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In December my daughter brought Covid home from school as if a folded permission slip. The feeling, on seeing the two pink lines come up on her test, was complicated and raw, containing both bad memories and relief. Finally (a part of me thought, a part of me quite low down and bloodied), finally the thing we have been waiting for has arrived. I breathed out a breath I had been holding for two years.

There were six or seven other feelings, too, including a now-familiar sense of doom brought on by the realisation that for us, lockdown was to begin again. A gentle PTSD crawled in and made itself comfortable on my lap as I briefly mapped out the next two months of arguments and pasta in my mind. Of course, with rude inevitability, the virus took its time spreading through the house, lingering on our daughter, only taking up residence with our boy toddler when her isolation was nearing its end. He stopped sleeping, his temperature leaping up and down like a cat when the doorbell goes.

Midway through our sons isolation my partner looked at me and regretfully said, I feel odd. He had it, I did not, on we went, greyly. On Christmas Day, having tested relentlessly, I took the children to my parents house where the five of us had a token celebration, but at some point after the crackers I started to feel not good. By the time I got home I was feverish and slightly wild, my throat swollen, my mood vile. Had a faulty test meant Id put my parents at risk? I went to bed.

Im used to pain. I can deal with migraines, even those that are clattery and awful or must be taken personally. Im used to grimly carrying on, one eye shut. But Im unaccustomed to illness like this, where, wheezing and achy, I have no choice but to pass over all caregiving duties in order to lie down and doze through the new series of Sex and the City, on which I formed many sharp yet neurologically suspect opinions.

I slept for days, getting up only to eat muesli and do lateral flow tests, all negative. The lack of a positive result made me feel a little mad, as if I had somehow slipped through realitys fine gauze to another timeline where Wuhans animal market had been closed that day.

That week Id been reading Hanya Yanagiharas new novel, To Paradise, the final third of which is set in New York at the end of the 21st century, a place where increasingly deadly pandemics have ushered in totalitarianism.

It was a bad time, I see now, to read a story about a future defined by sickness, to read about sterilisation, state surveillance, where a mother isolates her immuno-compromised twins for their entire life as yet another virus threatens their society, and how, when she catches it, leaving them without care, the two boys leave their compound for the first time and die in the garden, their lives becoming glorious for once even as they ended.

A bad time. Lying in the linen darkness of a winter afternoon while the government blustered its way through unprecedented levels of Covid infections and my baby coughed downstairs. A bad time, Hanya!

When my second PCR test came back negative, too, I left the house, shakily but with intent. If I wasnt going to have Covid then I sure as hell wasnt going to stay inside that germ-thick house one second longer. I didnt last long; outside there was mostly mud. When I got back to bed I read about a case of flurona, a rare new double infection of coronavirus and influenza thats been discovered in a young, pregnant, unvaccinated Israeli woman. Lol, I croaked, to nobody.

Im much better now, thank you for asking. My cough, while rancid, no longer rattles the cutlery, and my limbs, while still aching, are now entirely capable of navigating at least a staircase. My mood, though, remains in limbo, vigilant to the slightest interior shift.

Its a strange feeling to be ill with the wrong thing. To live in a state immersed in a single virus a sickness that provokes outrage and dry coughs, and shuts down schools and burns out the NHS, and inspires protesters to storm testing centres in a selection of quite bad jeans but to be struck down by another one altogether, one with similar symptoms but fewer culture wars.

Here I found the modern version of Fomo, less bothered by smoky parties and the potential of sex, more concerned with missing out on the hottest new variant, especially when the rest of your family are now happily immune for at least a fortnight.

Why did everyone else in the house get it and not me, I mutter into a tissue had I been such a bad wife and mother that I hadnt been within their breathing spaces all month? What was the point of the night sweats, the hacking cough, the headaches and breathlessness if not to have been a brave little soldier and survived a pandemic? Honestly.

Email Eva at e.wiseman@observer.co.uk or follow her on Twitter @EvaWiseman

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Being ill is no fun, especially if you dont even have Covid - The Guardian

This is the book cover of Religion and Politics Beyond the Culture Wars: New Directions in a Divided America, edited by Darren Dochuk. The book is reviewed by Agostino Bono. (CNS photo/courtesy University of Notre Dame Press)

By Agostino Bono Catholic News Service Posted January 14, 2022

Religion and Politics Beyond the Culture Wars: New Directions in a Divided America, edited by Darren Dochuk. University of Notre Dame Press. (Notre Dame, Indiana, 2021). 359 pp. $55.

