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A choice - Jobs or Culture Wars - Fletcher Dean - The Caledonian-Record

Honestly, some of this you couldnt even make up.

I thought, way back in 2002, that the sexually-repressed and sanctimoniously-silly had overplayed their religiosity card when Ws Attorney General, John Ashcroft, ordered aides to drape the Spirit of Justice statue at DOJ headquarters. The piece was commissioned in 1933 from sculptor C. Paul Jennewein, and its cast aluminum, bare-breasted depiction of Lady Justice was a bridge too far for Ashcroft and his ultra-conservative cronies. I was pretty sure he was going to go after those naked silhouettes on big-rigs mudflaps next.

When Ashcroft resigned to take the well-respected and time-honored tradition of converting ones public service into great personal wealth as a high-dollar lobbyist, I was relieved that his personal greed exceeded his desire to continue as a less-well compensated moral scold. Dodged a bullet this time, I thought. But as is usually the case where sanctimony meets the ability to lord it over everyone else, this whack-a-mole game wasnt over.

Fast-forward to Charlie Sykes Bulwark last week:

I regret to tell you that this is not a parody:

A Tallahassee charter school principal has been forced to resign after parents complained about a sixth grade art history lesson, claiming Michelangelos statue of David, arguably the most famous sculpture in the world, was pornographic.

HopeCarrasquilla was pushed out of Tallahassee Classical School this week after three parents complained about the curriculum.

Two said they wished theyd been made aware that kids were being shown images of the sculpture first, and one claimed it was pornographic.

According to the Tallahassee school, some of the children were upset, which seems unlikely.

What actually happened is that three (3) parents, who were evidently unacquainted with depictions of genitalia or classical art, but ever vigilant to the threat of wokeness and pornography, decided to be offended.

So the principal is out, and the tender eyes of the young classicists are protected from the corrupting influences of Renaissance art.

You may remember a Simpsons episode years ago that had Michelangelos David on tour, and you guessed it, some parents were upset. Marge, herself an artist, tried to explain to the townsfolk that the statue was art, not porn. Here, art imitates life, imitating art. For what its worth, the Simpsons also had an episode in the Nineties that had a future headline ballyhooing the new American president, Donald Trump. Thats rich, I recall thinking. Donald Trump as president? The Simpsons, unmatched for its satirical genius, proved also to be the Nostradamus of our era. I was consulting NBC in the Eighties and Nineties when The Donald was a hanger-on there. His narcissism was on full display, and the big joke was that the most dangerous place at 30 Rock was between Trump and the TV cameras.

Back to Florida, which is already in progress. Make that regress. Im sure the governor and his rubber stamp legislature think that banning books, history, and classical art will truly let them crush the woke crowd and own the libs. I guess they havent yet considered that universities in other states may not accept applications from students whose education has been limited to what the state of Florida deems appropriate curricula.

In 2002, a Georgia county stickered existing text books with the words This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered. The states own university system told the reactionary Cobb County (also the home of racist former governor, Lester Maddox), that students hoping to attend a state university or college would need to take remedial biology before being considered for admission. That hurt their cause, but the death blow came from a federal court that ruled in favor of the citizens fighting the sticker and ban on teaching evolution.

From NBC: A federal judge ordered a suburban Atlanta school system to remove stickers from its high school biology textbooks that call evolution a theory, not a fact, saying the disclaimers are an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. By denigrating evolution, the school board appears to be endorsing the well-known prevailing alternative theory, creationism or variations thereof, even though the sticker does not specifically reference any alternative theories, U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper said.

In other words, theres nothing new under the sun. Since Americas inception, conservative religionists have tried to keep secular education out in favor religious education. Dont bother telling them our actual origin story where the Founders are largely deists, not Christians. Theyll tell you its a Christian nation, then go on to misquote and downright defile Christ by misusing him to enforce their own puritanical views.

Has Tallahassee become that town from Footloose?

2023 Jon Sinton

VOL. 113, NO. 14- Apr. 5, 2023

Continued here:
Renaissance Art vs. The Culture Wars | Opinion | coronadonewsca ... - Coronado Eagle and Journal

By Katie Spencer, Arts and entertainment correspondent @SkyKatieSpencer

Sunday 9 April 2023 16:52, UK

From Agatha Christie to Enid Blyton, the modernisation of much-loved classics has turned fiction into another frontier in the culture wars.

