#and there's quite a bit on russia and ukraine too which i found interesting

[myvirtuesuncounted]

y'all should definitely watch this docuseries, i'm so serious

[echos-collection-of-bones]

oh boy, none is going to read this

alright guys, buckle up because i am so normal about this game

this will be my genuine opinion on a game that changed my brain chemistry for better or for worse(i fully blame my autism on this this thing)

Written by Dimeatry Glocovski (who last i heard is on the run from the Russian government for not being too thrilled about the invasion of the Ukraine) and later adapted into the video game format by 4A games, Metro is a strange but soul-filled look into a world not too far from our own.

while there are three games, i will be focusing on Metro Exodus as it's the one I'm most familiar with.

Metro Exodus was the first in the trilogy I played, and despite being completely out of order I do think its the easiest to get into for a new player as the first two, while they still hold up pretty well, simply didn't have the resources to create something nearly as polished.

polished is a word i use in the context of the other two games, Metro Exodus is an inherently buggy game, and if you really can't handle any jank at all then this isn't for you. the reason I can look past it is because unlike something like Fallout 4 (which is still enjoy quite a bit) the story holds up much better, and the atmosphere doesn't suffer much because of just how strong the world-building is.

the game stars a man named Artyom and a rag-tag group of solders called the Sparten order on their cross-country trip spanning a good portion of the now-irradiated Russia.

the thing i admire most about the game is its characters. while you spend a lot of time on your own exploring, many of those moments are populated by chater on the radio, small interactions with the spartans, along with others you meet along the way. i think my favourite character aside from Artyom has to be Duke, the youngest of the group who is always looking for a way to prove himself and looks up to Artyom.

what is interesting is that there is no moral points system, there is no skore, but rather a simple cause and effect. if you do your best to only kill when necessary you will be treated with a similar kindness, Don't expect to be greeted with open arms, but at the end of the day, your friends will scrape by with their lives if you are merciful.

i could go on for hours about the environments in the game, For such a small studio the level of detail and care that went into creating them is incredible. From the thickly treed mountains of the Tiga to the broken-down remains of Moscow, the world feels ruined but far from free of life. i think that my favourite has to be the tunnels of the Mosscow metro, as little as we see in this game they are truly worth reading the first book about to learn more(the weirdness of the Russian translation is worth braving for the amazing concept and execution).

in every part of the game, the genuine connection between all of the characters is what really sets it apart from other apocalyptic stories. i like to think of it as slightly optimistic in its vue. there is something so distinctly human about it, from the grand escape from Moscow and your fellow soldiers agreeing to back you up against the entirety of Hanza, to the simple act of sharing tea or a cigarette, a simple duet with a guitar you found out in the wasteland or sharing a bed with your wife.

The Aurora is despite the setting, genuinely inviting, full of love and laughter, a small story that while not important to the bigger picture, serves to you remind of what you are fighting for, about the people you are sworn to protect and the brothers and sisters who fight alongside you" because if not us than who?".

so despite the nuclear winter, the mutants and the raiders, the creeping cold and the scorching sun, there is a small glimmer of something better, like the sun finally coming up, in a train called the Arora.

[tolstoyamericanrevolution]

The Seixas Brothers; Jewish Patriots

A family of Portuguese origins and first generation colonial Americans- The Seixas family had a powerful influence on the Jewish communities of New York, Rhode Island and Philadelphia- particularly through the eldest two surviving sons. Moses & Gershom.

Being of Portuguese origin the family were Sephardic Jews. Sephardic Jews being Jews from Iberia and later the Middle East, post inquisition. They had different customs to the modern culturally dominant Ashkenazi Jews, Jews from Northern and Eastern Europe- an elder contemporary of the Seixas brothers would be Moses Mendelssohn who was a Berlin based Ashkenazi Jews who helped the cultural integration and gaining of civil rights for Jews in Germany then Prussia. 

Religious customs between the two groups differed significantly particularly in language with Sephardic synagogues mainly being in Portuguese or Ladino when not speaking Hebrew. The Sephardi Jews also were seen as more refined and educated than the Ashkenazi Jews, as well as wealthier, in internal community dynamics. Hence the saying that the Sephardic Jews were the descendants “of Poets and Philosophers” see Judah Halevi or Maimonides as examples of a Sephardi Poet and Philosopher, from Spain and Egypt respectively. In Europe these communities were often segregated from each other, internally, seeing inter community involvement outside of business as distasteful. This included prayer & marriage. 

The situation for American Jews were quite different. The community of the Seixas brothers was small roughly 2,500 people barely a tenth of the population. Practising it was Sephardic due to the influence of the Dutch Jews, yet it was majority Ashkenazi in cultural and ethno-religious make up. Leading to a community that was small, spread out, cultural mixed and frankly too modern for the European rabbinical practises.

Now; to the Seixas brothers themselves. Born and raised in Rhode Island by Issac Mendes Seixas; born originally in Portugal and raised in London by Abraham and Abigail Seixas who were Marranos (Jews converted to Christianity, who continued to practise Judaism in secret due to the Inquisition) and Rachel Levy born in London, she was an Ashkenazi Jew related to the important Levy-Frank’s family. Her marriage caused such an uproar that many Sephardi members avoided it. As you can see like many Sephardic Jews their marriages were from across the world, and like many York City Jews they began the intermarriage of Ashkenazi and Sephardi. You can see more of their records in the image of the family register attached below. 

Sexias family register

The ideologies of Moses and Gershom were shaped by the world around them,  Great Britain had one of the most lenient policies towards Jews however this included the fact that they could not attend university, own property in the form of land or practise the law. The Jews rights bill in England would not come til the mid 19th century. Anti-Semitism was often seen in the writers of the day including Voltaire and English politicians. The Seixas brothers were of Portuguese origins which conducted the inquisition that oft burned Jews alive for either not converting or being secret converts, post expulsion. In the 18th century this continued in Goa, India & Brazil.

Russia conducted pogroms, which devastated the Jewish community until the early 20th century (although Soviet Anti-Semitism was by no means better post 1920s). This was also the era of the Pale of Settlement in which Eastern European Jews were restricted to modern day Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine unable to trade or live in any main city without a letter. Prussia, had begun the process of integrating Jews, however both sides were extremely cautious of the other. 

The Middle East was mixed, on one hand it was more tolerant than Europe with Thessloniki being named the Shabbat City as it was mainly dark on Friday nights due to observance. Yet; Jews were also mistrusted in the Ottoman Empire having to be identified by dress often a yellow hat or a type of shoe (this identification also existed in different forms in East Europe). Religious persecution varied from region to region. 

This was the time where Proto-Zionist thoughts were beginning, but it was mainly aimed at integrating in the current society. The idealogy popular among the American Colonial Jews (those with Wiggish leanings) was that the new state would allow for religious and economic freedoms in which they could be active, equal citizens of a country founded on the right of man to govern himself over a Christian or Muslim Monarch whose country saw them as deplorable. This is a bit of a history lesson but essential to understanding the context, in which these first generation Jews acted in who were likely spurred on by the revolutionary ideals and attitudes of the time, as well as their own. 

Moses was born March 26th 1744 and married Jochebed Levy also of Newport. He was a merchant, operating from the city and a proud follower of the patriot cause, his main influence being post the war in his encouragement of Washington to uphold the religious freedoms promised. He frankly; asserted it, rather than requesting it.

Moses was a civic and religious leader, being an educated man who was apart of the Freemason’s in Rhode Island. He believed such institutions allowed natural brotherhood between men, no matter their background. Moses later became leader of the King David’s Lodge. He was also the warden of the Touro synagogue in Newport, one of the oldest in the country, founded in the 1760s. Warden was a civic leadership role in a religious community. He often spoke at community sermons, including reading his letter to Washington in 1790 aloud to the man and the community. He also wrote letters addressing Washington as a fellow freemason. Outside of religious and civic duties he also post war co-founded the Rhode Island Bank. 

"a Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance – but generously affording to All liberty of conscience, and immunities of Citizenship: deeming every one, of whatever Nation, tongue, or language, equal parts of the great governmental Machine." - Moses Mendes Seixas in his famous letter to Washington.

An interesting detail on Moses’s religious involvement, despite not being Hazzan like his brother, is the fact that in the 1770s he was entrusted by the Newport community to be the Mohel; The man who preforms circumcision on the eighth day of a Jewish boy’s life. He received instruction only by letter, and circumcised his own son successfully. It shows how well trusted he was in the community and also how Jewish communities in America often divided duties among each other due to the lack of Rabbinical influence and population. 

Moses’s letter to Washington 1790 

Last but not least, Gershom. I know the most about him due to what is avalible on his life, I have to admit this post is quite long so I will do a seperate one going into more detail about the younger brother.

Gershom Mendes Seixas was born a year after his brother and became Chief Hazzan of the New York community synagogue at the early age of 23. Despite being young for a role which was the nearest they had to Rabbi, he was voted unanimously which demonstrates the breadth of knowledge and charisma the man had. Hazzan, as Jews canted their songs, tended to lead the singing and the reading of the Torah in synagogue, especially without a Rabbi. 

As a Hazzan he was simply revolutionary. Not just in his politics. He was the first Jew to have a sermon in America in English, with the majority of his sermons from there onwards being in English. He pressed for the reconciliation between England and the Colonies, however his tone notes a man who clearly saw England in the wrong and the Colonies as having bargaining power over their overlord. 

From the start he was an interfaith leader, many of his friends being Tory Christians, he resumed many of these correspondents post war with those who remained. In 1776 he was extremely active, including writing a prayer in Hebrew for the reconciliation of the colonies, as referred above. When invasion of New York by the British came near, his emotive words convinced the entire congregation to board up the doors of the Synagogue with many leaving the city. During this time, his wife Elchalah suffered a miscarriage. He escaped to Connecticut with some of his followers, bringing the religious ceremonial items with him including the scrolls. 

With the take back of Philadelphia he was offered the role of Hazzan there which he served until 1784, there he actively argued against Protestant lawmakers who proposed changes to the constitution such as ensuring that only Christian’s could follow it and that it was impossible for those of other faiths to comprehend, like his brother he civilly fought these matters stating that it was "unjust to the members of a persuasion that had always been attached to the American cause and given a support to the country, some in the Continental army, some in the militia, and some by cheerfully paying taxes and sustaining the popular cause."

He would be present at Washington’s inauguration as apart of the significant  fourteen religious leaders that supported him, he was the only Jew.

Post the war he would continue to actively be involved in Jewish ceremonies, having an annual Thanksgiving sermon back in New York where he returned afterwards. He became the first Jewish member to be elected a trustee of Colombia collage. He would also create a Jewish charitable organisation in 1802 called Hebra Hased Ve Amet.

To this day descendants of both brothers serve as leaders of America’s remaining Sephardi community. 

Portrait of Gershom Mendes Seixas 1784

[betweenthetimeandsound]

Three Minutes to Eternity: My ESC 250 (250-241)

(Author's note: I intended to have the list ready by 1 September, but I was a bit lousy in compiling the final spots on there. As a result, they will seem a bit shoddy, but there will be good summaries, I promise! And there will be honorable mentions soon enough.)