Mixing religion, politics, the culture wars and division in America can make for an explosive cocktail in a country where many people see issues and often the people espousing them in black and white.

This worsened during the presidency of Donald Trump, who demonized opponents and used ridicule more than arguments to shoot down ideas.

The result is todays society in which such hot-button topics as abortion, immigration, race, climate change and who can use which public bathroom are treated as a tug-of-war producing only winners and losers.

Little room exists for gray areas, thoughtful compromise and negotiations to resolve problems. Its universal truths versus moral relativism.

This book a collection of 14 essays mostly by academics doesnt solve any problems, but it shows that divisions and culture wars are nothing new in a society where religion and politics often combust. The difference today is a more polarized citizenry.

The essays avoid dealing directly with current incendiary issues or in some cases how they are framed today. Instead, many essays delve into the previous century and the beginnings of this one to show how various religious communities and individuals intertwined with politics on key issues such as the Cold War and the environment.

Sometimes the issues divided different religions or produced splits within some, such as opposition to the Vietnam War. The essays are based on presentations at a 2014 Beyond the Culture War conference at Washington University in St. Louis.

As these are essays, there is no common thread running through the book nor is there a clear formula as to how religion and politics can go beyond culture wars and heal divisions. But individual essays present some interesting facts.

Early in the previous century there was a struggle as to who should lead Christian workers in their labor struggles: the workers themselves or clergy arbiters.

Catholics, Jews and some Protestants were favorable to immigration. Other Protestants were opposed, however, because it would open the door to more southern European Catholics in a country considered white Anglo-Saxon Protestant now and forever.

One tantalizing essay shows how the CIA recruited Catholic and Protestant missionaries on overseas assignments as spies.

But it commits an enormous historical error. It says a CIA-aided Catholic movement helped replace Chilean Marxist President Salvador Allende with a Christian Democrat president. Allende was overthrown in 1973 by a military coup that inaugurated a brutal military regime headed by Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

Perhaps the most interesting fact to emerge in the book is the difficulty in tagging people with preconceived political labels even in divisive times. Many Catholics, especially priests and nuns, were actively engaged in Vietnam War protests, an activity considered politically liberal at the time.

Yet, they strongly opposed abortion, considered a conservative view, but didnt align themselves with the anti-abortion Republican Party. Their reason for both positions was the same: opposition to the destruction of human life.

The book, while not offering solutions to todays dilemmas, indicates that we may learn some lessons about polarization and culture wars by studying the past.

***

Also of interest: Faith and Reckoning After Trump, edited by Miguel A. De La Torre. Orbis Books (Maryknoll, New York, 2021). 304 pp., $26.

***

Bono is a retired CNS staff writer.

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Can religion and politics get us beyond the culture wars? - CatholicPhilly.com

There's an inherent contradiction at the heart of liberal thinking that perpetually raises its head. It's one which has become ever-more pronounced in our age of ultra-progressive politics: the tension between equality and liberty. Many progressives think you can have both. Alas not. You can only have either, or a greater emphasis upon one at the expense of the other.

This contradiction has once more been made evident today amidst reports of a lecturer who says he is the latest victim of 'cancel culture'. James Treadwell, a professor of criminology at Staffordshire University, says that he is 'being investigated for transphobia' after his employer received 'formal and official' complaints about his gender-critical views on Twitter.

Staffordshire University has confirmed that his case is indeed being reviewed. It has said:

'As a university we are committed to equality, diversity, and inclusion to ensure we promote a positive culture where everyone is able to be themselves. We are equally committed to academic freedom and lawful freedom of speech.'

Here in two adjoining sentences are embodied this contradiction between equality and liberty, or to put it another way, between tolerance and freedom. Either we can have a world in which transgender people or any other minority section of society have a right for their identities to be equally tolerated, respected and protected by the state. Or we can have a society in which individuals have their right to speak their minds, in which their opinions are also tolerated, respected and protected. You can live in a society in which no-one is allowed to be offended, or one in which everyone has the right to be offensive. You can't have both.

As a pragmatic compromise, liberal societies forever choose a middle path, between individual-based liberty and state-enforced equality, oscillating in various degrees between one to the other. Our culture today places emphasis on the latter, of collective safety before individual liberty. This is at the root of 'cancel culture', in which individuals are censured or censored for saying the wrong thing because it might be hurtful to groups of people. Yet our sensitive so-called 'snowflake' world elevates the right not to be offended over the right to be offensive.

