on Tuesday they’ll be producing all new versions of two of their biggest hits from the ’90s and 2000s: Singled Out and Punk’d.

Singled Out was the dating show that took the old Dating Game formula of potential mates answering questions about compatibility before they even get to see one another, and… well, that was basically it. Some of them were standing? There was definitely some VERY ’90s sarcasm to it.

Look, it’s probably most well known as the show that introduced the world to Jenny McCarthy, Carmen Electra, and Chris Hardwick.

Punk’d took the old Candid Camera prank show model and aimed it squarely at celebs. With increasingly complex scenarios, Ashton Kutcher and company terrified, enraged, and embarrassed dozens of stars.

Both shows have been rebooted before. Singled Out was brought back briefly on MTV’s YouTube channel, hosted by rappers Justina Valentine and Conceited.

MTV brought back Punk’d in 2012 with a rotating string of guest pranksters, starting with Justin Bieber. Then in 2015 there was another short-lived bite at the apple from BET, this time hosted by King Bach and DeStorm Power.

But this time may be the strangest evolution for both shows.

We told you they’re being made by MTV Studios (along with STXtelevision in the case of Punk’d), but they’re not going to be airing on MTV.

No, these iterations of Punk’d and Singled Out will be less than 10 minutes each and are will be available exclusively on Quibi.

Um… WTF is Quibi??

Quibi is a mobile-only video streaming app, essentially an attempt at being the Netflix of phones. (NO ONE TELL THEM YOU CAN WATCH NETFLIX ON YOUR PHONE!)

It may sound like a long shot for success — it’s been tried before — but this is the biggest, most ambitious effort so far. Jeffrey Katzenberg of Dreamworks and Meg Whitman of Hewlett Packard are the masterminds behind the venture, and they are spending BIG BUCKS to get it going.

How big? Try $1 BILLION!

What are they spending on?

Besides the MTV nostalgia market, they’re also going after the cinephiles and horror aficionados; so far they’ve signed deals for content with Sam Raimi, Antoine Fuqua, Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro, and Jason Blum, who is apparently already producing a full series for them –starring Naomi Watts no less!

The service will launch in 2020, with two pricing tiers — with ads for $5 per month and ad-free for $8 per month.

All on your phone.

You know what? We are not confident we’re not being Punk’d by these announcements. LOLz!

We just don’t know — are YOU prepared to pay monthly for shows you can only watch on your phone??

Well, if you absolutely need more Punk’d and Singled Out in your life…

[Image via MTV/YouTube.]

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John Oliver: Medical Devices Are Turning Us Into ‘Guinea Pigs’

John Oliver pulled the curtain back on the medical device industry Sunday on “Last Week Tonight.”

The $156 billion business that includes insulin pumps and hip replacements is loosely regulated ― and many surgeons aren’t even aware, according to the segment.

“That’s terrifying,” Oliver said. “Even your doctor may not know that you’re essentially being teated like a guinea pig. And nobody wants to be treated like a guinea pig unless it means you get your own hanging water bottle that you can suck on from your bed. Which actually sounds completely delightful to me.”

Oliver’s expose may scare you to death ― with a laugh or two on the way.

Watch the segment above.

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Open For Business: NASA Announces It Will Be Taking Tourists To The International Space Station

If your long-lived dream has been to experience a microgravity environment aboard the International Space Station, well, you’re in luck. On Friday, NASA announced a new initiative to bring commercial business and private astronauts to low-Earth orbit – and that means, you could someday beam up to the stars, you know if you’re a well-connected American.

“For more than 18 years, humans have lived and worked aboard the International Space Station, conducting thousands of experiments in areas such as human research, biology, and physical science, as well as advanced technology development,” wrote NASA. “New opportunities are needed to move beyond research and development, and the station will play an essential role in enabling those opportunities for new commercial markets needed to build a sustainable ecosystem in low-Earth orbit.”

Though it’s been in the works since 2012, the first privately funded commercial astronaut mission is now set to launch next year. Private astronauts can stay aboard the ISS for up to 30 days and will perform duties that are approved by NASA, including regenerative medicine, in-space manufacturing, bioengineering, and other work that fits within its mission. Just two short-duration missions will be launched every year, and it will be the commercial sponsor’s duty to determine crew requirements and ensure their astronauts independently meet NASA standards. The best part? You could someday join them.