#250: Harel Skaat -- Milim (Israel 2010)

“האור נרדם, דמעות של דם, שורפות לי בגרון, ידית שרוטה, תקרה שמוטה, כשאני שר לך את השיר האחרון” “The light fell asleep, tears of blood scorch my throat Scratched handle, sloping ceiling When I sing to you the last song” Curiously, I already knew of Harel Skaat before hearing of Eurovision: I listened to a few of his earlier tracks when I found him singing with another Israeli pop artist, Dor Daniel. I particularly liked משנו ממני and כמה עוד אפשר. Milim is a requiem for what was once lost—the presence of one whom the narrator really loves. The imagery used in this song adds to the melancholic feel—a classic ballad of sorts, with a lot of emotion. And the performance from Harel was very good, even though he butchered a note at the end. Maybe it was the pretty blue lights that really accompanied the mood of the song. Personal ranking: 7th/39 Actual ranking: 14th/25 GF (grand final) in Oslo

#249: Tina Karol -- Show Me Your Love (Ukraine 2006)

"You see it in my eyes, my heart is on fire Don’t hide your love away, don’t wait another day" As mentioned in the note, I had a hard time determining the last few spots on my list. I went through the results of both sorters and picked what I felt in the time. Show Me Your Love is a bit odd, but with the accordion intro striking right away, it deserves a place here! While an overly simple song with stilted lyrics, Show Me Your Love is still a bunch of fun. From the boppy beat to Tina's infectious presence on stage, one can't help but smile as this comes along. And there was a jump rope right in the middle of the performance--never change, Ukraine. :) Personal ranking: 5th/37 Actual ranking: 7th/24 GF in Athens

#248: Alan Sorrenti -- Non so che darei (Italy 1980)

“Non so che darei per fermare il tempo Per dormire al tuo fianco solo una notte Non so che darei per sentirti mia Per tenerti vicina solo una notte” “I don’t know what I can give to stop the time To sleep beside you only for one night I don’t know what I can give To take you close to me only for one night” Recently, I find myself humming to this a lot, because it's so calming and nice. I particularly like Alan’s vocals in this song! He really conveys the pain of losing (or on the verge of losing) the one he loves, expressed by the melancholic lyrics. Together, they form a song which is just as beautiful, if not more so than the winner of its year. Despite its 6th place, it became a continent-wide hit, which was quite deserved (just like a good number of Italian Eurovision songs over the years, haha)! Alongside that, Non so che darei also had the only black conductor at Eurovision while there was an orchestra, along with a couple of women playing fake guitars. For some reason, I imagined they were holding umbrellas instead, but I clearly remembered wrong... Personal ranking: 3rd/19 Actual ranking: 6th/19 in Den Haag

#247: Sanja Vucic ZAA -- Goodbye (Shelter) (Serbia 2016)

"I lick my wounds So that I can keep on fighting" Another last-minute choice, but this is an important song, both in 2016 and now, unfortunately. Despite the advances in women's rights over the decades, domestic violence still persists across the world. Goodbye (Shelter) tells the story through someone who's struggling to get out of a toxic relationship, and there's a mix of vulnerability and strength in the lyrics. Of course, lyrics don't make up the whole song; the music also conveys the story through a dramatic build and beautiful strings. Considering the 2016 contest, it does get a bit lost amongst the crowd, but it feels like a musical number in all the right ways. Also, the performance told the story well, and Sanja is a wonderful singer (she also sings a cover of one all-time favorite you will see towards the end, hehe). I even would shed a tear at points. Personal ranking: 8th/42 Actual ranking: 18th/26 GF in Stockholm

#246: Remedios Amaya--Quien Maneja Mi Barca? (Spain 1983)

“El verde de tus ojos verdes, mírame, Que mira que yo te mire, mírame, Que mira que yo te mire” “The green of your green eyes, look at me, Look at me, so I can look at you, look at me Look at me, so I can look at you” One of those songs that can be defined as an acquired taste--the people who love it enjoy its subversive status in the Eurovision canon for being unapologetically Spanish, while the people who hate it will dismiss it as just a bunch of noise. This is a song which is part of the “New Flamenco” genre popularized since the 1960s, which mixes up flamenco music with other genres, such as rock or electronic music. Quien Maneja mi Barca ‘s studio cut has nebulous lyrics combined with an electronic beat, which is alright at best. I found it quite hollow and quite forgettable there. I prefer it in its orchestral form, which fuses synths and concert instruments fantastically. It definitely amps up the drama with Remedios’ voice, and made me appreciate this very distinct entry. Personal ranking: 6th/20 Actual ranking: Joint last (with Turkey) in Munich

#245: Marianna Efstratiou - To diko sou asteri (Greece 1989)

"Μα στο βραδινό τον ουρανό το δικό σου αστέρι ψάξε βρες Γιατί οι σκιές στο πρώτο φως μοιάζουνε φοβίες παιδικές" "But in the evening sky, search and find your own star Because the shadows in the first light seem to be childish phobias" While To diko sou asteri sounds a bit safe in the grand scheme of things, I think its lack of pretension is what makes this little song shine. The lyrics encourage one to find their star and encourage the listener to pursue what they believe in without any fear. Marianna's vocals also add to this song in that they're quietly hopeful and sweet. Also, for some reason, I got some "True Colors" vibes while listening to it every time, despite there being some differences. Both have this relaxing, calm vibe to help the listener on their journey through life. Then again, True Colors doesn't have some nice flute flourishes throughout the song, haha. Personal ranking: 4th/22 Actual ranking: 9th/22 at Lausanne

#244: Dina -- Amor d'agua fresca (Portugal 1992)

"Peguei, trinquei e meti-te na cesta Ris e dás-me a volta à cabeça" "I picked you, bit into you and put you in the basket You laughed and made my head spin" 1992 is one of the most average years at Eurovision--after the chaos that was 1991, it seems like the songs and production sought something safer, and the whole thing felt really bland. Amor d'agua fresca is anything but dull--it's bubbly and sweet, with quite relaxed atmosphere. The combination of instruments--particular the guitar in the beginning and Dina's vocals-- really help with conveying a mood. But after that, we have the lustful lyrics, describing a romance through enjoying different fruits, which was quite different for me... But hey, different makes things quite a bit better in life! Personal ranking: 4th/23 Actual ranking: 17th/23 in Malmo

#243: Lucia -- Él (Spain 1982)

"Él me perdona porque es un pedazo de buen pan Y me trata con paciencia Sé que no debo ser cruel Que le debo confesar que él a mí, no me interesa" "He forgives me because he’s a scrap of good bread And he treats me with patience I know that I shouldn’t be cruel That I should tell him I’m not interested in him" One interesting thing about me is that I'm a sucker for tango music. There's a sense of drama when one listens to it, and even more so when people get on the dance floor. While I've only danced it a few times, when one does it right, the connection between two people is quite powerful, and you could fall right into a dream. El definitely amps up the drama--Lucia is in a conflicted relationship, but she plays the "player" role quite well. It's very flirty and seductive, and you could immerse yourself in the story. While the dancing was a bit too much for a stage as small as 1982's, it's still quite fun to see. Also, it was sent as a way of supporting Argentina in the Falkland Wars, which is quite interesting... Personal ranking: 4th/18 Actual ranking: 10th/18 in Harrogate

#242: Gabriela Gunčíková -- I Stand (Czech Republic 2016)

"I am thanking you, you made me You are my air, I’ll always care" For those who have an aversion to ballads, why is that? I find it annoying because there can be ones where they can touch you and tell a story. Life can't always be happy bops with heavy beats (or it's because they don't really inhabit my musical atmosphere most of the time...) I Stand sounds like a derivative ballad sonically, but it carries itself with such grace and grandeur. The instruments add to the drama of the song, which thanks a special person for their help in their life (though the lyrics above can come off as a bit co-dependent...or so I've heard) And Gabriela delivers this with the necessary composure and grace the song desires. It feels like a highlight track from a musical--one where two characters meet again and the narrator wants to recognize the latter's good deeds before they're gone forever. Thanks to that, the Czech Republic gets their first grand final appearance (though getting 0 televote points once there was harsh...) Personal ranking: 7th/42 Actual ranking: 25th/26 GF in Stockholm

#241: t.A.T.u -- Ne ver, ne boysia (Russia 2003)

“Кто-то понты а кто-то маньяк, Кто-то как ты, кто-то как я.” “Someone's a psycho and someone's a maniac, Someone like you, someone like me” If I’m right, I may have heard this song without knowing this was from Eurovision. It was because there was a period between middle school and high school where I love t.A.T.u’s music, and this was one of their singles. Ne Ver Ne Bosia is compelling and dark, with an interplay about the people around them using an old Soviet proverb as the title. It’s gripping and intense, and brings the listener into this crazy and mad world they're enveloped in. The performance, on the other hand, almost couldn't have been worse. The vocals were really ropey (especially from Lena, who would usually be trusted to help Yulia), and it didn't come over as a great listening experience. While I love it, t.A.T.u were really lucky they competed in the televote era, as they would've been struck down hard by the juries. (and the worst part: there will be a couple of poorly-performed entries which will be quite high on this list...) Personal ranking: 6th/26 Actual ranking: 3rd/26 in Riga

[tofascinate]

twenty-twenty reflection

The year is 2020. I distinguish this year from the others. And there will be more. There might be many! I want to remember, if ever asked upon myself, that my year of 2020 was distinct from the mash of living. From the accordion of living, perhaps. From the “bellows” of my accordion life, here is my layer of 2020:

January

began with a visit from Kellan, the preparation for a long-anticipated trip to Hong Kong with Rohit. I was living at Momma’s. I had been working for her since I graduated in 2019, while I applied for job positions in cities and graduate programs in Europe and the West Coast.

In January I spent almost 2 weeks in Hong Kong with Rohit and his family. This was a life-changing trip. This was amazing. I felt so taken care of, and each day filled with exploration. And snacks. For the first time, Rohit helped me with Cantonese – every single time I asked, which was a lot, considering my personal goal was to learn as much casual Cantonese as I could while there. I recorded all my new vocabulary and phrases in a list on the plane ride back. Here I met Rohit’s family in their home element, spent an afternoon with Rohit’s mom, accompanied Rohit to friend meetups, and experienced a Chinese New Year family celebration (!!). I hiked the most exhausting and thrilling mountain of my life, called Lantau Peak (the second highest peak in Hong Kong). I felt some of my biases melt on this trip, and some of my interests open up and blossom.

I left Hong Kong as the coronavirus became an issue in the Eastern Asian world. I spent a night in Tokyo, not with Rohit, but with my nourishing airport snacks and exhausted schedule until my flight left the next day for the U.S.

February

In February life moved quickly. I applied to all 4 master’s programs, I had a second interview for a serendipitous job position in Philadelphia (the only job among many that wanted an interview!), I helped Rohit find an apartment in Norwalk, I left Rohit at his apartment in Norwalk, I accepted the job in Philadelphia, I found a place to live in Philadelphia (more magic was to come of that 2-weeks-before-moving FB find), and I moved to Philadelphia!!!

March

My momma helped me move here. To the city I’d never before been to, but in which I was about to find the happiest home. The first 2 weeks of this month were extremely memorable. I worked in the Comcast Technology Center building (a wow) as a LaunchCode teaching assistant for a 12-student, 14-week intro to computer programming and web development intensive course. I took every opportunity to explore the building, the surrounding city. The first week of connection with students was special. The idea of working the rest of the course remotely was ridiculously unlikely.

On March 14th, the pandemic was real. On March 13th, my co-teacher took home the classroom’s bottle of Purell.

My second roommate, Channing, and her kitty Tycho moved in. Deeksha, Channing, Tycho, and I would become a mini family.

We were in quarantine times, but I hadn’t had so much social interaction, peer interaction, freedom, intellectual stimulation, and work to do since the end of college 2019. It was a blessing to be where I was.

April

I will use April to say that I loved this job. It was a pinch-myself moment all the way through. I still sometimes can’t believe that I rose to the responsibilities, leadership, and organization required of me. Maybe it’s like that with new jobs that push you outside of your comfort zone and give you so much room to grow. LaunchCode was an extremely supportive and inspiring company to work for. The community of students (Comcast workers transitioning into future software engineering roles) were admirable and kind in how hard they worked, and how they helped each other.

I realized at this time that I was experiencing the dream I had put intention towards. It’s not always obvious realizing this. In fact, at first I thought I was accepting the job because it was the next best and only option. On the outside I didn’t know how meaningful it would be to me once immersed in it. When things all came together, I realized here I was, in the freedom of living independently from my home nest, in a friendly family of roommates, in a new city to explore, with a working position that supported me financially, allowed me to save for grad school, that opened me up to the computer science industry world, that used my strengths and pushed me to grow, that used my creativity, and that felt like I was being paid to learn.

I am sooooo grateful for serving in this role. It served me tremendously.

Also to be noted, Philadelphia spring. And Tycho the kitty made me love cats more than I thought I could love cats (who are now sometimes allowed to sleep under my blankets too).