For many years it seemed that the libertarians were on the ascendency. In the arts especially there has been a growing consensus since the 1960s that the right to expression trumps societal taboos, sentiment or reactionary outrage. This is why Mary Whitehouse was such a figure of fun in her time: she seemed a dinosaur out of kilter in an age of untrammelled liberation. Theatre censorship ended in Britain in 1968 and even as late as 1995 it was legally impossible to obtain a home video of Reservoir Dogs. Even the idea of banning Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979), which some councils did on account of its perceived blasphemy, would be unthinkable now.

Yet the trend has since swung the other way, mostly in conjunction with the rise of identity politics, which seeks to protect all swathes of society, first from discrimination and acts of violence, but increasingly now from hurt feelings or disagreeable opinions. This shift has been enshrined in equality legislation and in 'hate speech', which protects groups and abstract nouns against individuals.

This has thrown up many problems and objections, not only from those who believe free speech is sacrosanct. It has exposed the related tensions between the rights of groups themselves to be offensive against each other. The 'gay-cake' controversy in Northern Ireland was a case in point: should Christians be allowed the right to act in accordance with their identity and beliefs, even if it might be offensive to gay customers?

Another recent eruption in the culture wars has been between Trans campaigners and gender-critical feminists, with the latter objecting as women that biological men be allowed into female prisons, rape shelters or participate in female sports. Then there is the old matter of some opinions held by somereligious fundamentalistsin regards to women and homosexuals. Which group should be protected? The offended or the offensive?

We see this conflict between safety and freedom in wider society. Lockdowns and the matter of mandatory vaccinations have pitted two camps against each other, between those who believe the safety of society is utterly paramount, and those who believe foremost in bodily autonomy. It's a debate that was previously played out over banning smoking in pubs, and, before that, the compulsory wearing of seat-belts.

In the political sphere, at least, there is implicit recognition that there has to be a compromise between the two aspirations. In the cultural sphere, alas not. Ever since the French revolutionaries issued their contradictory and self-refuting call to arms, 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity', progressives have been living in the shadow of this fraudulent banality.

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James Treadwell and the true meaning of 'cancel culture' - Spectator.co.uk

A decade ago, in March 2012, a group of writers, artists, educators, and activists banded together to combat the deplorable actions of Arizonas state legislature. The states lawmakers had recently passed a bill making the teaching of Ethnic Studies illegal, along with banning courses that promote resentment toward a race or class of people and are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group. The bill also created a list of banned books. Of the more than 80 books that were eventually added to the list, many of the authors were Black and Latinx.

The Arizona law was so restrictive that it made news here in Texas, where we created the Librotraficante Movement in order to highlight the attack on books, educators, and education by conservative politicians. Librotraficante means book smuggler, and thats what we did: collect books in Texas and smuggle them to Arizona, where those same titles had been abruptly banned. We used all of our book nerd talents to create an old-school freedom ride, collecting 35 bus riders and caravanning to six cities: Houston, San Antonio, El Paso, Mesilla, Albuquerque, and Tucson. We collected more than 1,000 copies of Arizonas banned books and disseminated them to community libraries through book bundles to Arizona high school students. The Librotraficante Movement has been crucial in giving a voice to students of color across the nation.

A decade later, that work stays with you. Now the attacks are happening right here in the Lone Star State.

In the last legislative session, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 3, which banned the teaching of critical race theory in Texas classrooms. Governor Greg Abbott and other Texas Republicans have also called for bans of school library books that might make students uncomfortable. State Representative Matt Krause, a Fort Worth Republican, has named 850 books hed like to see removed from libraries. Like in Arizona, the lists seem to target non-white and LGBTQ authors. This much is clear: The Republican Party intends to deny children access to books, authors and an education that would spur their intellectual growth. And in an effort to satisfy their base, Republicans in Texas are pushing away the one population that needs their attention the most: youthand more pointedlyyouth of color.

State Republicans run on libraries and classrooms comes as the states demographics continue to shift. In the 20192020 academic school year, Hispanic students accounted for the largest percentage of the states student enrollment with roughly 53 percent. White students made up only 27 percent of the student body; Black students represented 13 percent, and Asian students represented 5 percent. Each year Texas schools get more diverse, but the same cant be said for the state legislature.

Its worth noting that at the same time the Legislature was cooking up Senate Bill 3, the body quietly shot down another bill that could have created a whole new set of possibilities for youth in Texas. House Bill 1504, filed by state Representative Christina Morales (D-Houston), would have allowed school districts to create an Ethnic Studies course as an alternative to World Geography and World History courses. The bill made no mandates but would have granted the thousands of school districts across the state the ability to adapt coursework to their specific student bodies. It was a beautifully fair bill that gained both Republican and Democratic sponsors.