–

“In the long-term, NASA’s goal is to become one of many customers purchasing services from independent, commercial and free-flying habitable destinations in low-Earth orbit,” wrote the space agency. “A robust low-Earth orbit economy will need multiple commercial destinations, and NASA is partnering with industry to pursue dual paths to that objective that either go through the space station or directly to a free-flying destination.”

NASA also says it has plans to outfit one space station with a port and utilities so that businesses can attach their spacecraft in future missions. Altogether, the agency says their new directive will offer both the supply and demand side for a “new economy” where government resources will help foster commercial activities that allow the private sector to identify new market opportunities beyond our atmosphere. The decision expands the ISS mission past just research and opens it up for private entrepreneurship. Currently, more than 50 companies have been researching opportunities that will allow for commercial manufacturing and production in space and provide private astronauts with commercial activities aboard the orbiting lab.

To qualify, commercial and marketing activities must either have a connection to NASA’s mission, support development of sustainable low-Earth orbit economy, or need microgravity equipment for their work. Initially, NASA will provide 5 percent of its crew resources and cargo capacity for the directive.

The agency is seeking responses from the private sector until July 3.

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Timeline: Donald Trumps feud with Sadiq Khan

Before landing in the UK, Trump called Khan a stone cold loser the latest shot in a spat between the two since 2015

Donald Trumps feud with Sadiq Khan dates back to 2015 when they were both fighting election campaigns. It intensified after the terrorist attacks on London in 2017 and now threatens to overshadow the presidents state visit to the UK.

10 December 2015

Donald Trumps presidential campaign pledge to ban Muslims from the US was criticised as outrageous by Sadiq Khan when he was standing to be mayor of London. He told the BBC that he hoped Trump loses badly.

10 May 2016

After Khan was elected as mayor of London, Trump suggested Khan would be exempt from his proposed travel ban on Muslims. There will always be exceptions, he said and added that the election of Khan was a good thing.

16 May 2016

Khan said Trumps views on Muslims were ignorant. Trump then challenged Khan to an IQ test. I will remember those statements. They are very nasty statements, he told ITV.

4 June 2017

After the terrorist attacks on Borough Market and London Bridge, Trump falsely suggested in a tweet that Khan had said there was no reason to be alarmed.

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is “no reason to be alarmed!”

June 4, 2017

Khan had actually said the public should not be alarmed by the increased police presence on Londons streets.

A spokesman for Khan responded by saying he had more important things to do than respond to Donald Trumps ill-informed tweet that deliberately takes out of context his remarks.

Trump followed up with another tweet, saying this was a pathetic excuse that the mainstream media was working hard to sell.

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his “no reason to be alarmed” statement. MSM is working hard to sell it!

June 5, 2017

6 June 2017

Khan called on the government to cancel Trumps state visit to the UK. I dont think we should roll out the red carpet to the president of the USA in the circumstances where his policies go against everything we stand for, he said.

29 July 2017

Khan told the Guardian he was a reluctant participant in his ongoing row with Trump. He said: Were not schoolchildren. Hes the president of the United States, so Im unclear what his beef is with me.

5 July 2018

Sadiq Khan gave permission for the Trump Baby Blimp to be flown over London Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Khans office gave permission for anti-Trump activists to fly a protest blimp of Trump as a crying baby in a nappy.

Later, free speech campaigners made a blimp of Khan wearing a yellow bikini in protest at body-shaming adverts the mayor vowed to ban on the London Underground.

An inflatable caricature balloon of Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan ireleased over Parliament Square in September 2018 Photograph: Nishat Ahmed/AP

13 July 2018

On his working visit to London, Trump claimed Khan had done a very bad job on terrorism. He added: I think he has done a bad job on crime, if you look, all of the horrible things going on there, with all of the crime that is being brought in.

1 June 2019

Khan compared the language used by Trump to rally his supporters to that of the fascists of the 20th century. Writing in the Observer he said:

President Donald Trump is just one of the most egregious examples of a growing global threat. The far right is on the rise around the world, threatening our hard-won rights and freedoms and the values that have defined our liberal, democratic societies for more than 70 years.

2 June 2019

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Trump compared Khan to the New York mayor, Bill de Blasio, and said he had no plans to meet him during his state visit to London. Trump said: I dont think much of him. I think that hes the twin of De Blasio, except shorter.

3 June 2019

Just before landing in the UK, Trump described Khan as a stone cold loser and very dumb.

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

….Kahn reminds me very much of our very dumb and incompetent Mayor of NYC, de Blasio, who has also done a terrible job – only half his height. In any event, I look forward to being a great friend to the United Kingdom, and am looking very much forward to my visit. Landing now!