May

At some point here, Deeksha, Channing, and I got to be really creative and goofy together. This plus sharing food and Deeksha eating my desserts ♡ ♡ = start of roomie love. Channing’s surprise birthday scavenger hunt.

At some point, I got accepted and not accepted into master’s programs!

And how did it happen that my random roommate’s husband was living and working in Germany following his CS master’s program there? Or that my roommate-friend would eventually move there too?

June

Work program extended by a week = another week of pay = I justify more so staying in Philadelphia longer… and longer… Staying also meant more time in the magical family and incredible bit of life I knew would end eventually. Staying meant not putting my parents at risk, or having to stay inside to keep them from risk.

In June I saw 6 helicopters flying above the city from my rooftop. I filmed them one night and was captured fleetingly in their search light. I stayed home for 6 and 8 pm curfews. I read ideas and information, and observed the panicked passion of my social media a little hesitantly. I spoke with my family. I read more until I felt settled and inspired with the movement of change. I walked around the city. I saw society a little differently; I saw reasons to question how I saw almost everything. 

The Monday after the big weekend, my coworkers asked me and us all how we were doing, if there were protests in our neighborhoods. It was the first time I saw my coworkers as Black. I didn’t know if I was saying the right thing. 

My co-teacher told me I was “lucky” I’d be moving out of the country. I told him I still wanted my home country to be a welcoming place for all. He was not so confident.

And! Rohit visited for a week :). I had fun and we both couldn’t wait to go back to having individual spaces to be ourselves.

July

At one point, with my job ended and Channing in North Carolina for most of the month, I was met with the pressure of everything I could do in the calm before the storm of change, and everything I wasn’t doing. A little rough. Oh to be leaving a place that has already been leaving you.

August

I moved in with Rohit in Norwalk! Took all my Philadelphia belongings in a car with not-friends Deeksha and Channing, and drove (Channing drove) to Norwalk. I was so grateful to them for that trip. We got a glimpse of the no-parking beaches. Specifically, we parked for 15 minutes in the “15 Minute Parking ONLY” spot by the beach at cotton candy sunset while Deeksha and I ran to the warm water and the two of us dove in like happy water pups and not 23- to 30-year-olds. Next day was a rockier beach and I’m still wishing Channing her next sunny beach day. This month was fun and without-a-car adventurous, though the airbnb-turned-rented-apartment that was actually’s Rohit’s didn’t quite feel like my settling in home. My daily purpose was working for my mom again and preparing for my master’s program.

I loved running so much with Rohit.

I did not love figuring out how to acquire a car to stay in Rochester for a month. Haha (thinking about tears). But we did it! And then we packed too many of my things into the car with Rohit’s things and drove 6 hours to Rochester, NY. 

September

I think we each ran longer distances than we had run before along the river trail in Rochester. We were a little outdoorsy. We had an ample supply of local Chinese bakery goods (that reminded me of Hong Kong bakery items). There was sun, but not in the apartment. By the way, this apartment was a miraculous coincidence from one of Rohit’s (very tidy and kind) friends who hadn’t been living there for months but would have to move out at the end of October. So we could pay him rent!

Also surprise to AriaRay’s patience, calm, and going with the flow acceptance: as a bonus level to the desperately declared plan of packing ahead of time to avoid the overwhelming stress of the previous move, Rohit and I learned we would also be cleaning and clearing out our friend’s apartment first! 

In the end, I had to accept that it was Rohit’s leading responsibility. Whatever we could do would make the experience easier for our absent friend. We moved out and found donation homes for almost everything. We did it! 5 pm and out the door to Burlington! (Extra exclamation points for whirlwind desperation and relief.)

October

I spent my last day with Rohit in Burlington. Burlington was love. And glorious fall.

I packed for Germany, I found a place to live in Germany, I boarded a plane to Germany. I got on the plane to Germany and went to sleep in Germany and thought, “Haha, isn’t it funny that I’m in Germany? Who thought of Germany?”

A new country and a new day to day life! I was grateful to be finally there and in awe that I had gotten to this point. My childhood self said, “when I’m 23, I’ll be in Europe.” Well, here I am.

We’re still in a pandemic. Meaning my classes are online and my traveling is cautiously limited to grocery store treks and to walks or bus rides around the city.

I have 3 very nice (and extraordinarily clean??) roommates from Ukraine, Russia, Iraq. All studying. One speaks better German than English, which is sometimes amusing as I really do want to have a conversation with her anyway.

Birthday, Halloween. But sometimes I forget and think my last birthday was in 2019. Blurry.

November

Hmmm studying. It still feels unprocessed to reflect on this. My master’s program can be considered a computational linguistics degree, formally called “Language Science and Technology M.Sc.” because to be more specific, this degree covers broader areas of computer science for language, and linguistics for computer science, than only computational linguistics. 

I do love the subject. It is by far a synthesis of my linguistics and cs interests. I’m learning a little more than what my focus for here initially has been. Is this a good thing? Maybe a nice cushion of knowledge and perspective. Still looking for how to study and process spoken language, how to relate this to second language acquisition. 

I think I get it. My core lectures right now are foundations for this field. I will leap from them into my specific field of interest. My software project is a learning ground for tools and seeds for future ideas, practice with coding group projects again. My seminars are for thinking, reading, discussing, weaving ideas, hearing from others seasoned in the topics and those of my peers investing their newfound or nurtured interests. Three more semesters.

Where will I be next?

I think I should mention one Thanksgiving meal that we cooked for, and shared with the additional guests of Olha’s partner Gaston and his roommate...with a name I can’t place now...from Morocco. This was a widely, uniquely fun night.

December

Hello cozy holidays, the first, by myself. My roommates and I decorated a tree from our local grocery store. I made cookies and cards, sent 14 gold letters. I spent hours decorating and felt creatively festive. ‘Tis the season :). Hoping everyone can feel the love I’m sending. 

Surprises came after small gifts appeared from each roommate to each other. Olha made us all Christmas gift bags of gingerbread cookies. I strung a decorated card on the tree for each roommate and shared cookies and oranges. Uliana wrapped Russian tea and a scented candle in parchment paper, leftover gold glittered tree ribbon, and a holiday clothespin. She wrote “Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!” in each of our languages: Russian (well, not Ukrainian), English, German. Zhenas gave us each a gift bag of treats. So, there has been magic in my apartment this season.

Happy New Year, and thank you 2020, for all the joy, discoveries, and change you have brought me. Here’s to love in 2021.

♡ 

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): Stories around the allegations that President Trump used the power of the presidency to seek dirt on his political rival in a phone call to the Ukrainian president in July are moving fast. The House has opened an official impeachment inquiry into the president, and some Democrats have even suggested they’ll draft articles of impeachment by Thanksgiving.

But there’s also an election going on (in case you forgot) … so how does the question of whether Congress should move to impeach Trump affect the Democratic primary?

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, elections analyst): Well, since Sept. 20 — which is both the day the Wall Street Journal broke the news that the whistleblower complaint alleged that Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and, not coincidentally, the last time I really thought about the 2020 Democratic primary — Sen. Elizabeth Warren has gained significantly in the Real Clear Politics average, and Biden has slipped.

And I think there are lots of reasons to believe this story would help Warren and hurt Biden.

Warren was one of the first 2020 candidates to come out in favor of impeachment, back in April, and she has been one of the clearest candidates about where she stands on the issue.

So given that support for impeachment has increased among Democrats, as our tracker of impeachment polls shows, I think a sense of urgency among Democrats to impeach Trump could help Warren.

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): I disagree with this take pretty strongly.

nrakich: Oh good! I was afraid we were all going to agree.

perry: I don’t think the “scandal” (Biden himself did nothing wrong; his son, Hunter Biden, seems to have done something that is perhaps not ideal but not illegal) will hurt Biden among Democratic voters who were already seriously considering voting for him.

Basically everyone in the party is defending him, and I suspect that the people who are likely to say this is a problem for him (by showing he and his family made money through politics/cronyism) were already Warren or Bernie Sanders supporters.

Impeachment is the position of the Democratic Party, and Biden is in line with that. He and Warren are not that different on this issue now.

nrakich: But doesn’t it show leadership on Warren’s part that she was one of the first to call for impeachment?

As for Biden himself, I don’t think a lot of Democrats buy what Trump is selling — that Biden’s activities in Ukraine were corrupt. But I think it could pierce his aura of electability if Democrats worry that it’s something that could be used against him in a general election.

sarahf: Yeah, I tend to agree with Perry, but do think there is a “tug-of-war” around media narratives right now involving the Ukraine scandal, and while Fox News has been the main outlet focusing more on Biden’s involvement in Ukraine, rather than Trump’s conduct, the déjà vu to 2016 makes me think this has the potential to overtake/overshadow the primary.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): I think impeachment is pretty clearly good news for Warren. But that’s not mutually exclusive with it being good news for Biden. My initial instinct was that it could help Biden in some ways because (1) Democrats would have to come to his defense, and (2) it makes Trump looks like he fears Biden, which bolsters his electability case. My second instinct, though, is that it isn’t so helpful for Biden.

Why? It’s not so much because his vague aura of electability might suffer, although maybe there’s some of that. But more because it requires a campaign that can be nimble and react to unpredictable news developments in real time, and I’m not really sure that campaign is Biden’s — they’ve run a very risk-averse strategy so far.

perry: But I think Biden is smart to lean into this and basically argue, “I’m so electable that Trump is already trying to cheat to beat me.” That seems like a good argument to me, particularly in the Democratic primary. That argument also seems true!

natesilver: It’s a pretty decent argument!

Another dimension to all this is that if impeachment is in the news all the time, it’s bad news for any candidate who isn’t one of the front-runners now. Since the story occupies a lot of media bandwidth that could be spent on, I dunno, a Cory Booker surge, or whatever.

perry: But in general, I do think a fast-moving event favors Warren, just because her strategy (run to the left) is easy to execute and Biden’s (figure out where the middle of the electorate is) is a bit harder. And if this moves to the Senate, you can imagine Warren being like, “Let’s convict” and Biden being less eager to say that.

nrakich: Maybe this is a bad analogy, but I think maybe the impeachment issue is to Warren as the Iraq War was to Barack Obama in 2008. He had a clear anti-war stance and no past baggage on the issue (unlike Hillary Clinton, who had voted for the war), and that really gave him credibility on an important issue to Democratic primary voters.

Furthermore, Warren’s steady rise in the polls actually started around the time she came out in favor of impeachment in April — although there were also a lot of other factors at play, so we can’t say for sure it was the reason she caught fire.

sarahf: I mean, to some extent, though, this has to be objectively better for anyone who isn’t Biden, because being dragged through the mud on this scandal (regardless of whether any wrongdoing actually happened) isn’t great PR.

And while the Biden campaign has tried to put the kibosh on stories that Biden did anything wrong, I do find it astounding that a Monmouth poll this week found that 42 percent of voters think Biden “probably did” pressure Ukrainian officials to not investigate his son’s business interests.

perry: I still think the number of Biden Democratic primary supporters leaving him over this is close to zero, and the number of Democrats who were thinking about voting for Biden who will be bothered by this is also close to zero.

What percentage of that 42 percent will vote for Trump? Probably most of them.

nrakich: Yeah, and that’s borne out by the crosstabs of that poll — Democrats said 65 percent to 19 percent that Biden “probably did not” inappropriately pressure Ukraine. But as I said above, it’s not about Democrats leaving Biden because they believe the allegations. It’s about them getting scared that he now has a scandal, however unsubstantiated, that could hurt him in the general election.

perry: So they choose Warren instead?

Does that seem likely to you?

natesilver: Yeah I’m with Perry on this!

I think voters aren’t taking “electability” quite as literally as you or I might.

Otherwise they’d consider Amy Klobuchar really electable or whatever, because she’s from a swing-ish state and has won by big margins before.

nrakich: Nate, I agree that the ordinary voter may not spend a lot of time diving into a candidate’s average overperformance above partisan lean or whatever — but I think simpler concepts like “scandals hurt your chances of winning” can resonate. This may be one of the lessons many people took from 2016 (along with, maybe, “America isn’t ready to elect a woman president”) — that even an overhyped scandal like the one over Clinton’s emails can cost someone an election.

