Prairie disaster: In the Globe, Gary Mason angrily points out that Alberta and Saskatchewan have failed to bring the pandemic under control, which is taking a terrible toll.

Mr. Kenney has been under intense criticism for a few months now over his decision-making around the crisis. There have been growing calls for a leadership review within his party. His popularity rating sits at a dismal 22 per cent – the lowest of any provincial leader in the country. The Premier has had to put out a call to the military to help with overburdened hospitals. Patients have been airlifted to hospitals in other provinces. Saskatchewan is in even worse shape. On Thanksgiving Monday, the province’s normal complement of critical care beds were taken up with COVID-19 patients. In the three months since the province reopened, case numbers have shot up 47 per cent. The COVID-19 death rate is 6.62 per 100,000 people – the worst in the country. (Alberta has come in second, at 4.7 per 100,000; Ontario’s rate, by contrast, is 0.67.)

On campus, COP26 is far from some Canadian students’ minds – National Observer
October 15, 2021

While some young people are passionate about fighting to save the planet, others see unavoidable doom in the collective inability of leaders and individuals to take drastic climate action within our economic systems.

Less than a month before a major global climate change conference, students around the downtown campus of the University of Toronto were largely unaware of COP26 or the two-week UN meeting’s finer details.

And while a warming planet and related negative effects were of concern to the dozen or so students who spoke with Canada’s National Observer, none expressed optimism that meaningful progress would be made.

“I think we’re doomed,” said Yun Yang, a U of T engineering student. “Countries aren’t going to change the way they’re operating because we’re too focused on short-term stuff.”


Yang said he felt that not enough people care enough and that he didn’t have the right to be angry at others for inaction since he was not actively researching the topic himself.

“Obviously, it’s concerning when you think about what can happen with climate change going in the direction that it is,” he said. “But I think realistically, I don’t think this world can turn around. I’m just being honest.”


For Melissa Bieman, a fifth-year history and philosophy student, it’s about people having more pressing post-pandemic priorities.

“If people don’t have jobs, if people can’t afford to live, they’re not going to care about the climate. I think that’s just reality,” she said. “You’re more concerned with whether you can put food on the table than whether the Earth’s going to be here in 30 or 50 years.”

The COVID-19 pandemic stalled a global climate protest movement that had brought millions of people to the streets in 2019 demanding the systemic change required to slow the warming of the planet and stave off the worst effects of a more extreme climate.

It has also made many people’s economic outlook more uncertain, and countries have marshalled significant resources to battle the virus and ensure economic recovery.

“I don’t think any progress is going to be made, because at the end of the day, I think it’s all about economic prosperity,” said a business student who gave her name as Jacqueline. “I don’t think they really care at the moment about climate change.”

Less than a month before a major global climate change conference, students around the downtown campus of the University of Toronto were largely unaware of #COP26 or the two-week UN meeting’s finer details. #ClimateCrisis

Talk of a just transition away from fossil fuels would have to provide a meaningful advantage before oil and gas workers would be motivated to switch careers, said Bieman.


“The hard part, especially with somewhere that’s so dependent (on an oil and gas economy) like Alberta, for example, is that you’re going to have to show them that the jobs are there first before they’re even inclined to walk away,” she said.

COP26 — also known as COP, short for Conference of the Parties — has brought the world together since 1995 to hammer out agreements to reduce global warming. The talks gather policymakers, scientists, environmental activists, climate experts, and news media from the 197 member countries of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to set and work towards global climate change goals. This year, COP26 will take place at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow, Scotland, from Oct. 31 to Nov. 12.

Morgan Sharp / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer
October 15th 2021

 

How Canada’s CanSino COVID-19 vaccine deal with China collapsed – Maclean’s

 October 15, 2021 

Politics Insider for Oct. 15, 2021: The made-in-Canada vaccine breakdown; cabinet talk; and a CPC suspension

The Fifth Estate released an investigation Thursday that shed new light on the Trudeau government’s failed collaboration with a vaccine manufacturing company in China, CanSino, that led to a two-year delay in creating a made-in-Canada COVID-19 vaccine.

Government documents “show that Canadian officials wasted months waiting for a proposed vaccine to arrive from China for further testing and spent millions upgrading a production facility that never made a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine.”

The reporting shows that Canada’s plan appears to have been stymied by Chinese political interference related to the Meng Wanzhou case.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the deal to Canadians on May 16, 2020. But a federal government memo later that same month reveals the Canadian Embassy in Beijing was still working to get the vaccine cleared by China’s customs. “CanSino vaccines are still with customs in China,” the memo said. “Embassy has a [meeting] tomorrow. Assuming they get through customs [tomorrow], they can be put on a flight on the 27th.” But the vaccine candidate was not put on a plane on May 27. That same day, Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou — a high-profile tech executive in China — lost an appeal to the B.C. Supreme Court arguing against her arrest in Canada. Meng had been detained in Vancouver in 2018 on U.S. bank fraud charges.

Planning continued until August while the Trudeau government kept the difficulties secret. It has never explained what happened and did not help Fifth Estate with its report.