June 3, 2019

Khans office accused Trump of childish insults .

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Jamba Juice is dropping ‘juice’ from its name

New York (CNN Business)Jamba Juice is squeezing out part of its name. It’s now simply now known as “Jamba.”

The company said its loyal fans have been calling it “Jamba” for years. But the official name change is part of a larger modernization initiative for the 30-year-old company, which also includes a new mobile app, remodeled stores and new delivery options through Uber Eats and Postmates.

Jamba is also trying to stay on trend with plant-based alternatives. Jamba said its beverages can now also be made with spirulina, oat milk, matcha and pea protein.

“Food and beverage category lines are blurring so fast, especially in the premium functional segment, that it no longer makes sense to limit a brand’s identity,” said Duane Stanford, executive editor of Beverage Digest, a trade publication. “Smart brands are creating platforms that have meaning and meet consumers wherever they are.”

Jamba changed its name as “juice” has become a dirty word in recent years. People are trying to reduce the number of empty calories and sugar they consume, so they aren’t drinking as much as sugar-laden juice as they used to. In 2012, American shoppers bought about 4 billion gallons of juice. That figure had fallen by about 530 million gallons just five years later, according to market research provider Euromonitor International.

The same trend has hurt soda sales in the United States.

So, Jamba said it’s reducing the amount of sugar from its drinks and will roll out more reduced-sugar drinks later this year.

“We’re staying true to our heritage as an innovator in the space and refreshing the brand to stay focused on how we can make it easier, better and faster for guests to live a more active lifestyle,” Jamba’s president Geoff Henry said in a release.

Along with the refreshed menu, Jamba has a new logo, loyalty program and slogan (“Smoothies. Juices. Bowls.”).

And its 800 US stores will begin to be remodeled later this year. The stores will feature light wood and calmer colors, a shift from the bright oranges and greens that it currently uses. Coolers are also being added for customers to pickup their online orders.

Jamba’s name change follows Dunkin Donuts’ change to Dunkin’ last year. The makeover was part of Dunkin’ Brand’s (DNKN) efforts to relabel itself as a “beverage-led” company that focuses on coffees, teas, speedy service and to-go food including — but not limited to — doughnuts.

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Finally, a Policy Proposal That Takes The Housing Crisis Seriously

On Wednesday, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) became the first 2020 Democratic presidential candidate to propose penalizing cities that exacerbate the housing crisis.

Under Booker’s proposal, cities that refuse to allow dense forms of housing would become ineligible for federal transportation grants. The policy seeks to address the central conundrum of the housing crisis: America desperately needs more homes, but building them has become almost impossible in most of its major cities.

Booker’s proposal represents an ongoing paradigm shift in regulating America’s housing supply. Though the housing crisis has received unprecedented attention in the 2020 presidential campaign, until this week no candidate had proposed any measures to hold cities accountable for failing to address it.

“It’s a big step in the right direction,” said Michael Andersen, a housing researcher at the Sightline Institute, a sustainability think tank. “Federal transportation funding is important to every community. This would create an incentive for cities to embrace growth.”

The United States is in the midst of a severe housing shortage. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, America has just 37 affordable homes for every 100 extremely low-income renter households. In major cities, the numbers are even worse. Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Houston have enough affordable housing for fewer than 1 in 5 of their poorest renter households.

Cities have brought much of this upon themselves. Thanks to increasingly restrictive zoning codes and vocal not-in-my-backyard local activists, low-income housing and market-rate apartments have been rendered effectively illegal. This is especially true in wealthy neighborhoods. As a result, despite attracting hordes of new residents and thousands of new jobs, America’s municipalities are still building fewer homes than they were before the Great Recession.

So far, most of the action on reversing this dynamic has been at the state level. Earlier this year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) proposed withholding gas tax funds from cities that fail to meet the state’s requirements to build new housing. In the state legislature, Sen. Scott Weiner (D) has twice attempted to pass laws that would force cities to permit apartment buildings near transit lines. Washington state is moving forward with legislation that would require cities across the state to allow backyard cottages and other “accessory dwelling units.”

“Housing is the biggest issue in a lot of Americans’ lives,” Andersen said, “but so far, the national political conversation has been slow to respond to that.”

The Washington Post via Getty Images

Sen. Kamala Harris has proposed a tax credit for renters, but no penalties for cities that refuse to permit new housing.