And Perry, Warren doesn’t need all those ex-Biden voters to flock to her. She is doing fine on her own. If Biden drops to 15 percent, Warren will probably be in first place by default.

sarahf: I’m not sure we’ll see mass defection from Biden over this. But I do think Warren stands to benefit, however marginally, just by not being at the center of it all. I still think that while the Ukraine situation might not be bad for Biden, it’s not great either.

perry: Part of why I don’t think this will hurt Biden with voters who care a lot about electability is because the rest of the really viable candidates don’t scream electable (the white woman, the black woman, the socialist, the 37-year-old) in the way that voters typically think about electability.

natesilver: We also haven’t really seen how perceptions of Warren change now that she’s perceived by the media as a front-runner — maybe even the front-runner — instead of an underdog. I do wonder if there’s a bit of recency bias in how we’re covering that too.

nrakich: Right. I fully expect a scrutiny cycle for Warren coming up.

But I think that’s outside the purview of this chat!

natesilver: I mean, in some ways, you’d think that Biden could gain ground by saying, “While all these other Democrats are out there talking about impeachment, I’m talking about how we can BEAT Donald Trump based on issues that matter to the middle class,” etc.

Except that… the scandal at the heart of Democrats’ best impeachment case directly involves him!

sarahf: I do wonder, though, how much people are generally factoring impeachment into how they think about either a) the candidates or b) the election, period. Granted, this CNN poll is from March, but what stood out to me in that poll is that no one named the Russia investigation as their top issue for 2020. Do you think we’re headed toward a similar outcome here? Or is the dynamic different?

natesilver: At the very least, Democratic voters’ focus on impeachment is likely to increase now that all the party leaders and candidates back it.

perry: Where there might be a shift is in how the primary is fought. Basically every debate up to now has had this super-boring Medicare for All vs. Medicare “for everyone who wants it” discussion. But does that go away now? Are the terms of the campaign now different?

sarahf: Do you think there will now be more questions about whether the candidates support impeachment?

perry: Not impeachment. But the debates have all been very policy-focused. And now I wonder if they will be more about democratic norms and values. “Should Trump be removed from office?” is certainly a question that will be asked.

nrakich: Yeah, the irony of this whole thing is that impeachment is actually an irrelevant topic for a presidential campaign. If any of these people wins the White House, Trump will be out of office anyway!

perry: But impeachment is in the news, and I think it’s more interesting than restating everyone’s Medicare position. It could lead to more interesting questions, too. For example, Kamala Harris’s idea to ban Trump from Twitter has come out of this whole discussion. My guess is Warren may be to the right of Harris on that.

nrakich: Oh, I agree that it will come up. I just find it funny.

natesilver: But calling on Twitter to kick Trump off, though, is (apart from the journalistic case against kicking Trump off Twitter) sort of daft strategically since Trump probably hurts himself politically (and maybe even legally) with his various outbursts on Twitter. You’ve also had Harris calling for Brett Kavanaugh’s impeachment if I’m not mistaken, which seemed very off-message for Democrats.

nrakich: Warren did as well.

perry: The primary has largely been a wonk-fest, which is good for wonky candidates (Warren) and candidates who clearly reject wonkiness (Biden). But maybe this is a new phase of the campaign and a different type of candidate emerges. Maybe someone like Pete Buttigieg who has campaigned a lot on norms and democratic values. He also speaks about foreign policy fairly fluently. I wonder if he can turn this moment into something.

sarahf: Given that support for impeachment is so high among Democrats, do you think any of the candidates have anything to lose by saying they support impeaching Trump?

natesilver: I dunno. If Harris is any indication, I don’t think it’s going to be very easy for any of the other low-polling Democrats to latch onto a good argument about impeachment.

perry: Right, now that impeachment is a position of the party, I think it’s hard to differentiate yourself on it.

natesilver: I guess you could argue it’s good for Tom Steyer, who really was out in front on impeachment.

nrakich: Yeah, by all rights, Steyer should get a boost from this, as he’s run so many TV ads on the topic. But I think your point above about the media oxygen being taken away from non-front-runners is a good one.

natesilver: Maybe in a weird way it’s good, too, for someone like Andrew Yang, because he’s the most unconventional candidate and can counterprogram the most. It’s not like he’s been relying on much traditional media attention anyway.

Like, if you’re airing something alongside the Super Bowl, you don’t want to be showing a college football game. You want something really different.

nrakich: Like the Puppy Bowl???

sarahf: Tulsi Gabbard certainly held out on supporting impeachment — but to Nate’s earlier point, I’m not sure talking impeachment will help differentiate any of the candidates already struggling in the polls.

But OK, if the conversation does become more about norms and values and how we think about the office of the presidency, does that actually change the primary that much?

natesilver: I guess one way it could be bad for Warren is if it makes the debates less policy-driven. Then again, I’m not sure if Warren is benefiting from her policy positions so much as being branded as The Policy Candidate

.

nrakich: One point worth reiterating is that we’re still probably very early in the Trump/Ukraine/impeachment story timeline. The story will continue to evolve, and we don’t know where that will take the political conversation.

perry: After the El Paso shooting, Beto O’Rourke was in the news a lot. But his numbers didn’t move, and that tells me that he is still very unlikely to break through. And so while this feels like the kind of story where Buttigieg can come in and say, “This is another example of how Washington is broken and we need fresh faces,” I would not be surprised if he didn’t gain in the polls either.

A lot of what we are seeing in the polls right now is Warren gaining from Harris, Sanders and, to some extent, Biden. So I think the biggest shift for Warren, as Nate was hinting at, is not her stance on impeachment, but that she is now doing so well that her rivals will attack her more and the media will increase its scrutiny of her. Perhaps this is an atmosphere in which the primary is shaken up a bit. Warren has already kind of won the college-educated, Hillary Clinton-voter mini primary over Harris and in some ways has won the populist mini primary over Sanders, too. But what happens next is unclear.

[eurosong]

Undo my ESC - semi-final 2

Hey there, folks. Last week, I published the first part of “Undo my ESC”, a look at semi-final 1 where I took the entrants and made óne change, either minor or drastic, to make the competition better in my eyes. I didn’t need to take out my time-travelling tippex too much for the generally stellar first semi-final, but semi-final 2 is a different kettle of fish altogether. There are a few songs I don’t want to change at all but must, but a lot of songs could do with changing. As always, this is just mý take on things and written light-heartedly. (Some people always unfollow the few times I publish entries relating to my opinion - to those folks, I say, skip the read.)

Norway – We could scarcely get off to a worse start for my tastes, as this unwelcome return is a composite of so many elements that make me cringe – the music, which sounds like a jingle for a new version of Supermarket Sweep; the painfully ironic title “That’s how you write a song”; the lyrics which are nigh beyond parody for their triteness; the cheesier-than-feta visuals and choreögraphy. Nothing really lit up my world in this year’s MGP, but I would have preferred the runner-up, the new Wallmann song or even (for the sake of a guaranteed belly laugh in the final) Scandilove over this abomination.

Romania – From a song being hotly tipped to one, in the death spot, which many people assume will lead to the end of Romania’s qualification streak. Personally, I increasingly enjoy this unloved song quite a lot. It has a personal poignancy and resonance with me, reminding me of conversations with friends lost to suicide or prolonged self-destruction, trying to reach out and help them see the beautiful things in this world. There’s not much I’d change – but since Voltaj were able to do well with a bilingual version, inserting some Romanian would be my little alteration.

Serbia – I was so excited to see the return of Beovizija, and it didn’t disappoint, with a very varied show including wild dances, poignant ballads and the funkiest jazz-rap I’ve heard since Digable Planets, and áll in Serbian. As is often my jinx, most of my support went to the eventual runner up, Pesma za tebe, a gorgeous bit of Balkan blues which I prefer a lot more than the Zajdi zajdi ripoff colliding with a dance mix that ended up besting it. I would send the flawless Saška Janks instead.

San Marino – Trust San Marino to veer into the world of national finals for a bit of credibility, only to make the selection process as risible as possible. I see some value in Who we are, because the combination of its rip-off of Heroes’ chorus, the robots, the dramatic with a capital D hand gestures and the rap make me laugh hysterically. But there were far better songs – Out of the twilight being very reasonably the fans’ favourite, but a bit by the numbers for me. I actually would give the nod to IROL. People say that San Marino doesn’t have enough performers to be competitive but 8 Sammarinese artists signed up to 1in360 and they eliminated all but him. Rap turns off a lot of Eurofans almost automatically, but it would have been heart-warming for a local artist to win such a mercenary NF system.

Denmark – I suppose, if for nothing else, Denmark deserve some props for consistency. How can a country that brought us such mould-busting entries as Disco-Tango, Fra Mols til Skagen and Dansevise be so consistently bland for several years? I don’t dislike Higher Ground, but it feels like an empty attempt to create a tune for a soundtrack for a hokey straight-to-video movie. I’d improve it by translating it into Old Norse.

Russia – On the one hand, I’m glad Russia stuck to their promise to Julia to bring her back for 2018. On the other hand, I disliked Flame is burning, and hate I won’t break even more (except for the hilarious “becoming a mountain” scene at the end of the music video) and so, if I had the liberty, would go back to 2017 and avoid the provocative gambit that led to her having been selected. If not, I would simply give her a song to sing in Russian as she seems rather more confident with her mother tongue.

Moldova – My word, talk about picking one of the worst songs out of a generally terrible selection. Moldova’s song this year is an infernal throwback to the darkest days of the contest. Its dirty trumpet riff pulsates like a bad headache as the most awkward ménage-à-trois partners this side of the Volga plough their way through some bizarre lyrics. I don’t want to subject myself to listening to the Melodie pentru Europa finalists again, but I’m sure I remember there being something better…

Netherlands – It says something about both this year and the artistry of Waylon that even one of my lesser favoured tracks amongst those he presented for consideration is amongst my top anyway. I’ve come to love Outlaw in ‘em as one of the few upbeat tracks that make me want to dance rather than make me deeply irritated, and I love the lyrical message of everyone finding the strength to be their own person and stand up for themselves. However, I lóve the melancholy and yet equally rousing Thanks but no thanks even more and would have picked it for ESC.

Australia – Four years after their supposedly one-off participation in the contest, and a year after they were sent into the final by the juries despite rightfully getting slated by the public vote, Australia are still here, somehow. There was word of them organising a national final, which could indeed have been an interesting show. Instead, they’ve gone with something so bland that it is nigh offensive, crowned by lyrics that are merely a string of platitudes. When Australia have such a rich musical scene, it’s a crying shame to send something so generic.

Georgia – I’m delighted that Georgia is sending its first song fully in their language, thus overshadowing the couple of lines in Georgian at the start of the hideous I’m a joker several years ago. It’s very authentic and showcases both beautiful vocals and great musicianship. My one worry is that it may seem a bit one-note to some people and fail to qualify – I might try to make a bit more contrast between the verses and chorus.

Poland – A cut-price Alexander Wallman with his cringey uncle behind him throwing shapes whilst pretending to mix, to the musical backdrop that sounds like a knockout coke advert jingle. Not really a recipe for success in my eyes, but somehow this won the Polish national contest. This is background music at best, like much of the songs in Krajowe Eliminacje this year. The only one that didn’t just bleed into those surrounding it for me was Ifi Ude’s Love is stronger; not typically my cup of tea, but a very striking composition and, in my eyes, the most likely of the entire selection to stand out.

Malta – Whilst Denmark provide a heady dose of beigeness from the north, Malta compete with them in the generic national selections stakes from the south. And how can a country where English is spoken natively alongside Maltese consistently come to the contest with criminally, almost laughably bad lyrics, like that of the winner, Taboo? I’d pick Song for dad over it – at least its lyrics were simple but earnest.

Hungary – I’ve come to really enjoy Viszlát nyár, the raw and emotional lyrics and performance and the big personalities of the lads in AWS, especially Aron and Soma trolling Wiwibloggs a few days ago! I do think there were potentially better picks, though – notably Azt mondtad and, for something also on the heavier side, Nem szól harang.