The Prime Minister’s Office did not answer when asked to explain the discrepancy between the promised production numbers and what happened. The prime minister and his ministers also declined interview requests about Canada’s early vaccine production plans, including with the NRC and CanSino. The NRC has said the U.S.-based vaccine developer Novavax will be its new partner for this facility, but Health Canada has not approved its vaccine yet.

The CanSino project was not the only partnership that the NRC was pursuing at the time, Justin Ling reported in Maclean’s earlier this year.

— Stephen Maher

Nothing funny about bad year for Maine’s clownish puffins
By PATRICK WHITTLE


FILE - In this July 1, 2013, file photo, a puffin prepares to land with a bill full of fish on Eastern Egg Rock off the Maine coast. This year's warm summer was bad for Maine's beloved puffins. Far fewer chicks fledged than need to to stabilize the population.

 (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)


PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine’s beloved puffins suffered one of their worst years for reproduction in decades this summer due to a lack of the small fish they eat.

Puffins are seabirds with colorful beaks that nest on four small islands off the coast of Maine. There are about 1,500 breeding pairs in the state and they are dependent on fish such as herring and sand lance to be able to feed their young.

Only about a quarter of the birds were able to raise chicks this summer, said Don Lyons, director of conservation science for the National Audubon Society’s Seabird Institute in Bremen, Maine. About two-thirds of the birds succeed in a normal year, he said.

The puffin colonies have suffered only one or two less productive years in the four decades since their populations were restored in Maine, Lyons said. The birds had a poor year because of warm ocean temperatures this summer that reduced the availability of the fish the chicks need to survive, he said.

“There were fewer fish for puffins to catch, and the ones they were able to were not ideal for chicks,” Lyons said. “It’s a severe warning this year.”'

 In this July 19, 2019, file photo, research assistant Andreinna Alvarez, of Ecuador, holds a puffin chick before weighing and banding the bird on Eastern Egg Rock, a small island off the coast of Maine. This year's warm summer was bad for Maine's beloved puffins. Far fewer chicks fledged than need to to stabilize the population.

 (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

The islands where puffins nest are located in the Gulf of Maine, a body of water that is warming faster than the vast majority of the world’s oceans. Researchers have not seen much mortality of adult puffins, but the population will suffer if the birds continue to have difficulty raising chicks, Lyons said.

The discouraging news comes after positive signs in recent years despite the challenging environmental conditions. The population of the birds, which are on Maine’s state threatened species list, has been stable in recent years.

The birds had one of their most productive seasons for mating pairs in years in 2019. Scientists including Stephen Kress, who has studied the birds for decades, said at the time that birds seemed to be doing well because the Gulf of Maine had a cool year that led to an abundance of food.

The puffins are Atlantic puffins that also live in Canada and the other side of the ocean. Internationally, they’re listed as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Norway town absorbs horror of local’s bow-and-arrow attack

1 of 11

Young people look at the floral tributes and candles left for the victims of a bow and arrow attack, on Stortorvet in Kongsberg, Norway, Friday, Oct. 15, 2021. The suspect in a bow-and-arrow attack that killed five people and wounded three in a small Norwegian town is facing a custody hearing Friday. He won’t appear in court because he has has confessed to the killings and has agreed to being held in custody. 

(Terje Bendiksby/NTB via AP)

KONGSBERG, Norway (AP) — Residents of a Norwegian town with a proud legacy of producing coins, weapons and silver grappled Friday with the horrible knowledge that someone living in their community used a bow and arrow to attack people doing their grocery shopping or other evening activities — and succeeded in killing five of them.

On a central square in Kongsberg, a former mining town of 26,000 people surrounded by mountains and located southwest of Norway’s capital, people laid flowers and lit candles in honor of the four women and a man who died in Wednesday’s attack. The victims ranged in age from 50 to 70, police have said.

“This a a small community so almost everybody knows each other, so it’s a very strange and very sad experience for us,” Ingeborg Spangelo, a teacher who brought her students to the impromptu memorial, said. “It is almost surreal or unreal.”

Officers arrested a Kongsberg resident identified as Espen Andersen Braathen, a 37-year-old Danish citizen. He was detained about a half-hour after he allegedly began firing arrows in a supermarket where police tried to confront him but lost sight of him when he fired at them and they had to take cover, law enforcement authorities have said.

Andersen Braathen proceeded from the supermarket into a quiet downtown neighborhood of wooden houses and birch trees, where he fired at people on the street and inside some apartments, police said. Along with the five people killed, three were injured.

Senior police officer Per Thomas Omholt said Friday that three weapons in all were used in the attack, but declined to identify the types or to reveal how the five victims were killed, saying investigators need to interview more witnesses and don’t want their accounts tainted by what they read in the news.

Officers who responded to the first alert at 6.13. p.m., encountered the perpetrator in the supermarket. That is where an off-duty police officer who was shopping was injured, reportedly hit by an arrow in the shoulder. Police were shot at twice with arrows, and as they sought shelter and called for reinforcement, the suspect managed to escape. Investigators believe the five victims were killed afterwards.

