Let's talk about sex, habibi!

Throughout the Middle East, sex education is slowly becoming less of a taboo. On social media, millions are daring to ask everything about "it."

Nour Emad is a trained doula who is soon to launch the first sex education

 school in the Middle East

Traditionally, in most Middle Eastern countries, "it" is expected to happen on the wedding night for the first time.

"But for most women, this is also the first time they are naked in front of anyone and the first time they see a penis in real life," Nour Emam, who runs Arab-English sex education courses, told DW.

One doesn't have to be a psychologist to see that this could be more conducive to disaster than to romance and intimacy. 

For this reason, one of Emad's online courses is aimed at women who are about to get married. "We kind of walk them through the bodies and genitals and encourage them to talk to their partners before they tie the knot," Emam explained.

She believes it is crucial to address the expectations of both partners. "For years and years, young girls are told that sex is something dirty, so they are scared and possibly not ready for penetration on their wedding night," Emam said. But "on the other hand, many men can't wait to live out all their teenage porn fantasies now that they are finally allowed to have sex."

However, instead of encountering well-staged porn stars, men (mostly) face normal women. "We've heard a lot of stories of men shaming women on the wedding night for the way they look," Emam told DW and explained that "pink vulvas have become some sort of ideal. But I tell the women, how can you expect to be like brown-skinned, but under your belly button, it's pink?"

The Arab-English content is hugely popular on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook

It would seem that Emam's courses and online answers have hit a nerve: In her closed online courses, she has taught around 2,000 women about menstrual health, vaginism or sexually transmitted diseases, and her social media channels have garnered some 1.4 million followers within a year: on Facebook with around 18,000 followers, Instagram with 308,000 followers and TikTok  with 1.1 million followers.

Sex education frowned upon

Public sex education has up to now been extremely limited in the majority of Middle Eastern countries.

In Egypt, health professionals and population specialists have opposed comprehensive education about sexuality since the 1990s. They argue that anything containing the word "sexual" should be described in more culturally acceptable terms, like "reproductive health" or "human development."

In addition, many Egyptian families believe to this day that sex education is synonymous with promiscuity and that by providing information to children, educators are teaching them how to indulge in sex before marriage.

Confidence is sexy — a claim by This is Mother Being

One particularly negative aspect of this high level of sexual illiteracy is that sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS are still taboo subjects, despite rising numbers of these illnesses.

"Egypt's response to the symptoms of a sexually uneducated community has failed miserably," Habiba Abdelaal, fellow of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy and an expert on sexual and gender-based violence in Egypt, told DW.

Safe spaces for sex education

Egypt's Nour Emad is not the only one campaigning for sexual literacy in the Arab world.

Another popular  Instagram page is "Niswa" (Arabic for "women"), which was founded by Zainab Alradhi from Saudi Arabia. It has around 60,000 followers.

A pan-Arab women initiative is "Mauj" (Arabic for "waves"), which is run by women from Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. This site by and for Arab women with around 65,000 followers focuses on sexual and reproductive wellness.

Another site with Arabic-language content on sexual health and well-being is Love Matters Arabic, which has a following of around 80,000.

Deemah Salem, a gynecologist in Dubai, is also working to educate Arab women about sex. "I've made it a mission to debunk myths about women's health because some can lead to harmful practices," she told the online news outlet Arab News. Her Instagram channel has almost 18,000 followers.

As the first Arab country to do so, Tunisia launched a pilot program on sex education in late 2019. In collaboration with the UN Population Fund and the Arab Institute for Human Rights, public schools there have since included sex education in their curriculums.

"Establishing sex education programs does not require reinventing the wheel," Abdelaal told DW.

However, although she sees and appreciates that there are many successful small-scale private initiatives addressing sexual literacy, she believes a more profound, public approach is needed: "Schools need supportive policies, appropriate content, trained staff and engaged parents and communities to tackle sexual illiteracy."

INTERSECTIONALITY

Lashana Lynch on making history as 007

in No Time to Die

PUBLISHED A DAY AGO
ASSOCIATED PRESS


She is the first Black woman to play a 00 agent in the six decades of James Bond movies.



Lashana Lynch was in stunt training when she found out she was going to play a 00 agent in the James Bond film No Time to Die.

Lynch had already been cast by director Cary Joji Fukunaga and the producers, Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson. But who she was to play had remained a mystery to her. She was doing her best to prep for an undetermined but apparently butt-kicking role.

“Nothing made sense. I’m plunged into stunts and they’re teaching me everything under the sun,” Lynch said in an interview. “And I’m like: Why are you teaching me this? What does it mean?”

Instead, Lynch just heard bits and pieces as she went. It felt, she says, like a TV series that carefully reveals a little each episode. Only when she was in the midst of summersaulting and firing fake guns did the full reveal come. Lynch would be the first Black woman to play a 00 agent in the six decades of James Bond movies.

Not only that, Lynch’s character, Nomi, takes the codename 007, with Daniel Craig’s James Bond AWOL and out of the British Secret Service.

“Auditioning for a mysterious film and a mysterious character turned into a possible Bond film and mysterious character,” Lynch recalls. “That turned into definite Bond film and the possibility of someone entering and creating a really beautiful storm.”

No Time to Die, which opened in US theatres on Friday, is Craig’s fifth and final performance as the super spy. But the film, perhaps more than any previous Bond movie, derives much of its punch from its women. That includes Léa Seydoux, as Bond’s most lasting romance and a character with her own complicated history, and Ana de Armas, in a brief but action-packed appearance.

Lynch’s role, though, is a landmark in the franchise. With that history has come a brighter spotlight than ever before on the 33-year-old British Jamaican actor, who played a single-mother fighter pilot in Captain Marvel. Lynch has been widely celebrated for expanding the historically homogenous world of Bond in a role that — like others who have brought wider representation to decades-old franchises — has also brought online hostility. When news first leaked in 2019 that Lynch would be 007, her Instagram lit up with racist and misogynistic comments.