Latvia – This is a hard one. I really do love the sultry yet pensive Funny Girl and can see why Latvia were wowed by Laura’s convincing performance. It is one of my favourites this year – but I must admit to loving Madara’s Esamība even more for its delightfully ethereal feeling that never fails to send shivers down my spine.

Sweden – It’s long become a tradition for me to see a song or songs in Melodifestivalen that I wóúld have considered in my top 10 had it won, but instead it loses to something completely odious for me. Even in this pretty poor year, there were a few songs I think were a lot more interesting, like Dotter’s “Cry”, the woefully undervalued veteran Kikki’s “Osby Tennessee”, but I think my change would be for the runner up to take the winner’s place. Felix Sandman’s poignant Every single day has outperformed the ungodly Bieber-Timberlake hybrid that spawned Dance you off in the Swedish music charts, and I truly do thing it was a case of the better song being bested by the flashier show.

Montenegro – Inje was by far the best of Crna Gora’s short but sweet national selection, and I am over the moon that the country is returning to what has best served it at Eurovision and bringing back the Balkan ballad style that recent years have been sadly bereft of. There is really little I would change, but I’d want to ensure an eye-catching presentation that brings the story of the song to life as well as the music video did.

Slovenia – My initial reaction to Slovenia’s song was “hvala ne” (no thanks.) I found it really obnoxious on first (and second, third, etc) listen – I am really no fan of songs that have no real chorus. Over time, I’ve come to enjoy it as something rather different to the field, but I still would send the stirring V nebo instead.

Ukraine – I know Mélovin has many fans, but his song does little for me. It’s a low-key attempt at an anthemic song that doesn’t really get off the ground for me. That is not helped by the fact that you can (and we have!) asked a few dozen people to listen to it and because of his alien pronunciation, get a few dozen different “interpretations” of the original Mélovinese lyrics. The funky, soulful, playful, melancholy and yet still upbeat Lelja getting pipped to the selection was one of the biggest robberies of the entire year for me!

And the automatic qualifiers in this round:

France – I really do like “Mercy”. Great storytelling, musically very well produced and “Madame” has a lovely voice. The quality of France’s return to national finals, though, was such that it was not my favourite. I think the even more French flavoured efforts that were the heartbreaking, spellbinding, classic Tu me manques and Lisboa, Jerusalem were even better picks. I also loved the almost psychedelic feel of Ciao. Keep this standard up next year, mes amis !

Germany – Well done to Germany for jettisoning the absolutely torturous national final procedure they had last year, where they eliminated two people off the basis off completely unrelated covers and then we heard the same two songs performed over and over again for the rest of the night by 3 people. However, there was not a great leap in terms of quality to match. I preferred “You and I”, but Michael Schulte’s was probably the best song on the night. I fear could be easily forgettable amongst 25 other songs. My change would be to try to make the choruses a little more dynamic.

Italy – Italy hardly ever put a foot out of step at this contest, and that’s in part thanks to the grand tradition that is San Remo, which has even more prestige than ESC itself in the country. There were dozens of great songs in San Remo, but Non mi avete fatto niente, an effecting song with a very strong message, was one of the best for me. My only worry is that the frenetic, breathless pace seems to alienate some listeners – if I had to make a change (as is the premise with this conceit), I may cut one or two repetitions of the chorus and slow down the thunderous, impactful but perhaps sometimes alienating delivery of words just a tad. So those were my thoughts on how I’d change this year’s ESC if I had to make one change. I’m intrigued at what other folks would come up with in this scenario, too!

[khalilhumam]

Belarus in turmoil: the view from neighbouring Lithuania 

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/belarus-in-turmoil-the-view-from-neighbouring-lithuania/

Belarus in turmoil: the view from neighbouring Lithuania 

Belarusians’ activism has surprised even their familiar neighbours in Lithuania

Vilnius’ Cathedral Square, one of the most prominent landmarks of the capital of Lithuania. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.

Belarus and Lithuania share more than just a 600-km long border in the north of Central Europe. Although both countries have gone in very different ways since the collapse of the Soviet Union — Lithuania may be a NATO and EU member and Belarus part of the Russian-led CSTO military alliance — much in their common history unites them. While Belarusians are a small minority in Lithuania, representing less than two percent of the population, this minority plays an important role in Belarusian national historical narratives; from the 14th to the 17th century, Belarus and Lithuania were part of the same entity, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and many key Belarusian intellectuals lived, worked, and studied in Vilnius, its capital. Today the two neighbours share in the aftermath of the August 9 presidential elections in Belarus, which has seen Belarusians take to the streets in mass protests against an attempt by longtime President Alexander Lukashenka to secure a sixth consecutive term in office. Lukashenka came to power in 1994, and over his long rule more than a handful of Belarusian opposition activists have moved to Lithuania. Several Belarusian civil society organisations can be found in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius as well as the European Humanities University, which the Belarusian government forced out of the country in 2004. Lithuania remains a likely destination for opposition supporters if the political situation in Belarus deteriorates further. They would join opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled to Lithuania on August 11 after receiving threats from the Belarusian authorities. In exile, she continues to call upon Belarus to hold free and fair elections and announces her readiness to lead a transitional government. For its part, the Lithuanian government has voiced strong support for the opposition protesters. For example, on August 12 the country opened its borders, which were shut due to the COVID-19 pandemic, to Belarusian citizens. Then on August 18, the Lithuanian parliament voted overwhelmingly in support of sanctions against Belarus, stressing that the results of the presidential election must not be recognised. What does the Lithuanian government seek to achieve with these moves? And what do Lithuanians make of the turmoil next door? GlobalVoices spoke to Lithuanian activists, politicians, and civil society figures to find out more.

Surprises and solidarity 

Despite this familiarity, Lithuanians were taken by surprise when Belarusians responded with such anger to the announcement of the election results, particularly their readiness to take to the streets in the face of incredible state violence and to go on strike. Lithuania's former prime minister and current member of the European Parliament for Lithuania Andrius Kubilius told GlobalVoices that he sees a generational dynamic at work in these protests:

What triggered this unexpected reaction is a systemic change, the end of what I call the totalitarian regime syndrome of former Soviet states. After 26 years in power, Lukashenka could not provide permanent growth of social conditions. During the last ten years, it actually went into the opposite direction in Belarus. It is also a generational change, Lukashenka always tried to convince people how bad it was before he took power in 1994, but young people did not witness that “before”. They travel and see different living conditions for themselves. Belarusian society has changed dramatically, but Lukashenka hasn't, and that became unacceptable.   From Belarusian experts, we hear that the final straw was the pandemic, during which Lukashenka seriously explained to his people that “one can simply cure and prevent COVID-19 with a visit to the sauna and vodka”. But people took it on themselves to help patients and doctors; they understood they can do quite a lot on their own, and this movement [of social activism] laid the groundwork for the election campaigns and protests. 

Given the proximity of Belarus, large parts of the Lithuanian population have shown great empathy, inspired by female Belarusian protesters who came onto the streets wearing white dresses and holding flowers in peaceful daytime demonstrations. Andrius Tapinas, a social activist and founder of internet TV channel Laisvės TV [Liberty TV] explained his own initiative, in which Lithuanians will channel their own struggle for independence into a statement of solidarity with Belarus:

On August 23, I am organising a human chain of people from Lithuania to Belarus. We call it The Freedom Way to Belarus; it is a copy of the Baltic Way of 1989 which has an amazingly deep symbolic value for us. We are going to build a living chain of people from Cathedral Square in central Vilnius, the starting point of original Baltic Way, all the way to the Belarusian border. We reckon it will take 25,000 people to achieve, but we have already registered interest from many more than that, so I expect a double chain of 45-50,000 people. We hope that the Belarusian people will extend the chain from the border into their country, all the way to Minsk. However after Lukashenka promised that he will break the chain by any means necessary, as of today it is unclear whether Belarusians will join.  

Vilija Navickaite, a pro-democracy activist and a creative learning practitioner, says that she is eager to take part in Tapinas’ living chain to the Belarusian border. She explained her motivations for supporting the protesters in Belarus:

In my bubble almost everyone has changed their photos in FB with white-red-white Belarusian flags in support for our neighbours and I know people that are closely following the events in Belarus. All this might be a bit similar to 2014 when Lithuanians felt so close to Ukrainians… We were part of the same country with Belarusians for a long time and have similar words in our languages, very similar customs, and the same heroes from the period of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It seems that for a while, Belarusians were a bit like our forgotten brothers and sisters. I am happy that's changing. 

Looming fears

However, some Lithuanians have markedly frostier attitudes towards their southern neighbour. Lukashenka has pushed for the final construction phase of a nuclear power plant at Astravets, located not too far away from the suburbs of the Lithuanian capital. It is a sore point; Lithuanians remember the April 1986 nuclear catastrophe at Chernobyl all too well. Kubilius shares these same concerns:

Lithuania has passed into law a ban on buying energy from Astravets, which was built initially to sell energy to the Baltics and Eastern Europe. People voted in a referendum in Lithuania against a Japanese-based technology plan after Fukushima to replace our own former Soviet nuclear plant in Ignalina. It is hard to predict the view of the new Belarusian government, but there is also a lot of opposition within Belarus to Astravets, so we might have better opportunities in the future for Lithuania. 

Many Lithuanians also looking warily towards Moscow, which is bound to play a key role in the ongoing political crisis. Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius went as far as to say that Vilnius does not discount an intervention by Russian troops in Belarus, which the government fears. According to Kubilius:

For Putin, Belarus is a real trap: he cannot support the revolution as it could serve as an example to Khabarovsk [a city in Eastern Russia hosting anti-government demonstrations] from Moscow, but if he associates too much with Lukashenka, he will repeat the same errors as in Ukraine, with [former President Viktor] Yanukovich, ousted in 2014. In the end Putin united all Ukraine against Russia. So he would be more happy to remove Lukashenka to avoid strong emotions that could inflame people in Russia, instead opting to install a new leader who is less against the Kremlin. If there are new elections in Belarus, he could get his way. The only hope today lies with the European Union's response: in the European Parliament we have now great support through Euronext to launch an investigation into what happened in Belarus. The biggest challenge to a new democratic government will be the economic situation: just as the EU provided help to Ukraine after the Euromaidan protests, about 14 billion Euros, so should we now provide 3.5 to 4 billion Euros for Belarus, whose population is about four times smaller than that of Ukraine. 

That approach is shared by other EU member states bordering Belarus. On August 14, Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced a five point plan to help Belarusians, including support for independent media and civil society initiatives and support for political emigres. Some 11.4 million Euros have been allotted to these goals. Poland has a long history of political support for its immediate neighbours to the East, which was once articulated as a diplomatic strategy known as the Giedroyc Doctrine. However, in recent years critics of the country's ruling right-wing populist Law and Justice (PiS) party argue that the government's attacks on political pluralism and the rule of law at home undermine Poland's credibility in promoting transparency and good governance abroad — including to Belarus. For example, an op-ed published in the major liberal newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza on August 13 argued that Poland's role in that regard had been taken over by Lithuania. Jörg Forbrig, Director for Central and Eastern Europe at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, has directed a programme in support of civil society in Belarus for the last 15 years. He stressed that it did not necessarily make sense to contrast EU states’ perceived levels of commitment to Belarus in this manner, given that the effort towards reform is an all-European one. However, he praised Lithuania's outsized role in engaging with Belarusian civil society, stating that this gave Vilnius extra credibility with other EU states on the issue:

Lithuania is not [merely] fully in line with EU policy, it even spearheaded quite a lot of the direct support for Belarusian democrats. It hosts a free Belarusian university, numerous NGOs working on democratic change in Belarus, and has now proposed, together with others, a dialogue to resolve the current situation in Belarus. In short, Lithuania has been just as committed, and often even more so, to a democratic and free Belarus [as any other EU member state].

However the situation in Belarus develops, it is likely that Vilnius will be the first port of call for many of its young opposition activists — either as representatives of a new order or as exiles from another fateful attempt against the old.

