#i only drew human sans like once and that was in like 2020 and on paper

[cherry-shipping]

hmm….. perhaps…….. i should give drawing human sans properly a go soon……

[ayuuria]

Yashahime Translation: NewType Magazine October 2020 Issue

Please do not repost this translation without my consent! This includes screenshots of any type and amount. If you wish to share this translation, simply link to this post.

For more information regarding the use of my translations, click here.

This is an old article that was published back in September of 2020, before Yashahime began airing so please keep that in mind as you read this.

REBOOOOOT!! The Challenge for the Next Generation

The Half-Demon Girls Who Fight in the Modern and Feudal Eras

“Inuyasha” is an original story by Takahashi Rumiko that was adapted into an anime in 2000 and became a worldwide hit. The story of the fierce battle with the demon, Naraku, centering around the “Shikon Jewel” said to grant any wish, was put to an end by Inuyasha and Sesshōmaru with the assistance of Kagome and others. After the battle ended, Inuyasha and Kagome married and with the conclusion that they were starting a new life, the curtains on the story drew to a close.

10 years have passed since then. Now entering the Reiwa era, production on a new story about the daughters of Inuyasha and Sesshōmaru entitled “Hanyō no Yashahime” has begun. Production of the anime is being done by Sunrise, who also produced the Inuyasha series. Satō Teruo, who was the assistant director in “Inuyasha The Final Act”, will be taking on the role of director. With series composition being done by Sumisawa Katsuyuki, animation character design by Hishinuma Yoshihito, and Wada Kaoru overseeing the music, the “Inuyasha” staff have gathered once again. The perfect production set-up as been put together with Takahashi Rumiko herself drawing the main character design.

“Hanyō no Yashahime” is an original story by Sumisawa. The protagonists are three girls. Towa and Setsuna are twin sisters and Sesshōmaru is their father. Moroha is the daughter of Inuyasha and Kagome, but she has lived alone since childhood, so she does not have any memories of her parents for the most part. Looked down upon by demons and shunned by humans, what will the girls, who are “half-demons”, battle and what sort of future will they strive for? We had producer Naka Toshikazu and animation character designer Hishinuma Yoshihito, talk about the composition of the plan and their feelings on the production.

The New Charms Coming from the Girls

Higurashi Towa A half-demon girl who has Sesshōmaru’s blood and is extremely skilled in martial arts (possibly inherited from her father). In order to take back her younger twin sister, Setsuna’s, “sleep”, she decides to return to the feudal era.

Towa wears a uniform with slacks, but one can tell she is a girl by her body line and facial expressions. The white hair she inherited from her father, Sesshōmaru, and the red streak in her hair are characteristic.

Setsuna Sesshōmaru’s daughter. She makes a living as a demon slayer. Having had her sleep stolen by the Dream Butterfly, she does not have any memories of her childhood and has forgotten her elder twin sister, Towa.

Setsuna is calm and collected. One can sense that personality from her cool expression as well. She wears a white fur just like her father, Sesshōmaru.

Moroha Wielder of the demon sword, Kurikaramaru, and known as “the monster killing Moroha”. A bounty hunter who specializes in slaying demons. Inuyasha and Kagome’s quarter-demon daughter.

Moroha, who’s characteristic black hair is similar to Kagome’s, wears a big ribbon on her head that is like Inuyasha’s ears. Her mischievous facial expression vaguely feels like her father’s.

[There are bios on their weapons as well, but it’s information that’s already known so I’m skipping it]

It Started with Wanting to do “Inuyasha” Again

— Where did the plan for “Hanyō no Yashahime” stem from?

Naka: Even after production for “Inuyasha The Final Act” ended, the staff and cast headed by producer Suwa (Michihiko) (associated with Yomiuri TV at the time) gathered and continued to go on once a year trips with Rumiko-sensei. There, Suwa-san said, “I want to do an “Inuyasha” TV anime again.” and it seems that was the start. Then the conversation went to if it’s a story about the second generation, we can make it an original story. Sumisawa-san came up with a number of different story concepts and proposed them to Rumiko-sensei. After much back and forth, it was ultimately decided that the daughters of Sesshōmaru would be the protagonists of the story. The anime adaption basically began to proceed immediately after that.

— What do you think is the secret to “Inuyasha”’s popularity?

Naka: It boasted top class popularity not only in Japan but also on major American streaming service, Hulu, and its popularity overseas was very high. This means that the content (of the story) is strong. During a time when Sumisawa-san wasn’t making a concrete move, a fan at an overseas event that he attended said, “I would love for you to make another “Inuyasha” anime.” and he said that that has been one of his driving forces. Currently, it has been streamed and broadcasted in over 30 countries, so in a broad sense, it’s a title that can be dispatched worldwide.

Hishinuma: The setting is the feudal era, but it doesn’t follow true history. In the end, slaying demons is the main (focus), so you can enjoy without having any knowledge. There, it has Rumiko-sensei’s serious drama with the periodic love story and comedy mixed in. That gap is what I think makes it fun. Most likely, the number one reason why there were so many young (children) fans was because the story was easy to watch and understand.

— Regarding the production of “Hanyō no Yashahime”, what points of the previous work were you conscious of?

Naka: Putting together components that were different from the “Inuyasha” charm in every sense. In the previous work, it was a story about a son surpassing his greater demon father. If Inuyasha’s son was the main character and the parents made appearances, the parents would take all the juicy parts. No matter how hard the son tries, he could never surpass his parents. Hence, when we were told that the protagonist would be Sesshōmaru’s daughter, I myself was able to accept it without issue. Moreover, I felt that that would be more fun. It’s easy to imagine what Inuyasha and Kagome’s child would be like, but you could say Sesshōmaru’s children, twins no less, stir up the imagination. Rather than following the structure and story of “Inuyasha” as it was, we thought we could create a work that those who watched the original story could easily accept.

— What sort of meaning is behind the strong impacting catch phrase “Sesshōmaru has a daughter” shown in the teaser?

Naka: I think the appeal of “Inuyasha” is the love triangle between Inuyasha, Kikyō, and Kagome, as well as Sesshōmaru being very cool. That being said, it’s no use tracing the same love triangle structure. Thus, by hitting the spot of sisters Towa and Setsuna being separated, there’s a prominent difference between the previous work, and above all, it would grab the interest of fans who wanted a new work. We’ve remodeled the setting and story, but from a picture and production perspective, it has inherited the comedic feel and screen tempo of a Rumic work.

— Hishinuma-san, what did you think when you saw the drafts that Rumiko-sensei drew?

Hishinuma: I instinctively thought if the lineup was these three, then something fun could be created. Rumiko-sensei advised me not to be too conscious of the “parent” when designing the character’s facial expressions and movements. If these kids were around 20 years old, they would’ve had aspects similar to their parents, but they are simply 14-year-old girls. As I drew, I thought about what these 14-year-old girls, who are a little than what Kagome was back then, would think about as they lived their lives.

— In what way did you make revisions using the draft as a base?

Hishinuma: Setsuna and Moroha, who live in the feudal era, were just like the draft I received, but for Towa, who lives in the modern era, I had to redo her hairstyle a little bit. She has short hair so thinking about how she moves, I did things like adjust the placement of the highlight (in her hair) and add a few details to her uniform. Also, she wears male clothing so in a sense, I tend to draw her roughly, but I consciously make sure that the look in her eyes and her actions are that of a girl.

— What did you enjoy during the character designing process?

Hishinuma: Coming up with the grown-up versions of characters that appeared in the previous work like Kohaku, Kagome’s younger brother Sōta, and Miroku and Sango’s son Hisui, was a lot of fun. Kohaku is set as the head of the demon slayers, so I imagined he built up a lot of experience and matured into an adult. However, he may have let his guard down which could be the reason behind the scar (on his face). I imagined those kinds of things as I drew.

Naka: We’ve put in many different components that both new and old fans can enjoy, so it would make us happy if you could look forward to the broadcasting.

To Fans! Two Points!

It is OK If You Don’t Know the History

The story itself is created in a way that one can enjoy it without having any knowledge of “Inuyasha”. In addition, Naka stated “You don’t need to have any knowledge on the feudal era, so please enjoy it leisurely.” Towa and the others who run around between 2 eras; the expectation of the three girls’ activities heightens!

Pay Attention to the Characters Aside from the Main Ones As Well

Other characters like Miroku and Sango’s son, Hisui, as well as others connected to “Inuyasha” will make an appearance. In addition, there will be designs aside from the main characters that will make one go “They look similar to someone from that work” …? Enjoy Rumiko’s work in every nook and cranny of the screen!

[oumiyuki]

She’s A Mermaid

Happy New Year~! Year 2020! Wow. And I’m gonna start it with Mermaid AU ChikaYou ;) hehe~

Summary: Encountering a mermaid is literally uncalled for. Unexpected. No one would have thought it would happen. But Chika did and now she wishes to meet this mermaid again. And maybe…she’s also falling ocean-deep in love with said mermaid despite being human?

Pairing: ChikaYou

Genre: Fluff, Romance

Read me at fanfiction.net or AO3 too~

Author Notes

Hey baby~ ;D *splash*

Ready for some ChikaYou mermaid AU? Hehe~ ^w^

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ch1 - Mermaid on her mind

                                                   ~~CHIKA~~

Scribble, scribble… Scribble, scribble…

Once again, Takami Chika, a completely average and simple, high school girl had her pencil scratching and doodling into her notebook for English lessons while she sits in class. Crimson eyes trained on her thirty-ninth sketch of a mermaid. Absentmindedly, she chews her bottom lip as she thought back to her encounter with a mermaid.

Usually…when you think of mermaids…you’d imagine beautiful, scaly tail. Perhaps a little glittery. And actually soft to touch.

