It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
All of Alberta under extreme cold warning, wind chills of -40 expected all week BY KAREN BARTKO GLOBAL NEWS Posted January 12, 2020 12:33 pm Updated January 16, 2020 6:12 am
WATCH ABOVE: Global meteorologist Jesse Beyer's weather forecast for Edmonton and surrounding areas from 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2020.
There’s no other way to say it — it’s very, very, very cold outside. Blowing snow and frigid temperatures have descended upon the entire province of Alberta, and it isn’t getting better anytime soon.
In fact, at -28 C (or -39 with the wind chill), Edmonton was colder late Sunday morning than Iqaluit, located some 2,700 kilometres north in the Arctic, where Environment Canada said it was -22 C, or -33 with the wind chill.
How Calgarians are keeping warm amid the frigid cold How
Calgarians are keeping warm amid the frigid cold
As a multi-day stretch of frigid wind chills continues, Environment Canada expanded extreme cold warnings to all of Alberta as of 3:30 p.m. on Monday.
In Calgary, temperatures were expected to reach a high of -25 C on Monday, or -36 with the wind chill. Overnight, the low could reach -32 C and the wind chill feeling like -38 C, Environment Canada said, adding there was a risk of frostbite.
Monday was such a cold day, the Calgary Zoo cancelled the penguin walk for the day due to the extreme conditions.
Please note the Penguin Walk has been cancelled for today, January 13, 2020, due to extreme cold weather conditions.
We are hopeful to resume the walk tomorrow. We apologize for the inconvenience. pic.twitter.com/FJEuGk1flq
Environment Canada meteorologist Danny Brown said on Sunday that the wind will be the bigger factor earlier in the week — and while that will taper off after a few days, it coincides with the temperature dropping even further. “[Sunday] and [Monday], we’ll have to watch the wind more than the temperature. The temperature will be minus twenty eightish, minus 30 maybe, but the winds will be stronger,” Brown explained.
“But as we get to Tuesday and Wednesday, the temperatures are going to get much colder but the winds won’t be as strong. I think Wednesday night will be the worst night.”TWEET THIS
Brown explained the temperature in Edmonton’s core will be a few degrees warmer than neighbourhoods along Anthony Henday Drive and on the outskirts due to the insulation effect.
“There’s so many buildings and they’re emitting heat and there’s heat reflecting between the buildings, so it stays in the core of the city.”
In some cases, Brown said there can a difference of 10 degrees on very cold nights — however he said as the winds pick up, that discrepancy disappears.
” If you noticed last night, there was actually no difference at all because it was really windy and it just blows the urban heat island away.”
Under clear skies in central AB, you can see the urban ‘heat’ island effect on display. Slightly warmer temperatures in #Calgary and #Edmonton show up darker than frigid rural regions of central AB. Satellite imagery from 12 am MST Tues. #abstorm#yegwx#yycwx#icefogpic.twitter.com/nNSughtDZH
— ECCC Weather Alberta (@ECCCWeatherAB) January 14, 2020 Global Edmonton meteorologist Jesse Beyer said an upper trough in the jet stream has allowed Arctic air to migrate south into the Canadian west.
“The trough will dig in and it looks like we’ll be engulfed by the polar front and remain in the cold for weeks.”TWEET THIS
Some brief improvement may occur during the afternoon hours, but it will still be bitterly cold.
Daytime highs of -25 C to -27 C are expected for Sunday through to Thursday, according to weather specialist Mike Sobel. Wind chills will likely make that feel even colder.
Seasonal highs for this time of year are around -8 C, Sobel said.
The Edmonton International Airport said while some flights are arriving late and they are doing de-icing, that’s normal Canadian winter airport conditions and operations are normal.
Christopher Chodan with EIA said extra shifts are added during winter so the airport is prepared for the upcoming weather. Impact on schools
On Monday, Elk Island Public Schools announced busing service for the school division east of Edmonton would be suspended for the entire day on Tuesday because of the extremely cold conditions.
The school board said all scheduled field trips would also be suspended but noted that all of its schools will remain open.