Written by Filip Noubel, Maxim Edwards · comments (0) Donate · Share this: twitter facebook reddit

[zitseng]

New Post has been published on https://zitseng.com/archives/16863

Langogo AI-Powered Translator

A new kid on the block, the Langogo AI-powered pocket translator will be launching on the Indiegogo crowd-funding website. Langogo wants to be your ultimate travel companion, providing fast and accurate AI-powered translation and global Internet access with hotspot capabilities. Here’s a heads up on the Langogo.

Another translator? It seems like a tough sell. But Langogo thinks they have a good value proposition, at least with frequent travellers finding themselves needing to converse in foreign languages they don’t speak. Still, you might want to know, why wouldn’t you just use a smartphone?

It turns out that Langogo does have a few key selling points. Its AI-powered translation engine claims to offer accurate and natural-sounding translations in over 60 languages. It can automatically detect and translate between two selected languages, without having to switch the direction of translation back-and-forth. This is very convenient for conducting conversations naturally.

Not ready at this time, but Langogo will have conversational AI to help you with trip advice, navigation, weather, and exchange rates, among others. This is expected to arrive at end-September, too late for this review.

The physical Langogo device resembles a smartphone, with dimensions of about 121 x 54 x 12 mm. The front face has a touchscreen LCD with a diagonal size just under 3.5 inches. The display glass covers a lot more than just the LCD portion, with a semi-circle extension at the top and bottom to give the device a more aesthetic appeal.

Touch input on the Langogo’s screen isn’t great. I found the touch sensitivity was a bit cranky, and the position calibration was also a little off. Thankfully you don’t really have to use the touch UI much.

You’ll find the volume rocker and power-wake switch on the left side of the Langogo device. The right side has a SIM tray and a function button that activates the translation feature. You just need to hold that button while speaking, no need to fuss around with the touch display.

At the bottom, you’ll find a USB Type-C connector. It’s used to charge the Langogo device, or you can connect a wired USB Type-C headphones. Sorry, no 3.5 mm audio jack here.

There’s some sort of sound chamber at the top, but it doesn’t seem like where sound is emitted from. Instead, audio comes out from two speaker grills at the back of the device, one each near the top and bottom. Audio is sufficiently loud and clear, nicely suited for spoken words.

The Langogo has a dual-microphone array and a noise cancellation chip. Speaking to the device works quite effectively at arm’s length away, no need to bring the device to your face. This is very important, because you’ll typically be using the Langogo to translate conversations between two persons, so you’d expect to hold the device between the two of them.

Language translation works very fast and reasonably accurately. For my testing, I mainly translated between English and Chinese. I also tested a little of Japanese. The Langogo easily translates in less than a second, as claimed. It’s faster than using Google Translate.

The speed is important if you expect to use Langogo in real-life conversations. You don’t want to wait awkwardly each time after uttering a sentence or two before hearing the translated output. Imagine how it would be if you’re trying to buy something, and even bargain, at the local market.

The text-to-speech output is surprisingly natural sounding. Again, this can be particularly helpful when you’re trying to converse with a stranger. You don’t want a device that is hard to understand in these circumstances.

The Langogo’s display shows both the text of the language it heard, as well as the text it is translated to. You can read off the screen to make sure the Langogo heard you correctly, or that you heard the Langogo correctly.

Langogo handles over 60 languages, including English, Chinese, Malay, Thai, Tamil, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Catalan, Danish, German, Spanish, Finnish, French, Italian, Norwegian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Swedish.

The translation does require Internet connectivity. Here’s the next big feature of the Langogo. It has its own cellular connectivity, with cloud-SIM technology built right into it. You don’t need another SIM card for Langogo, and it doesn’t need to tether to your smartphone. On the contrary, Langogo can serve as a Wi-Fi hotspot for up to six devices, which means your smartphone can wirelessly tether to it.

The Langogo’s cloud-SIM connects to 4G networks in 74 countries, including:

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chili, Columbia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Italy, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Laos, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Macao, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Porto Rico, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, South Africa Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Tajikistan, Taiwan, Turkey, UAE, United Kingdom, Ukraine, United States, and Vietnam.

Data plans can be bought directly on the Langogo device itself. Right now there isn’t a way to purchase data plans through a web browser on your smartphone or PC. Data plan rates are probably not as attractive as what you may get with local prepaid SIM, but the selling point here, I suppose, is convenience. Here are some examples of the rates:

USA 300 MB / 1 day: US$5.20

Japan 300 MB / 1 day: US$4.20

Singapore 300 MB / 1 day: US$4.20

Thailand 300 MB / 1 day: US$2.60

17 Asia-Pacific Countries 4096 MB / 8 days: US$27.80

There are plenty more, including numerous one-country/multi-day plans as well as multi-country/multi-day plans. You can use the data for both Langogo’s own translation and future AI assistant consumption, as well as for Wi-Fi hotspot use.

You may remember the SIM tray I mentioned earlier. You can use your own SIM card with the Langogo too, if that’s what you prefer. The Langogo device supports multiple cellular network standards, including a variety of 2G, 3G, and 4G networks.

The Langogo is shipped with a SIM-eject tool, USB Type-C charging cable, and a lanyard.

I can’t say about the AI assistant since it isn’t ready right now, but already as it is, the Langogo is a handy travel companion whenever you head to some part of the world where you don’t speak the local language. The built-in cloud-SIM and Wi-Fi hotspot features are nice extra conveniences.

There are no doubt many free smartphone apps, but I think an important selling point about the Langogo is how it can translate very quickly and read out in a natural-sounding voice. It is as if you had a personal human translator by your side.

Langogo will be launched on the Indiegogo crowd-funding site on 10 September 2018. I’ll update the link when the campaign goes live. The starting price is US$139 for the Super Early Bird perk, so if you are interested in the Langogo device, make sure to lock in your pledge early!

Conclusion

The Langogo is a handy travel companion providing fast, natural-sounding, conversational translation between over 60 languages, with Internet connectivity and Wi-Fi hotspot support in 74 countries.

Pros:

Fast, real-time, translation

Hears spoken language over ambient noise

Natural-sounding text-to-speech

Internet in 74 countries

Cons:

Touchscreen response is not good

[clubofinfo]

Expert: Never forget the Dodgy Dossier. That was the supposed evidence claiming in 2003 that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that could be used against Britain within forty minutes. The Dodgy Dossier was presented in Britain’s House of Parliament as the truth – and was unchallenged by the mainstream media. It was included in the case for war presented to the UN by the United States, and became the given reason for Britain then joining forces with the US in the illegal war that followed, a war which, in addition to costing almost two hundred British lives, killed tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis and ruined the lives of millions more. The Dodgy Dossier turned out to be pure bunkum. Fifteen years later a brand new dodgy dossier appears to be in the making, which once again is being unchallenged by the mainstream media. We are now supposed to believe that the Russian government is behind an alleged chemical attack on an ex-spy. Once again, the hard evidence for the allegation is nowhere to be seen. All that passes for evidence are stories about a chemical that was supposedly invented in Russia forty years ago (but almost certainly could easily be reproduced a few miles away from Salisbury at Porton Down – or by the CIA), and Oscar-winning performances of righteous rage in parliament by British politicians – not unlike the pantomime we saw in the same theatre a mere fifteen years ago. Another possibility for the sourcing of Russian chemical weapons might be Syria. When Isis (who were actively assisted by western special forces) were enjoying their early successes in that tortured country, they overran some Syrian military bases which could have been storing chemical weapons. Russia has supplied Syria with military equipment in the past, and could have perhaps supplied chemical weapons too. All this happened before Assad destroyed his remaining stockpiles, and may have accounted for why he did so. So Isis could have obtained these chemicals at that time, and they could then have found their way into the hands of the west to be used in exactly the kind of scenario we’re seeing played out now in Salisbury. Shortly after the Salisbury incident, Britain announced it was going to impose trade sanctions on Russia. I bet that had the Kremlin shaking in their boots. Imagine, a country that has almost no natural resources and is incapable of manufacturing anything that Russia can’t make for itself is going to stop trading with the country who supplies it with much of its natural gas. That’s sensible, isn’t it? About the only service that Britain provides in exchange for essential energy supplies is offshore banking – and even that is a service that’s probably used more by Russian gangsters than by the state. Russia is a country that grew up with trade sanctions and for most of the last hundred years has had to go it alone. If there’s anywhere on earth that’s pretty impervious to trade sanctions, it’s Russia. It’s difficult to say for sure why the west has decided in recent years to renew the cold war with Russia. After all, given that Russia is no longer a communist country, that excuse no longer exists, so what other existential threat does Russia present? A likely explanation is that Russia has started to kick back against western assaults in Russian spheres of interest. The first major incident was over Ukraine, once part of the USSR, and a country where the US openly admitted spending $5 billion in a coup to overthrow the lawful Russian-friendly government. Russia openly supports Eastern Ukraine, who wanted no part of the coup, and especially Crimea where a referendum overwhelmingly backed a desire to formally merge with Russia – all of which resulted in something of a defeat for the western warmongers. But possibly the most unacceptable intervention was Russia’s support for the Syrian government which, as a consequence of yet another terrible western-sponsored war, was on the brink of defeat. But when Russia was asked by the lawful Syrian government to help out, the made-in-the-west attempted coup was soon crushed, once again defeating the western warmongers. Unlike the western warmongers, however, Russia has done nothing wrong, and has only supported the people who wanted and asked for its support and invited their military interventions. But that fact will not carry any weight in London or Washington – quite the reverse. It will be seen as a humiliating defeat, and recognition that Russia’s credibility as a force to be reckoned with once again will not pass unnoticed around the world. It’s just like what happens when someone stands up to a common gangster: if the gangster doesn’t strike back hard when he thinks his authority is being undermined he knows he’s going to be seen as weak. Watching Britain’s Foreign Minister Boris Johnson in action over the last couple of weeks has been physically painful. This is someone who was almost unknown until he started appearing a few years ago on a popular news quiz on TV, in his capacity as a journalist. He was popular on the show because he appeared to be a likeable buffoon, someone else who had been educated in one of Britain’s most elite schools and yet who appeared to be as thick as two short planks. No one could take him seriously, yet somehow he has now obtained for himself one of the most important and powerful political positions in the country. Whether he’s insulting Europe, China or Russia with his “laddish humour” or his even more worrying attempts at being serious, watching Johnson at work these days is a bit like watching a bumbling clown playing around with matches at a petrol station – whilst you’re trying to top up your car with fuel. As well as Johnson’s evidence-less ranting and personal attacks on Vladimir Putin, he then affects incredulous anger that Russia is stockpiling deadly nerve agents. Given that Britain’s own Porton Down laboratories, just walking distance away from the Salisbury incident, has been a world leader in this field for many decades, Johnson’s remark is simply breathtaking in its sheer brazen hypocrisy. One of the cornerstones of Britain’s ludicrous “unwritten constitution” is the concept of a “free press” – the notion that our news providers should not be censored. The real purpose of this is supposed to be that those news providers will then fearlessly challenge our great trusted leaders and hold them to account whenever necessary. This almost never happens, as the outrageous and illegal Iraq War of 2003 proved. Then, the great trusted leaders never once had their feet held to the fire by the media; and afterwards, when some of the war crimes were revealed, there were no demands by the media for accountability – for heads to roll – possibly because the media were as complicit as the politicians. In short, our main news providers cannot be trusted, and the theoretically invaluable concept of a free press is nothing but a cynical joke. It could be that Russia is indeed behind the events in Salisbury, even though everything about that possibility defies logic. Why would Russia kill-off an old and washed-up ex-spy in Britain by using an illegal weapon saying “made in Russia” all over it, an ex-spy who they had plenty of time and opportunity to dispatch if they wanted to whilst he was in Russia? Knowing full well the furore such an attack on British soil would provoke, how does that benefit Russia? The anti-Russia hysteria that’s currently being whipped-up by politicians and the mainstream media is ridiculous, a dangerous bid to renew a cold war that benefited no one except the west’s military-industrial-intelligence complex. Before this situation gets out of hand we need hard evidence that Russia is responsible for the Salisbury attack, and we need reasonably independent UN weapons inspectors to examine it – not the same people who produced the dodgy dossier in 2003, nor the same people who provided dodgy evidence to wrongfully convict the “Birmingham Six” and the “Guildford Four” of terrorism, as well as who knows how many other dodgy political convictions in the past. Hysterical politicians grandstanding in parliament and on TV is not evidence. Never forget the Dodgy Dossier. http://clubof.info/

[vileart]

The Girl Who Loved Dramaturgy: Campfire Stories @ Edfringe 2017

Have you ever wanted to bang a dictator?