“The killings were committed both outdoors and indoors. Among other things, (the suspect) has visited private addresses. In addition, arrows were fired at people in the public space,” Omholt told a news conference.

The regional prosecutor leading the investigation has said that Andersen Braathen confessed to the killings after his arrest, and police said they think he acted alone. Norway’s domestic intelligence agency said Thursday that the case appeared to be “an act of terrorism” but cautioned that the investigation was ongoing.

Norwegian broadcaster NRK said Friday that in 2015 the agency, known by its acronym PST, got information about Andersen Braathen and in 2017 they met the suspect. The following year, PST contacted Norwegian health authorities about the man and concluded that he was not driven by religion or ideology, but was seriously mentally ill. The VG newspaper said PST then believed he could carry out a “low-scale attack with simple means in Norway.”

PST had no immediate comment.

Omholt said that as of Friday, investigators were continuing to explore possible motives or reasons for the attack but their ”strongest hypothesis for motive is illness.” His “health has deteriorated,” the officer said, declining to give specifics.

“We work with several hypotheses. They are weakened and strengthened during the investigation,” Omholt said. “We will find out what has happened, and why.”

Andersen Braathen has been transferred to a psychiatric facility. Omholt added that “at least” two experts will observe and evaluate Andersen Braathen to determine if he was legally sane at the time of the attack.

The suspect’s mental health meant that “it is important to obtain information about the accused’s past,” Omholt said and called for witnesses to map his activities in recent years, including on social media.

Mass killings are rare in low-crime Norway, and the attack immediately recalled the country’s worst peacetime slaughter a decade ago, when a right-wing domestic extremist killed 77 people with a bomb, a rifle and a pistol.

“The screaming was so intense and horrifying there was never any doubt something very serious was going on,” said Kongsberg resident Kurt Einar Voldseth, who had returned home from an errand when he heard the commotion Wednesday. “I can only describe it as a ‘death scream,’ and it burned into my mind.”

Voldseth said he recognized the attacker, saying he lived nearby and “usually walks with his head down and headphones on.”

“I have only spoken to him a few times, but I have had the impression he might be a person with problems,” he said.

During an initial hearing Friday, a court in Kongsberg ordered Andersen Braathen held in custody for four weeks, including two weeks in isolation, and banned him from communicating with others.

“Reference is made to the extremely serious nature of the case, which has also led to great media interest both nationally and internationally. If the accused is not shielded from this and from other prisoners, important evidence could be lost,” the ruling read.

He was being held on five counts of preliminary murder and at least three counts of preliminary attempted murder. Preliminary charges are a step short of formal charges, and a terror-related charge could be brought later if the evidence supports it, Omholt said.

Andersen Braathen didn’t appear in court. His defense lawyer, Fredrik Neumann, told Norwegian news agency NTB he had no comments, saying of his client: “He has agreed to imprisonment, so then this really speaks for itself.”

Police described him Thursday as a Muslim convert and said that there “earlier had been worries of the man having been radicalized.” But neither police nor the domestic intelligence service elaborated or said why they flagged Andersen Braathen or what they did with the information.

According to Norwegian media, Andersen Braathen has a conviction for burglary and drug possession, and a court granted a restraining order for him to stay away from his parents for six months after he allegedly threatened to kill one of them.

Later Friday, a somber-looking Jonas Gahr Stoere, Norway’s new prime minister who took office Thursday, laid a bouquet in the sea of flowers, candles and cards being left on a central square in Kongsberg.

“We know Kongsberg as a safe town. But the unbelievable can also happen,” Gahr Stoere told the crowd. “We stand together when the crisis hits us.” He called the attack “brutal and meaningless.”

Gahr Stoere traveled to the picturesque town about 66 kilometers (41 miles) southwest of Oslo, with Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl.

Established in 1624 as a mining community after the discovery of silver in the area, it is where the Royal Norwegian Mint is based. For decades, the community had a weapons factory that initially produced guns, and now houses defense, aerospace and technology companies.

CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS

Workers Are Striking and Quitting Over Pay and Conditions

Oct 14, 2021


Inside Edition

American businesses are struggling to keep workers from quitting. The massive departure of people from the workforce is adding up to what's being called “the great resignation.” Ten-thousand John Deere employees just went on strike, joining 1,400 Kellogg's workers. In California, 20,000 nurses voted to go on strike next week. Hollywood is also facing a strike of 60,000 entertainment workers. “There’s a lot of choice out there,” Li said, “Workers actually have more power than the companies."

   

10,000 workers strike against John Deere 

after the company shut down Georgia facility

  

John Deere workers on strike: ‘They can’t take our money’

Oct 14, 2021

ABC News’ Terry Moran reports on the ongoing strikes across America, with thousands of workers from John Deere, Warrior Met Coal, Kellogg and Kaiser Hospitals hitting the picket lines.

Thousands of U.S. workers go on strike at agricultural giant Deere

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Deere says strike will not impact its operations, which

 include several Canadian distribution centres

The Associated Press · Posted: Oct 14, 2021 

Wheels are attached as workers assemble a tractor at John Deere's Waterloo, Iowa, assembly plant in a 2019 file photo. The vast majority of United Auto Workers union members rejected a contract offer from Deere & Co. (Zach Boyden-Holmes/Telegraph Herald/The Associated Press)

More than 10,000 Deere & Co. workers went on strike Thursday, the first major walkout at the agricultural giant in more than three decades.

The union had said its members would walk off the job if no deal had been reached by 11:59 p.m. Wednesday. The vast majority of the union rejected a contract offer earlier this week that would have delivered five per cent raises to some workers and six per cent raises to others at the Illinois company known for its green tractors.

"The almost one million UAW retirees and active members stand in solidarity with the striking UAW members at John Deere," UAW president Ray Curry said.

Brad Morris, vice-president of labour relations for Deere, said in a statement that the company is "committed to a favourable outcome for our employees, our communities and everyone involved."

He said Deere wants an agreement that would improve the economic position of all employees.

"We will keep working day and night to understand our employees' priorities and resolve this strike, while also keeping our operations running for the benefit of all those we serve," Morris said.

• Farmers seeking 'right to repair' rules to fix their own tractors gain White House ally

• Biden announces 24/7 L.A. port operations to ease supply chain jams

The Deere production plants are important contributors to the economy, so local officials hope any strike will be short-lived.

"We definitely want to see our economy stabilize and grow after the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic," Moline Mayor Sangeetha Rayapati said to the Quad-Cities Times. "Hopefully, these parties can come to a resolution soon."

The strike is taking place in the middle of the corn and soybean harvest season, at a time when farmers are struggling to find parts for tractors and combines.

First strike at company in decades

The contracts under negotiation covered 14 Deere plants across the United States, including seven in Iowa, four in Illinois and one each in Kansas, Colorado and Georgia.

The contract talks at the Moline, Ill.-based company were unfolding as Deere is expecting to report record profits between $5.7 billion and $5.9 billion this year. The company has been reporting strong sales of its agricultural and construction equipment this year.

As a result of that performance, CEO John May's total compensation jumped last year to nearly $16 million, from $5 million the previous year, according to SEC filings.

Deere, which has about 27,500 employees in the United States and Canada, had earlier said its operations would continue as normal. The company's presence in Canada includes nine parts and distribution centres, according to the company's website.

Thirty-five years have passed since the last major Deere strike, but workers were emboldened to demand more this year after working long hours throughout the pandemic and because companies are facing worker shortages.

"Our members at John Deere strike for the ability to earn a decent living, retire with dignity and establish fair work rules," said Chuck Browning, vice-president and director of the UAW's Agricultural Implement Department. "We stay committed to bargaining until our members' goals are achieved."

Private sector strikes relatively rare

Chris Laursen, who works as a painter at Deere, told the Des Moines Register before the strike that it could make a significant difference.

"The whole nation's going to be watching us," Laursen said to the newspaper. "If we take a stand here for ourselves, our families, for basic human prosperity, it's going to make a difference for the whole manufacturing industry. Let's do it. Let's not be intimidated."

Earlier this year, another group of UAW-represented workers went on strike at a Volvo Trucks plant in Virginia and wound up with better pay and lower-cost health benefits after rejecting three tentative contract offers.

• Lingering global supply-chain challenges resulting in months-long wait for appliances

• Caterpillar lays off 120 workers as trade war hits sales

But overall just 6.3 per cent of American private sector workers belong to a union, compared to nearly 35 per cent of public sector workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While the public sector number has remained relatively steady since 1980, the private sector number has plummeted from a rate of about 20 per cent four decades ago.

Before the pandemic hit, the same government agency noted an uptick in overall U.S. strike activity in 2018 and 2019, albeit from historic low levels of work stoppages during the 1990s and the first decade of this century.

#BOYCOTTISRAEL   #BDS   #FREEPALESTINE
Israel quietly advances settlements with little US pushback

In this Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012 file photo, a general view of Givat Hamatos area is seen in east Jerusalem. Israel is quietly advancing controversial settlement projects in and around Jerusalem while refraining from major announcements that could anger the Biden administration. Critics say Israel is paving the way for rapid growth when the political climate changes.

 (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner, File)


JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel is quietly advancing controversial settlement projects in and around Jerusalem without making major announcements that could anger the Biden administration. Critics say the latest moves, while incremental, pave the way for rapid growth once the political climate changes.

On Wednesday, as Foreign Minister Yair Lapid met with U.S. officials in Washington, a local planning committee in Jerusalem approved the expropriation of public land for the especially controversial Givat Hamatos settlement, which would largely cut the city off from Palestinian communities in the southern West Bank.

The same committee advanced plans for the construction of 470 homes in the existing east Jerusalem settlement of Pisgat Zeev. Authorities have scheduled a Dec. 6 hearing for another project in east Jerusalem to build 9,000 settler homes in the Atarot area, according to Ir Amim, an Israeli rights group that closely follows developments in the city.

A military body has meanwhile scheduled two meetings in the coming weeks to discuss a planned settlement of 3,400 homes on a barren hillside outside Jerusalem known as E1. Critics say it would largely bisect the occupied West Bank, making it impossible to establish a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel. A two-state solution is still seen internationally as the only realistic way to resolve the century-old conflict.

“The fact that simultaneously all of these very controversial plans that have been longstanding international red lines have now been advancing ... is very indicative that the Israeli government intends to advance and ultimately approve these plans,” said Amy Cohen of Ir Amim.

Jerusalem’s deputy mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum downplayed the latest developments, noting that Givat Hamatos was approved years ago. “Nothing’s changed over the last few years,” she said. “We are a city and we’re providing for our residents.”

Spokespeople from the defense and housing ministries, which are also involved in approving settlements, declined to comment.

Construction is already underway in Givat Hamatos, where tenders for more than 1,200 homes were announced last November. The other projects are still progressing through a long bureaucratic process, and it could be months or years before shovels break ground.

FILE - In this Nov. 16, 2020, file photo, a European Union official visits a construction site for Givat Hamatos settlement in Jerusalem. Israel is quietly advancing controversial settlement projects in and around Jerusalem while refraining from major announcements that could anger the Biden administration. Critics say Israel is paving the way for rapid growth when the political climate changes. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File)

But critics of the settlements say every step matters.

“The thing with those plans is that in order to make them come true you need to do the whole process,” said Hagit Ofran, of the Israeli anti-settlement monitoring group Peace Now. “Every step on the way is in the control of the government... If they don’t act to stop it, then it happens.”

Every Israeli government since 1967 has expanded settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, territories Israel seized in the Mideast war that year which the Palestinians want for their future state. The Palestinians view the settlements — now housing some 700,000 settlers — as the main obstacle to peace, and most of the international community considers them illegal.

Israel annexed east Jerusalem and considers the entire city to be its capital. It views the West Bank as the biblical and historical heartland of the Jewish people. But it has refrained from annexing the territory because of international pressure and because it is home to more than 2.5 million Palestinians, the absorption of whom could erode Israel’s Jewish majority.

U.S. presidents from both parties opposed the settlements until President Donald Trump broke with that tradition, proposing a Mideast plan in which Israel would keep all of them. The Trump era witnessed explosive growth in settlements, and Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, broke with precedent by visiting one last year. Pompeo, a possible Republican presidential hopeful in 2024, was back in Israel this week and paid another supportive visit to a settlement.

President Joe Biden’s administration has criticized settlement construction as an obstacle to eventually reviving the long-moribund peace process but has not demanded a freeze. In 2010, Israel announced a major settlement project during a visit by then-Vice President Biden, aggravating a diplomatic rift that festered throughout President Barack Obama’s presidency.

Biden, who as president is prioritizing other challenges like COVID-19, China and climate change, appears keen to avoid a showdown with Israel, a close U.S. ally.

“We have been clear publicly and in private about where we stand on settlement activity and on annexation,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Thursday. “We oppose any unilateral steps that put a two-state solution further out reach.”

When asked whether that concern had grown recently, he said it had “remained constant.”

Israel’s political system is dominated by pro-settlement parties and its new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, is opposed to a Palestinian state. But he heads an unwieldy coalition of parties from across the political spectrum — some opposed to settlements — and appears to be seeking middle ground that would sideline the issue at home and abroad.

A senior Israeli official who participated in Lapid’s meetings in Washington said the discussions had focused primarily on Iran and Israel’s relations with its Arab neighbors but acknowledged that the Americans had raised the settlements issue.

However, the Palestinian issue was “not the dominant theme in the region” during the discussion, the official said. The official was not authorized to discuss the details of the private talks and spoke on condition of anonymity.

A State Department readout of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s meeting with Lapid made no specific reference to settlements in the one sentence it devoted to the Palestinians.

With U.S. attention focused elsewhere, and the Palestinian leadership divided and increasingly unpopular, Israel faces few if any immediate consequences for expanding settlements.

But critics have long warned that the failure to create a viable Palestinian state will leave millions of Palestinians living under permanent Israeli rule without the same rights as Jews. Two well-known human rights groups say Israel has already become an apartheid state.

“These are all incremental steps in order to create a new reality on the ground, an irreparable reality,” Ir Amim’s Cohen said about the advancement of settlements. “You are foiling any prospect of a two-state framework.”

___

Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Hungary’s ‘last’ Roma fortuneteller preserves traditions

Zoltan Sztojka, traditional Gypsy fortune-teller is seen in his home in Soltvadkert, central Hungary on Oct. 10, 2021. Sztojka, by his own account Hungary’s last Roma fortuneteller, is working to preserve his culture's traditions that are slowly vanishing in the Central European country. 

(AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)

By JUSTIN SPIKE

SOLTVADKERT, Hungary (AP) — Zoltan Sztojka, by his own account Hungary’s last Roma fortuneteller, lays 36 weathered tarot cards on a table at his home in the village of Soltvadkert, and peers at them from beneath the brim of his large felt hat.

As he turns the cards with his heavily ringed fingers, he presents his clients — whom he calls “patients” — details of their past, present and future, a skill of divination he says he inherited from an “unbroken family lineage” of fortunetellers dating back to 1601.

“They were fortunetellers and seers,” he says of generations of his ancestors, who were “chosen by God” to practice the gift of fortunetelling.

Sztojka, 47, whom friends and locals call simply “Zoli with the hat,” uses cards and palm reading to divine information about his clients, a trade he has been practicing for 25 years. His skills at seeing the unseeable, he says, were apparent from childhood.

“You’re either born with it or you inherit it, but to say you can learn it is humbug,” he said while seated in a room filled with burning candles and religious icons, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

Sztojka is a member of Hungary’s large Roma minority, which some estimates place at as many as 1 million people in the Central European country — roughly 10% of its population. Present in virtually every country in Europe, many Roma face racism, segregation, social exclusion and poverty.

First migrating to Hungary in the 15th century, Roma were known historically for their skills as craftspeople and musicians. They long spoke their own language and maintained numerous dialects and customs related to their trades — metalworkers, horse grooms and traders, musicians and fortunetellers, among others.

But in the mid-18th century, Habsburg empress Maria Theresa ordered the forced assimilation of the Roma, outlawing their nomadic way of life and the use of their language, Romani.

Roma children were removed from their homes and placed with non-Roma families, while use of the Hungarian word for Roma — cigany — was also forbidden. They were dubbed “New Hungarians.”

This and other processes of marginalization means that most Roma in Hungary are no longer able to speak the Romani language, and many of their traditional trades — like fortunetelling — were lost, said Szilvia Szenasi, director of the Uccu Roma Informal Educational Foundation.

“Traditional occupations are very much on the wane,” Szenasi said. “It is important to preserve them for the next generation, because it is through them that the Roma people can live their own identity.”

Zoltan Sztojka, traditional Gypsy fortune-teller, is photographed in his home in Soltvadkert, central Hungary, Sunday, Oct. 10, 2021. Sztojka, by his own account Hungary’s last Roma fortuneteller, is working to preserve his culture's traditions that are slowly vanishing in the Central European country. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)

For Sztojka, preserving Roma culture goes beyond keeping the centuries-old art of fortunetelling alive. He dresses each day in brilliantly colored vests and shirts adorned with floral folk patterns, and wears a traditional long, dark moustache.

A devout Catholic, he only removes his wide-brimmed hat — a trademark of the Gabor Roma clan of Transylvania — when eating or attending church.

“It’s terribly important to preserve our culture and traditions, because if we don’t have a culture, then the Gypsy community will cease to exist,” he said. “I try to pass them on to many people so they can really get to know us, because all they know is that there are Gypsies, but they don’t know anything about us.”

While in several cultures the word Gypsy is considered an offensive term, Sztojka prefers using it to Roma.

He and his family belong to the Lovari subgroup of Roma people, and speak the Lovari dialect of Romani — something he says is “on the verge of extinction.”

“People don’t really want to speak the Gypsy language. Everyone assimilates as if suddenly they wanted to be Hungarian,” he said.

Along with his clairvoyance, Sztojka inherited his 150-year-old tarot cards from his great-great-grandmother, who herself was a fortuneteller in a time when the tradition was a much greater part of Roma identity.

Beatrix Kolompar, one of Sztojka’s relatives, said that her people’s traditions “can distinguish us as Gypsies, as Roma.”

“Since we don’t have a country of our own, we carry on the world we live in, the Roma way of life, through our traditions,” she said. “The dancing girls, the colorful dresses, the fortunetelling and the fortuneteller, it’s proof of who we are.”

But Szenasi, the director of the Uccu Foundation, says that preserving such traditions “requires cultural recognition, which is very lacking in Hungary.”

Without “institutional culture” such as museums and other cultural institutions, she said, “the traditions that the Gypsy people are doing are slowly becoming lost, and these values will unfortunately disappear.”

Sztojka says he has lost around half of his business during the COVID-19 pandemic, but that many of his “patients” are return visitors who are convinced of his clairvoyance.

Sztojka makes his living from fortunetelling, charging 15,000 Hungarian forints ($50) per session, although he says he doesn’t turn poor people away. But he also considers it “a mission” that spiritually enriches both him and his customers.

“To read cards is a total blessing for me. It’s how I can help my fellow human beings,” he said.

Despite the vanishing of his culture’s centuries-old way of life, “Zoli with the hat” says he will never give up on carrying forward the mystical trade of his ancestors.

“My parents didn’t assimilate, my grandparents didn’t assimilate, and I won’t either. If you have no past, you have no future,” Sztojka said.

“I believe that I was born a Gypsy, and I will die a Gypsy.”

Our automated cultural landscape: Netflix shapes who we are

David Beer, University of York


In this scene from the popular South Korean Netflix show "Squid Game," contestants try to etch out the shape of a very thin sugar candy called “dalgona.” Photo courtesy of Netflix

Oct. 15 (UPI) -- Netflix's dystopian Korean drama Squid Game has become the streaming platform's biggest-ever series launch, with 111 million viewers watching at least two minutes of an episode.