2020 Democrats Offer Few Bold Solutions So Far

Only three candidates — Booker, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — have released housing policies so far. Harris’ plan includes a refundable tax credit for renters but doesn’t aim to increase the construction or permitting of affordable housing. Warren’s plan does attempt to address the supply side of the crisis, but through carrots rather than sticks. It would create a $10 billion “competitive grant program” that would give cities financial incentives to build more homes.

Jenny Schuetz, a housing policy researcher in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, said Warren’s is an improvement on Harris’, but might not be enough to tempt cities to drop their restrictive zoning codes.

“Throwing more money into demand without increasing supply will just have landlords jacking up rents,” said Schuetz. While support for low-income renters is a crucial aspect of solving the housing crisis, expanding rental assistance without addressing the shortage of affordable homes could result in a vicious cycle. “You’re giving more money to renters, but you’re also allowing cities to keep blocking new housing construction. Over time, that’s just going to make the crisis worse,” she added.

Schuetz also pointed out that cities already have incentives to build housing. Larger populations bring greater tax revenues and more spending from state budgets. “If that’s not enough to tempt wealthy cities to allow more density,” she said, “I don’t know if additional grants will change the calculus.”

While Booker’s proposal represents a new approach to solving the housing crisis, it also has severe limitations. His provision would revoke only discretionary transportation spending — only a portion of the funds allocated to cities each year — and would likely be challenged in court. His proposal relies on cities “demonstrating progress towards reducing barriers to affordable housing,” a concept that may allow wealthier, politically connected communities to use loopholes to shirk their responsibilities.

“Beverly Hills has enough roads already,” said William Fischel, a Dartmouth professor and the author of “The Homevoter Hypothesis.” Wealthy enclaves may decide that taxing their own populations for road improvements is a small price to pay for continuing to prevent density. “You can’t assume cities are competing with each other for transportation funding. Some need it more than others,” he said.

Miikka Skaffari via Getty Images

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s housing plan would dramatically increase federal funding for construction of new homes and add incentives for cities to permit more housing units.

Solving The Housing Crisis Will Require Even More Ambition

Andersen argued that the true benefit of penalizing cities for continuing to prevent density may not be the money itself but the debate it would inspire.

“It forces cities to have an argument about zoning,” Andersen said. “Right now, all the incentives at the local level are lined up in favor of blocking new housing. A federal grant, even a small one, could create a constituency in favor of growth and force cities to look at what they’re giving up with these restrictive practices.”

Despite Booker’s novel approach, all of the housing plans proposed by the 2020 candidates fall far short of the scale of the crisis and the potential for the federal government to address it. Schuetz pointed out that the mortgage interest deduction overwhelmingly benefits wealthier homeowners. Limiting the tax benefit to first-time homebuyers — or even just to one home per family — would make it much more progressive. Similarly, expanding federal housing vouchers to the millions of people sitting on waitlists would be simpler than providing a clunky, one-payout-per-year tax refund.

“It’s great that politicians are getting more ambitious,” Schuetz said. “But I’m still not convinced they’re being ambitious enough.”

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Google is making a $2.6 billion bet on the cloud

New York (CNN Business)Google and its parent company Alphabet (GOOGL) are making a multi-billion bet on the cloud.

“Google Cloud is being used by many of the leading organizations in the world for analytics and decision-making,” Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, said in a statement Thursday. “The combination of Google Cloud and Looker will enable customers to harness data in new ways to drive their digital transformation.”

It’s Google’s biggest acquisition since Kurian, a former Oracle (ORCL) executive, was hired late last year to oversee the Google Cloud unit. Kurian previously said Google Cloud would be “competing much more aggressively” under his leadership as it vies for a bigger piece of the fast-growing cloud computing market.

At the moment, Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT) are generally seen as the two leaders in the market, with the success of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Azure, respectively. AWS brought in more than $25 billion in revenue in 2018. Alphabet does not break out cloud revenue.

Looker was founded in 2012 with the goal of building a platform “that easily integrates all of a business’s data and then allows it to be melded to specific work processes in a way where users can do more with it and solve higher-value problems,” according to a blog post from the company’s CEO.

The company received funding from a number of prominent investors, including Kleiner Perkins, Goldman Sachs and CapitalG, a venture capital arm of Google’s parent company.

The Looker acquisition is expected to be completed later this year and may be subject to regulatory approvals.

The deal comes against the backdrop of mounting antitrust scrutiny of Google and other tech giants, which is expected to give these companies and startups more pause in entering into big ticket acquisitions. While Google has dominant positions in search and digital advertising, it is still playing catchup in the cloud.