Take Roald Dahl, for instance.

When plans emerged to print re-edited versions of some of his classics to remove words like "fat" and "ugly" it caused an uproar, which drew in the likes of Sir Salman Rushdie who described the decision as "absurd censorship".

The prime minister even had his say.

With battle lines drawn, there is growing online outrage about how publishers are increasingly inviting 'sensitivity readers' to provide a sounding board to authors on areas they may have overlooked.

Experts like Helen Gould make suggestions for edits to publishers.

She told Sky News: "Despite the name, [we're] not looking for offence - we're looking for harm."

Gould mostly works with authors early on before their books go to print and, of the 200 projects she's worked on to date, just two works were in print already.

She explained: "People who do not experience oppression maybe don't understand how important it is not to be reminded of all the atrocities that you and people who share your identity have gone through over and over again."

She believes the media's portrayal of sensitivity readers as "unqualified outside forces" is, in part, fuelling online outrage.

"We are more like specialized editors in the same way that if you're writing a book about a hospital, you might want to go and talk to a doctor about what they do

"A white author writing about black characters might want to go and talk to a black person about what it's like to be black.

"I have absolutely no power over what an author or an editor wants to do," she insists. "I just give them my opinion. They can take it or leave it as they want. My job is to give them advice."

But how do authors see it?

Harlan Coben, best known for writing more than 35 thriller novels, has sold somewhere in the region of 80 million books. His latest is called I Will Find You.

Speaking to Sky News about the subject of sensitivity readers, he said: "I haven't worked with one yet, so I can't really judge but I'm always willing to. It doesn't mean that I have to agree with what they have to say, does it?

"I have editors who tell me what to say, in a sense, and that's not necessarily censorship.

"I'm still learning and developing as a human being. I mean, things that I thought when I was a kid or things that I wrote years ago, I probably wouldn't write today, but it was a snapshot of what it was like in 1989 and 1997 or 2004 or whatever. So, I think you have to change with the times.

"The world is different, and so you have to reflect that. My novels take place in the present day, so my characters will speak now differently than when I wrote a book in 1989 or something like that. They should speak differently. The world is different."

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For BAFTA-award-winning writer Abi Morgan - best known for penning the scripts to The Split and The Iron Lady - giving an honest and unfiltered account of what happened to her family for her latest book, This is Not A Pity Memoir, was essential.

While she hasn't yet worked with a sensitivity reader, she told Sky News she sees their value.

"In the same way as, you know, I think we're trying to revise and look at history and really re-examine the way we've looked at history, for example, we're going to do that with literature.

"But also, it's important I think, that those things exist so that we can name them and expose them and say 'that was the time when those things were written and that's not the way we would choose to write now, but that's what was acceptable in that time.' And so, for me, it's a real balance."

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Of course, in reality, modifying what's written with sensitivity is likely to be less about publishers riding a wave of political correctness and more practically about sales. Ensuring books have a longer shelf life, and that what's written stays relevant.

"I think the dialogue is the most important thing that's come out of those [debates]," Morgan explained.

"We're talking about those books and how relevant they are or not and we're revisiting and re-examining language that's just not acceptable anymore.

"And I think that's really interesting to have those conversations."

Read more here:
Sensitivity readers: How fiction became the latest frontier in the culture wars - Sky News

Earlier this month, Floridas governor (and likely Republican presidential candidate) Ron DeSantis, who has introduced legislation to ban the use of a federal digital currency in the state, claimed a central bank digital currency (CBDC) would be exploited by the Federal Reserve Board to impose an ESG (environmental, social and governance) agenda.

He said that the Fed could use the digital currency to stop Americans buying too much petrol, or preventing them from buying guns.

Not in my state! Floridas governor (and likely Republican presidential candidate) Ron DeSantis has railed against the use of a central bank digital currency. AP

Congressional Republicans have even introduced bills seeking to prohibit the Fed from developing a direct-to-consumer, or retail model, for a CBDC because of their concerns that it could be used to create a kind of Orwellian, Big Brother-type comprehensive surveillance of the everyday finances of everyday Americans.