Out of the thousands of programs available on Netflix globally, how did so many people end up watching the same show? The easy answer is an algorithm -- a computer program that offers us personalized recommendations on a platform based on our data and that of other users.

Streaming platforms like Netflix, Spotify and Amazon Prime have undoubtedly reshaped the way we consume media, primarily by massively increasing the film, music and TV available to viewers.

How do we cope with so many options? Services like Netflix use algorithms to guide our attention in certain directions, organizing content and keeping us active on the platform. As soon as we open the app the personalization processes begin.

Our cultural landscape is automated rather than simply being a product of our previous experiences, background and social circles. These algorithms don't just respond to our tastes, they also shape and influence them.

But focusing too much on the algorithm misses another important cultural transformation that has happened. To make all this content manageable, streaming platforms have introduced new ways of organizing culture for us. The categories used to label culture into genres have always been important, but they took on new forms and power with streaming.

Classifying our tastes

The possibilities of streaming have inspired a new "classificatory imagination." I coined this term to describe how viewing the world through genres, labels and categories helps shape our own identities and sense of place in the world.

While 50 years ago, you might have discovered a handful of music genres through friends or by going to the record shop, the advent of streaming has brought classification and genre to our media consumption on a grand scale. Spotify alone has over 5,000 music genres. Listeners also come up with their own genre labels when creating playlists. We are constantly fed new labels and categories as we consume music, films and television.

Thanks to these categories, our tastes can be more specific and eclectic, and our identities more fluid. These personalized recommendations and algorithms can also shape our tastes. My own personalized end-of-year review from Spotify told me that "chamber psych" -- a category I'd never heard of -- was my second-favorite genre. I found myself searching to find out what it was and to discover the artists attached to it.

These hyper-specific categories are created and stored in metadata -- the behind-the-scenes codes that support platforms like Spotify. They are the basis for personalized recommendations, and they help decide what we consume. If we think of Netflix as a vast archive of TV and film, the way it is organized through metadata decides what is discovered from within it.

On Netflix, the thousands of categories range from familiar film genres like horror, documentary and romance, to the hyper-specific "campy foreign movies from the 1970s."

While Squid Game is labeled with the genres "Korean, TV thrillers, drama" to the public, there are thousands of more specific categories in Netflix's metadata that are shaping our consumption. The personalized homepage uses algorithms to offer you certain genre categories, as well as specific shows. Because most of it is in the metadata, we may not be aware of what categories are being served to us.

Take Squid Game -- it might well be that the way to have a large launch is partly to do with the algorithmic promotion of widely watched content. Its success is an example of how algorithms can reinforce what is already popular. As on social media, once a trend starts to catch on, algorithms can direct even more attention toward it. Netflix categories do this too, telling us what programs are trending or popular in our local area.

Who is in control?

As everyday media consumers, we are still at the edge of what we understand about the workings and potential of these recommendation algorithms. We should also consider some of the potential consequences of the classificatory imagination.

The classification of culture could shut us out to certain categories or voices -- this can be limiting or even harmful, as is the case with how misinformation is spread on social media.

Our social connections are also profoundly shaped by the culture we consume, so these labels can ultimately affect who we interact with.

The positives are obvious -- personalized recommendations from Netflix and Spotify help us find exactly what we like in an incomprehensible number of options. The question is: Who decides what the labels are, what gets put into these boxes and, therefore, what we end up watching, listening to and reading?

David Beer is a professor of sociology at the University of York.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

#MeToo, 4 years in: ‘I’d like to think now, we are believed’

By JOCELYN NOVECK and MARYCLAIRE DALE

today

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In this Nov. 1, 2017 file photo, participants march against sexual assault and harassment during the #MeToo March in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. At center is Tarana Burke, founder of the #MeToo movement. According to a 2021 The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, just over half of Americans - 54% - say they personally are more likely to speak out if they're a victim of sexual misconduct. 

(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)


NEW YORK (AP) — To Charlotte Bennett, the new book that arrived at her Manhattan apartment this week — Anita Hill’s “Believing” — was more than just a look at gender violence.

It was a dispatch from a fellow member of a very specific sisterhood — women who have come forward to describe misconduct they suffered at the hands of powerful men.

Bennett’s story of harassment by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo helped lead to his resignation after an investigation found he’d harassed at least 11 women. And 30 years ago this month, Hill testified before a skeptical Senate Judiciary Committee that Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her.

“I can’t imagine what it was like doing that in 1991,” said Bennett, 26. “I’ve thought about that a lot.”

Hill’s history obviously predates the #MeToo movement, the broad social reckoning against sexual misconduct that reaches its four-year mark this week. But Bennett’s moment is very much a part of it, and she believes #MeToo is largely responsible for a fundamental change in the landscape since 1991, when Hill came forward.