The bill couldnt survive the states intensifying culture wars, however. It was placed on the Senates intent calendar in May before dying.

That brings us to the present. For a playbook of how to combat the troubling new actions in Texas, I think back to the last days of the Librotraficante caravan. As we arrived in Tucson, where the school district had shut down a Mexican American Studies course, a few of us were assigned the task of sorting the more than 1,000 books amassed during the caravan. It was early morning7:30 or sowhen we noticed that a tiny group of teens had come by. They quietly approached to see the books and grabbed some, retreating without a word. Later, a young lady grabbed a book and took it away to the corner to read it.

As the day went on, the young lady returned, saying, Thank you for giving me this moment. I was just about to finish this book on the day the district personnel came to forcibly take the books away from us. Wise beyond her years, she left us with some parting advice: I want you to have this book back. Give it to somebody else. I hope somebody can learn from this book.

As an educator and a writer, those words were especially powerful. If you can get a kid to pick up a book that they havent seen in three months, then read it like its a sacred texthell, you have witnessed all that is good in education.

Now, 10 years later, Im still a Librotraficante. And Im ready to do it all over again.

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Poet Laureate Lupe Mendez on Banned Books and Librotraficante - The Texas Observer

Screenshot: Microsoft 365/YouTube

In case youd missed it, Microsoft Office has a wokeness editor that will flag your writing if it contains insensitive phrases. Welcome to the dumb culture wars, Office settings.

The software suite will call out your writing for being non-inclusive or containing offensive language. In the same way a spellchecker looks for typos and grammar mistakes, this inclusivity editor, available to Microsoft 365 subscribers, scans your work for inappropriate terms.

The feature goes beyond flagging ethnic slurs and will highlight when youve used words or phrases containing age bias, cultural bias, sexual orientation bias, gender bias, racial bias, as well as gender-specific language.

Some examples include changing blacklist and whitelist to accepted or allowed list, or swapping the gender-specific postman with postal worker. Similarly, humanity or humankind is recommended over mankind, and expert is suggested when the software flags master, a term linked with slavery. (In 2020, Microsoft-owned Github removed master and slave from its website.)

Microsoft says the goal isnt to correct all of societys issues but to make people consider more inclusive ways of writing. The company hired native speakers and linguistic experts in 20 languages to determine which inclusiveness critiques would be unwelcome in certain markets.

We verified that the feature is already available to Microsoft 365 customers but is turned off by default. And rather confusingly, Microsoft gives you the ability to turn off some inclusivity features while leaving others off, so you can have it check for gender bias but ignore ethnic slurs. When enabled, inappropriate terms are underlined in purple and an inclusive alternative is presented.

Microsoft told Daily Mail that the spellchecker might not be suitable for all scenarios and emphasized that it could be turned off if needed. While there are surely scenarios where people dont want a nudge toward political correctness (say, if you were referencing a quote like One giant leap for mankind), you can also just ignore the purple underline.

Microsoft understands that not every Editor suggestion may be suitable for all users and all scenarios, the company told Daily Mail. Thats why we let users be in control of their final output. Editor is a completely optional tool that users can turn on or turn off at any point. Editor does not make any autocorrections. The user has control over which suggestions they choose to use, if any. They will be able to turn on and off each one of them individually.

It seems like Microsoft is tip-toeing, afraid to potentially anger folks who consider wokeness to be toxic, or whatever. If Microsoft wants people to know how woke it is, the company should stick to its convictions and make this a default feature that can be turned off when needed, instead of hiding the tool deep in the settings.

For now, to enable the feature, you have to go to the Editor tab in the top ribbon and select Settings near the button. From there, choose Proofing and Settings... then Grammar and Refinement from the drop-down. Here, you can select which categories of inclusivity youd like the editor to include.

The spellcheck tool is available in the latest version of Microsoft Word in Microsoft 365, the companys productivity cloud subscription service. Unfortunately, those who use the free browser-based version or the standalone one-payment Office 2019 will not be able to access the editor.

Update on Jan 14 at 2:20pm E.T.: Microsoft told Gizmodo that Editor was first made available in March 2020. A previous version of this article suggested the feature was new. Weve updated the piece accordingly.

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Microsoft Offices Woke Spellchecker Is Perfectly Fine and Will Cause Nobody to Freak Out - Gizmodo