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Why we’re fighting the American Medical Association | Jonathan Michels, Will Cox, Alankrita Siddula and Rex Tai

The AMA protects corporate interests, not doctors and patients and now its trying to stop Medicare for All

This Saturday, nurses, physicians, and medical students plan to walk out of their clinics and on to the streets of Chicago to confront the American Medical Association at the organizations annual meeting. Health providers know that the outrageous costs and shameful inequality of American medicine are no accident and that their patients lives are at stake.

The AMA claims to represent the interests and values of our nations doctors. But it has long been the public relations face of Americas private health insurance system, which treats healthcare as a commodity. This approach has resulted in some of the worst health outcomes in the industrialized world: the highest rate of infant mortality, the highest number of avoidable deaths, and health spending that eats up nearly 18% of Americas GDP.

The AMA is a major reason why 28 million Americans still dont have health insurance. Despite recent polls showing that a majority of doctors support the single-payer system Medicare for All, which would fully insure all Americans, the AMA is leading the fight against universal coverage.

By money spent, the AMA is the nations third largest lobbying organization of the last 20 years, behind only the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Realtors. By deploying powerful lobbying and misleading media campaigns, the AMA has opposed or hijacked nearly every health reform proposal of the last century, from Social Security to Medicare to the Affordable Care Act.

The AMA has also been a relentless opponent of universal healthcare. In 1949, the group waged an unscrupulous war against President Trumans proposed national health insurance program, spending millions of dollars to have a political-consulting firm mislabel single-payer healthcare as socialized medicine. In 1961,the group doubled down on fearmongering when they hired Ronald Reagan to record an advertisement warning Americans that the passage of Medicare, an imperfect but popular health program for seniors, was a short step to all the rest of socialism.

The AMA, however, is finding it increasingly difficult to keep healthcare providers and patients scared ofsingle payer.

Despite industry claims that Americans are satisfied with their private health plans, insured patients are saddled with exorbitant co-pays, premiums, and deductibles that keep them from actually getting the care they need. A single illness or injury pushes manyAmericans into bankruptcy. According to a recent Gallup poll, Americans borrowed a whopping $88bn last year simply to pay for medical expenses. So much for private insurance.

Most Americans 70% now favor the creation of a publicly financed but privately delivered single-payer health insurance program, better known as Improved and Expanded Medicare for All. Americans are desperate for affordable healthcare, a system that prioritizes patients over commerce, centers clinical decisions in the hands of physicians, and results in lower costs and better outcomes.

In February, Representative Pramila Jayapal, along with 106 co-sponsors, unveiled the Medicare for All Act of 2019 (HR 1384), while Senator Bernie Sanders revamped Medicare for All Act enjoys support from most of the leading Democratic presidential candidates. Even former President Barack Obama recently admitted that his signature health initiative the Affordable Care Act is no substitute for single payer.

Faced with soaring public support for Medicare for All, this past summer the AMA joined the Partnership for Americas Health Care Future, a benign-sounding corporate group which represents the pharmaceutical and private insurance industries and aims to change the conversation around Medicare for All. In order to protect their own economic interests, the Partnership is waging a well-funded campaign to turn elected officials away from single-payer by rallying Democrats around the ACA and preventing the Democratic party from including Medicare for All in its 2020 platform.

The campaign is merely the latest example of how the AMA uses the prestige of its white-coated members to push for market-based health reforms that maintain the status quo ofour fractured health system: one in which some Americans have a lot, others have a little, and some are left with absolutely nothing.

Medical students and professionals have had enough. This Saturdays protest is only one example. Last year, the Medical Student Section of the AMA put pressure on their leadership with a resolution demanding the organization suspend its decades-long opposition to single-payer. Single-payer activism is growing on medical school campuses across the nation, perhaps a preview of what the next generation of doctors will expect.

The public agrees with the evidence that Medicare for All is the answer to our broken health system. Until the AMAs priorities change, it will remain an obstacle to the good of our patients.

Jonathan Michels is a premedical student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a student board member of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), an organization that advocates for an improved and expanded Medicare for All health system

Will Cox is a longtime healthcare worker and social justice organizer and serves on the board of the North Carolina chapter of PNHP

Alankrita Siddula is a medical student at Rush University in Chicago and a member of Students for a National Health Program (SNaHP)

Rex Tai is a medical student at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is a midwest regional delegate for SNaHP and has a background organizing for criminal justice reform and harm reduction in opioid treatment

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