“I’d like to think that now, we are believed,” Bennett said in an interview. “That the difference is, we are not convincing our audience that something happened and trying to persuade them that it impacted us. I would really like to think we’re in a place now where it’s not about believability — and that we don’t have to apologize.”

But for Bennett, a former health policy aide in the Cuomo administration, what emboldened her to come forward — and bolster the claims of an earlier accuser — was also the feeling that she was part of a community of survivors who had each other’s back.

“I was really scared to come forward,” Bennett said. “But something that reassured me even in that moment of fear was that there were women before me … (it wasn’t) Charlotte versus the governor, but a movement, moving forward. And I am one small event and one small piece of reckoning with sexual misconduct, in workplaces and elsewhere.”

There’s evidence Bennett is not alone in feeling a shift. Four years after actor Alyssa Milano sent her viral tweet asking those who’d been harassed or assaulted to share stories or just reply “Me too,” following the stunning revelations about mogul Harvey Weinstein, most Americans think the movement has inspired more people to speak out about misconduct, according to a new poll.

About half of Americans — 54% — say they personally are more likely to speak out if they’re a victim of sexual misconduct, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. And slightly more, 58%, say they would speak out if they witnessed it.

Sixty-two percent of women said they are more likely to speak out if they are a victim of sexual misconduct as a result of recent attention to the issue, compared to 44% of men. Women also are more likely than men to say they would speak out if they are a witness, 63% vs 53%.

AP-NORC poll

Sonia Montoya, 65, of Albuquerque, used to take the sexist chatter in stride at the truck repair shop where she’s worked as the office manager — the only woman — for 17 years. But as news broke in 2016 about the crude way presidential candidate Donald Trump spoke about women, she realized she’d had enough. She demanded respect, prompting changes from her colleagues that stuck as the #MeToo movement took hold.

“It used to be brutal, the way people talked (at work). It was raw,” said Montoya, a poll participant who describes herself as an independent voter and political moderate. “Ever since this movement and awareness has come out, the guys are a lot more respectful and they think twice before they say certain things.”

Justin Horton, a 20-year-old EMT in Colorado Springs who attends a local community college, said he saw attitudes start to change as the #MeToo movement exploded during his senior year of high school.

He thinks it’s now easier for men like him to treat women with respect, despite a culture that too often objectifies them. And he hopes people realize that men can be sexually harassed as well.

“I feel like it’s had a lasting impact,” he said. “I feel like people have been more self-aware.”

Close to half of Americans say the recent attention to sexual misconduct has had a positive impact on the country overall — roughly twice the number that say it’s been negative, 45% vs. 24%, the poll shows. As recently as January 2020, Americans were roughly split over the impact of the movement on the country.

Still, there are signs the impact has been unequal, with fewer Americans seeing positive change for women of color than for women in general. That dovetails with frequent criticism that the #MeToo movement has been less inclusive of women of color.

“We haven’t moved nearly enough” in that area, #MeToo founder Tarana Burke told The Associated Press in an interview last month.

The AP-NORC Poll also showed generational differences: More Americans under 30 said they’re more likely to speak out if they are a victim, compared with older adults, 63% vs. 51%. And 67% of adults under 30 said they were they are more likely to speak out if they witness sexual misconduct, compared with 56% of those older.

There is a price for speaking out. Bennett said Cuomo, despite having resigned, is still not taking true responsibility for his actions, and so her struggle goes on.

“He’s still willing to try and discredit us,” she said. “And I am at a point where I’m exhausted. This has been a horrible experience.”

Bennett has said the 63-year-old Cuomo, among other comments, asked if her experience with sexual assault in college had affected her sex life, asked about her sexual relationships, and said he was comfortable dating women in their 20s. Cuomo denies making sexual advances and says his questions were an attempt to be friendly and sympathetic to her background as a survivor. He’s denied other women’s allegations of inappropriate touching, including an aide who accused him of groping her breast.

How is Bennett doing, two months after the resignation? She replies haltingly: “I’m doing OK. Every day is hard. It’s sad. It takes a piece of you a little bit. But ... I would make the same decision every single time. The reason I was in public service was to be a good citizen and give back and do the right thing and contribute. I didn’t see my role like this, but that’s what it turned into. And that’s OK. I’m proud of myself for coming forward, and I will get through it.”

She muses about where the country might be in three more decades.

“I think reflecting on Anita Hill’s experience is a great way to understand how long 30 years is,” she said.

“So what do I feel like the next big change will be? I think it’s just not apologizing for being inconvenient. I could sit here and apologize. But I want to get to a place … where we’re not apologizing, where it’s our job to come forward if we have the means and ability to do so.”

And the #MeToo movement, she said, should be not only a community, not only “a soft landing place” for women who come forward.

“It should it be where leaders come from,” Bennett said. “We know how institutions act. We know the underbelly of these institutions better than anyone. We have a lot of solutions to fix it and we should be at the table.

“It should be OUR table.”

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Dale reported from Philadelphia. Associated Press writers Hannah Fingerhut and Emily Swanson contributed to this report.

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,099 adults was conducted Sept. 23-27 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.