All that politicking is quite peculiar, given that both US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Fed chair Jerome Powell have made it clear that while considerable research is being undertaken on a US CBDC they are not yet convinced that one is needed, or that the risks of introducing a digital currency outweigh the benefits.

Our Reserve Bank, which oversees one of the worlds more sophisticated payments systems, has a similar open-minded attitude to CBDCs. What problems would they solve? Could the apparently relatively modest potential gains in efficiency and competitiveness offset the risks?

The Reserve Bank is exploring whether it should back a central digital currency to rein in booming, unregulated cryptocurrencies.

Nevertheless, galvanised by the threat of privately issued digital currencies most notably , as well as those being developed or already on issue from other governments the worlds major central banks have accelerated their investigations and developments of their own CBDCs.

According to the Atlantic Council, 114 countries representing more than 95 per cent of global GDP are exploring a CBDC. All the G7 economies have moved from research to a development stage and 18 of the 20 G20 countries are at an advanced stage of development.

Eleven countries have actually launched a digital currency, with C and set to expand to the entire country this year. China has also been trialling a cross-border platform for digital currencies with other countries in its region.

The sense of urgency and inevitability is evident, which makes the key challenges raised by the prospect of central bank-issued digital currencies starker and more political.

The most obvious concerns from a central bankers perspective are financial system stability and cybersecurity, given the chequered history of cryptocurrencies.

Both those involve technology and design solutions. Whether the CBDC operates on an account-based or token-based platform and whether it is available only at a wholesale level to banks and other institutions or is issued directly to individuals are vital issues, but there appears to be a range of options for dealing with them.

Most of the major central banks appear to be focusing on the less radical and less disruptive course of adopting a wholesale CBDC, where existing institutions would retain ownership of the customers and their data, and the existential threat existing intermediaries would face if they were cut out of the process by their central bank issuing currency directly to their customers would be reduced.

Both US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Fed chair Jerome Powell have made it clear that they are not yet convinced a CBDC is needed. AP

The more sensitive and complex and more political of the issues the central banks confront in persuading politicians and communities of the benefits of CBDCs (assuming they themselves have been convinced) is the one that DeSantis and other Republicans have seized on.

Whether the CBDC is issued at a wholesale or retail level, there will be some centralised collection of transaction data that could be used to surveil private citizens financial transactions. In China, that would be a core appeal of the CBDC to its authorities. In Western democracies, privacy issues loom larger.

Government agencies in those democracies, of course, already collect and analyse a lot of individuals financial information. Anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing laws require banks and other financial institutions to identify suspect transactions and alert the authorities.

CBDCs, however, could take the collection of data to another level and, while there are tools that could be used to authenticate transactions in CBDCs while shielding the identity of those involved, that would be unacceptable to governments because of the potential for criminal activity.

From the moment central bankers started taking digital currencies seriously, privacy issues were identified as a major stumbling block to the issuance of CBDCs because it was very clear that there would need to be trade-offs and compromises if privacy concerns and the risk that data could be used inappropriately by authorities were to be addressed.

Inevitably, there will be compromises. The European Union and others have suggested that there could be anonymity for lower-value payments, which couldnt be seen by the central bank or anyone not identified by the user, with higher-value transactions subjected to the existing thresholds for anti-money-laundering and terrorist financing checks.

In other words, while the technology underlying the payments system might have changed radically, and CBDCs substituted (albeit not entirely) for cash that carries inherent anonymity, from the users perspective not that much would change.

Banks can and do monitor their customers transactions in real time today. They can and are required to hand over information to the authorities if they see suspicious activity. There are, however and would be in a CBDC environment legal and regulatory protections to balance individual privacy rights and the authorities desire for a level of transparency.

In well-functioning democracies like Australia, the UK, Western Europe and (most of the time) America, those protections would be legislated and policed. Indeed, a CBDC couldnt be issued here, the UK or in the US without legislation.

The privacy concerns about CBDCs in well-functioning democracies are probably over-blown when viewed against the intrusions already faced by consumers, whose financial transactions are not only available to their banks and other financial institutions but increasingly to social media and e-commerce companies.