Campfire Stories Theatre Co.

The Girl Who Loved Stalin

@ The Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2017

Showing at TheSpace @ Jury's Inn, 3pm, 4th-26th August 2017 (excl. Sundays)

Campfire Stories Theatre Company’s bold Fringe debut is a lust-filled extravaganza about online dating, hopeless romanticism, sexual repression and the fall and decline of the Soviet Union in the late Cold War period.

A rough guide to romancing, wining, dining and wooing a communist dictator – whether they’re the real thing or a curly-haired soldier with a self-esteem problem in a cheap costume. Four stories of unconventional romance in Soviet Russia. 

What was the inspiration for this performance?

We'd just finished working on another piece set in Russia and I felt that we hadn't explored every faucet that we could have. The show's dating website angle came from a lot of experiences we'd heard about online dating - funny ones, ridiculous ones and sometimes downright scary ones. The truth really is about online dating that just about anyone who can be into any kind of thing (good or bad) can put themselves out there and we saw that as a really great opportunity to explore dramatically. 

While we can't deny that Catfishing and Stalinism are an odd mix, our experimentation with this piece has really brought out a lot that we didn't expect to see, like how you can incorporate the crumbling decline of the Soviet Union into just about any joke if you try hard enough.

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas? 

I don't think there's any better place for it! The difference between theatre and any other medium is that your audience is subjugated to listen to all of your ideas regardless, primarily because if they don't listen the only other option is to leave and waste however much you paid for a ticket. 

It allows performers to put across a well informed argument, and the whole argument, in a culture where it's all too frequent for people to switch off a film, butt in when you're debating, or merely refute everything outside their own echo chamber. Theatre is one of the few integral medias which allows people to actually say what they want to say without being cut off too soon.

How did you become interested in making performance?

Our company is relatively fresh off the boat in terms of making performance, but we've really become interested in devising in the past few years studying drama and producing our own shows as students. I think we were all originally searching for some kind of artistic outlet and opportunity to experiment and that's what brought us together to create performances. 

We all have our own individual passion about what makes theatre great and that's what is wonderful about being in a company of seven, as we can all bring something different to the table and

everyone has their own reasons for being interested in creating performances.

Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?

The beauty of The Girl Who Loved Stalin, in my opinion, is the fact that it's a constantly redefining piece of theatre. Our script now looks entirely different from the script we produced in January and while that's a scary thing, it also shows how far we've come in developing it. A lot of our backgrounds as actors is comedy and so we've been able to get quite a lot of off the cuff stuff which really adds to the initial sphere of the show. 

It's kind of like a hodgepodge of all the ideas we want to throw in, ironed out to their maximum potential. Sometimes in rehearsals we've found a new niche or element to explore and then spent the next few rehearsals refining it and I've always thought of that being a really great way of designing performance. 

We were really heavily inspired by the work of Dario Fo and so reading his plays has been a great way for us to push ourselves further and further to create something really artistically unique while still sticking to those age old laws of comedy.

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

Given that it's our first major show, I suppose we'll have to wait and see! It certainly has links to, and a basis within our previous show called "The Babushka" (no link to the daytime television show, they stole the name from us as far as I'm concerned) which was also a Russian tragicomedy, but we really wanted to bring something new to things we've done in the past and I think The Girl Who Loved Stalin certainly goes farther in its politics and humour than we've ever delved before.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

I'd like to preface this question by answering first what I hope they won't experience - which is something regurgitated or bland. I hope they don't sit there in silence while our version of Robert Mugabe laments about what kind of a lovelife he enjoys and I hope they won't pass out at seeing some of the more raunchy moments of our play. 

At the end of the day, I hope that they see something that they find a little bit off the wall but still incredibly enjoyable and something that leaves them with a lot of questions and thoughts about the way dating in our society works and also about the feasibility of a Communist state.

From a bawdy housewife to a sex-crazed German soldier, this is a coming of age story about loving your country – maybe a bit too much. Boris is a man whose love life has been about as successful as a North Korean missile system. 

He decides to sign up to a dating website called "TheDickDater.com" which promises love, lust and laughs but finds himself instead dragged across the crumbling Soviet Union by a gay Ketamine dealer called Grigori who only became a matchmaker because he was promised £34 an hour. Will Boris ever meet his match? Is all love destined to fail? Will Communist rule in the Ukraine disintegrate? All questions "The Girl Who Loved Stalin" hopes to answer.

To premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2017, The Girl Who Loved Stalin pulls apart the modern perceptions of romance in an albeit roundabout way. The original script, written by Jake Mace, is blended with audience interaction and occasional improvisation alongside a biting satirical wit and many wild characters – all played by a cast of five. Under the swift co-direction of Tapuwa Pswarayi and Mike Dorey, the show thrives with a lively atmosphere and aims to leave the audience writhing in laughter and somewhat existential self-doubt.

Inventively staged to be performed on a 4x2 metre stage, Technical Director Aden Craig evokes images of propaganda, the digital world and a cramped tech startup office through a blend of creative lighting, set and costumes ranging from old Red Army military jackets to a flaunty floral nightgown. The cast bring to life a myriad of interesting characters. Aditi Mohan debuts as Valeria, Boris' first match and a raunchy Stalin-obsessed socialite heiress. Livvie Newman bounds from her recent research project on sketch comedy in modern media to create Elena, a haughty Crimean housewife almost always on the brink of an erotic euphemism. Tapuwa Pswarayi glitters as the metrosexual Corporal and Father while Jake Mace puts together an eclectic and witty creation in sidekick Grigori. Mike Dorey (Hamlet, 2016, Discarded Nut Theatre, Theatre Royal Winchester) stars as the unfortunate Boris, a flailing, hopeless romantic whose schadenfreude-inducing performance incites laughter, mockery and an array of other reactions ranging from genuine enjoyment to palpable disdain at Boris' incompetence.

All performed against the backdrop of a glittery curtain from Argos, this summer at TheSpace @ Jury's Inn.

http://ift.tt/2bz27Wuwhats-on/girl-who-loved-stalin

http://ift.tt/2rOPnmpgirl-who-loved-stalin

www.campfirestc.com

from the vileblog http://ift.tt/2t7CWWE

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to a special, extra edition of FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): At long last, we have special counsel Robert Mueller’s report into Russian interference in the 2016 election. And compared with Attorney General William Barr’s summary of the report, which he sent to Congress last month, it paints a murkier picture of whether President Trump might have obstructed justice; for example, the report includes details of the president attempting to fire the special counsel.

Ultimately, though, Mueller’s team wrote that it did not have the confidence to clearly state that the president either did or did not obstruct justice and that “while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

So, tell me … now that we have the report, is it a BFD?

ameliatd (Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, senior writer): The obstruction findings were a BFD, to me, because I was surprised by how clear Mueller was in suggesting that Trump had corrupt intent when he took various actions around the Russia investigation (such as firing FBI Director James Comey). That was a big deal, for Mueller to paint such a dark picture of Trump and his White House.

Mueller essentially told the story of a president who’s willing to intervene in ongoing criminal investigations to serve his own ends, and I wasn’t expecting Mueller to do that so directly.

Whether anything will come of that is another question, though, since Mueller himself didn’t actually come to a conclusion on obstruction.

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): “Our analysis led us to conclude that the obstruction-of-justice statutes can validly prohibit a president’s corrupt efforts to use his official powers to curtail, end, or interfere with an investigation.”

That line from the report really stood out to me in contrast to what we’d been hearing from Barr over the past few weeks.

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): There was a whole, whole lot of obstruction documented here. Like 95 on a scale of 1-100, to me. And it sounds like Mueller didn’t conclude that Trump obstructed justice largely because Justice Department guidelines are viewed as not allowing a president to be charged with a crime. Mueller all but said Trump obstructed repeatedly.

ameliatd: There were a lot of things that were pretty different from what we heard from Barr, both in his summary and in his press conference today — it will be interesting to see what happens if Mueller does testify before Congress. I will be curious to hear what he thinks about how Barr handled this.

clare.malone: I agree, Amelia. I sort of wonder if he’ll unburden himself in a lawyerly way.

ameliatd: I am sure that he’ll do some expert hair-splitting. But still. It will have to be hair-splitting to explain some of the discrepancies between how Barr characterized the report/Mueller’s analysis and what we can read in the actual report.

sarahf: Let’s dive into those discrepancies a bit.

What do we think are the key ways in which Barr’s summary and comments in the press conference on Thursday differed from Mueller’s team’s conclusions?

ameliatd: Well, Barr said on Thursday that Mueller’s decision not to come down on obstruction was not driven by an opinion from the Justice Department saying that a sitting president can’t be indicted. And that was important in the wake of the Barr summary because it raised the question — OK, so is Mueller not coming down on this because there just isn’t enough evidence to support obstruction charges?.

Reading Mueller’s report, it is very clear that he started from the position that he couldn’t indict the president and then charted his path from there.

perry: Barr, to me, implied that Mueller couldn’t reach a conclusion on obstruction, like it was a 50-50 call or something, based on the evidence. It looks like Mueller saw obstruction and the question was should he indict based on that or defer to Congress.

clare.malone: I was going to say what Amelia and Perry said. Barr really seemed to have been misleading.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): I’ve mostly read Volume 1 so far — i.e., the collusion/conspiracy part — and there are some discrepancies there as well. Namely, Barr downplays the extent to which people in the Trump campaign were sometimes receptive to efforts to coordinate with Russia. (Although they rebuffed them at other times.)

From the report:

And from Barr’s letter:

perry: Also, Barr in his press conference today implied that Trump was annoyed by the investigation because it was hurting his presidency and the media coverage was bothering him. The report suggests that Trump was worried where the investigation might lead and wanted to stop it by any means necessary.

sarahf: Right. That’s the part of the report that hasn’t gotten as much attention — Mueller’s team wrote that “while the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges.”

ameliatd: Barr’s summary also seemed to imply that the fact that there wasn’t an underlying crime (i.e., nobody within the Trump campaign was ultimately charged with coordinating with Russia) had an impact on whether Trump could have obstructed justice. Mueller said very pointedly that you can charge obstruction without an underlying crime.

perry: Mueller’s team also notes that the collusion/conspiracy/coordination investigation was hampered by Trump allies lying about what happened.

clare.malone: More to the Russia side of things, not obstruction?

I think there’s still the question of why Trump was so into being pro-Russia or accepting help. You could maybe extrapolate that he had business interests …

natesilver: But “evidence not sufficient to support criminal charges” is a lot different than “no evidence” or “no effort to coordinate.” For instance, the stuff about former Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort sharing internal polling data with Konstantin Kilimnik (a Russian political operative with suspected ties to Russian intelligence) — including the emphasis the Trump campaign would go on to place on Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania! — isn’t great for Trump. And Mueller isn’t sure what happened to that data, in part because Manafort isn’t a reliable witness so everything about what he did is murky.

perry: Right, there is “no evidence to support criminal charges” on the collusion part is just way different than nothing happened.

clare.malone: Yeah, especially given the narrow definition that Mueller gave to “collusion.” And we should note that there are a lot of other criminal referrals that came from this investigation, so there’s still some story left to tell.

ameliatd: Clare, to your point, it’s also relevant that Mueller focused very narrowly on 2016 election interference. We don’t know what he found and turned over to other investigators.

One other big unanswered question on the Russia side: Why were all of these people making false statements about their ties to Russia?

natesilver: Maybe because (i) there’s a lot of “smoke,” enough for them to be paranoid even if it all doesn’t amount to a criminal conspiracy to interfere with 2016; and/or (ii) nobody actually is quite sure what happened or what didn’t because the campaign was such a shitshow; and/or (iii) they’re people who lie habitually?