On Wednesday, several Alberta school divisions announced school bus service would be cancelled on Thursday because of “extreme wind chill conditions.” The cancellations affect all St. Paul Education schools, Wolf Creek Public Schools and Elk Island Public Schools. Wolf Creek Public Schools will also be closed on Thursday, however, St. Paul Education schools and Elk Island Public Schools will remain open.
All buses for Sturgeon Public School Division, Aspen View Public Schools and Greater St. Albert Catholic schools were cancelled for Thursday.
In Cold Lake, Bonnyville, St. Paul, Lac La Biche and Plamondon, all school buses for Conseil scolaire Centre-Est were cancelled for Thursday.
School but cancellations were also in effect for the following districts Thursday:
Calgary Catholic School District said in a news release that all of its 116 schools, including ones in Airdrie, Chestermere and Cochrane, will remain open this week. The district added that schools in the Rocky View School Division were closed Wednesday, and its buses were not running.
Ski hill closures
Several ski hills in the Edmonton area have closed due to the temperature.
Snow Valley Ski Hill said it would be closed Sunday through Tuesday.
Sunridge said it was closed from Sunday through at least Wednesday, but that could be extended depending on how the weather is later this week.
The Edmonton Ski Club said it would be closed Sunday, Monday and Wednesday with regular programs and lessons rescheduled. The ski hill said it is anticipating closure of the hill up until Saturday, depending on the duration of the deep freeze.
Rabbit Hill was open Sunday, however, the ski hill said the chairlift wasn’t running due to the cold. The Rabbit Hill Bus was also not running, as per their cold weather policy.
Rabbit Hill said the entire hill would be closed Monday and Tuesday.
The Ice Castle in Hawrelak Park was also closed Sunday.
Stopped by the Ice Castles. They are closed because of the cold. We just spoke to a family who came from Calgary to see them. pic.twitter.com/29AS6d6zdP
The Nakiska Ski area also sent an advisory to potential skiers and snowboarders on Sunday, saying the hill would be closed on both Monday and Tuesday because of the frigid temperatures.
Shelters for the homeless
Because of the extremely cold temperatures, the City of Edmonton has opened a portion of Commonwealth Recreation Centre to be used as an emergency overnight shelter.
Change rooms next to the Commonwealth Fieldhouse will have space for 36 people between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., with additional space available in the fieldhouse if needed.
The city said the space will be made available as long as it is needed, and there will be three-days notice before it’s deactivated.
Most Edmonton shelters full overnight at cold snap hits
On Wednesday, Coun. Aaron Paquette tweeted that if someone needs to warm up but doesn’t have money to pay their Edmonton Transit fare, ETS will still allow them on and may even provide additional support.
If you are cold and in need, Edmonton Transit is there for you in this extreme weather.
If you are in a position of having no means to pay a fare this will not be held against you – in fact you may be offered supports. If you are cold, get on, get warm, stay safe.#yeg — Aaron Paquette (@Ward4Aaron) January 15, 2020
Extreme cold warnings are issued when very cold temperatures or wind chill creates an elevated risk to health such as frostbite and hypothermia.
Symptoms of cold-weather-related problems include shortness of breath, chest pain, muscle pain and weakness, numbness and colour change in fingers and toes.
If you see someone in the cold who needs help, there are several phone numbers you can call:
311 — This will connect you with the City of Edmonton and should be used for any concerns about homelessness on public land citywide 211, press 3 — This will connect you with 24/7 crisis diversion and should be used when non-emergency support is needed for people in distress, such as with mental health issues, shelter and intoxication 780-860-6146 — This will connect you with the Boyle Street Community Services Street Outreach program and should be used when someone living rough outside is in need of assistance 911 — The emergency number should only be used in cases of someone in serious distress or in case of an emergency
There is a silver lining to the miserable weather — if you have a sweet tooth, Sweet Convenience in west Edmonton is offering a cold-weather discount on all bulk candy. The colder it is, the larger the discount.
Edmonton candy store cashes in on bitter cold by offering discount
OPINION The time for Trudeau to draw a line with TrumpTom Parkin: Canada has quietly tolerated trade attacks, tariffs and border trouble. But rising Middle East tensions present a more immediate threat
Jan 15, 2020
Trump talks with Trudeau during the plenary session of the NATO summit in Watford, northeast of London, on Dec. 4, 2019 (NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)
Again, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has shown his message discipline and empathic abilities when responding to events.
Last week, Trudeau told Canadians that trusted intelligence reports showed Flight 752 had been shot down by Iranian anti-aircraft missiles. He stuck close to his script. He gave no words to those demanding Canada join Donald Trump’s sanctions on Iran. He offered nothing to those asking if Trump’s escalations bore any responsibility for 57 Canadian deaths. Trudeau’s reactions focused on the loss of loved ones, Iran’s act and investigation involvement.
This week came a shift. “Tensions” and “escalation” were necessary conditions of the tragedy, he argued. But still, there was no mention of Trump or any specific, attributable escalations.
The Liberals have, from Trump’s early days, held to a communications policy of no criticism of the U.S. president.
That may soon become unsustainable. A moment of public divergence with Trump may be on the horizon. And the Prime Minister might be wise to prepare for events now—not simply respond to them later.
Some may comfort themselves about Trump, believing he’s an irrational and ignorant fool, sure to self-destruct. But there is a pattern. To Trump, deals like NAFTA, the World Trade Organization or the Iran nuclear deal aren’t crafted by the anonymous laws of economics or international diplomacy. They are deals cut by negotiators, carved out by power.
And so, Trump leverages power to near-explosive levels—breaking norms, hitting with illegal tariffs, breaking international law, lying, making fact-less accusations—to focus power onto an adversary and extract the deal he wants. And everybody is an adversary, including Canada. And we’ve not been prepared for that.
Trump broached NAFTA with soothing words about minor tweaks. Then, just before the bell rang to start NAFTA talks, he thumped us with illegal tariffs on steel and aluminum, labelling Canada a national security threat.
Trudeau and company had a plan, deploying warm diplomacy to Washington insiders. But as the notorious Mike Tyson once said, “Everybody has a plan until I punch them in the face.” And in the result, Trump got his concessions from Canada.
Trump inflicted more face-punching over the treatment of refugees. Trudeau’s plan was to welcome Syrian refugees. But shortly after his election, Trump put limitations on asylum eligibility, removed due process and spoke of the “very fine people” at a fascist rally in Charlottesville, Va., that resulted in murder.
Roxton Road border crossings grew. And Trudeau’s daily political beating lead to policy reversal—now Liberals want to expand the Safe Third Country Agreement, aligning Canadian and Trump’s asylum laws along our southern border.
Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou was another blow. The extradition request combined with China’s arrest of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig gave Trump considerable leverage over Canada’s China policy. Now Trudeau hopes Trump will negotiate the freedom of Spavor and Kovrig. If successful, no doubt that, too, will come at a price to be paid to Trump.
Canadian agriculture is getting hit. U.S. negotiators’ emerging China deal guarantees $40-50 billion in new U.S. agricultural sales. Nice for Republican rural constituencies and farm corporations. But it’s a good bet U.S. gains mean Canadian losses.
Through it all, the strategy of silence has been maintained. Trade and diplomatic power can quietly erode without much notice.
But Trump’s focus on Iran may bring something different—not a quiet erosion, but a sharp and noisy choice between either going along to get along, or diverging. Trump has now suggested NATO forces become more involved in the Middle East. He’s called for more sanctions against Iran—a call Canadian Conservatives quickly echoed.
If Canada wants the option to diverge in the event these new Trump threats become real, Trudeau’s response can’t wait for the bell to ring. A leader who may need to diverge paths later needs to start finding the ground now.
He doesn’t have to say the T-word. But a leader of an aggrieved nation has every right and reason to talk about the safety of its people. To warn about tensions that lead to the deaths of innocents. About de-escalation. About peace.
That ground is worth standing on simply to recommit to Canadian values and honour flight 752’s victims. But it can also prepare ground for a sharp choice away from a president who–under impeachment and facing the electorate–may soon drag us deeper into his hellish vortex.
Driving through Pennsylvania, I was tuned in to an oldies station that was playing At the Hop, the dance sensation that swept the nation in the 1950s, when on came the Rush Limbaugh show.
From microbes to man: Muck-dwelling organism found off Japanese coast could help explain how complex life arose on Earth
A Japanese team spent 12 years cultivating microbes from deep-sea mud - the painstaking effort even involved feeding the cells with powdered baby milk. Now their work has revealed what the ancestor of all complex life on earth might've looked like.https://t.co/QUKk92Czy5
16 Jan, 2020 02:18
A strange microbe found buried deep in the mud off Japan’s southern coast may finally unravel one of evolution’s most pressing mysteries, helping scientists understand how complex lifeforms emerged from the primordial ooze.
Taking its name from Prometheus – the Greek titan who fashioned mankind from a slab of clay – the newly discovered Prometheoarchaeum syntrophicum was found embedded more than a mile under the ocean surface in the muddy seabed near Japan’s Kii Peninsula. The team behind the discovery published their findings in Nature on Wednesday.
Noticing the creature’s unique attributes, the team was able to produce lab cultures, allowing them to study it in much greater detail. The sphere-shaped single-cell microbe, each about 500 nanometers around, is equipped with long, branching limbs, which researchers theorize are used to ensnare other microorganisms, such as bacteria. But instead of preying on those “companion bacteria,” the creature is thought to absorb it, eventually becoming a single lifeform over long periods of evolutionary history.
Biologists have long suspected that such a symbiotic relationship could explain the emergence of complex life, suggesting that simple microbes fused billions of years ago to produce more complicated cell structures. It is believed the same process gave rise to “eukaryotes,” a broad category of complex organisms encompassing everything from fungi, plants, insects and animals – humans included.
“How we – as eukaryotes – originated is a fundamental question related to how we – as humans – came to be,” said microbiologist Masaru Nobu of Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, one of the study’s main authors.
Isolation of an archaeon at the prokaryote–eukaryote interface
NEWS AND VIEWS
Meet the relatives of our cellular ancestor
Microorganisms related to lineages of the Asgard archaea group are thought to have evolved into complex eukaryotic cells. Now the first Asgard archaeal species to be grown in the laboratory reveals its metabolism and cell biology.
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FACTORY FARM INDUSTRY QUIETLY LOBBIES CALIFORNIA OFFICIALS TO CRIMINALIZE ANIMAL RESCUE ACTIVISM
THE FACTORY farming industry has had enough of Direct Action Everywhere, the controversial animal liberation activist group.
The California Farm Bureau Federation, the powerful agribusiness trade group, along with its local affiliates, has pushed for aggressive policing and prosecutions of Direct Action Everywhere, or DxE. Now, records obtained by The Intercept show that the California Farm Bureau worked behind closed doors to limit legal exemptions that DxE has long claimed provide protections for its work.
DxE, which is based in Berkeley, California, has waged a provocative campaign of civil disobedience in recent years, staging actions that the group calls “open rescues,” in which volunteers brazenly walk into meat plants and seize animals, many of which are facing slaughter, often ferrying them to medical tents erected outside the facility or to local veterinarians.
The actions, which have included rescues at meat and egg plants over the last two years in Sonoma County, have seized headlines and drawn national attention to the organization’s cause — while mobilizing opposition within the factory farming industry. DxE has claimed that its actions are protected under an obscure section of state law, California Penal Code §597e, which authorizes individuals to enter pounds to provide nourishment for neglected animals.
In DxE’s view, the statute allows legal entry into an area in which animals are confined if the animals have been deprived of food and water for over 12 hours. The group consulted with Hadar Aviram, a professor at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, to develop a modern legal interpretation of §597e, which was originally passed in the 1870s and has rarely been cited in court. In DxE’s view, any commercial animal agriculture site constitutes a pound, given that the term simply refers to a facility for confined animals, a standard that is reflected in eight states with similar statutes.
That argument has enraged the animal agriculture interests throughout California, which have leaned on authorities to take a more aggressive response to DxE.
“In my view, what they are doing is bordering on terrorism involving the use of illegal practices to push their points of view,” said Tawny Tesconi, executive director of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, an affiliate of the California Farm Bureau Federation, in an interview with KSRO radio host Pat Kerrigan. Following an action in which hundreds of DxE activists entered an egg farm in Petaluma to free chickens and care for them in medical tents set up around the facility by the group, Tesconi called for farmers to “work more closely with law enforcement and the DA’s office to provide the tools they need to fully prosecute actions like this.” (The police, notably, euthanized many of the chickens, which were found by veterinarians to be starving and unable to walk from being bred in sheds with thousands of birds.)
Behind closed doors, the California legislature moved last summer to redefine §597e, adding language to the code that explicitly exempts factory farms. The legal shift received virtually no attention or substantive legislative debate. The legislation that made the change was sponsored by Assemblyman Vince Fong, R-Bakersfield, whose bill, AB 1553, was presented as a “technical, nonsubstantive” change that required a lower threshold of scrutiny. The bill sailed through committee and was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last June.
DxE strongly disputes that the bill was merely a technical change and was shocked to discover the discreet push to amend the code. “Over one hundred activists have relied on §597e to protect them from politically-motivated prosecutions,” said DxE co-founder Wayne Hsiung, who is also a former visiting law professor at Northwestern School of Law. “We’ve obtained dismissal or diversion of charges in dozens of cases where people were trying to give aid to starving animals.”
The California Farm Bureau denies promoting the bill, despite disclosures showing that the group lobbied on the Fong bill. “The California Farm Bureau did not actively advocate on the legislation, either for or against,” wrote Dave Kranz, a spokesperson for the California Farm Bureau. “We did take part in technical discussions about the bill and potential impacts to California agriculture, as was correctly disclosed.”
Fong’s office and the Sonoma County Farm Bureau did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The California Farm Bureau’s claim that the group acted merely as a neutral observer, and did not seek to limit the scope of §597e, appears unlikely given the group’s advocacy over the last year.
Robert Spiegel, a lobbyist with the California Farm Bureau in Sacramento, spoke at the Flamingo Resort & Conference Center in Santa Rosa last May to explain to farmers in Sonoma County how his organization had worked to respond to the threat posed by animal rights activists.
During his remarks, Spiegel referenced the interpretation produced by Aviram on behalf of DxE and informed the group that California Farm Bureau’s “senior legal counsel as well as other individuals in our operations” produced a counter-memo to dispute Aviram’s arguments. DxE shared a recording of Spiegel’s remarks and, using a records request, obtained a copy of Spiegel’s memo, which had been sent to the Sonoma County district attorney’s office as well as to other prosecutors in California.
The memo attempts to dispute DxE’s rationale for its use of §597e by claiming that even if animal farms are “pounds,” the group may not claim there is an “imminent threat” if they rely on past video evidence of abuse or deprivation.
Far from taking a neutral stance, the memo strongly suggests the California Farm Bureau’s lobbying team took an active role in shaping the interpretation of §597e.
Around the country, animal agriculture interests have worked carefully to criminalize similar forms of activism around factory farms, including hidden camera investigations. The Intercept previously obtained emails showing a bill signed into law in Idaho that provided criminal penalties for filming animal abuse at factory farms had been quietly authored by a dairy lobbyist — one of many so-called ag-gag laws enacted around the country. A federal judge later overturned most of the statute. Farm Bureau groups have worked to enact similar laws in Missouri, Iowa, Utah, and other states.
The California Farm Bureau wields significant influence in state politics. The group spends upward of $600,000 a year peddling influence in Sacramento with a team of eight in-house lobbyists, according to disclosures.
In 2018, the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, responding to a wave of open rescues, brought in a national farm industry group known as the Animal Agriculture Alliance to host seminars for farmers on how to push back against future DxE activism. The group has promoted ag-gag laws and in more recent years sought to pressure law enforcement to view animal rights activists as terror threats. The alliance relies on financial support from the American Farm Bureau, the California Farm Bureau’s national affiliate, as well as the National Pork Industry Foundation.
“The Farm Bureau wants to change §597e because it knows that factory farms routinely allow animals to starve to death,” added Hsiung. “It’s the result of a system that has operated in secrecy, and ruthless pursuit of profit, for decades.”
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INSIDE THE PLOT TO MURDER HONDURAN ACTIVIST BERTA CÁCERES
IT HAS BEEN more than three years since Berta Cáceres was murdered in her home in Honduras. Cáceres was a 44-year-old activist, mother of four, and an international celebrity — she won the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize for leading a grassroots campaign to prevent a private energy company, Desarrollos Energéticos Sociedad Anónima, from building a hydroelectric dam on Indigenous land. Near midnight on March 2, 2016, hired assassins broke into her home, shot her, and escaped. She died minutes later in the arms of a friend.
In preparation for the trial of the assassins, the Honduras Public Prosecutor’s Office extracted thousands of private call logs, SMS, and WhatsApp messages from their phones. The call log evidence was examined by an independent expert, and it showed that the assassins had communicated through a compartmentalized chain that reached the highest ranks of leadership of the company whose dam she had been protesting. Those messages, analyzed below, provide a striking window into the plot to kill Cáceres.
Chief financial officer Daniel Atala Midence spoke frequently with the company’s president, Roberto David Castillo Mejía. Castillo then communicated with DESA’s former director of security, who coordinated with the head hitman. Keeping the assassins away from direct contact with company leaders was no accident: All of the highest-ranking executives were members of the powerful Honduran Atala Zablah family, which has ties to the government and the international financial industry.
The executives had become angry when Cáceres’s protests disrupted their investment, judges on Honduras’s Supreme Court declared when delivering a guilty verdict in the trial. The executives began surveilling Cáceres and paid informants to infiltrate the organization she led. Then, “DESA executives proceeded to plot the death of Ms. Cáceres,” the court concluded, without naming specific suspects. The plan was carried out with the “knowledge and consent” of other DESA executives, the court stated, again without identifying them by name.
Before and after Cáceres was murdered, in one corporate chat group called “Seguridad PHAZ,” or in unabbreviated English, “Agua Zarca Hydroelectric Project Security,” company leaders discussed using their connections to peddle influence with national authorities, state security forces, and the media. Hundreds more messages, published by DESA’s lawyers, indicate that the company’s president, Castillo, simultaneously maintained regular contact with Cáceres prior to her murder. Although they are a matter of public record, many of the group chats and private messages have never been published.
None of the leaders have yet paid for their involvement. Only a group of seven hitmen, including two previous employees at DESA, were convicted in November 2018. On December 2, 2019, the seven hitmen received sentences ranging from 30 to 50 years in prison.
Castillo was arrested on March 2, 2018, for allegedly masterminding the murder, yet the Public Ministry has repeatedly postponed his preliminary hearing. The most recent such delay was on October 10, 2019. Meanwhile, no one from DESA’s board of directors — and no one from the Atala Zablah family — has been charged with a crime or compelled to testify.
The relationship between caste and religion remains to be an important problematic for modernity and electoral democracy in Indian socio-political discourse. The theme of this research paper lays its foundation on the intersections of caste and religious mobilisation in India. The spaces of religious mobilization in contemporary Indian politics have been determinately occupied by Hindutva (a form of Hindu nationalism). It is evident that the Hindutva project is precariously positioned on the political agenda of bringing in diverse caste groups and organizing them under an overarching Hindutva religious identity that often labels Muslims and minorities as the "other". The rise of political party such as Bhartiye Janta Party (BJP) on the premises of Hindu nationalism ushered a momentous change in the socio-political landscape of India. Deeply divided by caste Indian society have sustained its historically violent, unjust and unequal form of Hindu social order. Quintessentially, Hindu religion being the doctrine for such stratification has shaped the socio-political identities and differences. This has brought the caste consciousness and religious identities to the fore and more importantly the mobilization of electoral support on the basis of caste and religion as a complex phenomenon. Hence, this research paper aims to unfold the dynamics of caste and religion in contemporary political ambience charged by Hindu nationalist projects.
Belligerent Hindu nationalism, accompanied by recurring communal violence between Hindus and Muslims, has become a compelling force in Indian politics over the last two decades. Ornit Shani's book examines the rise of Hindu nationalism, asking why distinct groups of Hindus, deeply divided by caste, mobilised on the basis of unitary Hindu nationalism, and why the Hindu nationalist rhetoric about the threat of the impoverished Muslim minority was so persuasive to the Hindu majority. Using evidence from communal violence in Gujarat, Shani argues that the growth of communalism was not simply a result of Hindu-Muslim antagonisms, but was driven by intensifying tensions among Hindus, nurtured by changes in the relations between castes and associated state policies. These, in turn, were frequently displaced onto Muslims, thus enabling caste conflicts to develop and deepen communal rivalries. The book offers a challenge to previous scholarship on the rise of communalism, which will be welcomed by students and professionals.
In spite of India’s growing middle class and significant economic development over the last decade, its democracy has been challenged by the growing number of right-wing organisations and their supporters in India. At the centre of this research is the question why modernization and economic growth have not led to increased secularization of society, as it happened in the West? Additionally, what are the factors which pose a threat to democracy and secularism? I argue that the way modernization and economic growth have come about in India have not led to increased democratization and secularization but lent support to the right wing and caused the resurgence of Hindu nationalism. This resurgence and the consequent
stagnating, or one can argue reversed, secularization process resulted from the combined effect of some deeper (indirect) determinants and proximate (direct) causes. In the first category I include the retreat of the state together with an expanding private and unorganized sector, the problem of 'jobless growth', additionally, the one-sided focus on institutional/procedural democracy and the relative neglect of substantive/representative democracy. Resulting from these, the proximate causes are the spread of grassroots, service-providing right-wing organisations, and the successful rhetoric applied about a new, rising and united India, envisaged by the right wing to gain support.
FEMINIST LYCANTHROPY ‘the worst loup-garous that one can meet’: Reading the werewolf in the Canadian “wilderness” Kaja Franck Ginger Snaps (2000) has been recognised as an exemplary example of feminist horror, yet the sequels have received little attention. The final film in the trilogy, Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (2004), answers the concerns regarding the ending of the first film – Brigitte kills her sister Ginger, the werewolf of the title − whilst drawing on earlier Gothic traditions. Set in the nineteenth century, the two sisters are trapped in an isolated fort surrounded by frozen forest and attacked by werewolves. This setting echoes another Canadian werewolf narrative, Henry Beaugrand’s ‘The Werwolves' (1898). Beaugrand’s story opens with a group of hunters, woodsmen and militia spending the Christmas period in Fort Richelieu, Quebec. Surrounded by forests, the fort acts a point of civilisation for these frontiersmen. This location evokes North American fears, and the representation of the wooded wilderness within American Gothic literature as full of wild beasts and wild men that surrounded European-American settlements. Beaugrand collapse the ‘wild beasts’ and ‘wild men’ into one hybrid monster: his werewolves are indigenous people. ‘The Werwolves’ reflects racist and colonial attitudes towards the indigenous population. Moreover, the central werewolf of Beaugrand’s narrative is also female. Using an ecoGothic approach, this paper argues that Ginger Snaps Back challenges the racist and sexist elements of Beaugrand’s earlier text and, in doing so, reacts to the idea that the wilderness is a threatening space. Though the gender of the werewolf remains the same in the film, the werewolf is white. This, and the depiction of the white inhabitants of the fort, uncovers the truth that, rather than being a symbol of civilisation battling against barbarism, the fort symbolises the fear and hatred towards the people and natural world that European settlers believed they found in North America. PAN: Philosophy, Activism, Nature no. 7, 2010 One Wolf Girl Battles Against All Mankind The New Breed of Female Werewolf as Eco-warrior in Contemporary Film and Fiction Jazmina Cininas Introduction As perennial boundary riders of the Culture versus Nature dichotomy,werewolves in Western narratives have always fluctuated between social integration and transgression, serving as barometers of all that exists beyond the parameters of“civilised” society. The hybrid, metamorphosing, bestial werewolf, with its susceptibility to “the call of the wild”, has consistently been designated less-than-human. While the male of the species has enjoyed the greater celebrity, a survey of werewolf film and literature reveals no shortage of female werewolves amongst the shape-shifting population, and there are definite signs that the she-wolf’s “moon” is in the ascendant. The women’s magazine Bust advertised Girls Gone Wild: The New Crop of Female Werewolves on the cover of its Fall 2003 issue, recognising the rising oestrogen level in recent werewolf film and literature, and 2004 saw internet giant Amazon add Beauty Is the Beast: Female Werewolves and Vampires (with subheadings Look at That Tail:Fem Werewolf Movies and That Time of the Month: Fem Werewolf Fiction ) to their So You’d Like To…guides. Indeed, it might be argued that cultural constructions of women share much in common with figurations of the loup garoux, both groups enduring long histories on the “wrong” side of the Self/Other, mind/body, human/animal and culture/nature divides. Ecological feminists argue that patriarchal models of hierarchical thinking, which rank “others” as “closer to nature” and conceptualise the land as “woman”, have been used by Western societies to justify the oppression of women, indigenous populations, minority groups and the nonhuman world throughout the ages. Further, the perception that “closer to nature” equates to “lesser than (white,Western) man” has been essential to the creation and maintenance of harmful environmental ethics that have led to the current ecological crisis, and which now threatened dire consequences for all of the planet’s inhabitants – human and nonhuman alike.Literary ecofeminists suggest that by reimagining nature, and the possible relationships (including metaphorical and conceptual relationships) between humans and the nonhuman world, one might contribute to the “elimination of institutionalised oppression on the basis of gender, race, class, and sexual preference and [in doing so] aid in changing abusive environmental practices.” As greater concern for the nonhuman world enters the popular consciousness and human/nature and human/animal dichotomies are re-evaluated, depictions of the female werewolf are beginning to shift, reflecting a parallel evaluation of feminine alignment with the natural world. This paper surveys the rise of ecological concerns and shifting evaluations of the culture/nature hierarchy in recent feminist theory, and the opportunity this presents for the female lycanthrope to be re-invented as champion of the wilderness in contemporary film and fiction
Beware the Full Moon: female werewolves and ‘that time of the month.’ Jazmina Cininas Abstract Lycanthropy and moon-induced lunacy share a long history,however it wasn’t until cinema favoured the full moon as a lycanthropic trigger that the werewolf was subjected to a regular, monthly cycle. This, inturn, has given rise to arguably one of the most significant developments in recent werewolf lore, the situating the lycanthrope firmly within the feminine domain by linking it to that other, ‘notorious’, monthly cycle.In the 1980s, Sadie Craddock made British tabloid headlines when she had her charge reduced from murder to manslaughter, pleading diminished responsibility due to severe PMS. Presented in her defence were years of diaries and institutional records indicating that her violent behaviour followed a cyclical pattern, supporting her claim that PMS caused her to act out of character by turning her into a ‘raging animal’ each month. Feminist Groups remain ambivalent about the use of PMS as a defence in court,nervous about resurrecting deep-seated notions of women as inherently hysterical and unstable. Nevertheless, the 28-day cycle is becoming a regular fixture in cinematic werewolf iconography, directly inspiring Jacqueline Garry to create Frida, the heroine in her deliberately ambiguously titled film The Curse, who was bitten at a lingerie sale and thereafter becomes a werewolf whenever she experiences PMS. A werewolf attacks Ginger Fitzgerald (title character in the Canadian cult film, Ginger Snaps) on the night she gets her first period, while “Once in a Blue Moon”, the Charmed episode in which the three witches become werewolves, opens with the premenstrual sorceresses bemoaning the trials and tribulations of PMS. A conspicuous dormitory effect has taken hold on female lycanthropy.This paper surveys the menstrual cycle as an increasingly frequent motif in female werewolf film and television and its debt to the cultural history of the moon as a specifically feminine phenomenon. Battling Demons with Medical Authority. Werewolves, physicians and rationalization History of Psychiatry 24 (2013), 341-355, 2013 Nadine Metzger Werewolves and physicians experienced their closest contact in the context of early modern witch and werewolf trials. For medical critics of the trials, melancholic diseases served as reference points for medical explanations of both individual cases and werewolf beliefs in general. This paper attempts to construct a conceptual history of werewolf beliefs and their respective medical responses. After differentiating the relevant terms, pre-modern werewolf concepts and medical lycanthropy are introduced. The early modern controversy between medical and demonological explanations forms the main part of this study. The history of werewolves and their medical explanations is then traced through to present times. An important point of discussion is to what extent the physicians’ engagements with werewolves can be characterized as rationalization. Publication Date: 2013 Publication Name: History of Psychiatry 24 (2013), 341-355
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