In most of the jurisdictions considering CBDCs, the debates about their design have been left to the central banks and those in the community with a particular interest in digital assets and currencies, which isnt surprising given the technological complexities and the as-yet inconclusive nature of the discussion of the values, like privacy, that will have to be incorporated into whats essentially a completely new payments system architecture.

It hasnt been something that has sparked much broader or more populist discussion, at least until very recently in America. As we move from theoretical discussions of CBDCs to their issuance by the major central banks, however, that could change quite quickly particularly if it gets caught up in the identity and values battles that rage within the Anglosphere.

The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. .

Read more:
Central bank digital currencies are the latest front in the culture wars - Sydney Morning Herald

Did anyone notice the whole thing was a ruse? A long con designed to use the right-wing noise machine to promote candy. Were talking of course about M&Ms, and how they generated millions of dollars in free publicity simply by manipulating outrage-prone Americans who are stupid enough to listen to anything that comes out of the mouths of Tucker Carlson and the rest of his Fox News nincompoops.

It started early last year when M&Ms tweaked their candy mascots in order to make them more inclusive and unifying. Carlson was the rube who saw a lefty plot where there was none, and soon took to ranting on-air about the sexiness or lack thereof, of non-human, animated bits of chocolate. M&Ms, seeing theyd grabbed our attention, upped the ante by introducing a new, somehow polarizing purple M&M and soon Tucker, Fox and every other aggrieved moron snowflake was off to the races to see who could accuse M&Ms of being more woke.

Which was when M&Ms announced that, heaven forbid, they had no idea the ruckus theyd be causing, so they would terminate the candy mascots entirely and replace them with a human spokesperson. Except that, during the M&Ms Super Bowl television ad it became clear that the spokesperson was a bait and switch. The mascots were back, and the whole thing was a scam to generate buzz for the company at the expense of the American freedumb lemmings who will now fall for anything their bubble-wrapped media overlords tell them is woke.

Like your Xbox. Recently, Microsoft introduced a software patch to help conserve energy when the console isnt being used. But Fox and the rest of the conservative media morons determined that in reality, Microsoft was pushing woke climate ideology on children. Forget for a moment that most Xbox players are adults, but if Microsoft hadnt announced this update, no one wouldve known about it, because its a stupid software patch. But following Foxs lead, various senators and congressmen breathlessly determined that they are coming to take your game consoles.

Poll after poll finds that voters prioritize inflation and the economy over the culture wars.

And remember how for 15 minutes earlier this year the woke mob was coming to take your gas stove? A study was released pointing out that gas fumes are dangerous (no kidding) and that stoves should be more efficient (well, duh), so of course, according to the usual collection of idiot congresscritters and media outrage peddlers, they are coming to take your stove.

See the pattern? They want to take away your all-American stoves and Xboxes. M&Ms and now Legos are woke. Welcome to the newest chapters of the completely made-up culture wars, all contrived hoaxes created for the express purpose of cranking the outrage meters of the gullible up to 11.

Stupid culture wars over stupid things such candy and toys, making it easier for Americans to swallow the bigger, more dangerous lies. Like election denial, and the double-speak that says finding no evidence of election fraud is obviously proof that there was fraud. Completely made-up plots to kill off conservatives with vaccines. Scaring people with phony garbage about pedophiles and drag queens. Denigrating actual history as woke when it challenges authority. Books not approved by the thought police are woke and should be eliminated. Racist, homophobic or violent rants are free speech, but condemning those rants is woke. Clean energy, electric cars, and a fairer, more equitable economy and society all woke, and therefore evil.

Woke: resentment manufactured by the awful Red Hats and amplified by Fox News.

Fox, now fully exposed as a hypocritical repository of false information developed in cahoots with the banana Republican leadership, where hosts and guests know what they say on-air isnt true, but lie to you anyway because its good business. Yet travel around educated, sophisticated Greenwich and Fox still blares out from TVs behind bars, in delis and restaurants and who knows how many private homes. What does that say about us? Now that we know theyre all frauds; now that we know both national and local Red Hat freedom fascists are deliberately and maliciously using their playbook of lies and deception to tear our town and country apart, you really have to ask: what kind of people would knowingly go along with this?

David Rafferty is a Greenwich resident.

See the rest here:
David Rafferty (opinion): Stupid culture wars over stupid things - Greenwich Time