“I was reminded of the institution that I was walking into and the world that doesn’t support people like me, necessarily,” Lynch says. “Once I got through that initial reaction, I plunged straight into work. I turned that energy into stunts, into filming, into spending time with family and also reevaluating how I use my phone. I now put them in cupboards. I take two-hour breaks.”

“It’s something that should always be brought up,” she adds of the response. “Young people need to hear it.”

Lynch first caught Broccoli’s attention in Debbie Tucker Green’s Ear for Eye, a play at the Royal Court that Broccoli produced. Lynch was part of a largely Black ensemble that give individual testimonies of bias they experience in their lives.

“I was just blown away by her,” says Broccoli, who also produced an upcoming film adaptation of Ear for Eye, co-starring Lynch, premiering Oct. 16 at the London Film Festival. “She’s an extraordinary, beautiful, talented actor. She seemed an obvious choice for Nomi, the 00 character. I think she’s a big star.”

Before Craig took over Bond, Lynch says, she had had little relationship to the Bond films. But being invited to audition, she says, made her feel she was maybe entering the franchise at the right time.

“As a Black Londoner, I didn’t have the opportunity to be able to connect to James Bond in a way that made sense,” says Lynch. “Now, Daniel Craig entering the franchise and making him raw and dark and dangerous — I questioned his trauma for the first time — it really got me intrigued about how the new characters in the franchise respond to him.”

In No Time to Die, Bond eventually returns to the service where he’s surprised to learn his trademark number has been taken. What follows between him and Nomi is part rivalry, part partnership. Nomi asserts herself, with proud confidence and moments of uncertainty. Bond adapts to her. To Lynch, she’s most proud of how Nomi’s strength doesn’t also come with vulnerability.

“Like a lot of us, it’s always a front. It’s a front just to be in the world,” Lynch says of Nomi’s posture. “I want there to be a really natural, realistic and easy influence on our young people in that when talking about ‘strong Black women,’ we don’t just assume that their strength fell out of the sky and landed in their brain.”

US Postal Service hit with lawsuit over DeJoy's plan to slow delivery of first-class mail

Charles Davis
Fri, October 8, 2021

United States Postal Service workers load mail into delivery trucks 

outside a post office in Royal Oak, Michigan. 

REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

The lawsuit demands public hearings be held on proposed changes at USPS.

Beginning this month, USPS began slowing the delivery of first-class mail.

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have signed on to a lawsuit.

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have signed on to a lawsuit that accuses the US Postal Service of pursuing "significant and nationwide changes" without proper consultation, CBS News reported Friday.

Under Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, USPS has abandoned its commitment to delivering first-class mail in three days or less.

Beginning October 1, such mail can now take up to five days to be delivered, part of what DeJoy bills as a 10-year plan to cut costs. The change will delay an estimated 39% of first-class mail and periodicals.

In their complaint, the attorneys general for Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and other Democratic-led states argue that DeJoy's plan should not have been adopted without first requesting the opinion of the Postal Regulatory Commission, an advisory body that would hold public hearings. The commission has previously expressed concern over the proposal to delay mail delivery.

Without such a consultative process, USPS is violating federal statute, the attorneys general argue, and diminishing "the Postal Service's transparency and accountability."

In January, 21 attorneys general issued a joint statement arguing that DeJoy's proposed changes would harm rural communities and, in particular, threaten the timely delivery of mail-in ballots.

WHITE PURITY PATROL

Virginia School Board ‘Wokeness Checker’ Wants Toni Morrison Banned for ‘Porn’


Zoe Richards
Fri, October 8, 2021

Facebook/Victoria Manning

A school board member who runs a “wokeness checker” snitch site has pressed a Virginia school district to purge six books from its shelves, alleging that the books—including a seminal Toni Morrison novel—are rife with “pornographic” content.

In an email sent to Virginia Beach City Public Schools Superintendent Aaron Spence earlier this week, at-large school board member Victoria Manning said that another board member, Laura Hughes, joined her in demanding four books be removed from circulation or use in the district’s curriculum “due to their pornographic nature.”

“It has been brought to my attention by some parents that there are some disturbing books in our district that are available to students,” Manning wrote on Oct. 5. “I would like to ask that you pull these books from shelves and also block any electronic access by students to getting these books IMMEDIATELY.”

Manning demanded that staff involved in approving the books be disciplined. Spence replied that four of the books that were not a part of district curriculum had been removed, pending a review.

Far-Right Group Wants to Ban Kids From Reading Books on Male Seahorses, Galileo, and MLK

The list of “disturbing” titles included Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison, Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines and The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.

According to Spence, Manning had also separately requested the review of two other books, Beyond Magenta and Good Trouble: Lessons from the Civil Rights Playbook.

The review, first reported by The Virginian-Pilot, comes weeks after another Virginia district, Fairfax County Public Schools, pulled two books attacked by Manning from high school libraries after complaints at a school board meeting about sexually explicit and “homoerotic” content.

The emails were made available through a public records request and later obtained by The Daily Beast.

Manning said in her Oct. 5 email, that she had “skimmed” through Lawn Boy, and alleged that the graphic novel Gender Queer depicted people performing oral sex and discussing masturbation “and many other things that I don’t feel comfortable mentioning.”

Both Lawn Boy and Gender Queer were recognized by the American Library Association as texts with “special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18.”

After reeling off other complaints about the books, she took aim at A Lesson Before Dying, which addresses racism and racial identity in 1940s Louisiana, and was approved for use in 11th grade curriculum. It needed to be booted because it included a scene of a “couple getting undressed,” and moving on from there, she wrote.

Although Manning admitted she had not read The Bluest Eye or confirmed its contents “firsthand,” she said she was convinced by the accounts of others that the text was unfit for 12th graders.

“I have not been able to get a copy of this book in my hands but I should be able to get a copy by tomorrow to confirm what is in it,” Manning wrote at the time.

After quoting one line she had heard that made references to sexual desire, Manning said: “I’ve been told there is much more and although I have not confirmed this firsthand but I believe this should be removed from our curriculum and shelves immediately pending review.”

Morrison’s text is a frequent target of book banning, and routinely appears on the ALA’s list of the most challenged books because it was “considered sexually explicit and depicts child sex abuse.”

Spence told The Daily Beast on Friday that the outrage over the books was unwarranted.

Concerns from parents are supposed to be turned over to the superintendent to resolve, Spence said, but he noted that he had not seen complaints from parents about the texts and he was not aware of a challenge to the books at a district-level since he became superintendent in 2014.

“I’ve only heard through these board members,” he said, adding that the books were neither widely available nor frequently checked out.

“We had one copy of Lawn Boy and it has never been checked out,” he said. He had also looked into copies of Gender Queer and located a copy of the book in three high school libraries. There are 11 high schools in the district, according to the district’s website.

“It had only been checked out one time in one of the schools,” he said. “So this isn’t a rampant issue.”

In a series of emails to the board, Spence said that four of the books challenged by the women had been brought to the school board’s attention and were removed from student circulation last month for review, as part of its policy when a book is challenged.

He said that the book Gender Queer had “been permanently removed from our shelves,” while staff were directed to use the district’s formal review process to decide the fate of the other books, a process which involves a committee reading the book and convening to discuss concerns over its obscenities, age appropriateness, and academic freedom.

Books that landed in the district’s libraries and that were included in curriculum were “vetted carefully” by library media specialists who also consulted recommendations from national professional organizations and were expected to follow guidelines outlined in the school district’s policies on selection of media and teaching materials, Spence said.

He cautioned that “wholesale decisions based on the positions of some stakeholders do not necessarily represent the thinking of all or serve the best interests of our students as a whole.”

Manning fired back in an email on Oct. 7, that after finally acquiring a copy of The Bluest Eye, she was disgusted within the first few pages. She said she was disturbed by the review process for the books, alleging that making the material available to children “could be against the law.”

“What one person finds offensive, others may not,” Spence wrote back. “That’s why we have this process.”

On a personal website linked from her school board campaign Facebook page, Manning writes that she had been “made aware” by conservative media outlets, including The Daily Wire, to be “on the lookout for sexually explicit materials in our schools.”

The website includes a page, entitled “Wokeness Checker,” where Manning declares that “Wokeness and Critical Race Theory (CRT) practices are becoming embedded in our nation's schools, including here in Virginia Beach.”

The page provides a link for visitors to submit documents related to CRT in Virginia Beach schools.

Declining to comment about Manning specifically, Spence told The Daily Beast that he has witnessed a clear, politically motivated effort to “conflate” even unrelated topics with critical race theory.

“It would be great if those conversations were a little more civil and evidence-based,” he said.

Manning also represents herself as a kind of whistleblower on classroom discussions about race, posting videos on Rumble, including one where she said was “disgusted and appalled” after reading The Racial Healing Handbook, which she claimed had been read by a group of teachers in Virginia Beach last year as part of a monthly book study.

In March, she made an appearance on “Fox and Friends,” accusing teachers of disguising critical race theory in classrooms under notions of equity and “culturally responsive practices.”

“Our students and our teachers are being taught that our country is innately racist, and students and teachers are being pitted against one another based on their skin color,” she said at the time.


Hughes and Manning did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment on Friday but Manning shared a lengthy statement on Facebook slamming The Virginian-Pilot’s story which she said “makes it seem like I’m a book burner.”

“The VA Pilot published a one-sided article about me regarding the pornographic and sexually explicit books with pedophilia that I exposed,” she wrote. “I just don’t want our children exposed to this sick pornography.”

The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) included A Lesson Before Dying and The Bluest Eye on its list of the Top Ten Banned Books that Changed the Face of Black History.

In a letter to a school board in Alabama that was weighing a similar decision to ban the book last year, the NCAC defended the text. “Precluding students from reading literature with sexual references and language that some find objectionable would deprive them of exposure to vast amounts of important material,” NCAC executive editor Joan Bertin and American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression president Chris Finan wrote. They cited as examples, the Bible and works by Shakespeare, in addition to texts written by celebrated American authors John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.

In 2009, Gaines’ book was also awarded the ALA’s distinction of “Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners.”

Rep. Ilhan Omar, Democrats ask Biden to release memo detailing his power to cancel student loan debt



Chelsey Cox, USA TODAY
Fri, October 8, 2021

WASHINGTON — Eighteen members of Congress, led by Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., signed a letter Friday addressed to President Joe Biden and Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona urging the release of a memo on the administration's authority over student loan debt cancellation.

"Decades ago, Congress voted to authorize the executive branch to cancel federal student loans. Federal student debt can be canceled with the 'flick of your pen.' This authority is already being put to use, as it is currently being used to cancel the interest owed on all federally-held student loans," the members wrote.

The Education Department has already forgiven debt for a select group of borrowers — including 1,800 victims of for-profit college fraud and borrowers with disabilities. The administration also introduced a sweeping overhaul of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program and extended a pause on loan repayments until the end of January 2022 amid the pandemic.


But Democrats in Congress argue Biden can eliminate student loan debt with an executive order. Not doing so, they say, will perpetuate racial and economic inequality.

Student loan debt affects Black borrowers disproportionately compared to white, Asian and Latino borrowers. Black borrowers also earn less over time and are less likely to pay off their debt and most likely to fall behind on payments.

"With a single signature, you can improve the economy, create new jobs, transform the lives of 45 million Americans, narrow the racial wealth gap, and maintain the trust of voters," the members wrote.

Months ago, progressives pushed for forgiveness on at least $50,000 for borrowers, but the letter released Friday calls for total student loan debt cancellation.

"Now it is time for you to honor your campaign pledge and use this authority to cancel all student debt," the letter states.

Biden pledged to cancel $10,000 in debt for all borrowers during the 2020 presidential campaign. And earlier this year, he asked the Justice and Education Departments to produce a memo on the president's authority to cancel student loan debt. Neither department has released findings.

According to the letter, members of the House and Senate say Biden is authorized to broadly cancel debt through section 432(a) of the Higher Education Act, which says the Secretary of Education can "enforce, pay, compromise, waive, or release any right" to collect on federal loans.

In 2019, Omar, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., introduced the Student Debt Cancellation Act to cancel all public and private student loan debt.

Nearly 44 million Americans owe about $1.7 trillion in student loans, according to Federal Reserve data.

Reach out to Chelsey Cox on Twitter at @therealco.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: House Democrats send letter to Biden administration on student loans

Public schools and colleges in California must stock restrooms with free menstrual products under new law

Connor Perrett

Sat, October 9, 2021

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed into law a bill that will require all public schools and colleges in the state to stock restrooms with free menstrual products. Isabel Pavia/Getty Images

• A California law will require public schools and colleges to provide free menstrual products.

• The law, signed Friday, builds on a 2017 law that required they be available in low-income schools.

• "Our biology doesn't always send an advanced warning when we're about to start menstruating," the lawmaker who sponsored the bill told the Associated Press.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed into law a bill that will require all public schools and colleges in the state to stock restrooms with free menstrual products.

According to the Associated Press, the legislation builds on a 2017 law that required public schools in low-income areas to provide menstrual products for free.

The new law requires schools to provide free menstrual products in at least half of their restrooms, including in all women's restrooms, in all-gender restrooms, and in at least one men's restroom. The cost of the products to schools would be reimbursed by the state, according to the legislation.

"Our biology doesn't always send an advanced warning when we're about to start menstruating, which often means we need to stop whatever we're doing and deal with a period," said Cristina Garcia, the California lawmaker who introduced the legislation, per AP. "Just as toilet paper and paper towels are provided in virtually every public bathrooms, so should menstrual products."

California in early 2020 enacted legislation to eliminate sales tax on menstrual products, often called the tampon tax. According to Marie Claire, 20 states and Washington, DC, have eliminated the tax on menstrual products.

The California legislation requires free menstrual products to be provided in the bathrooms of students in grades 6 through 12, in community colleges, at California State University, and at all University of California systems beginning in the 2022-23 school year, the AP first reported.

While the law does not require private institutions to do the same, it encourages them to do so.

"California joins a growing number of states who lead the way in demonstrating that menstrual equity is a matter of human rights," the advocacy group PERIOD said in a statement, according to the AP. "No student should ever lose learning time due to their periods, period."

Column: Up to 1 million gallons of water ... a night? That's par for some desert golf courses


Steve Lopez
Sat, October 9, 2021

Ecologists Robin Kobaly and Doug Thompson are concerned about the amount of water used to irrigate golf courses in the Coachella Valley. 

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Doug Thompson couldn’t believe what he’d just been told. His wife, a botanist, was advising a Coachella Valley country club on drought-resistant landscaping, and Thompson, who got to talking with the groundskeeper, asked how much water it takes to irrigate a golf course.

“He proudly said they had just computerized their system and they were down to 1.2 million gallons a night,” recalls Thompson, an ecologist who leads natural history expeditions. “I thought I didn’t hear him correctly, so about 30 minutes later I asked again, and he said the same thing.”

That conversation took place a few years ago. But in the midst of a prolonged drought that has prompted a first-ever federal declaration of a water shortage in the Colorado River Basin and brought calls for greater conservation throughout California, Thompson and his wife, Robin Kobaly, became more keenly aware of all the lush green golf courses set against the parched landscape of the Coachella Valley.

How many golf courses?

About 120, many of them shoulder to shoulder across the desert floor, complete with decorative ponds, fountains and streams. It’s one of the highest concentrations of golf courses in the world.

“From the homework we have done ... the smaller courses use at least several hundred thousand gallons a night, but the larger courses are in the 1-million-gallon range or more,” Thompson said.

“It’s not only an outrage,” he added, “but many months of the year, it's too hot to play golf in the desert, yet the watering continues.”

When I met with Thompson and Kobaly in the desert, they told me they’re not trying to shut down the golf industry, and I’m with them on that. There’d be no Palm Springs without golf, just as there would have been no Rat Pack without Sinatra. The industry employs several thousand people, drawing hordes of snowbirds and pumping as much as $1 billion into the local economy.

But the planet now spins on a rotisserie, roasted and toasted in ways that are transforming landscapes and forcing us to adapt. Thompson and Kobaly wonder why golf courses aren’t doing more to conserve.

“This water crisis is huge,” Thompson said. “They’ll ask us to do things like don’t leave the water running when you brush your teeth, and it’s illegal to wash your car unless you turn off the valve on the hose. That might save 10 gallons of water, and meanwhile a million gallons a night are being used on every golf course in the Coachella Valley.”

When I put these observations to Craig Kessler, director of governmental affairs for the Southern California Golf Assn., he was more than happy to respond, as well as to share his considerable knowledge of state water policy.

And he threw me a curve.

Kessler said Coachella Valley golf courses are in much better shape in terms of water supplies than golf courses in California’s wetter climates. That’s because the desert, which had less than an inch of rain in the last season, has much more water to draw from, including a vast aquifer that sits beneath the desert floor.

“It’s complicated and counterintuitive,” Kessler said, but many coastal golf courses that rely on the state’s melted snowpack and rain have been harder hit by the drought than those in the desert.

The Coachella Valley Water District (CVWD), which serves 105 of the golf courses, draws from the California Water Project, the Colorado River and the aquifer. Kessler, who heads up the Coachella Valley Golf and Water Task Force, said much of the water used to irrigate golf courses is non-potable.

And yet, those 120 golf courses do indeed use massive amounts of precious, increasingly scarce water. Kessler said the valley has less than 1% of Southern California’s population, but 28.6% of its golf courses. Golf, he said, consumes less than 1% of all water used in California, but nearly 25% of Coachella Valley water.

So what are they doing about it? A lot, Kessler said, and the conservation effort goes back several years. Golf courses have been removing turf, narrowing fairways, installing more sophisticated irrigation systems, researching less thirsty grasses and scaling back on the practice of “overseeding,” which has kept courses green in winter months, when Bermuda grass goes dormant.

Jim Schmid, director of operations at Palm Desert’s Lakes Country Club, told me he has a weather station on site to help manage and reduce irrigation. And much of the water he uses, Schmidt said, is recycled water the “district needs to get rid of because they haven’t treated it to a standard where it can be used for potable purposes.”

Josh Tanner, general manager of Ironwood Country Club in Palm Desert, said Ironwood pumps its water out of the ground and pays a fee to the water agency to replenish the aquifer with imported water. The club has reduced its water consumption by 20% in recent years, Tanner said, largely by replacing turf with native landscaping.

But it doesn’t appear that every golf course is pulling its weight. And the CVWD, as Doug Thompson told me, doesn’t provide data on water use by individual golf courses. When I asked why, Katie Evans, CVWD’s director of communications and conservation, told me the district does not share information about individual customers. In fact, the water agency was sued for release of the information, but prevailed in court.

Pro golfers walk past a water feature at the Pete Dye Stadium Course at PGA West in La Quinta in January.

 (Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press)

The Desert Sun reported in 2018 that the golf industry had not met its own goal — set in 2014 — of reducing water use by 10% below 2010 levels. Kessler told me that golf courses used 9% less water in 2020 than in 2013 when using a complicated calculation that takes evaporation into account, but just 5.6% less in total volume.

In the Coachella Valley, years of growth severely depleted the aquifer, just as agricultural irrigation has drained Central Valley water tables to the point where the ground is sinking. Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation in 2014 requiring communities to develop groundwater sustainability strategies, and the CVWD has touted its progress in stabilizing and increasing underground water levels.

But that’s partly because the valley is able to recharge the aquifer with water from the Colorado River and the water pumped down from Northern California. However, current allotments won’t last if drought trend lines continue and water wars escalate.

One of Thompson and Kobaly’s pet peeves is that residential water bills are based on a tiered pricing system that encourages conservation, but golf and agriculture pay flat rates.

They have an ally in Mark Johnson, former director of engineering for the CVWD and a frequent critic of the agency. The retired Johnson said residential users have conserved far more than agriculture, which uses roughly half the district’s water, and significantly more than the golf industry, which uses short of 25%.

“Absolutely, there is an inequity,” said Johnson, and that, in effect, residential users “subsidize the infrastructure used to get water to golf courses.” Johnson, a golfer, said he used to play at a La Quinta course where “they were irrigating areas that weren’t even in play,” and watering sand traps, as well.

So why not institute tiered pricing for golf and ag, same as for residential users?

The CVWD's Evans said such pricing is prohibited by the state water code, but it might be possible to implement “a different pricing structure” in the future.

I'll be watching to see how that goes, but it's worth noting that three of the five members of the agency's board of directors are in the agriculture industry. Water and oil don't mix, but in California, water and politics always do.

“I agree that more can be done to conserve,” Evans said. “At this time, we are pushing out new conservation advertisements and continuing to offer a broad range of programs. … To be sustainable, we need to be water wise.”

Kessler, despite defending golf’s record on conservation, said that if drought and higher temperatures continue, maintaining the recent rate of conservation "won't be enough moving 10-25 years forward."

Unless it starts raining again like it used to, everyone in California is going to have to get by with less water in the very near future, not 10 or 25 years down the road.

Thompson and Kobaly, who aren't golfers, have a suggestion. They’ve been looking into links-style golf courses, which are common in other countries and use far less water. You tee off on a patch of green and you putt on a patch of green, but most of the area in between is natural and not irrigated.

“I’ve got nothing against golf,” Thompson said. “But they’ve got to find a different way of doing it.”

steve.lopez@latimes.com

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

California becomes first state to require ethnic studies for high school graduation

Howard Blume, Melissa Gomez
Fri, October 8, 2021, 

A student presentation on Mayan math is displayed in teacher Ron Espiritu's ethnic studies classroom at Camino Nuevo Charter Academy in Los Angeles.

 (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

After more than five years of intense scrutiny and effort, California on Friday became the first state to make ethnic studies a required class for high school graduation to help students understand the past and present struggles and contributions of Black, Asian, Latino, Native/Indigenous Americans and other groups that have experienced racism and marginalization in America.

Although critics from across the political spectrum remain, the bill garnered overwhelming support in the Legislature and was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had vetoed a nearly identical measure last year. At that time, he called for a revised and completed state curriculum guide for ethnic studies — one that would be, he said, balanced, fair and "inclusive of all communities."

The revised teaching guide was completed and approved in March by the state Board of Education. The requirement would first apply to those who graduate in 2030.


"Ethnic studies courses enable students to learn their own stories — and those of their classmates," Newsom said in a signing statement. A news release from his office predicted ethnic studies will "help expand educational opportunities in schools, teach students about the diverse communities that comprise California and boost academic engagement and attainment for students.

The signing was lauded by Assemblyman Jose Medina (D-Riverside), the bill's author. Medina called the new requirement "long overdue" and "one step in the long struggle for equal education for all students.”

Ethnic studies in California classrooms will move forward as a compromise between advocates who wanted an activist, anti-imperialist approach and those who asserted that the first version of the state teaching guide was filled with radical ideology, obscure academic jargon and bias against capitalism.

Alterations toned down these elements and also added the experiences of Jewish, Armenian and Sikh communities in the U.S.

With the issue seemingly settled at the state level, debate could now move to schools and school districts — and become entangled in a volatile political divide over critical race theory and the extent to which it is incorporated in the state's ethnic studies curriculum. School boards must hold public hearings on the courses they plan to offer.

Critical race theory was first developed at the university level as an academic lens through which to analyze how race and racism are enmeshed in institutional and systemic inequities in America. A footnote in the state's ethnic studies teaching guide states that critical race theory "acknowledges that racism is embedded within systems and institutions."

Critical race theory is rarely mentioned in the teaching guide, but critic Williamson M. Evers said the overall model curriculum is "permeated" with content that makes it "racially divisive and burdened by faddish ideology." According to Evers, a former U.S. assistant secretary of Education, and some other opponents, the problematic issues include a reliance on the concepts of critical race theory, leading to a portrayal of American culture and institutions through a racially divisive prism of oppressor and victim.

Newsom didn't see it that way.

"America is shaped by our shared history, much of it painful and etched with woeful injustice," the governor said in his signing statement. Students "must understand our nation's full history if we expect them to one day build a more just society."

Individual school districts will have the task of developing courses using the state's teaching guide, which is called a "model curriculum." Educators can pick and choose elements to include in a local course but are expected to be faithful to the main ideas of this framework.

Students in Glendale, with its large Armenian American population, for example, could study the Armenian immigrant experience in that community.

Under the law, students in the class of 2030, who will start high school in the fall of 2026, must pass at least one single-semester course. And by the fall of 2025, all public high schools will have to offer such a class.

Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a longtime professor of Africana studies and a former member of the Instructional Quality Commission, which reviewed the model curriculum, said the successful push for ethnic studies sets California apart.

“At a time when some states are retreating from an accurate discussion of our history, I am proud that California continues to lead in its teaching of ethnic studies,” Weber said. “This subject not only has academic benefits but also has the capacity to build character as students learn how people from their own or different backgrounds face challenges, overcome them and make contributions to American society."

Even before the statewide requirement, an increasing number of schools and districts were offering ethnic studies, and some, including the Los Angeles Unified School District, already had made the class a graduation requirement.

Ultimately, many California ethnic studies critics were at least mollified by changes to the teaching guide or to the legislation. These included Jewish and pro-Israel advocates, who asserted that the original draft of the model curriculum was anti-Israel and defined Islamophobia but not antisemitism.

The final version deletes the lessons and references that offended some Jewish groups.

When the bill passed with overwhelming approval in both the Assembly and the Senate, the Legislature's five "diversity caucuses" — lawmakers who identify with and evaluate legislation with sensitivity to Asians and Pacific Islanders, Black people, Jews, Latinos, and Native Americans — issued a joint statement of support.

"Requiring ethnic studies in high schools is an integral part of cultivating a classroom environment that is accepting of diversity," the joint statement said.

The revised curriculum now includes two sample lessons about the experience of Jews in America. Arab Americans are included with a sample lesson titled "An Introduction to Arab American Studies." Another lesson is "The Sikh American Community in California."

A Sikh representative said the changes represent a step in the right direction.

"While this is an extremely positive development for the California Sikh community, we also must acknowledge that the curriculum which passed in March 2021 did fall short and leave many other marginalized communities behind," said Pritpal Kaur, education director of the Sikh Coalition.

Another change: A glossary with terms developed largely at the college level, such as cisheteropatriarchy ("a system of power that is based on the dominance of cisheterosexual men") was deleted.

And language directly associating capitalism with oppression also was struck from the revision.

But those who wrote the original draft say the final teaching guide is too diluted. They objected to the extent of the expansion beyond the four groups that have traditionally been the focus of ethnic studies: Latinos, Asian Americans, African Americans and Indigenous peoples — those who lived in the Americas before the arrival of colonizers from Europe. They were not invited to take part in the revision and have disassociated themselves from it.

Even so, a leader of that group applauded the new graduation requirement.

"It's high time that we addressed the demographic imperative," said Theresa Montaño, professor of Chicana/o studies at Cal State Northridge. She noted that the battle over ethnic studies courses began in the 1960s. "In California, 70% of students are students of color. They go through 12 years of an education — taking everything from mathematics to biology — and yet it's taken 53 years to get a single course in something that is relevant to their own personal historical trajectory."

Two provisions of the bill bother Montaño and others who favored the original draft of the teaching guide.

The bill specifically advises that school districts avoid using anything that was removed from the original draft. The new law also requires that course materials be provided for public review, including a public hearing, before being approved at a later meeting.

Montaño said these two provisions could become a recipe for litigation and unruly board meetings at which educators could become targets for intimidation from uninformed or hostile critics. Already, she noted, opposing ethnic studies has become a rallying point for the political right.

This year, protesters descended on the Los Alamitos Unified School District to complain that a proposed ethnic studies class and social justice learning resources would spread "hate for America and all America stands for." Others strongly challenged those claims, and the Los Alamitos Board of Education eventually approved the learning materials.

Newsom defended the additions that Montaño objected to.

"I appreciate that the legislation provides a number of guardrails to ensure that courses will be free from bias or bigotry and appropriate for all students," Newsom said in his signing statement. "The bill also expresses the Legislature's intent that courses should not include portions of the initial draft curriculum that had been rejected by the Instructional Quality Commission due to concerns related to bias, bigotry, and discrimination."

Assemblyman Medina, a former ethnic studies teacher, said the new requirement, along with the revised teaching guide, embodies reasonable compromise.

"As we've seen in this lengthy process, there are criticisms from different sides, from the left and the right," Medina said. "This wasn't an easy task, but at the end of the day, in the adopted version, I say that it's a model curriculum that we can all be proud of."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

California wildfire may have killed hundreds of giant sequoias, burning through Earth's largest grove


Joshua Yeager, 

Visalia Times-Delta

USA TODAY
Fri, October 8, 2021

Hundreds of giant sequoias may have perished after the raging KNP Complex Fire raced through Redwood Mountain Grove, considered to be the Earth's largest, as well as the birthplace of modern prescribed burning science.

High-severity fire burned through the grove early Monday, creating its own weather — a massive fire cloud that generated 50 mph gusts and blew singed sequoia needles to nearby Hume Lake in Sequoia National Forest in California.

Scientists prepping the grove ahead of the KNP's arrival had tagged 400 sequoias as "high-risk" because of the abundance of dead trees in the area and the steep, uphill terrain – conditions that have resulted in blazes capable of mortally wounding the famed giants, experts said.

Aerial crews had planned to drop fire-resistant gel on the sequoias' treetops, where they are most vulnerable to flames, but the operation was scrapped after conditions became unsafe. Heat mapping performed in the days since shows the fire burned hot enough to produce the kinds of crown fires that have already killed thousands of sequoia across the southern Sierra Nevada.

The fire's run through Redwood Mountain Grove comes weeks after the KNP Complex initially sparked, just as firefighters had begun to achieve significant containment around the 130-square-mile blaze in Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks.

"There's so much uncertainty I'm trying not to think about it," said Christy Brigham, the parks' chief scientist. "When I first saw the smoke plume, I cried heavily."

Christy Brigham, Chief of Resources Management & Science, Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks, left, and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks Superintendent Clay Jordan walk among sequoia trees near the General Sherman Tree on Wednesday, September 22, 2021More

Despite some worrying signs, Brigham maintains there are reasons to be hopeful about the grove's prospects: Prescribed burning had occurred at the edge of the stand just three years ago, and photos taken from Generals Highway show mature sequoias with healthy "broccoli tops."

The Redwood Mountain Grove's fate won't be known for sure until firefighters can access the land, hopefully sometime in the next week, Brigham said.

What she does know, based on heat mapping, is that more than 80% of the massive 2,600-acre stand burned. But just because fire burned through an area doesn't mean every tree there has been killed, she added.

The KNP Complex is 85,000 acres and 11% contained, according to fire officials. Containment dropped by half after the wildfire torched the mountain grove early Monday.

Professor Harold Biswell demonstrates a controlled burn in 1969 at UC Berkeley's Whitaker Forest, located within the Redwood Mountain Grove. The research was key in shifting National Park Service fire management policy.More
Birthplace of modern prescribed fire

The Redwood Mountain Grove in California is considered the birthplace of modern fire ecology by scientists who study the role of fire on the natural landscape. Researchers used the grove as a laboratory to demonstrate the beneficial effects of controlled burning, a then-novel idea, to an audience of skeptical foresters in the 60s and 70s.

"Redwood Mountain in the western United States really became the cradle of this change and an openness to the use of fire as a natural part of the ecosystem and as a management tool," Brigham said. "For the parks service, that's where this new era of fire ecology was born."

How did the Redwood Mountain Grove, an early poster child for prescribed burning, fall victim to the very kind of unnatural, high-intensity fire that researchers had warned about decades ago?

The answer is complicated, Brigham says.

"It's not that we forgot, and it's not that there was evil intention," she said. "But all the factors have to be right to continue to have a successful prescribed fire program like we have had in Giant Forest and Grant Grove."

Prescribed fire in sequoia groves requires decades of commitment. You can't burn a grove and walk away. After an initial burn, crews must return every 15 years to maintain the groves and keep them healthy – just like a home, Brigham says.

"If your funding and staffing or public support wavers, then you miss a few. You start to accumulate fuel, and when you accumulate that fuel it becomes unsafe to do the burn," the scientist said. " Add on top of that climate change, and the tree mortality from climate change, and the second year of drought ... then your window where it's safe to do a prescribed burn goes away."

Despite those challenges, Sequoia and Kings Canyon have run one of the most successful prescribed burning programs in the country. Six burns have occurred in the Redwood Mountain Grove since 2000, continuing the legacy of her predecessors.

Operations Section Chief Jon Wallace, left, and Ed Christopher walk near the General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park on Wednesday, September 22, 2021.
Adopting Native American practices

Without those prescribed fires, the KNP's impact on the historic grove would likely be much worse. As it stands, Brigham expects many parts of the grove will actually benefit from the fire.

Sequoia are among the most fire-adapted species on the planet and require low- and moderate-intensity heat to burst their pinecones and clear the forest of competitors. Research performed in Redwood Mountain showed that lightning-caused wildfires touched sequoia groves every 12 to 16 years, on average.

Watch: Scorched trees left in wake of Caldor Fire

But the giants, with their 2-foot-thick bark and crowns that tower hundreds of feet above the ground, are no match for the mega-blazes that have recently scorched the West. These fires are unlike any the Sierra has experienced in millennia; experts say they are fueled by a century of poor forest management and worsened by climate change.

Indigenous tribes that called the Sierra Nevada home long before white settlers arrived understood fire's role in the landscape and practiced cultural burning, keeping the forest healthy. Some of the earliest burns that NPS prescribed were done in collaboration with local tribes, such as the Wukchumni and Tule River.

Tule River Indian Tribe cultural specialist Lauren McDarment speaks to the media during a tour in the Trail of 100 Giants on Monday, October 4, 2021.

Tribal representatives said it has taken science decades to catch up with the traditional knowledge that their ancestors had understood and put into practice for centuries.

"It's something that we carry as an honor," said Lauren McDarment, a cultural specialist with the Tule River Indian Tribe, located in the southern Sierra. "This is the landscape that we have lived with for centuries, and it needs fire to go through ... to cleanse the areas and let new life regrow."

"Not just the sequoias but the animals and the fish; they get more nutrients," he added. "Everything is healthier."

Despite the damage to the sequoia groves, which are sacred to McDarment and his people, he remains optimistic about the future. In the footprint of the 2017 Pier Fire, for example, McDarment recently saw a carpet of green needles: Hundreds of sequoia saplings.

Some of those tiny trees could be transplanted to other burned groves, where sequoia regeneration isn't happening, said Garrett Dickman, a wildfire botanist with Yosemite National Park.

He points out, though, that a baby sequoia is a far cry from the 1,000-year-old monarchs that tower above the forest canopy and inspire awe in visitors worldwide.

"On balance, we'll see more beneficial effects than negative ones but when the loss is a 1,000-year-old or 2,000-year-old tree it's hard to take," Brigham said.

Joshua Yeager covers water, agriculture, parks, and housing for the Visalia Times-Delta and Tulare Advance-Register newspapers. Follow him on Twitter @VTD_Joshy.

MEXICO 

We Finally Know How 43 Students on a Bus Vanished Into Thin Air


Jeremy Kryt
Sun, October 10, 2021

DAILY BEAST

Pedro Pardo/AFP via Getty

Transcripts of newly released text messages between a crime boss and a deputy police chief have finally lifted the lid on the mystery of 43 students who went missing one night in southwestern Mexico.

The messages indicate that the cops and the cartel worked together to capture, torture, and murder at least 38 of the 43 student teachers who went missing in September of 2014.

The students had made the deadly mistake of commandeering several buses in order to drive to Mexico City for a protest. It now seems clear that those buses were part of a drug-running operation that would carry a huge cargo of heroin across the U.S. border—and the students had accidentally stolen the load.

Gildardo López Astudillo was the local leader of the Guerreros Unidos cartel at that time. He was in charge of the area around the town of Iguala, in southwestern Mexico, where the students were last seen. Francisco Salgado Valladares was the deputy chief of the municipal police force in the town.

On Sept. 26, 2014, Salgado texted López to report that his officers had arrested two groups of students for having taken the busses. Salgado then wrote that 21 of the students were being held on a bus. López responded by arranging a transfer point on a rural road near the town, saying he “had beds to terrorize” the students in, likely referencing his plans to torture and bury them in clandestine grave sites.

Police chief Salgado next wrote that he had 17 more students being held “in the cave,” to which López replied that he “wants them all.” The two then made plans for their underlings to meet at a place called Wolf’s Gap, and Salgado reminded López to be sure to send enough men to handle the job.

Aside from a few bone fragments, the bodies of the students have never been found.

Some of the remains of Christian Alfonso Rodriguez Telumbre, one of the 43 missing students, was found at the mountain town of Cocula, near Iguala
REUTERS/HENRY ROMEROMore

A bit later that night, Salgado also informed the crime boss that “all the packages have been delivered.” This appears to be a reference to the fact that one or more of the busses commandeered by the students had, unbeknownst to them, been loaded with heroin that the Guerreros Unidos had intended to smuggle north toward the U.S. border.

Mike Vigil, the DEA’s former chief of international operations, told The Daily Beast that this strongly implies that López was calling the shots all along, ordering Salgado to arrest the students lest they accidentally hijack his shipment of dope.

“The new evidence that has come to light regarding the Ayotzinapa case cracks it wide open and provides irrefutable proof of who was involved in the student massacre,” Vigil said.

“The story of the massacre of the students in Ayotzinapa is like a Hollywood movie, but the events are real. They involve collusion between the police, army, organized crime, and a massive coverup by the Mexican government.”

The students were all enrolled at the Rural Teachers College in the nearby town of Ayotzinapa, and so they became known as the Ayotzinapa 43. The College is considered a bastion of leftist activism and on the night of the disappearance more than 100 students had been making their way to the nation’s capital. There they planned to take part in demonstrations to mark the anniversary of the 1968 student massacre at Tlatelolco. Most of the student teachers were in their early twenties, but the youngest—Jose Angel Navarrete, known as Pepe to his friends—was just 18 years old.

The mass kidnapping in Iguala would spark protests across Mexico. The previous government originally put forward a theory—now largely discredited—that the students’ bodies had been burned in a trash dump on the outskirts of Iguala. In the wake of the new evidence, the young men's families are demanding fresh searches for the bodies and additional evidence to identify all of those involved.

Relatives gathered in Mexico City with pictures of their missing family.
REUTERS/Henry Romero

Stephanie Brewer, the Mexico director at the Washington Office on Latin America, said the new evidence shows how often in Mexico “organized crime is comprised of both state and non-state actors.”

Brewer pointed to both “state tolerance and collusion—seen in this case in its most brutal and extreme form, where corrupt police are carrying out the gravest human rights violations that exist.”

Although Salgado is already incarcerated for his alleged role in the massacre, López was arrested and then released over an apparent failure of due process, and remains at large.

Although not specifically mentioned in the text messages, allegations have previously surfaced that Mexico’s military was also involved in the disappearances.

A leading newspaper, La Reforma, published leaked testimony earlier this year that suggested army officers based in Iguala had also worked with the Guerreros Unidos to round up some of the students as well as other enemies of the cartel who were in the town on the night of Sept. 26.

The exchanges between the cop and the capo in Iguala were originally intercepted by the army, which has taken some seven years to release them. That has led to criticism, including from the families of the missing students, that the army is not being transparent despite a presidential commission having been established with universal jurisdiction over the case.

“The army hides information because it’s in their best interest to do so,” said a high-ranking Mexican police commander who agreed to speak to The Daily Beast only under the condition of anonymity. “The whole world knows that the army controls the drug trade [in that part of Mexico.]”

Protests have been held across the country as people demanded the authorities did more to end the traumatic wait for answers.
NurPhoto

The Reforma report indicated that, in addition to the 43 students, the army had participated in the abduction of some 30 cartel rivals to Guerreros Unidos that same night.

“The army destroys anyone or anything that gets in their way,” the commander said. “They work with organized crime to protect their own objectives.”

WOLA’s Brewer also pointed to the Mexican military’s lack of cooperation in the case.

“The Mexican army had these wiretaps [and so] had knowledge about the facts that it was not sharing,” Brewer said.

“This raises questions about why and how the army obtained this information, and what obstacles still need to be overcome to be sure that the army is in fact sharing its information with those in charge of investigating the case.”

The DEA’s Vigil said it is “unconscionable” that so many of the cartel members, police and military officers involved in the crime have yet to be punished.

“Mexico continues to wonder why violence persists unabated. They don’t understand that no consequence for criminal actions translates to more impunity.”

Unfortunately, the tragedy of Iguala is far from an isolated incident. More than 93,000 people have gone missing during Mexico’s long drug war—and more than 90 percent of those cases have never been solved, according to Brewer, who is helping WOLA push the Mexican government for reforms in its treatment of missing persons.

“During the past three years, over 25,000 people have been declared disappeared or missing and remain so today, according to official statistics,” Brewer said. “That is almost one person every hour.”