Chika pokes at her head of orange tresses with the back of her pencil, messing it up a little while thinking, before she darkened the curve of the tail.

Smooth, clear face. Cherry lips despite being underwater most of the time. I mean, I would think being underwater all the time would make it blue or purple…

The orangehead juts her lips out in a big thoughtful frown as she scrutinized the lips of Mermaid She Met #39. It was just a smile. Then she flipped to find #4 which she drew how she remembered those lips – opened wide in surprise.

She was probably as surprised as I was…

Chika almost gets lost in memory again as that exact scene and expression replayed in her head over and over. She replayed it over and over, not wanting to forget.

Anyways! And mermaids would usually have large, captivating eyes and long flowy hair! That’s how a normal mermaid would look like…

Chika prods at the mermaid she drew. Staring at the mermaid she drew…

Oh. Not forgetting the seashell bra. And probably other ocean-themed accessories. That’s what we are shown on television after all!

The orangehead turns her neck to look out the window, fighting her face’s desire to heat up. She could smell the salt in the air from the ocean though they weren’t close enough to see it from the school.

I wonder what that mermaid I met smells like…Saltwater? Fishes? Sunshine? Human…ish?

Chika shakes her head to fall out of that thought. Her shoulders slumping as she tried to get back on track; comparing what the “usual” mermaid image is to the actual mermaid she bumped into.

I thought all of that. I did! But…the mermaid I met wasn’t exactly like the rumoured mermaids!

Chika furrowed her eyebrows as she flipped over to Mermaid She Met #2.

First thing… She had short hair…Reaching around her shoulder…It was kind of wavy, curly…messy? How does it not stay wet and flat? And, it’s a stormy yet…shiny kind of grey-ish…

Chika couldn’t quite stick to one adjective when describing the mermaid. She caresses the hair of the mermaid she drew. Thinking. Thinking. Wondering. Her fingers sliding down to the curve of the tail, lifting the mermaid above waters.

Okay, she has the beautiful, scaly tail. It looked so…beautiful! Ocean blue tail, that seem to sparkle and…

Chika started to look a little dazed as she conjured up her memory of that mermaid.

It was the exact same shade as her wide, captivating, eyes… Could I swim in those?

Chika probably daydreamed of the mermaid for a few lengthy seconds before she came back to her senses. Mind still on the mermaid, no doubt there. But now she looked at her drawing again.

I didn’t get to touch her yet…So I’m not sure if her tail is soft to touch.

Chika’s pointer finger was a tad black from rubbing her fingers over the drawing; she’s glad it doesn’t smudge, but she’s going to have to wash her hands later.

She definitely has a smooth, clear face. She looks at me shocked but that pale skin…and roundness… I bet it’s real nice to touch her cheeks. And those lips…

Chika couldn’t keep looking at the mermaid now, even in art form. Chika couldn’t fight the blush that was appearing full strength on her face, up to her ears.

I…I couldn’t help but think of kissing them, okay?! Sheesh, why am I making myself admit to this again? Ahhh. It’s so embarrassing.

Chika buries her face in her hands for a good minute, holding back her whines of protests against her own heart-racing, blush-inducing ideas. Breathing out noisily, she brings back her focus to her analysis on the mermaid.

That, however, only served to make her cheeks illuminate and re-heat itself.

Errrr……Mmmnn…And she wasn’t wearing a seashell bra. It wasn’t starfishes either… Not clams. Not fishes. Not even stingrays! Or ethereal light! She- She- She…

Chika felt like her head was going to explode when remembering that part of the encounter with the mermaid.

She was naked from the top…

Chika closed her eyes hoping to erase that image. To stop herself from staring, even in her memories. That wasn’t helping so she opened them to stare at the trees outside the classroom.

Wait, or was she entirely naked? Does the tail count as clothing or skin?

Chika starts another weird train of thought as she thinks back to the mermaid making eye contact with her that fateful day. The mermaid, beautiful but horrified expression, down to that voluptuous figure…

Chika felt like the room was getting way too hot and it wasn’t just because it was mid-Summer!

Chika holds her head in her hands, her mind filled with nothing but the pretty mermaid.

Uuu…...

Nnnmm…

My first encounter with a mermaid…

Was with a mermaid that had messy, grey, shoulder-length hair…was nude. And I can’t stop thinking about her ever since she splashed-dived back into the ocean without a word two weeks ago.

Chika drops her head to the table with a thud and began groaning as she rolled her head from side to side, forgetting that she was still in school and was now disrupting the Summer Remedial class.

The teacher turns around and shoots a warning glare at the orangehead. “Don’t be noisy, Takami-san. And pay attention.”

Chika stopped groaning and sat back upright. Her thoughts not on the English lesson. She wanted to meet the mermaid again. To confirm that reality. That the mermaid she encountered for only, probably, just five seconds, was real.

Ahhh…I wanna see her again. I wanna see that mermaid and talk to her! That mermaid… with that wavy, grey curls, magical ocean blue eyes, curvy, scaly, sparkly tail…Boobs…

Chika’s eyes glazed over and her mouth slightly open, thankfully not drooling, as red spread across her cheeks, nose, ears and neck. It took a moment for her brain go reboot and veer away from thoughts of the mermaid’s top to more simple desires.

Mermaids… Mermaid… Her… I WANT TO MEET HER AGAIN! MERMAID!!! WHERE ARE YOU??!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author Notes

A chapter full of longing. Thinking. Desiring. And just, Chika thinking of Mermaid!You she met for a simple 5 seconds and have yet to meet again. XD

Gaaah! I wanna meet Mermaid!You too~ XD hehe~

So. I have always wanted to write a Mermaid AU. So many, so, so many ideas for it. And have finally started on one. Officially. XD

I hope you love this~ ;)))

I gotta go grab my lunch now, but hey, leave me comments if you like! (I’ll come swimming back at full speed to read them XD)

See you next splash!

[bbclesmis]

Andrew Davies Preps For The End Of One Series And The Beginning Of Another

Screenwriter Andrew Davies has been a true master of modern television adaptations, brining such iconic works as Middlemarch and Little Dorit to the MASTERPIECE screen for decades. Now, as he looks ahead to the end of his critically-acclaimed recent adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, Davies also previews his charming new adaptation of Jane Austen’s unfinished final novel, Sanditon, set to appear on MASTERPIECE in 2020.

Download and subscribe on: iTunes | Stitcher| RadioPublic

Transcript:

Jace Lacob: I’m Jace Lacob, and you’re listening to MASTERPIECE Studio.

This week on Les Misérables, ten more years have passed, and Valjean and a now-teenaged Cosette are living in a Parisian convent while Javert, now in charge of the capital city’s police force, continues to hunt his ever-elusive quarry.

CLIP

Cosette: What was my mother like?

Jean Valjean: Don’t make me speak of it. She was one of my workers and I dismissed her.

Cosette: What for?

Jean Valjean: For nothing, for concealing the truth.

Jace: Here to discuss the narrative time-jump and simmering political and personal tensions in Les Misérables is writer Andrew Davies. Davies has been one of the United Kingdom’s most prolific screenwriters, bringing his sumptuous adaptations of titles as varied as Middlemarch and Little Dorrit to MASTERPIECE for decades. Davies is already on the job for his next big MASTERPIECE series: a bold new adaptation and completion of Jane Austen’s tragically unfinished final novel, Sanditon. But with a few more episodes of Les Misérables to go, he offers a preview of the upcoming conclusion of his French revolutionary drama series.

Andrew Davies: Sometimes it’s the best not to kind of explain it to the audience just to say, you know, ‘Here it is. This moved and also baffled me. You know, let’s see what you make of it.’

Jace: Davies joins MASTERPIECE to talk Sanditon, the morals of Les Misérables, and his remarkable legacy as a true master of screenwriting.

And this week we are joined by Les Misérables writer Andrew Davies, welcome.

Andrew: Thank you.

Jace: What drew you to adapting Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables? And why is now the perfect time for such an adaptation of that specific book?

Andrew: It’s a big daunting kind of thing. And it probably wouldn’t be something that I’d have voluntarily just suggested to anybody. It’s not really my kind of book, in the sense that Jane Austen is my kind of author, because I’m reading it in translation. It’s great virtues are not to do with subtleties and wit. And, you know, the little varieties of human behavior. It’s a big kind of book. It reminds me of the Bible. You know, it’s so strong, it’s so iconic. It was suggested to me, and I read it, and I was kind of bowled over by it, by the strength of it and also by the sonorities and the echoes of like the world we live in today. A divided society, certainly, as far as UK and France are concerned but you know, maybe America as well, in which there are there are the haves and the have-nots and this is a book predominantly about the have-nots. It seemed very apposite and contemporary to do this book now.

Jace: True or false: your tagline for the project was, ‘Nobody sings’?

Andrew: That’s true, yes. Yes, that’s right. We came across that quite early on.

Jace: You were quoted in The Telegraph as saying that this adaptation quote, ‘Will rescue Victor Hugo’s novel from the clutches of that awful music with its doggerel lyrics.’ Fans of the musical and some of its cast members were not pleased with your words. How do you react to their retorts?

Andrew: Well I mean, of course they were! I was very rude about the musical, but you know, you have to say what you think, don’t you? You have to be honest. I know a lot of people love the musical, but I thought it was a very feeble attempt to represent the novel. I completely accept that other people disagree with me. That’s the way it is it, isn’t it?

Jace: This version of Les Misérables sans singing gives us instead backstories of Fantine and Jean Valjean. We’re privy to very different aspects of these characters. A lighthearted romantic Fantine, a raging, almost feral Valjean.

CLIP

Jean Valjean: How could I not have a heart full of bitterness and hatred? I’d like to see you after nineteen years in the hulks! So don’t preach to me about God and love.

Bishop: I beg your pardon, forgive me, I should have considered your feelings.

Jace: Was it important to you to focus the first episode on these untold stories?

Andrew: Oh yes and I like the way you characterize Jean Valjean raging, almost feral. Yes, sure. I think that’s that’s kind of where it comes from my first encounter with Les Misérables was when I was a little boy, I had a book called, Great Stories From the Classics, and it was little little petite extracts and it was a story of the Bishop’s candlesticks, and I saw, you know this poor Bishop, here comes this this terrifying figure who’s, you know, hardly human. He is so rough and so rude. And I found it quite hard to understand the behavior of the Bishop and also the behavior of Jean Valjean after the Bishop been so kind. You know, I thought surely he should be terribly grateful. Instead he robs the Bishop and then the Bishop not only forgives him, but gives him more things. And that that that kind of puzzled me. But that I wanted to, I don’t know, preserve that sense of and it comes across in the book I think of how frightened people are of Valjean because he’s a man of extraordinary power and strength and he’s so resentful against society, because of society, what society has done to him that I wanted to keep that frightening aspect of him. And that gets echoed later on in the story, when he takes Cosette out to see the dawn rising over the gates of Paris. It turns out that really he wants to see the convicts.

CLIP

Cosette: Can they really be men?

Valjean: Yes, they are men. They are men like me. Cosette?

Cosette: I think if I crossed paths with one of those men, I think I would die. Just from looking him in the face.

Andrew: It’s so strange it’s not like it’s like kind of novels you normally read, is it? It’s like something it’s like a kind of solemn mystical religious tale, you know, more than a book. You know, you could live your life by this book, somehow.

Jace: You could. I mean, it’s about a monster who becomes a man, and a man who becomes a monster and sort of the inherent complexities of humanity. It’s interesting to me because we we get a glimpse of Fantine. Traditionally we sort of picture her sort of a tragic sex worker. We get to see her entire backstory here. She’s given entirely new dimensions. Javert, however still remains a bit of a mystery. Did you consider filling in his backstory at all? I mean we get the fact that he was raised in a prison. But to see that additional dimension.

Andrew: Yeah. It would mean going too far back, too far back in flashback or whatever. Yeah, I could have done it. And one of those strange things that struck as somebody reminded me when we’d been developing the story for sometime, somebody said, ‘Valjean and Javert both seemed to be virgins,’ which is so extraordinary. You know, two mature men, and we don’t have any account of either of them having a loving relationship or a sexual relationship. Maybe sex is unimportant to Javert. And then having met Jean Valjean, he gets so annoyed with him that this develops into a kind of obsession, which is like a twisted love affair. And it’s like, Jean Valjean doesn’t seem interested in Javert at all, except as part of the forces that he’s fighting against. Once he gets out of prison, he never gives Javert another thought until he comes into his world and starts tormenting him.

CLIP

Rivette: That’s one man out of hundreds — and that was a decade ago. He may have been dead for years.

Javert: No, no, I am convinced that he is still alive and here in Paris, laughing at us. I shall never be at peace until he is back in chains.

Andrew: And one of the things I did in the adaptation I think was because I just couldn’t believe that coincidence that I would turn up and then having turned up that neither of them would recognise each other. I mean that’s way Hugo has it in the story. I think well, actually it makes it much richer. If you think there has I heard about this guy and he thinks I’m beat it’s that guy I had in jail and I bet he’s been committing crimes all the time and I just want to see him again. And I want to trap him. I want to nail him. I want to get him in my power. And so then it becomes a situation where they both know, but neither of them is letting on. Yeah, Javert is just waiting for Jean Valjean to reveal himself.

Jace: You’ve become known as a master of adaptations. You once said it gave you ‘A wicked thrill’ to cut down War and Peace. Are there any sacred cows when it comes to adapting fiction?

Andrew: No, I don’t think so. But I’m aware that these great books are not called Great Books for nothing. I mean these guys knew what they were doing. So I do respect the excellence of the original. But having said that, an adaptation is my take on them. It’s not the definitive one, necessarily, but I think it’s my job and my duty to get my reading of a book, not just try to humbly prostrate myself before the Great Author.

Jace: Given that you’re adapting rather colossal tomes for the screen, how do you prioritize or decide what makes it in and what doesn’t?

Andrew: I do a thing at the beginning, after a first reading, or my most recent rereading if I’ve read it long ago in the past, ask myself, ‘What really is the story here? Whose story is it? Who do we love? Who do we need to keep at the forefront of our minds?’ And base the whole adaptation around those two questions.

Jace: And how much of that decision making is personal versus thinking about what the audience might want or need?

Andrew: Um, entirely personal. I obviously I’m concerned about the audience but the audience is something very amorphous. I think the first audience as being me. I want to write something that I would like to see and that I would enjoy seeing, and there is something that I think most people wouldn’t realize which is that the first people that see it the people the time working closely with and they’re three or four very clever, very sympathetic, very clued up young people who are decades and decades younger than me, and close behind pleasing myself, I want to please them. And I don’t think of the audience in general. I think when I’m writing it, ‘Have I got it right for myself?’ and then I think, ‘Oh Laura’s going to laugh at this, Will is going to be moved by that.’ So those thoughts are quite uppermost in my mind.

Jace: Before this next question, a quick word from our sponsors…

Jace: Now this week’s episode moves the action forward to 1832. We find a teenaged Cosette and Jean Valjean are still living at the convent. How did you decide where to place the time jump in the series? Was there always a notion that it would be at sort of a natural halfway point?

Andrew: I think Hugo himself helps us here, I mean he did this, we don’t get a lot of detail about how Cosette goes from age 6 or 7 to 16 or 17. We find her again a fully changed character, from being this abused little girl who’s clearly a survivor. And little Cosette is somebody who, when she’s shown love, reciprocates and she hasn’t been too damaged by all the abuse she’s suffered. And they have one of those almost idealized, perfect father daughter relationships. I invested a lot of emotion myself, I’m the father of a daughter. And there’s just a brief period in the girl’s life when her father is just everything, and she falls in love with you. And and then she’s going to gradually, yeah change, and of course Jean Valjean who’s known no love in his life before, can’t bear it that this is going to change.

Jace: You mentioned briefly earlier about Javert happening onto Montreuil where Jean Valjean just happens to have set himself up. Les Misérables relies rather heavily on coincidence — Marius ends up in Valjean and Cosette’s old flat next to the Thenardiers, whom his father told him saved him during the war. Cosette that ends up with the doll made of her dead mother’s hair. Should these occurrences be read as coincidence or as providence?

Andrew: Well I think again, as I said before this is one of those books, it’s not like an ordinary book. I’ve tried to sort out or explain or get away from some of the coincidences, but I guess some of the things in the book you’ve just got to understand. We don’t know for definite that the doll is made out of her mother’s hair, but it might be, because it could be the same guy. I mean he goes around the country, ‘I’m buying and selling I’m selling and I’m buying.’ And the teeth and the hair the get redistributed again and again.

Jace: Marius meets Eponine, and she tries to tempt him through a peephole in the wall. His romantic attraction to Cosette is complicated by sexual desire for Eponine which culminates in a we’ll say vivid dream he has. What were your intentions with this scene and with Marius’s sense of guilt?

Andrew: Well I was just fascinated by by Eponine and her character and just her juxtaposition with Marius at this stage. In the book, Marius is just such a po faced puppet, really. And I wanted, you know, to make him more like you know a real young man who’s been, I mean. In a way, like like most of the kids in this book, he’s been abused. I mean his upbringing was ridiculously privileged but he’s been brought up as a kind of little fascist, really. And he’s worked out for himself that with some prompting that some in his grandfather’s view is biased and crazy. And that he’s got to work out his own and things and of course here’s this here’s this girl who’s possibly a teenage prostitute. It’s never absolutely clear what she does, and she’s living next door and she likes him. And I just think it’s I always like if I can find any sources for humor in these these these sort of grand, iconic books and the situation where he has this pure romantic love for Cosette, but there’s this girl next door who’s sort of tempting him physically, and so I couldn’t resist giving him an erotic dream about the wrong girl. He wants to have a dream about Cosette, which is all kind of pure and kissy-kissy. Instead he finds she’s she’s changed into Eponine, who has a more kind of direct and visceral appeal. I suppose for him though from Eponine’s point of view, Eponine has a kind of pure attraction for. She just thinks he’s lovely and she’d do anything for him. I mean he’s he’s a you know a different kind of boy from the kind of boys she’s known.

Jace: There’s a massive fight sequence between Valjean and the Thenardiers and their criminal associates who ambush him, and ultimately Javert shows up as well.

CLIP

Valjean: You dare to threaten my Cosette? You think you can do anything to impress me? Look! Now do your worst!

Jace: How difficult was it to write this pivotal action sequence?

Andrew: I thought it was difficult because it’s so strange in the book. The most vivid thing in all this encounter, is that he allows himself to be overpowered and bound and then his superhuman strength is a given in the story. So he throws them all off, and proceeds to take this iron out of the fire and wound himself with it in order to demonstrate how puny any effort to frighten him about that kind of thing would be. So it’s again, it’s, you keep getting these things that are, you know, not rational and not logical and something like a kind of mystical text.

Jace: I mean it is craziest thing.

Andrew: That we need to reflect on and say, ‘Well what is that? What could that mean?’

Jace: That moment is the craziest of all craziness. Because he does burn himself. It is a demonstration of sort of his strength and his fearsomeness and it sort of is that moment where he allows the monster to come out that he’s been containing, it is sort of his true self. I mean, what were you trying to convey with that precise action?

Andrew: I was just trying to I don’t know, represent that episode in the book, I think. And it was something that I found you know very powerful and moving, but hard to understand. And sometimes, you know, it’s the best not to kind of explain it to the audience, just to say, ‘Yeah here it is. This moved and also baffled me. You know, let’s see what you make of it.’

Jace: We have an Andrew Davies adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sanditon on the horizon. Austen only wrote about 100 pages of that fragment. Was it challenging or liberating getting to finish an unfinished work of Jane Austen?

Andrew: Well it was, but it was both both challenging and liberating. It’s odd, it’s just a fragment, it’s quite a long fragment, I would imagine she would have ruthlessly edited the hundred or so pages that she wrote, because I find that there was enough for half the first episode, but that was all in her hundred pages. But she did get to introduce the characters and set out the situation and that was a really bold departure for Jane Austen, because the situation is the transformation of a little seaside village into a fashionable seaside resort like Brighton or somewhere like that. And the characters are again a departure. Of course, we’ve got our young heroine, who is a fairly typical Jane Austen heroine. She’s a bit like a rather more clued up version of Catherine Morland out of Northanger Abbey, she’s come from a large family of which she’s the oldest girl. So she’s quite sussed out about farm life and looking after her younger sisters. But she gets pushed into a new world with a lot of different people who are different from all the sorts of people that she’s known before. And crucially these main people, they’re not kind of aristocrats or gentleman farmers, they are business people, they’re entrepreneurs. They want to make a new world and make themselves some money. And you know, that’s different from all Jane Austen’s characters before and and so a lot of the novel is about things like raising money, attracting celebrities, trying to build momentum.  How modern! And also it’s got Jane Austen’s first black character, who’s an heiress from the West Indies with a fortune. I’ve said it was a hundred thousand pounds, which is huge for those days but it makes it so, on the one hand, she will encounter of course a lot of prejudice because this an England seaside village, no one will ever seen a black person before. But on the other hand, whoever marries her is going to be set up for life. So that’s an interesting situation. And then you’ve got the local rich lady, who’s got lots of money that she might leave to this person or this person or this person. And so we’ve got several people who are after her money. And of course, an entrepreneurial family of brothers all need her money as an investment. And so we’ve got a wonderful situation I think to start a story, and it was very liberating to write it. And also I was very, very much in mind that this Regency period where it’s set. She set it, I think well, she was writing it in 1820, so I thought, let’s let’s go for 1820, which was late Regency period. A period of extreme kind of looseness in society, really, which was much more dissolute,  and actually than we’ve got today. Jane Austen knew all about that stuff, but she always kept it below the surface with discrete references. We’re not going to be so discreet.

Jace: I’d expect nothing less. Andrew Davies, thank you so very much.

Andrew: Thank you.

Jace: MASTERPIECE viewers already on the edge of their seats thanks to Season 3 of Unforgotten won’t want to miss next week’s podcast, where we go behind the scenes with this season’s horrific killer as DCI Cassie Stuart and DI Sunny Khan catch their prey.

CLIP

Sunny: The ticket was issued at 6:20 a.m, on the A-405.

Cassie: Which is where?

Sunny: About six miles outside Middenham.

Cassie: And was he heading to, or from?                                                      

Sunny: From.

Jace: That’s next Sunday, May 12, following the explosive third season finale of Unforgotten.

MASTERPIECE Studio is hosted by me, Jace Lacob and produced by Nick Andersen. Elisheba Ittoop is our editor. Susanne Simpson is our executive producer. The executive producer of MASTERPIECE is Rebecca Eaton.

[brajeshupadhyay]

China’s Xi Jinping Declares War on Food Waste

Chinese regulators are calling out livestreamers who binge-eat for promoting excessive consumption. A school said it would bar students from applying for scholarships if their daily leftovers exceeded a set amount. A restaurant placed electronic scales at its entrance for customers to weigh themselves to avoid ordering too much.

China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has declared a war on the “shocking and distressing” squandering of food, and the nation is racing to respond, with some going to greater extremes than others.

The ruling Communist Party has long sought to portray Mr. Xi as a fighter of excess and gluttony in officialdom, but this new call for gastronomic discipline is aimed at the public and carries a special urgency. When it comes to food security, Mr. Xi said, Chinese citizens should maintain a sense of crisis because of vulnerabilities exposed by the coronavirus pandemic.

“Cultivate thrifty habits and foster a social environment where waste is shameful and thriftiness is applaudable,” Mr. Xi said in a directive carried by the official People’s Daily newspaper last week.

Mr. Xi’s edict is part of a broader message from the leadership in recent weeks about the importance of self-reliance in a time of tensions with the United States and other economic partners. The concern is that import disruptions caused by the global geopolitical turmoil, the pandemic and trade tensions with the Trump administration, as well as some of China’s worst floods this year, could cut into food supplies.

But like so many top-down orders in China, the vaguely worded directive prompted a flurry of speculation. State news media moved quickly to tamp down panic about imminent food shortages, reporting that China had recently seen consecutive bumper grain harvests and record high grain output.

The edict was also met with sometimes ham-handed measures. The restaurant that offered to weigh patrons in the central Chinese city of Changsha quickly drew a backlash and was forced to apologize over the weekend.

“Our intention was to advocate not wasting food and for people to order in a healthy way,” the restaurant said. “We never forced customers to weigh themselves.”

Mr. Xi’s “clean plate” campaign strikes at the heart of dining culture in China. Custom dictates that ordering extra dishes and leaving food behind are ways to demonstrate generosity toward one’s relatives, clients, business partners and important guests.

Such habits have contributed to an estimated 17 million to 18 million tons of food being discarded annually, an amount that could feed 30 million to 50 million people for a year, according to a study by the Chinese Academy of Science and the World Wildlife Fund.

Mr. Xi’s call is as much a warning against the dangers of profligacy as it is a reflection of the generational shift in values that has emerged as living standards rise.

Austerity campaigns can seem out of place in modern China, where cities with gleaming skyscrapers and luxury malls buzz with fancy cars. But they were common in the era of Mao Zedong, when the People’s Daily would urge citizens to “eat only two meals a day, one of which should be soft and liquid.”

Wang Yaqin, a 79-year-old retiree in the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin, remembers the several years of famine precipitated by Mao’s disastrous Great Leap Forward campaign from 1958 to 1962. In that campaign, in which Mao ordered peasants to reorganize into communes and build backyard steel furnaces to catch up with the West, food supplies plummeted, officials falsely inflated grain harvests, and by some estimates 45 million people starved.

During those years, Ms. Wang said, there was little else to eat besides beet pulp — commonly used to feed horses and cattle — mixed with sweet corn noodles.

Though food is now plentiful, Ms. Wang remains uneasy with simply tossing it out. Once, she said, she even retrieved some dumplings that her children had thrown away, rinsing and eating them.

“This campaign is brilliant,” said Ms. Wang in a telephone interview. “Although it seems like a small thing, it’s good if even one watt of electricity and one drop of water can be saved.”

Many among the country’s younger generation, such as Samantha Pan, a 21-year-old student in Guangzhou, embrace being free from having to worry about saving food for a rainy day, and hold little regard for the state’s moral exhortations.

“This type of initiative is very boring and useless,” Ms. Pan said in a telephone interview. “I am entitled to order as much food as I want. If I just happen to love wasting food, it’s still my freedom.”

For Mr. Xi, the issue of food security has taken on more importance as China grapples with overlapping crises including a shaky economy and severe floods that have left large swaths of the country’s farmland under water.

Food prices climbed about 13 percent in July compared with a year ago, according to official statistics. The price of pork, a staple food for many Chinese families, increased by about 85 percent during that same period, in part because the floods affected production and transportation.

Farmers in the central Chinese province of Henan, a crucial grain-producing region, admitted to stockpiling much of their grain harvests this year in the hopes of selling for higher prices later, according to a report published on Monday in the party-backed China Youth Daily newspaper.

As tensions with other countries have risen, the party has been girding itself for the possibility of being cut off internationally — and making sure it can produce enough food to feed China’s 1.4 billion people.

The Coronavirus Outbreak ›

Frequently Asked Questions

Updated August 17, 2020

Why does standing six feet away from others help?

The coronavirus spreads primarily through droplets from your mouth and nose, especially when you cough or sneeze. The C.D.C., one of the organizations using that measure, bases its recommendation of six feet on the idea that most large droplets that people expel when they cough or sneeze will fall to the ground within six feet. But six feet has never been a magic number that guarantees complete protection. Sneezes, for instance, can launch droplets a lot farther than six feet, according to a recent study. It’s a rule of thumb: You should be safest standing six feet apart outside, especially when it’s windy. But keep a mask on at all times, even when you think you’re far enough apart.

I have antibodies. Am I now immune?

As of right now, that seems likely, for at least several months. There have been frightening accounts of people suffering what seems to be a second bout of Covid-19. But experts say these patients may have a drawn-out course of infection, with the virus taking a slow toll weeks to months after initial exposure. People infected with the coronavirus typically produce immune molecules called antibodies, which are protective proteins made in response to an infection. These antibodies may last in the body only two to three months, which may seem worrisome, but that’s perfectly normal after an acute infection subsides, said Dr. Michael Mina, an immunologist at Harvard University. It may be possible to get the coronavirus again, but it’s highly unlikely that it would be possible in a short window of time from initial infection or make people sicker the second time.

I’m a small-business owner. Can I get relief?

The stimulus bills enacted in March offer help for the millions of American small businesses. Those eligible for aid are businesses and nonprofit organizations with fewer than 500 workers, including sole proprietorships, independent contractors and freelancers. Some larger companies in some industries are also eligible. The help being offered, which is being managed by the Small Business Administration, includes the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. But lots of folks have not yet seen payouts. Even those who have received help are confused: The rules are draconian, and some are stuck sitting on money they don’t know how to use. Many small-business owners are getting less than they expected or not hearing anything at all.

What are my rights if I am worried about going back to work?

What is school going to look like in September?

It is unlikely that many schools will return to a normal schedule this fall, requiring the grind of online learning, makeshift child care and stunted workdays to continue. California’s two largest public school districts — Los Angeles and San Diego — said on July 13, that instruction will be remote-only in the fall, citing concerns that surging coronavirus infections in their areas pose too dire a risk for students and teachers. Together, the two districts enroll some 825,000 students. They are the largest in the country so far to abandon plans for even a partial physical return to classrooms when they reopen in August. For other districts, the solution won’t be an all-or-nothing approach. Many systems, including the nation’s largest, New York City, are devising hybrid plans that involve spending some days in classrooms and other days online. There’s no national policy on this yet, so check with your municipal school system regularly to see what is happening in your community.

“In an ideal environment, international relations would be very good and China could freely import food from other places,” said Hu Xingdou, a Beijing-based political economist. “But practically speaking, China may have some big problems.”

Wu Qiang, a political analyst based in Beijing, said the pandemic and the floods were reminiscent of the challenges that dogged China’s emperors, whose legitimacy largely rested on their perceived ability to maintain harmony between humans and nature.

By taking steps to pre-empt a food shortage, Mr. Xi is showing that he recognizes the challenge these crises, if left unchecked, could pose to his hold on power, Mr. Wu said. “So now he’s pushing the responsibility onto the people, telling them to be thrifty,” he said.

But some restaurant owners are reluctant to bear the cost of Mr. Xi’s clean plate campaign.

Jimmy Zhang, the owner of a home-style restaurant in the city of Linyi, in the eastern province of Shandong, said he supported Mr. Xi’s call but didn’t want to encourage customers to order fewer dishes.

“What the country is promoting is good, but as a citizen, the policies are too far away from me,” said Mr. Zhang, adding that the costs of rent and employee salaries were rising. “There’s no way I can support them without losing money.”

The campaign also throws into question the entire business model driving a niche corner of the Chinese internet — livestreamers who have found fame by recording themselves eating vast amounts of food.

Known as “big stomach kings,” many such video bloggers draw hordes of fans and rely on these shows for income. China’s state-run broadcaster, C.C.T.V., slammed such performances in a recent commentary headlined: “Livestreaming is fine, but do not use food as your props!”

China’s biggest short-video and social media platforms — including Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, and Kuaishou — said they would punish users seen to be wasting food in their broadcasts.

A video blogger, who until recently went by the name “Big Stomach Mini” and once ate an entire roasted lamb in one meal, posted a new video on her social media page last week in which she urged her followers to savor every bite of food and take home leftovers. The video drew messages of support from some of her 11 million fans.

“There’s nothing wrong with enjoying delicious cuisine,” said the blogger, who has since changed her name to the more austere-sounding “Dimple Mini.” “But please don’t be extravagant and wasteful.”

The post China’s Xi Jinping Declares War on Food Waste appeared first on Shri Times News.

from WordPress https://ift.tt/31hLwm2 via Blogger https://ift.tt/2EpBqXe

[hellofastestnewsfan]

I didn’t remember having signed up to host a high-school senior in my freshman dorm room, but suddenly there she was, fresh off the train from her yeshiva in New York, suitcase in hand. She didn’t look like a yeshiva girl. Or even really like a New Yorker. She looked like a Malibu-born-and-bred hippie even back then, with her straight blond hair, her perfectly worn-in Levi’s, her giant eyes that drew you in and threatened to drown you. “Hi. They told me I was staying here this weekend. I’m Lizzie Wurtzel.” She dropped her suitcase on the floor and flopped on my couch.

It was 1984. I couldn’t check my answering machine for a message from the admissions office heralding her arrival, because I didn’t have one. I couldn’t send the office an email to make sure this wasn’t a big mistake, because we were all still using typewriters. Plus I was instantly captivated: What was her deal? In my memory of that day, she still glows yellow. “Welcome to Matthews,” I said, which was the name of my dorm.

“So do you like this school?” she said, getting straight to the point. She’d heard the social life could be boring.

All I knew about Harvard’s social life at that point, in the fall of my freshman year, was that it seemed to be nonexistent unless you were in an all-male final club or invited to attend a party at one. I told her about the giant bus that had picked up select freshman girls—those of us who had been plucked based on our photos in the freshman facebook—and then driven to a party with too much grain alcohol and not enough restraint. Consent was not yet part of the college vernacular.

“Sounds fun!” said Liz, and she meant this earnestly, not eye-rollingly. Four years later, in The Harvard Crimson, where we both became columnists, she would write: “I cannot deny that I have spent a fair amount of my time at Harvard at final clubs. I have drunk their liquor, snorted their cocaine, smoked their pot, popped their ecstasy, eaten their food and danced on their floors. I have no right to say what I'm about to say … But of all the stupid and morally questionable things I have done in the name of a good time—and there have been a few—I cannot forgive myself for hanging out at final clubs.”

The next thing I knew she was browsing my bookshelf, snooping. Wanting to know why I had so many issues of Seventeen magazine.

I told her I’d had a column for the magazine in high school, which I was supposed to have continued writing once I’d arrived at college, but with my schedule of classes and all the reading I had to do, I could never find time.

“I have time!” she said. “What’s your editor’s number?”

The next thing I knew, she had taken over my column.

Years later, she wouldn’t exactly thank me, but she would say that meeting a teen girl who’d published articles in a real magazine had given her the courage to do the same.

By the time of her arrival at Harvard the following fall––now Liz instead of Lizzie––she was instantly college famous. Within weeks on campus, everyone knew who Liz Wurtzel was. How could you not? Particularly after the popped-cherry party she threw midyear. Or rather, our mutual friend Donal Logue threw the party, and Liz commandeered it. “So the story is we threw a huge party sophomore year in Adams House,” said Donal earlier today, when we spoke to commiserate over her death. “Liz, a freshman at the time, showed up and announced she had just lost her virginity and it was now officially the ‘Elizabeth Wurtzel lost her virginity party.’ At first, I was surprised. She seemed so wild. When I got to know her and understood her Ramaz background, her high-school life, it made sense.”

Now Donal and everyone else who knew Liz, or has encountered her work since, are trying to make sense of the idea that she’s gone. Elizabeth Wurtzel died on January 7, 2020, at the age of 52, of complications from breast cancer. When I spoke with Roberta Feldman Brzezinski, her college roommate and friend ever since, she remembered Liz as “brilliant, acerbic, volatile, and fiercely loyal. In her last years, she became a fountain of life wisdom. Why do you care how people behave? You are the star of your own drama, and everyone else is just a bit player. In her case, that was epically true.”

[Read Elizabeth Wurtzel’s essay, “I Refuse To Be a Grown-Up,” published in The Atlantic in 2013]

All of us who knew her, in fact, have a Liz story. Our friend Amanda Brainerd, a real-estate agent who, at 52, will be publishing her first novel this year, thanks in large part to Liz’s example and urging, sent me a typical Liz-related text in the wake of her death: “She accused me of stealing the hairbrush that Jimmy Cabot gave her. I still have it. Also once relatively recently I bumped into her in the pharmacy in the San Francisco airport, and she hugged me then said she had the flu and was looking for meds. And yet her fearlessness helped me tell my deeply personal story, albeit in novel form.”

Wurtzel’s 1994 memoir, Prozac Nation, forever changed the literary landscape. It redefined not only what women were allowed to write about, but when they were allowed to write about it: their messy, early decades in medias res. Mental illness was no longer something to be hidden or shameful. It was a topic like any other, to be brought out into the light.  

Liz was suddenly the It Girl in New York, throwing epic, unforgettable parties in her loft. Suddenly, in the same way that she’d once drawn courage from my teenage writing, I now drew courage from her literary descriptions of early adulthood. “You should write about your war-photography years,” she urged me during one of her parties. And so I did. From then on, whenever anyone wanted to criticize women memoirists for oversharing; or dismiss personal writing as lesser or not literary; or shame us for describing, in intimate detail, the joys and miseries of human love, in all of its messy glory, we’d get lumped in together or collectively shamed as examples of what not to do. As the years wore on, we sometimes even found ourselves “oversharing” on the same stage.

After my marriage fell apart, Liz showed up at my first post-separation dinner party wearing an outrageous miniskirt with spikes and chains and spouting equally outrageous stories of sex with rock stars, completely hijacking the conversation until we were all laughing so hard, I forgot about my broken life. Yes, she was famously difficult. Yes, she could be infuriating, hypercritical, annoying. Sometimes I felt like a prisoner in her apartment, looking for a break in the conversation that would never come. But when the term narcissist got thrown around to describe her, I’d put my foot down. No, I’d say. She’s not a narcissist. It’s not that.

[Read Elizabeth Wurtzel’s essay, “1% Wives Are Helping Kill Feminism and Make the War on Women Possible,” published in The Atlantic in 2012]

I would argue, in fact, that when the chips were down, either for me or for one of her other friends, whether close or not, Liz was the first to pick up the phone and invite us over to carefully dissect each part of our sad, pathetic narrative, looking for places to insert a decent laugh track.

After she got married, she was happy for once. And I didn’t see her for several years.

The last time we emailed was this past summer, after I’d heard she was going through new travails. No, not the breast cancer that eventually stole her from us too early: that she’d made her peace with. It was other stuff. Private stuff. The kind of stuff we don’t––or, rather, didn’t–– share with the world, which was best discussed alone, just the two of us, for several hours, preferably on a floppy couch with several dogs between us. I kept offering up dates to come over for dinner, and she, in typical Liz fashion, kept flaking. “Hi and forgive me for the (very) delayed response,” she wrote on July 3rd, in one of her multiple forgive-me emails in that same chain. “I am like that. It takes me the longest time to do anything. Instead of reflexes, I have deflexes. Which, I’m sure, makes complete sense. Anyway, thank you for thinking of me. I am here and completely crazy, I don’t even know why. Shocked and maladjusted. That must be it. I would love to see you. Xelw”

The last time I saw her alive was last week, at Sloan Kettering, but she never saw me. Her giant, mischievous eyes were closed, lightless. Her yellow glow was gone, replaced by a hospital gown and the loud beeping of machines. Her mother was gripping her hands, leaning over her body like a chiaroscuro, shooing my friend George and me out of the room. We’d brought her a vase filled with fake red roses, not knowing if real ones would be an issue in her critical condition but wanting to let her know she was loved nonetheless.

I find myself wishing, right now, that Liz could send us a missive from the beyond, one last word to let us know she made it there safely, that the music was just meh, and that she was already asking everyone not how they died but how they lived, helping each to find, without shame, the humor, pathos, and humanity in their narrative arcs.

from The Atlantic https://ift.tt/2QTweNP

[thisdaynews]

Biden does cleanup with Latinos after 'get in line' remark

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/biden-does-cleanup-with-latinos-after-get-in-line-remark/

Biden does cleanup with Latinos after 'get in line' remark

Former Vice President Joe Biden has been viewed with suspicion at times by immigration reform advocates for his lack of outreach to Latino communities in the past. | Charlie Neibergall/AP Photo

2020 elections

Biden echoed a conservative talking point in the last Democratic debate, saying undocumented illegal immigrants need to “get in line.”

Joe Biden’s presidential campaign is quietly playing cleanup with dozens of immigration activists and Latino leaders — weeks after upsetting them by using what they considered loaded language to describe his views on immigration policy.

Biden said at the July 31 Democratic debate that undocumented immigrants need to “get in line” and that the country has been right to “cherry-pick” high-skilled immigrants, notably those with advanced degrees.

Story Continued Below

That language, more commonly used by conservatives, triggered widespread criticism from immigrant rights activists, some of whom said the former vice president was echoing “Republican talking points” on how migrants are admitted to the United States.

The campaign quickly embarked on damage control. Aides assuaged aggrieved activists, and Biden had a closed-door meeting with Latino leaders in San Diego before his speech at the UnidosUS conference last week.

“It is unacceptable for a candidate vying to be the Democratic nominee for POTUS to use language like that used by VP Biden when talking about immigration during the second debate,” said Mayra Macías, executive director of Latino Victory. “We immediately reached out to the campaign and were told it was being addressed.”

Activists view the “get in line” language as a dodge invoked by immigration hard-liners. They argue that it’s used to obscure that there really is no practical “line” for many hopeful migrants from Latin America to stand in if they don’t have an employer or family member sponsoring their immigration. And Biden’s line about advanced degrees, they say, deemphasizes family reunification and has a racial component as well.

When Biden uttered the words “get in line,” Macías said, “my phone started blowing up” with messages and calls from other activists about his rhetoric.

On the receiving end of most of the calls and messages to the campaign — more than 100 — was Biden’s senior adviser, Cristóbal Alex, a well-respected operative in the immigrant rights community for his previous work at Latino Victory.

Alex quickly began clarifying Biden’s remarks. Immediately after, he briefed Biden about the nuances of the policy and pushed for the roundtable with Latino leaders in San Diego.

Though he acknowledged some people were upset or confused by Biden’s comments, Alex downplayed the extent of the controversy, pointing out that Biden has long been well-respected by Latino leaders and that he has impressed members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

“I wouldn’t say we’re putting out fires or dealing with fallout. We are taking in a lot of comments and suggestions from the community,” Alex said.

“It’s hard to convey his true grasp of this issue and it’s hard to convey how much he cares about immigrants in the community in a 15-second retort to someone attacking him,” he added.

Biden’s campaign says he supports comprehensive changes to the immigration system that would increase immigration levels, provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who haven’t committed crimes and are employed, and legalize the status of immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, known as Dreamers.

Biden has been viewed with suspicion at times by immigration activists. They point to what they call his lack of outreach to Latino communities in the past and his time as vice president under Barack Obama, who was tagged by liberal-leaning activists as the “deporter in chief” because of his administration’s border enforcement policies.

Activists interrupted Biden’s remarks during last month’s debate in Detroit. And in early July, six demonstrators were arrested during a sit-in at Biden’s Philadelphia campaign headquarters.

The tension between Biden’s campaign and the activist community has roots in his overall campaign strategy. He’s running as a centrist in a primary in which most of the other top-tier candidates are tilting left. And many liberal activists aren’t enthused about an old, white moderate leading the ticket.

“We’re only going to go as far left as we have to,” one top Latino supporter of Biden’s said. “We’re looking at November 2020, but we know we have to deal with the primary. So it’s a tightrope for sure.”

The criticism of Biden’s immigration policies, of course, comes as President Donald Trump is stretching the outer limits of U.S. policy and presidential rhetoric on immigrants. Since taking office, Trump’s policies have spanned from separating families at the U.S.-Mexico border to imposing a ban on travel from several Muslim-majority countries to denying green cards to immigrants who have accessed welfare programs.

Biden’s camp argues his approach is not only an antidote to Trump’s extreme policies, but one that doesn’t move too far left, and is therefore in line with the majority of primary and general election voters. It also thinks Trump’s far-right policies and racist rhetoric will drive Latinos to the polls.

One top Biden surrogate, former Labor secretary and current Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis, said his “get in line” remark was just a poor choice of words.

“I think he has to rephrase and pivot,” Solis said. “I know the man is compassionate and, more importantly, he has a record.”

She added that Hispanic voters care most about health care and greatly benefit from Obamacare, which Biden has pledged to protect and improve.

The importance of the Hispanic vote will come to bear Feb. 22, when Nevada, where about 15 percent of the Democratic voters are Hispanic, holds the third nominating contest in the nation. Ten days later, California and Texas voters will cast ballots on Super Tuesday, after which 70 percent of the Latino vote will have weighed in. Hispanic voters also will be crucial in swing states Florida and Nevada in November.

Jose Parra, who once advised former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Latino issues, said he wondered how Biden could have made the “get in line” comment if he truly had been involved in the bipartisan immigration reform effort in 2013. Parra also noted that Biden, during the debate, refused to discuss where he differed with Obama on deportations.

“Many just don’t understand why he was onstage spewing Republican talking points,” Parra said.

Biden was on defense throughout the debate. On immigration, he drew the most fire from the only Latino onstage, Julián Castro, who called for decriminalizing border crossings. Biden disagreed, saying immigrants “have to wait in line.”

Moments later, Biden said, “When people cross the border illegally, it is illegal to do it unless they’re seeking asylum. People should have to get in line. That’s the problem. And the only reason this particular part of the law is being abused is because of Donald Trump. We should defeat Donald Trump and end this practice.”

People with doctorates “should get a green card for seven years,” Biden also said. “We should keep them here.”

Cory Booker criticized him for that.

“It really irks me because I heard the vice president say that if you got a Ph.D., you can come right into this country,” the New Jersey senator said. “Well that’s playing into what the Republicans want, to pit some immigrants against other immigrants.”

In Iowa last week, Biden cited the 2008 economic meltdown as an explanation for Obama-era deportations, saying the administration was consumed by keeping the country from “going over the cliff” financially and didn’t turn to deportations until after that crisis.

“We were losing 800,000 jobs a month when we started,” Biden said. “By the time we were able to get things moving and focused on this, we did not send anybody back who had in fact not committed a felony.”

Speaking at length before the Asian and Latino Coalition in Des Moines, Iowa, Biden said he would give Dreamers legal status and promised to end Trump’s zero tolerance policy that led to widespread family separation at the border.

“If you’re coming here and you’re making the case — you should be able to come to the country and have your case adjudicated. So I would flood the zone with officers who can make the initial determination of whether or not you qualify, immediately,” he said. “And you don’t have to lock a single person up.”

“There is no rationale whatsoever to separate families — zero rationale,” Biden added to applause. “We did not do that.”

Asked earlier in the day while at the Iowa State Fair if he thought he adequately addressed deportations under Obama, Biden told POLITICO, “Yes, I do.”

For Angelica Salas, executive director for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, Biden’s effort to explain his debate comment was welcome. At the San Diego meeting with the candidate, she spoke her mind and said she appreciated that he listened when she discussed the “fallacy” of immigration lines for Mexican and Central American migrants.

“The big problem is the belief that the system is working for people of color. It is not,” Salas said. “People talk about how this is a ‘broken system’ and that’s not the case. It is designed to be like this and the idea of, ‘Oh, just get in line like everyone else,’ is just a falsehood.”

Astrid Silva, a Nevada immigration activist and Dreamer who arranged a private meeting in May with Biden and undocumented immigrants, said there was a disconnect between the Biden she has engaged with and the one she saw at the debate.

“The way the vice president has come across in the meetings we have had isn’t necessarily coming across on the stage,” Silva said. “Can I say I liked his answer onstage? No. I didn’t appreciate it. But I’ve had the opportunity to speak to him and watch him with these families and the way he spoke to them.”

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[viralhottopics]

Call of the wild: can Americas national parks survive? | Lucy Rock

Americas national parks are facing multiple threats, despite being central to the frontier nations sense of itself, says Lucy Rock

Autumn in the North Cascades National Park and soggy clouds cling to the peaks of the mountains that inspired the musings of Beat poets such as Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg 60 years ago. Sitting on a carpet of pine needles in the forest below, protected from the rain by a canopy of vine maple leaves, is a group of 10-year-olds listening to a naturalist hoping to spark a similar love of the outdoors in a new generation.

This is one of 59 national parks which range across the United States, from the depths of the Grand Canyon in Arizona to the turrets of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. All plus hundreds of monuments and historic sites are run by the National Park Service (NPS), which celebrated its centenary last year. The parks were created so that Americas natural wonders would be accessible to everyone, rather than sold off to the highest bidder. Writer Wallace Stegner called them Americas best idea: Absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.

Its easy to agree. Nicknamed Americas Alps, Washington States North Cascades is an area of soaring beauty, a wilderness of fire and ice thanks to hundreds of glaciers and dense forest where trees burn in summer blazes. The Pacific Crest Trail made famous by Cheryl Strayeds memoir, Wild, and the subsequent film starring Reese Witherspoon runs through the park. Walking along Thunder Creek one midweek morning, the only sound is rushing water and birdsong. The view is a nature-layered cake of teal water, forested mountain slopes and snowy summits. But it is here that you can also observe the threats facing the parks in their next 100 years. They are fighting a war on three fronts: severe underfunding, climate change and a lack of diversity and youth among their visitors.

Jack Kerouac spent the summer of 1956 as a fire lookout atop Desolation Peak in the North Cascades, surrounded by silence and rocky spires, far from the drink, drugs and distractions of his San Francisco life. He drew on his Cascades experiences in Dharma Bums, Lonesome Traveler and Desolation Angels, in which he wrote: Those lazy afternoons, when I used to sit, or lie down, on Desolation Peak, sometimes on the alpine grass, hundreds of miles of snow-covered rock all around Those views look different today. Climate change is causing the glaciers to melt: their square footage shrank by 20% between 1959 and 2009.

Running with the herd: bison on the prairie below the Grand Teton mountains in Yellowstone. Photograph: Matt Anderson/Getty Images

Saul Weisberg, executive director of the North Cascades Institute, an environmental educational organisation, said that the difference between photos from September when the seasonal snow is gone in the 1950s and today was, Incredibly dramatic. Snow is melting back more and more and now you see a lot more rock when you look at the mountains.

Climate change is killing trees, threatening birds and mammals, and leading to devastating wildfires across the 85m acres run by the NPS. Patrick Gonzalez, the principal climate-change scientist at the NPS, told me about rising sea levels (theres been a 22cm rise across the bay at Golden Gate National Recreation Area, California, since 1954); high ocean temperatures bleaching and killing coral in Virgin Islands National Park; and major vegetation types and wildlife moving upwards.

Yosemite saw subalpine forests moving up into subalpine meadows over the last century and small mammals, including mice and ground squirrels, shifting 500m uphill. As temperatures warm, he said, things on higher elevations get warmer and things on lower elevations move up. Bark beetles, once killed by cold winters, are now surviving and wreaking havoc with trees. You go to Rocky Mountains, Yellowstone hillsides formerly covered in a green canopy of trees are now just rust-coloured areas.

If no action is taken, the glaciers of Glacier National Park may melt away; Joshua trees could die out in the park that bears their name; bison may disappear from Yellowstone; and the ancient cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde in Colorado could crumble away.

The NPS is tackling the issue in two ways, said Gonzalez, first by cutting emissions from its own operations by 35% by 2020; and secondly, by adapting its management of the parks to cope with how things might look under climate change rather than trying to maintain them as pictures of the past. With full implementation of the Paris climate agreement and further improvements in energy efficiency and sustainability we can avoid the most drastic effects of climate change, he said.

Digging deep: the Grand Canyon, one of 59 national parks in America. Photograph: Michele Falzone/Getty Images

However, Donald Trump has called climate change a hoax. After the election, he conceded there was some connectivity between human activity and climate change and wavered on a previous vow to cancel the Paris agreement. Yet several of his picks for key posts in his administration are climate science sceptics, including Scott Pruitt and Ryan Zinke.

The ravages of climate change exacerbate another peril facing the parks: lack of money. There is an $11.9bn maintenance backlog and the system is understaffed, with 10% fewer employees than five years ago. Roads and bridges are crumbling, trails need repairing and campgrounds are neglected.

The 140-mile Yellowstone loop road was designed a century ago for horse-drawn carriages and requires a $1bn rebuild. The adobe Old Santa Fe Trail building needs $2m-worth of repairs to walls damaged by water and pests.

The North Cascades, which became a National Park in 1968, has a $21.8m to-do list. All of it needs attention, said Denise Shultz, of the NPS. National parks are like mini cities with water-treatment plants, electrical grids to take care of and bridges. There are over 300 miles of trails in the park. Its like housekeeping. It never gets finished.

Although wear and tear is visible at the amphitheatre at Newhalem campground in the North Cascades, you can see the wooden stage is rotting and the asphalt is buckling visitors are shielded from much of it.

Largely, the parks service prioritises projects that improve and maintain the visitor experience and ensures the safety of visitors, said John Garder, the budget director at the National Parks Conservation Association that lobbies on behalf of the parks. But there are safety concerns, such as old wiring that has to be replaced. There are major multi-million dollar issues with water and waste water. If those ageing systems arent dealt with then it will raise questions about whether the parks are still able to accommodate visitors.

The bulk of the parks $3.1bn budget comes from Congress with the rest from entrance charges, philanthropy and fees paid by hotels, restaurants and other businesses operating on the land. But Congresss embracement of austerity after the recession saw the NPSs purse strings pulled ever tighter, the annual amount received falling 8% from 2005 to 2014 after adjusting for inflation.

Setting sun: climate change means the Joshua trees that gave the national park its name could die out. Photograph: James O’Neil/Getty Images

Half of the $11.9bn repair list is transportation infrastructure roads, bridges, car parks and the like. Money for this is earmarked for the NPS in a transportation bill passed by Congress and has stood at $240m annually for the past few years. Congress has approved an increase totalling $220m over the next five years. That investment should be hundreds of millions more, said Garder.

The non-transportation part of the backlog is funded by Congress through the park operations account (for smaller projects and day-to-day maintenance) and the construction account (for major repairs).

Garder said both had been insufficient for years and the construction account, after controlling for inflation, was scarcely half of what it was 10 years ago.

His verdict on a 9% increase given to the NPS by Congress to mark the centenary? A considerable increase, yet much more needs to be done. He hopes that Trumps promise to invest in infrastructure will cover the parks repairs, too. This would create construction jobs and help tourism, he said. The parks are vital to local economies: for every $1 invested, $10 in economic activity is generated and they fund 300,000 private sector jobs in terms of hotels, restaurants, souvenir shops and more.

What the national parks are not short of is visitors a record 307m in 2015, 14m up on the previous year, meaning more wear and tear that stretches funds further. The top draws were Great Smoky Mountain National Park on the Tennessee/North Carolina border, with 10.7m visitors; Arizonas Grand Canyon, with 5.5m; and Colorados Rocky Mountain National Park and Californias Yosemite, both with 4.15m.

But while the national parks belong to everyone, not everyone is going. Those who do are mainly white, middle-class and well into middle-age. The challenge is how to attract a younger crowd to ensure support for protection and funding of the parks in the future.

The NPS is trying to tell a more inclusive story of America by increasing the number of sites and monuments honouring African- American, Latino, Asian-American, Pacific Islander, LGBTQ and womens history.

Rust belt: pine trees in the Helena National Forest devastated by bark beetles, once killed by cold winters. Photograph: William Campbell/Corbis via Getty Images

To tear millennials away from indoor digital distractions, the Find Your Park campaign is marketing the parks, ironically, via social media. Meanwhile, Every Kid in a Park gives all 10-year-olds a free family pass (many parks charge an entrance fee).

Nor do the parks staff reflect the visitors they want to attract in terms of gender, age or race. Around 80% are white, 63% male and 50% over the age of 46. Recent revelations of sexual harassment and bullying in the workforce havent helped its image. Internships and volunteer opportunities are being offered to encourage those who might not have thought of working for the NPS to apply for jobs.

In the North Cascades, rangers work with local Hispanic communities. We bring school kids out into the parks and give them experience of doing things that are fun, said Denise Shultz, but which many of us take for granted, like camping and hiking, and learning how to identify birds and plants.

Some people fear the outdoors, she said, and it was about finding out how to make them comfortable. She recalled taking a group of urban Latino female bloggers to the Grand Canyon to kayak and hike. She asked what had worried them most. One said: I am a full- figured Latino woman and the thing that scared me the most was shopping at REI [an outdoor-gear retailer]. Shed thought it was a store for skinny white people and was afraid nothing would fit and she wouldnt know what all the equipment was for. It can be a whole different language and culture for people. She said she had a great experience in the store when she actually went.

The NPS boosts its efforts by providing a ranger to help with Mountain School at the non-profit North Cascades Institute.

At the institutes learning centre on the shores of Lake Diablo, the children who were listening to the naturalist in the forest in the afternoon join 70 classmates in the evening to inspect the skulls of wolves and black bears with ranger Anna Mateljak, before singing around a campfire.

Saul Weisberg is passionate about the power of education to effect change, and gave up being a ranger to co-found the institute 30 years ago. It was at the height of fights over the spotted owl [environmentalists blamed logging for destroying their habitat] and timber wars. There were demonstrations, court fights, direct action, tree sit-ins. It seemed like no one was using education as a tool of conservation.

As well as adult and graduate courses, and weekend getaways for families, it runs leadership camps for high school pupils with no experience of the outdoors, and the Mountain School where children stay for three days of hands-on activities.

Weisberg, also a poet, was drawn to the Cascades after reading Kerouac at high school in Ohio. He still indulges his passion by running a Beats on the Peaks course, which includes a hike up Desolation Peak to the lookout. Hes not sure the Beat poets have the same pull for todays teenagers, yet at a time when the national parks future is unpredictable, perhaps Kerouacs advice is still relevant: Because in the end, you wont remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing the lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain!

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from Call of the wild: can Americas national parks survive? | Lucy Rock

[brajeshupadhyay]

Chinese regulators are calling out livestreamers who binge-eat for promoting excessive consumption. A school said it would bar students from applying for scholarships if their daily leftovers exceeded a set amount. A restaurant placed electronic scales at its entrance for customers to weigh themselves to avoid ordering too much. China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has declared a war on the “shocking and distressing” squandering of food, and the nation is racing to respond, with some going to greater extremes than others. The ruling Communist Party has long sought to portray Mr. Xi as a fighter of excess and gluttony in officialdom, but this new call for gastronomic discipline is aimed at the public and carries a special urgency. When it comes to food security, Mr. Xi said, Chinese citizens should maintain a sense of crisis because of vulnerabilities exposed by the coronavirus pandemic. “Cultivate thrifty habits and foster a social environment where waste is shameful and thriftiness is applaudable,” Mr. Xi said in a directive carried by the official People’s Daily newspaper last week. Mr. Xi’s edict is part of a broader message from the leadership in recent weeks about the importance of self-reliance in a time of tensions with the United States and other economic partners. The concern is that import disruptions caused by the global geopolitical turmoil, the pandemic and trade tensions with the Trump administration, as well as some of China’s worst floods this year, could cut into food supplies. But like so many top-down orders in China, the vaguely worded directive prompted a flurry of speculation. State news media moved quickly to tamp down panic about imminent food shortages, reporting that China had recently seen consecutive bumper grain harvests and record high grain output. The edict was also met with sometimes ham-handed measures. The restaurant that offered to weigh patrons in the central Chinese city of Changsha quickly drew a backlash and was forced to apologize over the weekend. “Our intention was to advocate not wasting food and for people to order in a healthy way,” the restaurant said. “We never forced customers to weigh themselves.” Mr. Xi’s “clean plate” campaign strikes at the heart of dining culture in China. Custom dictates that ordering extra dishes and leaving food behind are ways to demonstrate generosity toward one’s relatives, clients, business partners and important guests. Such habits have contributed to an estimated 17 million to 18 million tons of food being discarded annually, an amount that could feed 30 million to 50 million people for a year, according to a study by the Chinese Academy of Science and the World Wildlife Fund. Mr. Xi’s call is as much a warning against the dangers of profligacy as it is a reflection of the generational shift in values that has emerged as living standards rise. Austerity campaigns can seem out of place in modern China, where cities with gleaming skyscrapers and luxury malls buzz with fancy cars. But they were common in the era of Mao Zedong, when the People’s Daily would urge citizens to “eat only two meals a day, one of which should be soft and liquid.” Wang Yaqin, a 79-year-old retiree in the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin, remembers the several years of famine precipitated by Mao’s disastrous Great Leap Forward campaign from 1958 to 1962. In that campaign, in which Mao ordered peasants to reorganize into communes and build backyard steel furnaces to catch up with the West, food supplies plummeted, officials falsely inflated grain harvests, and by some estimates 45 million people starved. During those years, Ms. Wang said, there was little else to eat besides beet pulp — commonly used to feed horses and cattle — mixed with sweet corn noodles. Though food is now plentiful, Ms. Wang remains uneasy with simply tossing it out. Once, she said, she even retrieved some dumplings that her children had thrown away, rinsing and eating them. “This campaign is brilliant,” said Ms. Wang in a telephone interview. “Although it seems like a small thing, it’s good if even one watt of electricity and one drop of water can be saved.” Many among the country’s younger generation, such as Samantha Pan, a 21-year-old student in Guangzhou, embrace being free from having to worry about saving food for a rainy day, and hold little regard for the state’s moral exhortations. “This type of initiative is very boring and useless,” Ms. Pan said in a telephone interview. “I am entitled to order as much food as I want. If I just happen to love wasting food, it’s still my freedom.” For Mr. Xi, the issue of food security has taken on more importance as China grapples with overlapping crises including a shaky economy and severe floods that have left large swaths of the country’s farmland under water. Food prices climbed about 13 percent in July compared with a year ago, according to official statistics. The price of pork, a staple food for many Chinese families, increased by about 85 percent during that same period, in part because the floods affected production and transportation. Farmers in the central Chinese province of Henan, a crucial grain-producing region, admitted to stockpiling much of their grain harvests this year in the hopes of selling for higher prices later, according to a report published on Monday in the party-backed China Youth Daily newspaper. As tensions with other countries have risen, the party has been girding itself for the possibility of being cut off internationally — and making sure it can produce enough food to feed China’s 1.4 billion people. The Coronavirus Outbreak › Frequently Asked Questions Updated August 17, 2020 Why does standing six feet away from others help? The coronavirus spreads primarily through droplets from your mouth and nose, especially when you cough or sneeze. The C.D.C., one of the organizations using that measure, bases its recommendation of six feet on the idea that most large droplets that people expel when they cough or sneeze will fall to the ground within six feet. But six feet has never been a magic number that guarantees complete protection. Sneezes, for instance, can launch droplets a lot farther than six feet, according to a recent study. It’s a rule of thumb: You should be safest standing six feet apart outside, especially when it’s windy. But keep a mask on at all times, even when you think you’re far enough apart. I have antibodies. Am I now immune? As of right now, that seems likely, for at least several months. There have been frightening accounts of people suffering what seems to be a second bout of Covid-19. But experts say these patients may have a drawn-out course of infection, with the virus taking a slow toll weeks to months after initial exposure. People infected with the coronavirus typically produce immune molecules called antibodies, which are protective proteins made in response to an infection. These antibodies may last in the body only two to three months, which may seem worrisome, but that’s perfectly normal after an acute infection subsides, said Dr. Michael Mina, an immunologist at Harvard University. It may be possible to get the coronavirus again, but it’s highly unlikely that it would be possible in a short window of time from initial infection or make people sicker the second time. I’m a small-business owner. Can I get relief? The stimulus bills enacted in March offer help for the millions of American small businesses. Those eligible for aid are businesses and nonprofit organizations with fewer than 500 workers, including sole proprietorships, independent contractors and freelancers. Some larger companies in some industries are also eligible. The help being offered, which is being managed by the Small Business Administration, includes the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. But lots of folks have not yet seen payouts. Even those who have received help are confused: The rules are draconian, and some are stuck sitting on money they don’t know how to use. Many small-business owners are getting less than they expected or not hearing anything at all. What are my rights if I am worried about going back to work? What is school going to look like in September? It is unlikely that many schools will return to a normal schedule this fall, requiring the grind of online learning, makeshift child care and stunted workdays to continue. California’s two largest public school districts — Los Angeles and San Diego — said on July 13, that instruction will be remote-only in the fall, citing concerns that surging coronavirus infections in their areas pose too dire a risk for students and teachers. Together, the two districts enroll some 825,000 students. They are the largest in the country so far to abandon plans for even a partial physical return to classrooms when they reopen in August. For other districts, the solution won’t be an all-or-nothing approach. Many systems, including the nation’s largest, New York City, are devising hybrid plans that involve spending some days in classrooms and other days online. There’s no national policy on this yet, so check with your municipal school system regularly to see what is happening in your community. “In an ideal environment, international relations would be very good and China could freely import food from other places,” said Hu Xingdou, a Beijing-based political economist. “But practically speaking, China may have some big problems.” Wu Qiang, a political analyst based in Beijing, said the pandemic and the floods were reminiscent of the challenges that dogged China’s emperors, whose legitimacy largely rested on their perceived ability to maintain harmony between humans and nature. By taking steps to pre-empt a food shortage, Mr. Xi is showing that he recognizes the challenge these crises, if left unchecked, could pose to his hold on power, Mr. Wu said. “So now he’s pushing the responsibility onto the people, telling them to be thrifty,” he said. But some restaurant owners are reluctant to bear the cost of Mr. Xi’s clean plate campaign. Jimmy Zhang, the owner of a home-style restaurant in the city of Linyi, in the eastern province of Shandong, said he supported Mr. Xi’s call but didn’t want to encourage customers to order fewer dishes. “What the country is promoting is good, but as a citizen, the policies are too far away from me,” said Mr. Zhang, adding that the costs of rent and employee salaries were rising. “There’s no way I can support them without losing money.” The campaign also throws into question the entire business model driving a niche corner of the Chinese internet — livestreamers who have found fame by recording themselves eating vast amounts of food. Known as “big stomach kings,” many such video bloggers draw hordes of fans and rely on these shows for income. China’s state-run broadcaster, C.C.T.V., slammed such performances in a recent commentary headlined: “Livestreaming is fine, but do not use food as your props!” China’s biggest short-video and social media platforms — including Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, and Kuaishou — said they would punish users seen to be wasting food in their broadcasts. A video blogger, who until recently went by the name “Big Stomach Mini” and once ate an entire roasted lamb in one meal, posted a new video on her social media page last week in which she urged her followers to savor every bite of food and take home leftovers. The video drew messages of support from some of her 11 million fans. “There’s nothing wrong with enjoying delicious cuisine,” said the blogger, who has since changed her name to the more austere-sounding “Dimple Mini.” “But please don’t be extravagant and wasteful.” The post China’s Xi Jinping Declares War on Food Waste appeared first on Shri Times News. from WordPress https://ift.tt/31hLwm2

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