And for the most part, the report confirms media reporting, as well as material uncovered in earlier indictments that Mueller issued.

ameliatd: I genuinely don’t know, Nate. I think the explanation could be any of the above, all of the above or none of the above. It’s just so puzzling. It’s also puzzling that Trump saw the Russia investigation as such a serious threat, and ultimately we’re left with something that’s not so dramatic.

natesilver: The one thing Mueller really seems to go out of his way to bat down is the idea that Russia interfered to change the GOP platform on Ukraine — he seems pretty confident that there’s an innocent-enough explanation for that, which is that Trump had already taken a position on Ukraine on the campaign trail and the campaign/Republicans didn’t want the GOP platform to contradict it.

perry: And he also downplays the idea that former Attorney General Jeff Sessions was involved in much of anything during the campaign.

natesilver: Yeah, he bats down the Sessions stuff too.

clare.malone: One thing that does come across in the report is that a lot of this obstruction stuff was self-inflicted. So, it could be just the idea of Trump being habituated to the “deny, deny, deny” theory of PR. Which, when you’re president, leads you down a pretty dangerous road.

perry: I think I get why he wants to end the investigation. Volume 1 documents:

Trump going around telling former national security advisor Michael Flynn to get Hillary Clinton’s emails.

Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner meeting with Russians to get dirt on Clinton.

The various things Manafort was doing that would all look bad for Trump.

So all of that stuff in total looks pretty bad.

natesilver: For the most part, though, if you were one of those people who, from the Barr memo, characterized the media’s entire Trump-Russia coverage as a gigantic fail … well, the Mueller report itself makes you look pretty dumb. All of the stuff that people were expecting to be in there is pretty much in there. And some of it is reasonably serious! But does it amount to a criminal conspiracy? Mueller thinks not.

perry: Like Volume 2 (obstruction) is worse for Trump than Volume 1 (collusion), but if Trump knew most of what is detailed in Volume 1, I can see why he wanted to stop the investigation.

clare.malone: Volume 2 just lays out a lot of Keystone Kops scenarios: Trump giving different orders to different people, mismanaged responses to media stories dropping, etc.

natesilver: And also, to the extent that his efforts to obstruct the probe were pretty serious, maybe Mueller didn’t find out everything he could have in Volume 1.

The report actually says that at some point, and it seems particularly relevant for the Manafort-related stuff.

I'm not an expert on this stuff, but this seems like an interesting part on page 18 of the PDF that I haven't seen other people point out, where Mueller says his conclusions could conceivably be different if not for witnesses lying, invoking privilege, etc. pic.twitter.com/nRm85Ec4zj

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 18, 2019

ameliatd: It does seem pretty clear that Mueller was frustrated with his inability to get reliable information out of Manafort. I wonder now that the report is out whether we’ll actually see any pardons.

That’s been hanging over the investigation this whole time, and it would actually be unusual, from a historical perspective, if no one implicated in the Mueller investigation ended up being pardoned.

natesilver: I mean, that would be a very risky move for the White House politically.

ameliatd: Right. There’s a reason why presidents wait until they’re on their way out the door to pardon people.

clare.malone: Who do we think the most likely candidates for a pardon are?

ameliatd: Manafort.

clare.malone: Yeah.

ameliatd: Maybe someone like George Papadopoulos, who was a relatively minor figure.

natesilver: But maybe Trump would do it. You sometimes get the sense that the whole way the White House played it was more to soothe Trump’s ego than to necessarily win the battle of public opinion. The press conference this morning didn’t help the White House at all, I don’t think.

perry: Well, the report suggests that Manafort stayed loyal to Trump. But the report also says he was involved in some of the stuff that looks most collusion-like (meeting with Russian officials and discussing poll numbers).

Pardoning Manafort would be a really stupid political move.

But he might do it anyway.

ameliatd: If this report has taught me anything it is that Trump does not think about risk in a way that I understand.

clare.malone: I feel like Trump definitely misses the forest for the trees. ALL THE TIME.

perry: Well, it appears Trump is always trying to get deputies to actually carry out the legally dubious actions.

So I suppose that is smart.

sarahf: OK, on the question of obstruction of justice, though, what did we learn that was particularly damning or mischaracterized by Barr’s interpretation that made it a big deal?

After all, there were some examples in which Mueller’s team said that the president had the prerogative to, say, fire Comey because it didn’t prevent the FBI from continuing its investigation.

But in other instances, Trump was arguably saved from complicated legal issues only because someone in his administration intervened.

ameliatd: It would have been huge if Trump had actually managed to fire Mueller.

clare.malone: Well, the Comey thing is more complicated, though. It’s within Trump’s power to fire the FBI director, but the way he went about it and the reasons given could tilt it more toward obstruction.

perry: The actual activities had been reported — trying to get Mueller fired, firing Comey. But Mueller provided new details that suggest Trump really was behaving in nefarious ways — like deciding to fire Comey but then trying to get Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to say he came up with the idea is pretty bold. And trying to get former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowki to tell Sessions to basically un-recuse himself from the Russia probe and stop parts of the investigation.

ameliatd: And Barr was making it seem like maybe the evidence wasn’t there, when in fact Mueller said he couldn’t charge Trump but he could, in theory, clear him of wrongdoing. Then Mueller explicitly said he could not exonerate Trump, which suggests Mueller does think the evidence was at least somewhat compelling.

perry: The report shows Trump being deeply involved in the details of trying to stop the investigation and obscure his role in stopping the investigation.

ameliatd: Which makes it pretty clear that Mueller found this evidence at the very least compelling, in terms of obstruction. And he didn’t buy arguments from the president’s defenders that Trump couldn’t obstruct justice by firing Comey because it’s one of his constitutional powers, regardless of his motivation.

perry: Right.

ameliatd: I also just want to note that Mueller said explicitly that a president could be charged with obstruction after leaving office. And Barr just closed that door!

natesilver: Are y’all surprised at how wantonly Barr was willing to spin?

clare.malone: No, Nate — I guess not?

natesilver: I mean, I guess I thought that, say, if the actual report were a 5 out of 10 for Trump (on a scale where 0 is terrible and 10 is great), he’d be willing to spin it to a 6 or a 6.5. Instead he tried to spin it to an 8.

ameliatd: I am surprised, if only because it seemed so ill-advised. Eventually, much of the report was going to go to Congress and the public, right? So why be so misleading?

clare.malone: To play to Trump?

perry: I think Nate suggested this in the podcast, but the report would have basically met my expectations if it came out pre-Barr’s summary. But the White House took the Barr letter and framed it as an exoneration. So that made the report even more damning — I expected it to be not that bad, and it was, on the merits, really bad for Trump.

sarahf: So to that point about expectations — how much of the Mueller report did we already have?

ameliatd: I don’t think there’s much of the report that is genuinely new, but there’s a lot we hadn’t heard from Mueller before.

natesilver: Let’s keep in mind: If you’re willing to work for Trump — at, frankly, a lot of risk to your reputation and maybe also some legal risk — then maybe you’re a True Believer after all.

sarahf: But do we really think this is bad for Trump? For example, what do we think Congress actually does next? Or will it be advantageous for Democrats to use this in 2020?

natesilver: It’s not that bad for Trump. It’s a 5 out of 10, relative to pre-Barr letter expectations. But it feels a lot worse because of Barr’s clumsy attempts at spin.

clare.malone: I think Democrats are going to:

Want Mueller to testify.

Face a struggle between leadership (which has resisted impeachment efforts) and a renewed push to start impeachment hearings.

And fundraise off making the full Mueller report available!

perry: The report portrays Trump very negatively. And a report can be bad in a legal sense that is separate from its electoral impact.

ameliatd: One of the main takeaways for me is that the report has given Democrats ammunition to drag this fight out without necessarily calling for impeachment. Instead, they can call Mueller to testify, call Barr to testify, and use what’s in the report to support more investigations.

clare.malone: We’re already seeing Trump campaign emails and videos out today pushing the line that the tables need to be turned and the investigators investigated. We’re already seeing the playbook for how the Mueller report will play out in the campaign: Trump running with the idea that he was persecuted, and Democrats running with the whole “can you believe this guy?” line.

natesilver: The report is bad, but it’s roughly in line with what people would have expected, as Amelia and Perry said. Keep in mind that only 42 percent of the public approves of Trump, and that’s in a really good economy! They don’t think he’s honest about Russia or other things. They also didn’t necessarily expect there to be a smoking gun about collusion/conspiracy. The public was way smarter than the media on this stuff, I think.

ameliatd: Barr’s little intro to obstruction of justice in the press conference, saying that Trump was facing all of these investigations and scrutiny and there was ultimately no collusion, seems like it will be very useful for Trump and his defenders.

perry: So earlier today, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer made this “no impeachment” statement. And as you can see the tweet referring to it was ratioed:

“Based on what we have seen to date, going forward on impeachment is not worthwhile at this point. Very frankly, there is an election in 18 months and the American people will make a judgement,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told @DanaBashCNN .

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) April 18, 2019

natesilver: But Hoyer is right on the politics of this. Impeachment is not a popular option. As Amelia said, call Mueller to testify. Call Barr to testify. Call other people to testify. So you can have a drip, drip, drip against Trump, mostly to satisfy partisans and keep him off balance. But impeachment? Not popular.

clare.malone: The ultimate “Twitter is not the Democratic base” stance!

natesilver: It’s also Trump’s first term. The Nixon/Clinton impeachment efforts both came in the second term, when those presidents were lame ducks and there wasn’t any recourse from the public.

ameliatd: I’m not sure this gives Democrats much fodder for more investigations because the obstruction stuff was so clear and there don’t seem to be many more avenues to explore the 2016 election. Maybe it helps them get momentum to look into Trump’s finances for ties to Russia?

natesilver: Also, if Trump were unpopular enough that he could be not only impeached but also removed by the Senate — which would mean that his approval rating with Republicans would have to be way down — wouldn’t you rather run against him anyway?

That would probably imply he had like a 29 percent approval rating or something, in which case the Democratic nominee in 2020 would be on track to win in an epic landslide and maybe pick up some huge congressional majorities too.

clare.malone: But what does it take for him to slide to that point? And is that a realistic expectation given our political environment, Nate? That just seems to be a pretty unlikely thing to happen.

natesilver: No, I’m not saying that at all.

I’m saying that impeachment won’t actually result in his removal from office unless he’s fallen to like 30 percent.

But if he’s fallen to 30 percent, Democrats don’t want to impeach him because then they’re basically guaranteed a landslide victory in 2020!

ameliatd: And if they impeach him, they risk turning him into a martyr.

sarahf: OK, to wrap … We have the report. And the evidence that Mueller had on the question of obstruction justice was a bigger deal than Barr indicated in his initial summary. But what does the report’s release actually change? Is it a question of who wins the political narrative?

ameliatd: This is the tricky thing about special counsel investigations! If they don’t come to a conclusive result, it’s hard to know what to do with the findings politically.

clare.malone: Basically, Democrats have to keep their base on board with the long-term plan of winning back the White House and not the short-term impulse to impeach.

perry: The question, I think, that is on the table is: What is the non-impeachment remedy for a president who appears to be at least somewhat open to violating norms and/or laws?

natesilver: What does it change going forward? I dunno. The Barr memo didn’t do much to shift public opinion in Trump’s favor, so Occam’s razor is that the Mueller report won’t do much to shift public opinion against him.

I do think it will make the press more skeptical of Barr and any efforts the White House makes to normalize its conduct.

ameliatd: And it does mean we’re going to keep hearing about the investigation, which could be good for Democrats because people are so fired up about it.

natesilver: It certainly describes a White House and a campaign that’s in total disarray. In the end, as Perry said earlier, I think it brings us back to where we were a month ago, where “the Russia stuff” is a negative for Trump and one of the reasons his approval rating is so low but not an acute crisis for him or the first (or second or third or fourth) thing that voters are thinking about.

From ABC News: