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FeaturesPro RundownThe Monday Morning Run
The Monday Morning Run: NOP investigation, Tarmohgeddon defined and a javelin controversy
Kevin Sully | On 09, Jun 2015
First, the good news. Between last week and this week there are four Diamond League meets. The bad news is sandwiched in between those is a doping scandal that bridges two continents and threatens to bring down the most successful and popular distance running group in the world. How I wish the only controversy to discuss on this week's belated edition of the Morning Run was sector fouls in the javelin and pyrotechnics at the finish line in Birmingham.
I'll try to touch on it all and do it before the story with the Nike Oregon Project shifts again.
The Medalists
The top three performances of the week
Gold: Jenny Simpson
There are a few different ways you can explain how impressive Simpson's 3:59.31 victory in the 1500m at the Rome Diamond League was last Thursday. First, you can just point to the line–a world lead. Second, the competition. She beat Sifan Hassan and Dawit Seyaum, the two women outside of Simpson who have been running the best this year and, along with Abeba Aregawi, constitute the main medal contenders. Next, consider the circumstances. The race came five days after the Prefontaine Classic. It's difficult enough to win two races in a row in a quirky distance like the 1500m. Simpson did it on a short turnaround and with no tune-up race in Europe. Running under four minutes off the plane is hard to do.
Does all this make Simpson the runaway favorite for gold? Right now, I think she is in about as good a position as you could possibly hope for in June. She's won two in a row, but the 1500m is fickle, especially in championships without rabbits. That said, all the quantities are known this year. There still exists a possibility that Turkey shows up to Beijing with two women we've never heard of who can break four minutes, but other than that Simpson has run against (and beaten) everyone she will see at the World Championships.
Silver: Justin Gatlin
It would be cliche to say Gatlin looks like he was shot out of a cannon during his start at the Rome Diamond League meet, so watch his first 20-30 meters and come up with your own analogy.
The reaction time, the explosion out the blocks and the drive phase work in tandem as he spontaneously combusts down the track. In his 200m races, he seems to have trouble managing his speed, lest he run out of control and spin out. That problem doesn't exist in the 100m. One phase of his race flows into the next as the margin on the field grows.
In Rome, he ran 9.75, .01 off his time in Doha and .23 ahead of second place. This wasn't the strongest field–no Tyson Gay, no Asafa Powell, no Ryan Bailey and especially no Usain Bolt. But it also was a field that was good enough that it shouldn't have been beaten by over two tenths of a second. If Powell, Gay and Bailey were in the race, they would be a closer form of second place, but still clearly second. Bolt is very clearly the only person who can beat Gatlin this season, and after races like Rome, we might be giving Bolt too much credit in saying that.
Bronze: Yomif Kejelcha
The most prolific 17-year-old since Zac Efron won his second Diamond League race in a row, a world leading 12:58.39 in Rome. In the process, he defeated everyone he will need to beat to win a gold medal in Beijing, with the exception of Mo Farah. The Ethiopian selection process can be convoluted, but unless he starts stalling out, Kejelcha should make the roster. The Rome field was deeper than the group he race against in Eugene. It was as a different type of race too–one where five men broke 13 minutes and the pace didn't lag like it did at the Prefontaine Classic.
Surging….
-Tarmohgeddon
Loosely defined, Tarmohgeddon is the magnetic force that binds Allyson Felix and Jeneba Tarmoh. A broader interpretation encompasses all the strange outcomes that occur when the two are on the track at the same time.
It's inception dates back to 2012, when they tied for the final spot on the US 100m team at the Olympic Trials. From there, a strange turn of events took place ending in Tarmoh withdrawing from the run-off and, in essence, forfeiting her spot to Felix. Tarmohgeddon was quiet for most of the last three years until this year when its power became inescapable. In the Bahamas, the force was so strong that it literally brought them together in a collision in the 4 x 200m relay. How do you crash in a 4 x 200m you ask? Tarmohgeddon.
Now, we can add Sunday's race in Birmingham to the list. Felix entered the race with a season best of 21.98. Tarmoh had just run 22.77 at the Rome Diamond League meet. Felix was coming off a decisive victory in the 400m at the Prefontaine Classic. There was no reason to think she could be matched over her preferred distance.
22.29 for Tarmoh. 22.29 for Felix. Tarmoh was declared the winner.
Tarmohgeddon once again reigns. There's no telling where or when this ends.
-Sharika Nelvis
The high hurdles crashes in Rome took out Sally Pearson, Brianna Rollins and Jasmine Stowers. Very quietly, Sharika Nelvis ran 12.52 and, after this week, looks just as safe a bet as Stowers to earn a berth on the World Championships team.
-Marvin Bracy
The battle over who will win the US 100m Championships (Justin Gatlin has the bye and has said he will run the 200m at USAs) is heating up with Tyson Gay, Ryan Bailey and Bracy all in contention.
Bracy set a personal best of 9.93 in Birmingham. He got the benefit of a fortuitous +2.0 m/s second wind, but he also slowed a bit at the finish when he grabbed his right hamstring. He didn't seem too concerned about the injury after the race, although the most of the focus was on Adam Gemili's fall. Both Gemili and Bracy are 21-years-old so here's to the beginning of a 10 year no-ducking (or hamstring injury riddled) rivalry!
-Julius Yego
Yego's last attempt in the javelin in Birmingham traveled 91.39 meters, the farthest throw since 2006. Initially, officials thought it fell outside the sector and ruled it a foul.
However, they redrew the sector lines (because Yego's throw was so far it went past the lines) and discovered that it was a legal throw. Whether this was a creative redrawing of the lines or not, it still counts as the best in-stadium throw not involving Michael Vick.
-Mohammad Aman
Aman returned to 2013 Aman and set the world lead in Rome with a time of 1:43.56. He also beat Nijel Amos for the second consecutive meet. Depending on how you view David Rudisha, Aman is no worse than the third best 800m runner in the world (that is also contingent on what event Ayanleh Souleiman runs). Rudisha was scheduled to race in Birmingham, but withdrew. We haven't seen him on the track since he pulled up in Ostrava in the 600m.
-Pedro Pablo Pichardo
P3 triple jumped 17.96m in Rome. That is his third best mark of the year and ties him for the 13th best jump of all-time. After watching his last phase, I love to throw him in the long jump and see what he could do against a Diamond League field.
Slowing….
-Alberto Salazar/Galen Rupp/Nike Oregon Project
As a child of the Marion Jones/Lance Armstrong/Sammy Sosa/Mark McGwire era, I've had plenty of practice being cynical about drugs in sports. Despite this, I held on to some optimism even when it seemed irrational. My naivete disappeared, but I never got to the point where I was convinced that every extraordinary performance was the result of doping.
I'm also the son of a lawyer who drilled the concept of presumption of innocence into my head at an early age. Since my teenage years, it's been difficult to reconcile that concept with the multiple episodes of high profile doping cases that often end the same way.
It's through that prism that I view the doping reports against Galen Rupp and Alberto Salazar.
Each day brings new information from people connected with the group in the past or others like UK Athletics and WADA. I'm betting we hear more from the principles in the days ahead. Mo Farah has already spoken during a 30-minute press conference before the Birmingham Diamond League meet. Farah said that he wasn't leaving Salazar, but did say "let's put this on Alberto."
Farah pulled out of the meet two days later, citing the need to get back to Portland to learn more about the situation. The interpretation of his withdrawal is framed largely by how you feel about Farah's involvement in the saga. It could show innocence or guilt, strength or weakness.
In the press conference, it was difficult to pin down what Farah wants to know of Salazar. At one point it he said more evidence was needed before he would leave his coach, but at another time he mentioned that he only needed the existing claims to be proven true. There is a huge difference between the two.The allegations against Salazar and Rupp is an interestin case in determining what the public, and athletes, consider "proof" in the current era of track and field.
The BBC/ProPublica report supported what it claimed with multiple sources over several years. Whether that constitutes proof to you is open to your own interpretation. There was no evidence of blood doping or covering up of failed tests, but the authors never said there were failed tests or blood doping take place. The report did provide several instances of violations of the anti-doping rules, particularly Salazar's skirting the regulations around Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs).
Despite the press conference and investigations, it's important to remember that Farah was not named in the report. It's possible to believe the ProPublica/BBC and Farah. Both can be true.
But if both are true then it's a leap to think that Farah would be willing to stick with a coach who broke the rules in order to help his top competition in the 10,000m. If Salazar was illegally aiding Rupp behind Farah's back then that probably would constitute a loss of trust in the athlete/coach relationship.
Salazar hasn't made any formal statements other than the ones that were published/aired last week. His claims that he "never coached an athlete to manipulate testing procedures or undermine the rules that govern our sport," and "No athlete within the Oregon Project uses a medication against the spirit of the sport we love," is directly contradicted by the interviews of Kara and Adam Goucher, Steve Magness and massage therapist John Stiner.
Even if you discount most of what those four said, you are still left with Salazar operating in an extremely dark grey area of anti-doping rules. An area that is certainly in conflict with the spirit of the sport that Salazar refers to. I'm interested in what he says next and if his explanation is sufficient for Farah. Also, I'm curious how fans will judge performances by "grey area" athletes in a sport that is as black and white as track and field.
-Jasmine Stowers
Aberrations happen. Even Steph Curry has a game where he shoots 2-15 from the three point line. Hopefully for Stowers, that explains her first week of June. She hit a hurdle in Rome and stumble to the finish. On Sunday in Birmingham she false started and was disqualified. Is last week enough to disrupt her rhythm and complicate her run to the World Championships gold medal? Or, is it just two instances of bad luck in one week that she will shrug off on her way back to running 12.3s and 12.4s? The Oslo Diamond League on Thursday will let us know.
-Sally Pearson
More bad luck for the women's high hurdlers. In the same race where Stowers hit a hurdle, Pearson broke and dislocated her wrist when she crashed out mid-race. It didn't look fun.
Pearson had surgery on Monday and has not yet said how long she will be sidelined with the injury.
Winners who didn't win
-Grant Fisher
The high schooler ran 3:59.38 to become the second prep this year to break four minutes in the mile. Matthew Maton also ran 3:59.38 three weeks ago at the Oregon Twilight meet three weeks ago. Two boys breaking the barrier in the same year makes me wonder whether the accomplishment will still create the same buzz in the future. With Fischer, only seven have broken the mark, but with the proliferation of post-season all-star meets it should be more common in the years to come. That said, there is something unique about the sub-four barrier.
The Prefontaine Classic still tracks the number of people who run faster than four minutes in their meet and sub-four is cause for celebration amongst pros, even if their equivalent times are much better.
-Yohan Blake
Ok, he ran a 21.57 200m and finished 13th overall at a meet in Jamaica. That isn't exactly an ideal position to be in a couple weeks before the Jamaican Trials and a few months ahead of the World Championships. But, …….there actually is no but here. Other than Blake actually running, there isn't much good to take away when a professional male track athlete runs 21.5 in a 200m. This article did say that he shut it down early so let's just assume he started slowing to a jog at about the 120m mark.
Blake is also quoted as saying he will be ready for the Trials at the end of June. 21.5 to 20.0 would be mighty impressive.
-Adam Gemili
In the most pyrrhic of runs, Gemili broke 10 seconds for the first time in his career when he ran 9.97 to finished behind Marvin Bracy in Birmingham. He tumbled at the finish and had to be carted off the track with a hamstring injury. Initially, it was reported that pyrotechnics at the finish line caused Gemili to lose his balance and send him to the track, but he later clarified that an awkward lean at the finish line was the problem.
Pyrotechnics, a broken ten second barrier, a hamstring injury and a few somersaults….all in a matter of moments.
adam gemili alberto salazar Allyson Felix birmingham diamond league galen rupp grant fisher jasmine stowers Jeneba Tarmoh jenny simpson Julius Yego justin gatlin Mo Farah Nike Oregon Project rome diamond league Sally Pearson yohan blake
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AFelixFan
LOL at Tarmohgeddon. I have to point out that they both ran 22.29 though, not 22.39. And it's a real shame Pearson got injured and might be out for the rest of the season. I was really looking forward to seeing her challenge Stowers at the World Championships.
Thanks for the correction
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Ukrainian gunmen shell Alexandrovka locality to the West of Donetsk
Ukrainian gunmen were shelling the locality of Alexandrovka in the Petrovsky district of Donetsk for more than 3 hours this morning, reports the locality administration's head, Konstantin Chaly.
"Today's morning from 07:00 am a severe shelling, conducted with anti-tank grenade launchers was committed. The enemy was firing at the locality's outskirts and so-called "grey zone". The shelling had just finished, but we cannot even inspect the damage of people's houses for there are no security guarantees," said Chaly.
Earlier today it was reported that over the past 24 hours the enemy committed 34 ceasefire violations. In total, 17 DPR localities underwent heavy shelling conducted with tank and artillery guns, mortars, IFVs, armored vehicles, grenade launchers and small arms.
Apart from it, according to the Command's data, in the locality of Lukovo in the Telmanovsky district two residential houses, petrol station and power lines sector were damaged.
DONi News Agency

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Home > Banking & Finance
DBS eliminates a dozen jobs at brokerage as trading slumps
Thu, Dec 01, 2016 - 3:30 PM
DBS Group Holdings Ltd cut at least 12 roles across Asia at its brokerage unit, the latest bank to shrink its trading desk as volumes slump.
PHOTO: SPH
[SINGAPORE] DBS Group Holdings Ltd cut at least 12 roles across Asia at its brokerage unit, the latest bank to shrink its trading desk as volumes slump.
DBS Vickers Securities is rationalising its institutional business unit as it seeks to be "more competitive and responsive to market changes," the brokerage arm of South-east Asia's largest lender said in an e-mailed response to questions.
Affected employees will be offered opportunities to be redeployed within the bank, according to the brokerage.
"We continuously look at ways to enhance effectiveness, efficiency and productivity, including reviewing our systems and processes, as well as staffing levels," DBS Vickers said.
The move comes amid difficult trading conditions in Asia that have hurt revenues at brokerages. Firms including BNP Paribas SA, Nomura Holdings Inc and Macquarie Group Ltd have trimmed their Asian equities businesses this year in reaction to the slump.
DBS, based in Singapore, in October reported third-quarter profit of S$1.07 billion, little changed from the year-ago period.
The average daily value of shares traded in Singapore fell to S$1.06 billion this year, a 24 per cent decline from 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
There were 3,401 stockbrokers in the city-state at the end of October, compared with 4,336 in 2011, according to data from Singapore Exchange Ltd, which operates the local stock market. The exchange has rolled out training courses in attempts to help brokers cope.
In Hong Kong, average daily securities turnover fell 34 per cent to HK$67.8 billion (S$12.41 billion) in the three months ended September, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
DBS shares have risen 6.5 per cent in Singapore this year, outpacing the 1.5 per cent increase on the benchmark Straits Times Index. The stock rose 1.4 per cent to S$17.80 as of 10.28am local time Thursday.
DBS Vickers has offices in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the US and UK, according to its website. Chief Executive Officer Piyush Gupta said in February the bank would slow hiring. During the throes of the 2008 credit crunch, the firm cut 900 jobs, six per cent of its then-workforce.
DBS Vickers
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Data shows the world just experienced its single-hottest month on record in July, beating records set just 12 months ago, and 2016 looks virtually certain to be the hottest year ever according to scientists.
"It's critical to remember all businesses have customers who could be impacted by climate change."
It is critical to remember all businesses have customers who could be impacted by climate change in the form of severe weather events, changes in government policy and regulation as well as climate-change adaptation mechanisms.
But with those risks come opportunities, including the opportunity to make economically sound investments to transition to a lower-carbon economy. Businesses can and should use their capabilities to help their customers make that transition.
ANZ advises customers on areas such as energy efficiency improvement, low-carbon energy generation, resilient infrastructure and carbon abatement. The bank offers funding for those kinds of activities and look to facilitate investment in technologies that lead to lower emissions.
Katharine Tapley recently spent time speaking with the World Wildlife Fund about the risks and opportunities of climate change. You can listen to the podcast HERE.
As climate change places growing strains on the world's resources, Australia has been named by HSBC in the top 15 countries most like to be affected by its effects.
ANZ supports the goal of governments around the world to limit global average temperatures rises to no more than 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Given ANZ's presence in the Pacific, the bank is especially sensitive to the risks there many Pacific Islanders face, particularly around rising sea levels.
ANZ has committed to funding and facilitating at least $A10 billion in investment towards transitioning to a lower-carbon economy by 2020. This includes investment into renewable energy generation, green buildings and less-emission intensive manufacturing and transport.
Green bonds worth $A600 million have also been issued as part of ANZ's belief in addressing climate change, but also because gives us credibility to encourage customers to do the same. The bank is actively pursuing opportunities in the Australian, New Zealand and Asian markets with our customers to encourage their issuance of green bonds.
This is happening in businesses across different sectors. Simplot, the owner of fishery brand John West, shares a similar goal, according to Kaelene McLennan, is Corporate Affairs, Sustainability & Communications Manager at Simplot.
"Our sustainability goal includes not only looking at the sustainability of our food products, but also becoming heavily involved in doing more for the regions from where we were sourcing our raw materials," she told the World Wildlife Fund.
NGOs play a really important role in helping and encouraging the private sector to invest in climate finance and activities. They can help inform the private sector's understanding of community sentiment. Partnerships between the two groups are vital.
"Where public and private finance partnerships work really well is that they bring more money to market faster, into projects which would generally be considered too high risk to be invested in today," Emma Herd, CEO of the Investor Group on Climate Change told the World Wildlife Fund.
ANZ has entered a partnership with the Australian Water Association and are working to create opportunities with the association's members to export expertise and services offshore, particularly in Southeast Asian markets where water reform in under way.
There is plenty of expertise within the Australian market ANZ can assist with, so we're working to facilitate the funding and opportunities for those services to be exported.
As the facilitators of finance it's incumbent on organisations like ANZ to address the risks of climate change given the economic, environmental and moral imperative for doing so.
You can listen to her share thoughts with the World Wildlife Fund HERE.


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Home Laptops MacBook Pro 16″ Review First Look of 2020!
MacBook Pro 16″ Review First Look of 2020!
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So MacBook Pro 16-inch is released now. It's a very special product to a lot of people because it fixes a few key issues and it also introduces a few new features that no other laptop has. Now it's 16 inches. It has a bigger display and if you were to look at this and the 15-inch laptop from a distance, it would be hard to tell them apart.
The design language is the same but the 16-inch version is thicker, wider, longer and slightly heavier to incorporate a bigger battery and a better cooling solution. The port situation is also exactly the same. You have four USB type-c Thunderbolt 3 ports. I honestly think because they increase the thickness of this laptop they should have
just put an SD card slot back in here. I mean this thing is supposed to be Pro, this thing is aimed at creators and creators want an SD card slot. Now this display is just as good as the previous generation because it's 16 inches now.
You have 6 inches of more screen real estate.
It's still using 16 by 10 which is much better than 16 by 9 laptops at least for productivity. Color accuracy is excellent.
They say you're supposed to get 500 nits of brightness, but I'm only measuring 410 so I'm not sure if that's peak brightness. One thing I do have to say though is that the bezels are significantly thinner now because they incorporated a bigger display in a very similar chassis. Now the unfortunate part is the webcam in this is still a really bad webcam and that kind of irks me because Apple decided to put some of the best speakers on a laptop that I've ever listened too.
These speakers are so good. There are six of them here. They have Dolby Atmos, I can't even explain to you how good these sound. You literally have to go into an Apple Store or anywhere where they sell Apple products.
Tell everyone to be quiet and listen to them because it literally sounds like you're listening
to a HomePod. With those speakers, you do get some amazing built-in microphones, Apples calling them
New Apple MacBook Pro (16-inch, 16GB RAM, 512GB Storage) - Space Gray
studio quality. I don't think that's the truth. They are good, better than any other laptop I've used but they're not going to replace your studio microphone.
What it is good for is some of the best audio quality when you're having a conversation on the phone because a lot of people actually use their MacBooks. As a phone they'll be doing their work, a phone call will come in and having that kind of clarity will be really nice.
The next big change was the keyboard they went back to the scissor-switch because butterfly switches were not living up to the dream of being a better keyboard. A small percentage of Apple users which actually is quite a lot because you have to remember Apple sells tons of these products. Now, the Escape key is back which a lot of developers are going to like, it's just a lot easier to tap than housing around with the touch bar.
Touchpad really not much to stay here. This is still the gold standard. There is no other laptop that has the accuracy of the MacBook touchpad out there. Now the model I have here is the cheaper i9 and it has 16 gigabytes of RAM, a 1 terabyte NVME SSD and yes, you can buy it with eight terabytes in a single drive that's crazy, if you want to do this on PC laptops, you have to combine multiple drives together.
You have a Radeon 5500M with 40 gigabytes of VRAM and the crazy thing is it still gives you better performance than the previous generation, even though the CPUs are the same. It's the 9th gen CPUs Intel doesn't have the H series processors available yet for the 10th generation, you're gonna have to wait for next year.
But it's faster because they improved the cooling inside of here, 28% better due to bigger fans and better heat pipes.
Now the reason why this matters is that when this is under full load, it's able to maintain a higher clock speed than the previous generation and what I noticed is that it'll first get really hot to about 99 degrees Celsius, which is crazy, but it will wait as long as possible in order to reduce the heat because it wants you the user to have a quiet experience.
There are even more significant gains with the new 5500M GPU. In an OpenCL test, the 16-inch MacBook Pro scored 30608, compared to the 15-inch MacBook Pro's score of 17904, and in a Metal test, the 16-inch MacBook Pro scored a 29840 vs. the 15-inch MacBook Pro's score of 19065.
After a few minutes, the fans will start kicking in and then the temperature will kind of hover around 88 degrees.
Now if you compare this to a similar laptop like the Dell XPS 15 with an i9 processor or the ASUS ZenBook this still runs faster.
Besides, that service temperatures are great and fan noise is the same as the previous model.
You can hear them when they get under load, but they're not overbearing compared to other laptops on the market.
So here are my closing thoughts the 16-inch MacBook Pro is hands down a big improvement from the previous generation.
Sure, it doesn't have a fancy new redesign, but it fixes all the little issues that people were complaining about and also added a few key nice touches that no other laptop has. The sound is insane! Go to the store and listen to it, battery life is good. You have a great display of color accuracy.
You have a fixed keyboard and one of the best touchpads on the market. Plus if you're an iPhone user and you're in the Apple ecosystem the pairing between all of these products just makes the experience even better.
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In fact, this is the first time I bought myself a brand new MacBook Pro. I've never bought a MacBook in my entire life. Every Mac, you've seen on this channel has always been a loan from a friend or a colleague so that I can review it for you guys. But I was so impressed by the 16-inch version that I'm actually going to give it a go as my main device.
Anyways that wraps up this review. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
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2017 / david bax / movies / nextfest / nextfest 2017 / reviews / Theatrical Review
Next Fest 2017: Golden Exits, by David Bax
by · Published August 13, 2017 · Updated August 30, 2017
In the first full scene of Alex Ross Perry's Golden Exits, a palpable tension hangs over the seemingly innocuous preparation for a small dinner party. An archivist named Nick (Adam Horovitz) is about to introduce to his wife Aly (Chloe Sevigny) and her sister Gwen (Mary-Louise Parker) the assistant he's hired to work with him over the next few months, Naomi (Emily Browning). Before the young woman even arrives, suspicions and accusations hang in the air, yet they remain unspoken. Of course they do; in Perry's cerebral but yearning movie, everyone talks constantly but no one ever says what's really on their mind.
Set sometime in the mid-1990s, Golden Exits is one those disbelief-suspending, multi-thread movies in which the characters are all separated by one or two degrees but never quite realize it. Luckily, Perry is smart enough to not get too cute with the coincidences and near-misses. Naomi, an Australian, only has one friend in New York, Buddy (Jason Schwartzmen), whose friend Greg (Craig Butta) is also friends with Nick, whose sister-in-law Gwen employs a personal assistant named Sam (Lily Rabe), whose own sister is Jess (Analeigh Tipton), Buddy's wife.
On a lunch break with Nick one day, Naomi remarks, "People never make films about ordinary people who don't do anything." Golden Exits is only half an answer to that challenge. Though no one does much of anything, these characters are far from ordinary. Naomi, the film's nexus, is self-assured but enigmatic while also falling into the role of femme fatale; "She's a death trap to losers like us," Nick says to his friends. Nick, on the other hand, is a sad man most would find boring but who repeatedly refers to mundane things as "thrilling" and seems to believe it. Each character, in one way or another, represents a facet of Perry's dim view of the genders. The women never say what they mean and the men can't be trusted even if they do. Social interactions, even with the people to whom you are closest, are thus labyrinths to be navigated.
Perry's aesthetic choice are also designed to obscure clarity. The film is grainy–warmly and beautifully so–while the sound design is such that everything is more or less at the level of room tone. When Gwen empties a box of cookies onto a plate, the noise of it nearly drowns out her dialogue. Meanwhile, the slow piano score by Keegan DeWitt is so quiet and constant as to become almost subliminal.
Each of the main characters in Golden Exits falls into age categories at roughly ten-year intervals. Naomi is in her mid-20s, Buddy, Sam and Jess are in their mid-30s and Nick, Aly and Gwen are in their mid-40s. There's a 20th Century Women-like generational overview to this conceit but that's not Perry's main concern. He wants us to see how, whether looking backward and forward in life, we often don't see other people. We see only projections of ourselves and our hopes and fears. If only we could stop talking long enough to say something honest.
Episode 820: Jean-Luc Godard
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The Failure of Multiculturalism | l'échec du multiculturalisme
Thirty years ago, many Europeans saw multiculturalism— the embrace of an inclusive, diverse society—as an answer to Europe's social problems. Today, a growing number consider it to be a cause of them. That perception has led some mainstream politicians, including British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, to publicly denounce multiculturalism and speak out against its dangers. It has fueled the success of far-right parties and populist politicians across Europe, from the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands to the National Front in France. And in the most extreme cases, it has inspired obscene acts of violence, such as Anders Behring Breivik's homicidal rampage on the Norwegian island of Utoya in July 2011.
How did this transformation come about? According to multiculturalism's critics, Europe has allowed excessive immigration without demanding enough integration—a mismatch that has eroded social cohesion, undermined national identities, and degraded public trust. Multiculturalism's proponents, on the other hand, counter that the problem is not too much diversity but too much racism.
But the truth about multiculturalism is far more complex than either side will allow, and the debate about it has often devolved into sophistry. Multiculturalism has become a proxy for other social and political issues: immigration, identity, political disenchantment, working-class decline. Different countries, moreover, have followed distinct paths. The United Kingdom has sought to give various ethnic communities an equal stake in the political system. Germany has encouraged immigrants to pursue separate lives in lieu of granting them citizenship. And France has rejected multicultural policies in favor of assimilationist ones. The specific outcomes have also varied: in the United Kingdom, there has been communal violence; in Germany, Turkish communities have drifted further from mainstream society; and in France, the relationship between the authorities and North African communities has become highly charged. But everywhere, the overarching consequences have been the same: fragmented societies, alienated minorities, and resentful citizenries.
As a political tool, multiculturalism has functioned as not merely a response to diversity but also a means of constraining it. And that insight reveals a paradox. Multicultural policies accept as a given that societies are diverse, yet they implicitly assume that such diversity ends at the edges of minority communities. They seek to institutionalize diversity by putting people into ethnic and cultural boxes—into a singular, homogeneous Muslim community, for example—and defining their needs and rights accordingly. Such policies, in other words, have helped create the very divisions they were meant to manage.
THE DIVERSITY MYTH
Untangling the many strands of the multiculturalism debate requires understanding the concept itself. The term "multicultural" has come to define both a society that is particularly diverse, usually as a result of immigration, and the policies necessary to manage such a society. It thus embodies both a description of society and a prescription for dealing with it. Conflating the two—perceived problem with supposed solution—has tightened the knot at the heart of the debate. Unpicking that knot requires a careful evaluation of each.
Both proponents and critics of multiculturalism broadly accept the premise that mass immigration has transformed European societies by making them more diverse. To a certain extent, this seems self-evidently true. Today, Germany is the world's second most popular immigrant destination, after the United States. In 2013, more than ten million people, or just over 12 percent of the population, were born abroad. In Austria, that figure was 16 percent; in Sweden, 15 percent; and in France and the United Kingdom, around 12 percent. From a historical perspective, however, the claim that these countries are more plural than ever is not as straightforward as it may seem. Nineteenth-century European societies may look homogeneous from the vantage point of today, but that is not how those societies saw themselves then.
Consider France. In the years of the French Revolution, for instance, only half the population spoke French and only around 12 percent spoke it correctly. As the historian Eugen Weber showed, modernizing and unifying France in the revolution's aftermath required a traumatic and lengthy process of cultural, educational, political, and economic self-colonization. That effort created the modern French state and gave birth to notions of French (and European) superiority over non-European cultures. But it also reinforced a sense of how socially and culturally disparate most of the population still was. In an address to the Medico-Psychological Society of Paris in 1857, the Christian socialist Philippe Buchez wondered how it could happen that "within a population such as ours, races may form—not merely one, but several races—so miserable, inferior and bastardised that they may be classed as below the most inferior savage races, for their inferiority is sometimes beyond cure." The "races" that caused Buchez such anxiety were not immigrants from Africa or Asia but the rural poor in France.
In the Victorian era, many Britons, too, viewed the urban working class and the rural poor as the other. A vignette of working-class life in East London's Bethnal Green, appearing in an 1864 edition of The Saturday Review, a well-read liberal magazine of the era, was typical of Victorian middle-class attitudes. "The Bethnal Green poor," the story explained, were "a caste apart, a race of whom we know nothing, whose lives are of quite different complexion from ours, persons with whom we have no point of contact." Much the same was true, the article suggested, of "the great mass of the agricultural poor." Although the distinctions between slaves and masters were considered more "glaring" than those separating the moneyed and the poor, they offered "a very fair parallel"; indeed, the differences were so profound that they prevented "anything like association or companionship."
Today, Bethnal Green represents the heart of the Bangladeshi community in East London. Many white Britons see its inhabitants as the new Bethnal Green poor, culturally and racially distinct from themselves. Yet only those on the political fringes would compare the differences between white Britons and their Bangladeshi neighbors with those of masters and slaves. The social and cultural differences between a Victorian gentleman or factory owner, on the one hand, and a farm hand or a machinist, on the other, were in reality much greater than those between a white resident and a resident of Bangladeshi origin are today. However much they may view each other as different, a 16-year-old of Bangladeshi origin living in Bethnal Green and a white 16-year-old probably wear the same clothes, listen to the same music, and follow the same soccer club. The shopping mall, the sports field, and the Internet bind them together, creating a set of experiences and cultural practices more common than any others in the past.
A similar historical amnesia plagues discussions surrounding immigration. Many critics of multiculturalism suggest that immigration to Europe today is unlike that seen in previous times. In his book Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, the journalist Christopher Caldwell suggests that prior to World War II, immigrants to European countries came almost exclusively from the continent and therefore assimilated easily. "Using the word immigration to describe intra-European movements," Caldwell argues, "makes only slightly more sense than describing a New Yorker as an 'immigrant' to California." According to Caldwell, prewar immigration between European nations differed from postwar immigration from outside Europe because "immigration from neighboring countries does not provoke the most worrisome immigration questions, such as 'How well will they fit in?' 'Is assimilation what they want?' and, most of all, 'Where are their true loyalties?'"
Yet these very questions greeted European immigrants in the prewar years. As the scholar Max Silverman has written, the notion that France assimilated immigrants from elsewhere in Europe with ease before World War II is a "retrospective illusion." And much the same is true of the United Kingdom. In 1903, witnesses to the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration expressed fears that newcomers to the United Kingdom would be inclined to live "according to their traditions, usages and customs." There were also concerns, as the newspaper editor J. L. Silver put it, that "the debilitated sickly and vicious products of Europe" could be "grafted onto the English stock." The country's first immigration law, the 1905 Aliens Act, was designed principally to stem the flow of European Jews. Without such a law, then Prime Minister Arthur Balfour argued at the time, British "nationality would not be the same and would not be the nationality we should desire to be our heirs through the ages yet to come." The echoes of contemporary anxieties are unmistakable.
RACE TO THE TOP
Whether contemporary Europe really is more plural than it was in the nineteenth century remains subject to debate, but the fact that Europeans perceive it to be more diverse is unquestionable. This owes in large part to changes in how people define social differences. A century and a half ago, class was a far more important frame for understanding social interactions. However difficult it is to conceive of now, many at the time saw racial distinctions in terms of differences not in skin color but in class or social standing. Most nineteenth-century thinkers were concerned not with the strangers who crossed their countries' borders but with those who inhabited the dark spaces within them.
One of the most prevalent myths in European politics is that governments adopted multicultural policies because minorities wanted to assert their differences.
Over the past few decades, however, class has diminished in importance in Europe, both as a political category and as a marker of social identity. At the same time, culture has become an increasingly central medium through which people perceive social differences. The shift reflects broader trends. The ideological divides that characterized politics for much of the past 200 years have receded, and the old distinctions between left and right have become less meaningful. As the working classes have lost economic and political power, labor organizations and collectivistic ideologies have declined. The market, meanwhile, has expanded into almost every nook and cranny of social life. And institutions that traditionally brought disparate individuals together, from trade unions to the church, have faded from public life.
As a result, Europeans have begun to see themselves and their social affiliations in a different way. Increasingly, they define social solidarity not in political terms but rather in terms of ethnicity, culture, or faith. And they are concerned less with determining the kind of society they want to create than with defining the community to which they belong. These two matters are, of course, intimately related, and any sense of social identity must take both into account. But as the ideological spectrum has narrowed and as the mechanisms for change have eroded, the politics of ideology have given way to the politics of identity. It is against this background that Europeans have come to view their homelands as particularly, even impossibly, diverse—and have formulated ways of responding.
In describing contemporary European societies as exceptionally diverse, multiculturalism is clearly flawed. What, then, of multiculturalism's prescription for managing that supposed diversity? Over the past three decades, many European nations have adopted multicultural policies, but they have done so in distinct ways. Comparing just two of these histories, that of the United Kingdom and that of Germany, and understanding what they have in common, reveals much about multiculturalism itself.
One of the most prevalent myths in European politics is that governments adopted multicultural policies because minorities wanted to assert their differences. Although questions about cultural assimilation have certainly engrossed political elites, they have not, until relatively recently, preoccupied immigrants themselves. When large numbers of immigrants from the Caribbean, India, and Pakistan arrived in the United Kingdom during the late 1940s and 1950s to fill labor shortages, British officials feared that they might undermine the country's sense of identity. As a government report warned in 1953, "A large coloured community as a noticeable feature of our social life would weaken . . . the concept of England or Britain to which people of British stock throughout the Commonwealth are attached."
The immigrants brought with them traditions and mores from their homelands, of which they were often very proud. But they were rarely preoccupied with preserving their cultural differences, nor did they generally consider culture to be a political issue. What troubled them was not a desire to be treated differently but the fact that they were treated differently. Racism and inequality, not religion and ethnicity, constituted their key concerns. In the following decades, a new generation of black and Asian activists, forming groups such as the Asian Youth Movements and the Race Today Collective, acted on those grievances, organizing strikes and protests challenging workplace discrimination, deportations, and police brutality. These efforts came to explosive climax in a series of riots that tore through the United Kingdom's inner cities in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
At that point, British authorities recognized that unless minority communities were given a political stake in the system, tensions would continue to threaten urban stability. It was in this context that multicultural policies emerged. The state, at both the national and the local level, pioneered a new strategy of drawing black and Asian communities into the mainstream political process by designating specific organizations or community leaders to represent their interests. At its heart, the approach redefined the concepts of racism and equality. Racism now meant not simply the denial of equal rights but also the denial of the right to be different. And equality no longer entailed possessing rights that transcended race, ethnicity, culture, and faith; it meant asserting different rights because of them.
Consider the case of Birmingham, the United Kingdom's second most populous city. In 1985, the city's Handsworth area was engulfed by riots sparked by a simmering resentment of poverty, joblessness, and, in particular, police harassment. Two people died and dozens were injured in the violence. In the aftermath of the unrest, the city council attempted to engage minorities by creating nine so-called umbrella groups—organizations that were supposed to advocate for their members on matters of city policy. These committees decided on the needs of each community, how and to whom resources should be disbursed, and how political power should be distributed. They effectively became surrogate voices for ethnically defined fiefdoms.
The city council had hoped to draw minorities into the democratic process, but the groups struggled to define their individual and collective mandates. Some of them, such as the African and Caribbean People's Movement, represented an ethnic group, whereas others, such as the Council of Black-Led Churches, were also religious. Diversity among the groups was matched by diversity within them; not all the people supposedly represented by the Bangladeshi Islamic Projects Consultative Committee, for example, were equally devout. Yet the city council's plan effectively assigned every member of a minority to a discrete community, defined each group's needs as a whole, and set the various organizations in competition with one another for city resources. And anyone who fell outside these defined communities was effectively excluded from the multicultural process altogether.
The problem with Birmingham's policies, observed Joy Warmington, director of what was then the Birmingham Race Action Partnership (now BRAP), a charitable organization working to reduce inequality, in 2005, is that they "have tended to emphasize ethnicity as a key to entitlement. It's become accepted as good practice to allocate resources on ethnic or faith lines. So rather than thinking of meeting people's needs or about distributing resources equitably, organizations are forced to think about the distribution of ethnicity." The consequences were catastrophic. In October 2005, two decades after the original Handsworth riots, violence broke out in the neighboring area of Lozells. In 1985, Asian, black, and white demonstrators had taken to the streets together to protest poverty, unemployment, and police harassment. In 2005, the fighting was between blacks and Asians. The spark had been a rumor, never substantiated, that a group of Asian men had raped a Jamaican girl. The fighting lasted a full weekend.
Why did two communities that had fought side by side in 1985 fight against each other in 2005? The answer lies largely in Birmingham's multicultural policies. As one academic study of Birmingham's policies observed, "The model of engagement through Umbrella Groups tended to result in competition between BME [black and minority ethnic] communities for resources. Rather than prioritizing needs and cross-community working, the different Umbrella Groups generally attempted to maximize their own interests."
The council's policies, in other words, not only bound people more closely to particular identities but also led them to fear and resent other groups as competitors for power and influence. An individual's identity had to be affirmed as distinctive from the identities of those from other groups: being Bangladeshi in Birmingham also meant being not Irish, not Sikh, and not African Caribbean. The consequence was the creation of what the economist Amartya Sen has termed "plural monoculturalism"—a policy driven by the myth that society is made up of distinct, uniform cultures that dance around one another. The result in Birmingham was to entrench divisions between black and Asian communities to such an extent that those divisions broke out into communal violence.
SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL
Instead of welcoming immigrants as equals, German politicians dealt with the so-called Turkish problem through a policy of multiculturalism.
Germany's road to multiculturalism was different from the United Kingdom's, although the starting point was the same. Like many countries in western Europe, Germany faced an immense labor shortage in the years following World War II and actively recruited foreign workers. Unlike in the United Kingdom, the new workers came not from former colonies but from the countries around the Mediterranean: first from Greece, Italy, and Spain, and then from Turkey. They also came not as immigrants, still less as potential citizens, but as so-called Gastarbeiter (guest workers), who were expected to return to their countries of origin when the German economy no longer required their services.
Over time, however, these guests, the vast majority of them Turks, went from being a temporary necessity to a permanent presence. This was partly because Germany continued to rely on their labor and partly because the immigrants, and more so their children, came to see Germany as their home. But the German state continued to treat them as outsiders and refuse them citizenship.
German citizenship was, until recently, based on the principle of jus sanguinis, by which one can acquire citizenship only if one's parents were citizens. The principle excluded from citizenship not just first-generation immigrants but also their German-born children. In 1999, a new nationality law made it easier for immigrants to acquire citizenship. Yet most Turks remain outsiders. Out of the three million people of Turkish origin in Germany today, only some 800,000 have managed to acquire citizenship.
Instead of welcoming immigrants as equals, German politicians dealt with the so-called Turkish problem through a policy of multiculturalism. Beginning in the 1980s, the government encouraged Turkish immigrants to preserve their own culture, language, and lifestyle. The policy did not represent a respect for diversity so much as a convenient means of avoiding the issue of how to create a common, inclusive culture. And its main consequence was the emergence of parallel communities.
First-generation immigrants were broadly secular, and those who were religious were rarely hard-line in their beliefs and practices. Today, almost one-third of adult Turks in Germany regularly attend mosque, a higher rate than among other Turkish communities in western Europe and even in many parts of Turkey. Similarly, first-generation Turkish women almost never wore headscarves; now many of their daughters do. Without any incentive to participate in the national community, many Turks don't bother learning German.
At the same time that Germany's multicultural policies have encouraged Turks to approach German society with indifference, they have led Germans to view Turkish culture with increasing antagonism. Popular notions of what it means to be German have come to be defined partly in opposition to the perceived values and beliefs of the excluded immigrant community. A 2011 survey conducted by the French polling firm Ifop showed that 40 percent of Germans considered the presence of Islamic communities "a threat" to their national identity. Another poll, conducted by Germany's Bielefeld University in 2005, suggested that three out of four Germans believed that Muslim culture did not fit into the Western world. Anti-Muslim groups, such as Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, or PEGIDA, are on the rise, and anti-immigration protests held in cities across the country this past January were some of the largest in recent memory. Many German politicians, including Merkel, have taken a strong stance against the anti-Muslim movement. But the damage has already been done.
SUBCONTRACTING POLICY
In both the United Kingdom and Germany, governments failed to recognize the complexity, elasticity, and sheer contrariness of identity. Personal identities emerge out of relationships—not merely personal ties but social ones, too—and constantly mutate.
Group identities are not natural categories; they arise out of social interaction.
Take Muslim identity. Today there is much talk in European countries of a so-called Muslim community—of its views, its needs, its aspirations. But the concept is entirely new. Until the late 1980s, few Muslim immigrants to Europe thought of themselves as belonging to any such thing. That wasn't because they were few in number. In France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, for example, there were already large and well-established South Asian, North African, and Turkish immigrant communities by the 1980s.
The first generation of North African immigrants to France was broadly secular, as was the first generation of Turkish immigrants to Germany. By contrast, the first wave of South Asian immigrants to arrive in the United Kingdom after World War II was more religious. Yet even they thought of themselves not as Muslims first but as Punjabis or Bengalis or Sylhetis. Although pious, they wore their faith lightly. Many men drank alcohol. Few women wore a hijab, let alone a burqa or a niqab (a full-faced veil). Most attended mosque only occasionally. Islam was not, in their eyes, an all-encompassing philosophy. Their faith defined their relationship with God, not a sacrosanct public identity.
Members of the second generation of Britons with Muslim backgrounds were even less likely to identify with their religion. The same went for those whose parents were Hindu or Sikh. Religious organizations were barely visible within minority communities. The organizations that bound immigrants together were primarily secular and often political; in the United Kingdom, for example, such groups included the Asian Youth Movements, which fought racism, and the Indian Workers' Association, which focused on labor rights.
Only in the late 1980s did the question of cultural differences become important. A generation that, ironically, is far more integrated and westernized than the first turned out to be the more insistent on maintaining its alleged distinctiveness. The reasons for this shift are complex. Partly they lie in a tangled web of larger social, political, and economic changes over the past half century, such as the collapse of the left and the rise of identity politics. Partly they lie in international developments, such as the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the Bosnian war of the early 1990s, both of which played an important role in fostering a more heightened sense of Muslim identity in Europe. And partly they lie in European multicultural policies.
Group identities are not natural categories; they arise out of social interaction. But as cultural categories received official sanction, certain identities came to seem fixed. In channeling financial resources and political power through ethnically based organizations, governments provided a form of authenticity to certain ethnic identities and denied it to others.
Multicultural policies seek to build a bridge between the state and minority communities by looking to particular community organizations and leaders to act as intermediaries. Rather than appeal to Muslims and other minorities as citizens, politicians tend to assume minorities' true loyalty is to their faith or ethnic community. In effect, governments subcontract their political responsibilities out to minority leaders.
Such leaders are, however, rarely representative of their communities. That shouldn't be a surprise: no single group or set of leaders could represent a single white community. Some white Europeans are conservative, many are liberal, and still others are communist or neofascist. And most whites would not see their interests as specifically "white." A white Christian probably has more in common with a black Christian than with a white atheist; a white socialist would likely think more like a Bangladeshi socialist than like a white conservative; and so on. Muslims and Sikhs and African Caribbeans are no different; herein rests the fundamental flaw of multiculturalism.
ASSIMILATE NOW
France's policy of assimilationism is generally regarded as the polar opposite of multiculturalism, which French politicians have proudly rejected. Unlike the rest of Europe, they insist, France treats every individual as a citizen rather than as a member of a particular racial, ethnic, or cultural group. In reality, however, France is as socially divided as Germany or the United Kingdom, and in a strikingly similar way.
Questions surrounding French social policy, and the country's social divisions, came sharply into focus in Paris this past January, when Islamist gunmen shot 12 people dead at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and four Jews in a kosher supermarket. French politicians had long held multicultural policies responsible for nurturing homegrown jihadists in the United Kingdom. Now they had to answer for why such terrorists had been nurtured in assimilationist France, too.
It is often claimed that there are some five million Muslims in France—supposedly the largest Muslim community in western Europe. In fact, those of North African origin in France, who have been lumped into this group, have never constituted a single community, still less a religious one. Immigrants from North Africa have been broadly secular and indeed often hostile to religion. A 2006 report by the Pew Research Center showed that 42 percent of Muslims in France identified themselves as French citizens first—more than in Germany, Spain, or the United Kingdom. A growing number have, in recent years, become attracted to Islam. But even today, according to a 2011 study by Ifop, only 40 percent identify themselves as observant Muslims, and only 25 percent attend Friday prayers.
Those of North African origin in France are also often described as immigrants. In fact, the majority are second-generation French citizens, born in France and as French as any voter for the National Front. The use of the terms "Muslim" and "immigrant" as labels for French citizens of North African origin is not, however, accidental. It is part of the process whereby the state casts such citizens as the other—as not really part of the French nation.
As in the United Kingdom, in France, the first generation of post–World War II immigrants faced considerable racism, and the second generation was far less willing to accept social discrimination, unemployment, and police brutality. They organized, largely through secular organizations, and took to the streets, often in violent protest. The riots that swept through French cities in the fall of 2005 exposed the fractures in French society as clearly as had those that engulfed British cities two decades earlier.
During the 1970s and early 1980s, the French authorities took a relatively laid-back stance on multiculturalism, generally tolerating cultural and religious differences at a time when few within minority communities expressed their identities in cultural or religious terms. French President François Mitterrand even coined the slogan le droit à la différence (the right to difference). As tensions within North African communities became more open and as the National Front emerged as a political force, Paris abandoned that approach for a more hard-line position. The riots in 2005, and the disaffection they expressed, were presented less as a response to racism than as an expression of Islam's growing threat to France. In principle, the French authorities rejected the multicultural approach of the United Kingdom. In practice, however, they treated North African immigrants and their descendents in a "multicultural" way—as a single community, primarily a Muslim one. Concerns about Islam came to reflect larger anxieties about the crisis of values and identity that now beset France.
A much-discussed 2013 poll conducted by the French research group Ipsos and the Centre de Recherches Politiques, or CEVIPOF, at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (known as Sciences Po) found that 50 percent of the French population believed that the economic and cultural "decline" of their country was "inevitable." Fewer than one-third thought that French democracy worked well, and 62 percent considered "most" politicians to be "corrupt." The pollsters' report described a fractured France, divided along tribal lines, alienated from mainstream politics, distrustful of national leaders, and resentful of Muslims. The main sentiment driving French society, the report concluded, was "fear."
In the United Kingdom, multicultural policies were at once an acknowledgment of a more fractured society and the source of one. In France, assimilationist policies have, paradoxically, had the same result. Faced with a distrustful and disengaged public, politicians have attempted to reassert a common French identity. But unable to define clearly the ideas and values that characterize the country, they have done so primarily by sowing hostility toward symbols of alienness—by banning the burqa, for example, in 2010.
Instead of accepting North Africans as full citizens, French policy has tended to ignore the racism and discrimination they have faced. Many in France view its citizens of North African origin not as French but as Arab or Muslim. But second-generation North Africans are often as estranged from their parents' culture and mores—and from mainstream Islam—as they are from wider French society. They are caught not between two cultures, as it is often claimed, but without one. As a consequence, some of them have turned to Islamism, and a few have expressed their inchoate rage through jihadist violence.
At the same time, French assimilationist policies have exacerbated the sense of disengagement felt by traditional working-class communities. The social geographer Christophe Guilluy has coined the phrase "the peripheral France" to describe those people "pushed out by the deindustrialization and gentrification of the urban centers," who "live away from the economic and decision-making centers, in a state of social non-integration," and have thus come to "feel excluded." The peripheral France has emerged mainly as a result of economic and political developments. But like many parts of the country's North African communities, it has come to see its marginalization through the lens of cultural and ethnic identity. According to the 2013 Ipsos-CEVIPOF poll, seven out of ten people thought there were "too many foreigners in France," and 74 percent considered Islam to be incompatible with French society. Presenting Islam as a threat to French values has not only strengthened culture's political role but also sharpened popular disenchantment with mainstream politics.
In the past, disaffection, whether within North African or white working-class communities, would have led to direct political action. Today, however, both groups are expressing their grievances through identity politics. In their own ways, racist populism and radical Islamism are each expressions of a similar kind of social disengagement in an era of identity politics.
ANOTHER WAY
Multiculturalism and assimilationism are different policy responses to the same problem: the fracturing of society. And yet both have had the effect of making things worse. It's time, then, to move beyond the increasingly sterile debate between the two approaches. And that requires making three kinds ?of distinctions.
First, Europe should separate diversity as a lived experience from multiculturalism as a political process. The experience of living in a society made diverse by mass immigration should be welcomed. Attempts to institutionalize such diversity through the formal recognition of cultural differences should be resisted.
Second, Europe should distinguish colorblindness from blindness to racism. The assimilationist resolve to treat everyone equally as citizens, rather than as bearers of specific racial or cultural histories, is valuable. But that does not mean that the state should ignore discrimination against particular groups. Citizenship has no meaning if different classes of citizens are treated differently, whether because of multicultural policies or because of racism.
Finally, Europe should differentiate between peoples and values. Multiculturalists argue that societal diversity erodes the possibility of common values. Similarly, assimilationists suggest that such values are possible only within a more culturally—and, for some, ethnically—homogeneous society. Both regard minority communities as homogeneous wholes, attached to a particular set of cultural traits, faiths, beliefs, and values, rather than as constituent parts of a modern democracy.
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Publié par pratclif à 11:02
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Adam Smith: An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations.
Adam Smith: Recherches sur la nature et les causes de la richesse des nations
Jean Baptiste Say: traité d'économie politique
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Frédéric Bastiat: harmonies économiques
Oeuvres complètes de Frédéric Bastiat
Ludwig von Mises; L'Action humaine Traité d'économie
Mises Institute: about Ludwig von Mises's Human Action
Mises Institute: Ludwig von Mises's Human Action (english version pdf)
Murray N. Rothbard: What has the state done to our money?
Henry Hazlitt: L'Économie politique en une leçon
Keynes en prison; une réfutation de la Théorie générale d'emploi, de l'intérêt et de la monnaie de Keynes
Murray Newton Rothbard: l'homme, l'économie et l'état.
Henry Hazlitt: l'économie en une leçon
Henry Hazlitt: réfutation de la "Théorie générale d'emploi, de l'Intérêt et de la monnaie" de Keynes (1936).
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Serge Audier: Néo-libéralisme(s). Une archéologie intellectuelle
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text:
Coronavirus Variants, Susceptible Population, Slack In Following COVID Appropriate Behaviour Behind Second Wave: Experts
The number of new coronavirus cases in India touched a record daily high since the outbreak of the pandemic with over 1.15 lakh new infections being reported in a span of 24 hours
Press Trust Of India |
Single-day rise in cases breached the 1 lakh mark for 2nd time in 3 days
There are a greater number of people who are susceptible: Experts
All viral infections come in a wave: Experts
New Delhi: Slack in following COVID appropriate behaviour, a susceptible population and spread of variants could be among the main reasons for the second wave of coronavirus that has hit the country, healthcare experts have said. The number of new coronavirus cases in India touched a record daily high since the outbreak of the pandemic with over 1.15 lakh new infections being reported in a span of 24 hours, pushing the nationwide COVID-19 tally to 1,28,01,785 on Wednesday (April 7).
Also Read: New Wave Of COVID-19 Spreading Faster Than Last Year, Demand For Beds Increasing: Delhi's LNJP Hospital
The single-day rise in cases breached the one-lakh mark for the second time in three days. Dr Giridhara R Babu, Professor and Head, Lifecourse Epidemiology, Public Health Foundation of India, said three important factors can be responsible for the surge of cases.
Although the government has not acknowledged it as there is no clear evidence, there is definitely a role of new variants of concern which are more infectious and probably some of them are immune escape variants also and they are spreading faster than the earlier versions, Dr Babu told PTI.
Immune escape variants are not detected by the immune system. Some mutations confer this property to the virus and the antibodies are unable to detect it. The Brazil variant is generally not detected by antibodies and then there is a sub-group of South African variant that is also not detected, he said.
Most importantly, the pace of vaccination is not as fast as one would expect India to be in. The pace at which the vulnerable have to be covered is not satisfactory, he said.
He said it is very difficult to specifically say if the variant factor is responsible for the surge in India because genome sequencing has not been done to the levels that are expected.
So we are left guessing but nothing else can explain why cases are surging so fast and affecting the areas that presumably had higher levels of antibodies in serosurveys, he said.
Also Read: World Health Day 2021: WHO Issues Five Calls For Urgent Action To Combat Global Inequity In Health
Talking about the possibility of re-infection, he said it might be happening because of waning antibodies.
There is a role for reinfections, but it has not been studied in detail. As a result, there are a greater number of people who are susceptible, he said.
Dr Babu further said environmental factors and community behaviour are also playing their part.
Almost everything we do, whether it is rallies, melas, marriage, all this lead to transferring of infection from one person to another. Unless we act on each of these, work on understanding the virus and reducing its geographical area, building host immunity by speeding up vaccination and changing the environmental factors that facilitate faster spread, we can't really expect that the wave will be controlled. Right now, it is surging ahead as a combination of all these may be at play, he said.
Speaking in the same vein, epidemiologist Dr N K Arora said the upsurge is because of "4-5 factors acting simultaneously". He said all viral infections come in a wave, which is a natural phenomenon, and COVID-19 reached its crescendo in September last year. After ebbing, it is again seeing a crest.
Also Read: COVID-19 Mortality Among Youth, Middle-Aged People A Cause Of Concern: Karnataka Health Minister
He said the fear factor which was there in the initial six months of this pandemic has come down significantly as the economy has opened up, people have started moving out and have become less careful when it comes of COID-appropriate behaviour, he said. Moreover, social gatherings have increased and people have also started going out on vacations.
All this is linked to the decline in fear factor and the perception that it is a mild disease, he said.
He also noted that wearing masks has drastically reduced. Responding to a question on whether new variants of the coronavirus could be responsible for the surge, Arora said there are several aspects to the issue.
If we look at variant isolation rate versus the number of cases coming up it looks like they might be contributing but not a significant proportion of this upsurge is because of the variants, he told PTI.
He said the number of susceptible people in the community is still very high which is leading to this upsurge. Prof Jayaprakash Muliyil, the former Principal, Christian Medical College, Vellore and the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the National Institute of Epidemiology, said a new susceptible pool has emerged because of people being a little less anxious about COVID. Earlier, people were frightened, but now the same population is less worried. On the role of variants, he said they could increase the attack rate, but ther has to be a susceptible population.
A new variant which completely ignores previous immunity acquired due to the infection is a very remote possibility and presently there is no evidence that it is operating, he added.
Also Read: No COVID-19 Vaccine Shortage In Any Part Of Country, Carelessness Behind Surge In Cases: Union Health Minister
Coronavirus Health
Wearing Mask Compulsory Even While Driving Alone During COVID-19 Pandemic, Says Delhi High Court
New Wave Of COVID-19 Spreading Faster Than Last Year, Demand For Beds Increasing: Delhi's LNJP Hospital
Why Is It Important To Keep Our Gut Healthy? Actor Taapsee Pannu & Nutritionist Munmun Ganeriwal Explain
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Airbus To Begin Offering Tours Of Its Mobile Final Assembly Line
Airbus is opening the doors of its A320 assembly site in Alabama to the public next month. On Saturday, November 14, Flight Works, an aerospace exhibition and education center next door to the Airbus site, will run four tours open to anyone to join. According to Flight Works, these will be the first-ever public tours of the Alabama aircraft factory.
The first-ever Airbus produced at Mobile takes flight. Photo: Airbus
First-ever public tours of Airbus Mobile factory
The Airbus Mobile factory is the major assembly and delivery site for Airbus commercial aircraft in the United States. It is one of four final assembly and delivery points for Airbus A320 family aircraft and one of two final assembly and delivery points for the Airbus A220.
These tours will be of the A320 factory. The Mobile factory produces A320 family aircraft bound for North American customers. Delta Air Lines, Spirit Airlines, Air Canada, and American Airlines are some of the local airlines flying A320s and their variants made in Mobile.
The Airbus Mobile factory is relatively new. The first completed plane, a JetBlueA321, only left the factory in 2016. But within two years, the factory had produced 50 aircraft and could pump A320s out at the rate of four a month.
Until now, the Airbus factory had been largely off-limits to members of the public. Tours were restricted to industry insiders and media. However, Flight Works, which is jointly funded by Airbus and the state of Alabama, is now coming to the party.
ANNOUNCING AIRBUS A320 FINAL ASSEMBLY LINE TOURS — The wait is over! Be a part of history and attend the first-ever public tour of the Airbus Mobile Manufacturing Facility on Sat., Nov. 14, 2020.
Space is limited. Don't wait! Claim your seat NOW at https://t.co/8XyMcNukFU. pic.twitter.com/eNK1FqlJoa
— Flight Works Alabama (@FlightWorksAL) October 28, 2020
According to the firm's information page, Flight Works is running four tours of the Mobile factory on November 14. The tours take 90 minutes and cost $23.50 per person. The tours are open to anyone, provided you can handle some stairs. While children are permitted, all adults must bring government-issued photo identification and undergo a quick security check. Flight Works also notes that photography is not permitted inside the factory.
It looks like a super interesting way to spend the morning.
Lots to see at the Airbus factory
Airbus' final assembly line hangar at Mobile is a beast of a building. It is 836 feet by 250 feet, with a 91-foot ceiling. There are five main workstations to see on the tour.
At the first two workstations, all tubes, ducts, and cables for the electrical, hydraulic, and air conditioning systems are connected. The lavatories and galleys are placed into the still open fuselage, and the cockpit begins coming together. More than 3,000 rivets are used to join the separate pieces of the fuselage together.
At the next workstation, wings are joined to the fuselage, using among other things, another 1,200 rivets. The aircraft is supplied with electrical power for the first time, and system testing begins. The main and nose landing gear are also assembled at this station.
Inside the A320 factory at Mobile, Alabama. Photo: Airbus
In addition to the auxiliary power unit (APU), the horizontal and vertical tailplanes, tail cone, nose, and radome all get installed at the fourth workstation. Work on the cabin interior also begins here.
The last workstation is the Dock Station. The cabin interior is worked on, and a range of function and system tests take place. In addition, engines and engine cowlings are installed.
From the dock station, the A320s are readied for final testing and painting.
At the time of writing, tickets to the tours are still available, but they should sell like hotcakes. So, if you are interested and around Mobile on November 14, get in quick.
What are your thoughts about this initiative? Let us know what you think in the comment section.
Andrew Curran
Lead Journalist - Australasia - A Masters level education and appetite for travel combines to make Andrew an incredible aviation brain with decades of insight behind him. Working closely with airlines including Qantas and Virgin Australia, Andrew's first-hand knowledge of the challenges and opportunities facing Australian airlines adds exciting depth and color to his work and sees him providing commentary to ABC News and more. Based in Melbourne, Australia.
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Q: What tactics to use for final fight? Disclaimer: I've already completed the game, so I know what to expect in the final mission.
That said, the fight right at the end was (almost) a complete balls-up. I managed to

kill the first 2 avatars, but then I got pinned down in the open area after the bridge by the constant waves of reinforcements. In the end I took the last avatar down after exhausting all my grenades and with everyone in the squad wounded.

And that was just on Rookie.
So, I'm wondering what the best approach is for that fight, for my second playthrough on Veteran. Should I charge in and try to eliminate each boss as fast as possible, or draw them out on to the bridge? What squad composition would people recommend?

A: I'd recommend waiting on the side of the bridge opposite where the avatars and enemies spawn. I think that charging in is suicide, you're just asking to get flanked.
Send someone with high movement forward to trigger the avatars and waves of enemies, then run them back. There should be enough cover on your side of the bridge to just set up overwatch and destroy anything that pops into view. I'd recommend using mind control from your Avatar on any organic enemies, use these for scouting and early damage. I brought along 2 psi soldiers which made things quite easy as I just dominated an Archon and a Andromedon. Calling in Blazing Pylons every other turn as well as being able to launch acid is very useful against groups of enemies, and with this setup I had 9 soldiers able to overwatch and fire every turn, which made short work of any enemies. As another tip, try not to use any consumables before getting to this portion of the mission.
The squad I used on commander to win without injury was:
2 psi operatives
2 grenadiers
1 rapid fire ranger
1 gunslinger sniper
Another fun idea: I believe you can dominate a gatekeeper and use it's "raise zombie army" ability, which would make that last mission quite fun.

A: I managed to make in on commander difficulty using 2 snipers, 1 psi, 1 grenadier, 1 ranger, 1 support and the avatar. I had suffered 0 injuries and used only 1 fire grenade (the fight was fairly easy so I thought there will be another ultimate boss or something -> as a result I preserved them for nothing :)) ).
The trick was to use wraith armor on snipers. This way you can grapple on to a normally inaccessible area just after the bridge (one on the left, one on the right).
Strategy:
0. Rule number 1: Don't charge in. Position your squad as effective as possible and cover as much ground as you can (avatar teleports after being hit).

*

*Recharge all your powers before crossing the bridge (especially aoe from psi and avatar)

*I went 3 left 4 right.

*Mind controlled 1 unit with the avatar (doesn't really matter which, you just need the vision, just take one that doesn't die fast).

*Mind controlled a second unit with the psi (same note as before).

*Killed the 3rd unit and shot the avatar (took about half of his hp).

*Used aid on an the ally closest to the avatar. When he moved he got shot and lost his turn (you always need to do that or he hits like a truck).

*Mutons spawn on right platform, used a void rift and sniper serial to kill them all.

*Focused and killed the avatar.

*Put all that remained into overwatch.

*Sectoids spawned on left platform, killed them with a grenade.

*Avatar spawned and some andromedons on far left platform.

*Killed avatar with the snipers + 1 overwatch hit (after I ended turn). Ignored rest because they were far.

*Last avatar spawned, died from 2 crits of the snipers and 1 slash from the ranger.

*Congratulated myself.
Somewhere in between those steps I also used the void rift from the avatar and a null lance to take some snakes down (but can't remember when so I did not include it in steps :) ).
Snipers did most of the work (and I was glad because they were useless on the rest of the mission, since they had no high ground and shitty angles).
I think that without the wraith armor it would have been pretty hard.

A: The best strategy would be, as described by many, a blitzkrieg against Avatars, since when they die it's all over. However I will tell you the other approach to this battle, for the case when you can't do it the easy way
I've had this fight last 15 turns from the moment I engaged the first Avatar because the second Avatar bugged out and teleported to the other end of the map, and I realised it only after a while and didn't send anyone to find it. This forced me to kill over 80 aliens before the last Avatar run in from the back of the hall, and here is my recipe to doing it:

*

*Mind control is your friend, but correct usage of mind control makes the fight so much easier:

*

*Most aliens attack are weak and unreliable compared to your soldiers. Thus, use them for defence and utility. Codex's disarming, Viper's pulling are so much more useful than just some Berserker or an archon.

*Aliens prefer shooting at the easiest to hit target. They don't care that Gatekeeper is armored, as long as it's exposed and next to them, they will shoot at it instead of taking pot-shots at humans, even if said humans aren't in cover.

*Avatar's mind control is unlimited uses but limited duration. Make sure that its target perishes from enemy fire before you lose control, but not too soon.

*You need to be killing an average of 3-6 aliens per turn, or get overrun. Sometimes a sacrifice or a risky move should be made, if you are in danger of not getting enough aliens this turn and the next.

*Anything that gives you more shots — Serial, Death from above, additional Overwatch from support drones, — makes achieving the above target easier. Any move that does not take result in an alien shot has to be avoided.

*Be constantly on the move. Most cover is easily flanked, and most cover has opposing cover, so staying in one place is inviting disaster.

*Try to keep enemies clustered. Instead of spreading and taking on all enemy packs at once, hunt them down one by one. It's better to skip some of the tougher packs and ignore them till the Rift recharges and you can take them out all at once, then to take down two on the left, two on the right, and have at least one of your flanks in grave danger on the next turn.

A: It seems like defensive approach is just plain wrong since enemy have infinite reinforcements here. So the key factor is speed. Kill first avatar in the first turn, second - in the second turn and you have two or three turns left to hunt down that last bastard who have ill tendency to hide somewhere in some far corner of that large hall. I've got an assault character who killed first and third avatar. This assault had fully upgraded flanking attack (~15 HP per shot + Rapid Fire perk) and AP rounds. Also, this assault had superior speed PCS and sometimes got help from PSI Op with his "Inspire" ability, so she could dash from corner to corner, make a flanking attack, and retreat behind suitable cover ("Implacable" perk). Second avatar was the most difficult, as it managed to mind-control my assault mentioned above. So my soldiers had to shot it three or four times. Occasionally it was executed, as one of my soldiers had "Superior Repeater" upgrade, so some amount of luck was involved. Because avatars have tendency to teleport, my soldiers were scattered to three hunt groups across the hall and had mind-controlled Andromedon by my PSI and mind-controlled Gatekeeper by my Commander to make these small groups somewhat stronger. After all, this fight was flawless or almost flawless. It involved some luck, however.

A: I am doing my first go-through on Commander, having completed the game on the lower levels previously.
This time, I have:
My Squadsight sniper with Icarus Armour
A Magus psi operative with a W.A.R. suit and a Blaster Launcher
Two other Magi
A medical Specialist
A hacker Specialist with Berserker Armour
I have been setting up overwatch traps and then triggering the pods with Scanning Protocol
So far, I have got as far as eliminating the two-Andromedan / 3 Mutons pod (3rd pod), having already eliminated a Sectopod and several minions, and there's not a scratch on any of my soldiers so far, touch wood. I haven't used any one-shot talents or rockets yet.
You just can't beat those long-range area attacks like Dimensional Rift and Null Lance, and Capacitor Discharge and Combat Protocol are good also, so you never need to go toe-to-toe with the aliens. Find what little full cover you can, and send out your Gremlin or your psi powers, and give 'em both barrels.
I may be eating my words by the middle of the final avatar-hunt, but it's looking good so far.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Best GF selection in this town. Good pricing, good product grouping so you can find GF options. Helpful and knowledgeable staff. And you can special order.
Best store in town to find gluten free products. The staff arr very knowledge and helpful. It is pricey but you can order items in bulk and get 10% discount.


One of the high priority objectives for the city of Milan is to improve city services and sustainability implementing an effective Smart City strategy in order to be part of the European and international big cities network.
The Smart City strategy started in Milan in 2012, when a specific mandate for this topic in the municipality department of economic development, university and research was created. This strategy is based on the concept that the public administration has to create a fruitful environment in which the different excellences of the territory can collaborate to pursue common objectives. It is also important to foster, not only the technological changes in the city but also improve the territory economy, the social inclusion, research and innovation and develop the legal framework to assure the feasibility and effectiveness of the different projects and initiatives.
The strategy is strongly related to the Municipality Digital Transformation Policy consisting in infrastructures and services including a dense-fibre-optic-networks, wi-fi-hot-spots, digital-areas, portals and open-data.
Sustainability in urban mobility and regeneration of urban neighbourhoods.
Social Innovation and Industry 4.0 policies.
43 electronic gates equipped with Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology are already in use to support the congestion charging scheme (Area C) to forbid the entrance to pollutant vehicles in the city center.
The effects of these measures are monitored with the help of IoT sensors such as air pollution sensors, weather sensors and traffic loops.
Other IoT sensors such as parking lots sensors, smart lighting, smart waste management, cameras and safety IoT solutions can help Milan to take smarter decisions. By collecting, processing and storing data from these various systems, daily operating procedures can be improved, energy consumption can be decreased, operating costs lowered and security improved while optimizing living conditions.
The city of Milan ranks third amongst large European cities in its atmospheric concentrations of particulate matter, both in terms of average annual level and days of exceeding the European Union PM10 limit of 50 micrograms per cubic meter. Milan has also one of the highest European rates of car ownership – one that is also among the highest in the world.
It is relevant for Milan to reduce traffic congestion and CO2 emissions by improving control and visualization of transportation grid status across multiple transportation systems, increasing the efficiency and safety of the transport system. It is also fundamental to increase the efficiency of overall waste management and to reduce energy costs with intelligent, on-demand control, data analytics, and monitoring of multiple city services.
Sharing cities (2016-2020) is a H2020 project, funded under the Smart Cities and Communities call (SCC1) with the aim of demonstrating at three strategic locations – London, Lisbon, and Milan –the effectiveness of new technologies in improving urban mobility, increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and reducing carbon emissions. The vision is of a more agile and more collaborative smart cities market that dramatically increases the speed and scale at which smart solutions across European cities are implemented. The aim is to engage society in new ways to enable them to play an active role in the transformation of their communities.
DYNAMAP: Dynamic Acoustic Mapping is a LIFE+ project aimed at developing a dynamic noise mapping system able to detect and represent in real time the acoustic impact of road infrastructure. Dynamap will deploy a network of acoustic sensors (microphones) that detect background noise and spikes.
EU-GUGLE: European cities serving as Green Urban Gate towards Leadership in Sustainable Energy is a 7th FP7-ENERGY: project that deals with redevelopment of buildings and energy consumption leveraging building level sensor and energy meters.
OPENAGRI: New Skills for New Jobs in Peri-Urban Agriculture (UIA Initiative) for building-up a sustainable food supply chain and for promoting peri-urban agriculture, adopting innovative approaches, promoting SMEs and start-ups, and increasing urban resilience.