It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, July 05, 2022
‘What have we done?’: Brexit costing UK £100 billion a year
That's several years' worth of EU membership every single year "with none of the benefits," Otto English pointed out.
Shocking new figures have laid bare the cost of Brexit.
According to the government’s own analysis, Britain’s split with the European Union is costing the UK £100 billion a year in lost output.
That equates to several years’ worth of net contributions to the EU – estimated to be £12.6 billion – with none of the benefits, Otto English pointed out.
According to Guardian analysis, the OECD calculates that the UK will record the lowest growth in the G20 next year with the exception of Russia whose economy is being drained by its war on Ukraine.
The Office for Budget Responsibility says Brexit will have a long-term effect of cutting UK GDP by a hefty 4 per cent, an estimate unchanged since early 2020.
The Financial Times says such a decline amounts to £100 billion in lost output, and £40 bilion less revenue to the Treasury a year.
The UK is now behind all the other G7 nations in the pace of its recovery from the pandemic, with exports by UK small businesses to the EU down significantly.
Geoffrey Betts, the managing director of a small office supplies business in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, voted to leave the EU in 2016.
“I thought we would be like … ‘here we go, here we go. We are going to become the most competitive country in Europe and we are going to be encouraging business.’
“Now I think: ‘What have we done?’”, he said.
Cost of living crisis in Tory Britain—debt for poor, bungs for the military
Figures released by the Bank of England show that individuals are plunging into debt
Credit card debt is soaring, with loans rising 11.2 percent on the year in May
The cost of living crisis is sinking its claws deeper into working class people’s bank accounts with new reports exposing the real difficulties they face.
Figures released by the Bank of England show that individuals are plunging themselves into debt, with £800 million borrowed in May. Credit card loans rose 11.2 percent on the year in May—the month after energy prices soared and other forms of consumer credit rose by £400 million.
Many people’s incomes aren’t covering monthly essential costs and an increasing number of people are turning to high interest payday loans. One in ten low income households—1.3 million—have already taken on credit in order to pay their bills according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Rachelle Earwaker, a senior economist at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said, “870,000 households are planning on doing that in the coming months.”
She added, “That gives you an indication of what is to come. We’re now seeing some of the impact of high prices but a lot of that won’t have kicked in yet, so I think it absolutely will get worse before it gets better.”
One payday loan provider, Amigo, offers a loan with a huge 49.9 percent annual interest rate. Loan providers trap people in an ongoing cycle of debt but many people don’t have a choice but to turn to them.
The Resolution Foundation think tank reports that real household disposable income growth averaged just 0.7 percent a year in the 15 years before the Covid pandemic. Between 1961 to 2005 it averaged 2.3 percent.
This reduction has hit those in rental accommodation, single parents and those with young children the hardest. Now half of all children living with single parents are in relative poverty. The majority of the 1.8 million single parents are women.
Nearly 70 percent of single parents have experienced food insecurity with 20 percent using foodbanks. Researchers blame decades of austerity and the lack of support given to single parents during the Covid pandemic.
Before 2008, lone parents were able to claim income support until their youngest child reached 16 or 19 but that age limit has been repeatedly cut. But the Tory government has no interest in helping people who are struggling.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a one-off payment of £650 to 8 million low income households. That’s far short of what people need.
Meanwhile Boris Johnson’s government last week promised to increase spending on the military by £55 billion over the next decade. His message to ordinary people is to accept poverty, debt and dramatically falling living standards.
Rees-Mogg claims economic crisis ‘very little to do with Brexit’ – nobody is falling for it
"The haunted pencil has never got anything right and he is continuing that trend," said one person in response to his comments.
Rees-Mogg made the point that “we have taken control of our borders, so we now decide who comes in here”, which was “a pretty important gain from Brexit that people wanted.” Headwinds
“In terms of people’s concerns economically, these are headwinds faced across the world.”
He declared that economic issues are “very little to do with Brexit.”
Andrew wasn’t buying that though, and asked Rees-Mogg: “has red tape increased, decreased or stayed the same as a result of Brexit?”
Rees-Mogg dodged the question: “Ah, but we’re opening up trade deals across the world!”
Andrew continued: “It’s increased, hasn’t it?”, he asked.
Rees-Mogg went on the defensive, and made the bizarre claim that “the EU doesn’t want to buy our goods.”
He also appeared on BBC’s Newsnight and said a similar line to presenter Kirsty Wark.
As you can see anti-Brexit activist Steve Bray wasn’t impressed.
He wrote: “Earth to Rees-Mogg, come in Rees-Mogg…are you there?” If we leave these people in power any longer we are proper fcuked!”
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UK
Royal Mail managers say they will take industrial action later this month in dispute over pay.
The union Unite says 2,400 managers will 'work to rule' between July 15 and 19 and then will strike between July 20 and 22.
In as much as Nigeria claims to be practising an inappropriate “American style of democracy,” perhaps it’s fitting that the supreme courts of both countries have simultaneously fallen into disrepute. The USA’s Supreme Court ruling which shamefully overturned Roe v Wade undermined the rights of women to decide what happens to their bodies and perhaps more importantly negated the raison d’etre of the institution. Supreme courts exist because litigation cannot be endless and at some point a final and binding ruling must be made. The current US Supreme Court has negated that principle by overturning a ruling which has been in force for over 50 years. They have now certified that legal precedent is meaningless and litigation is now an endless process! It should only be expected that years from now when the current justices are also dead, a more liberal open-minded, less religiously bigoted supreme court will also overturn their ruling. Even worse, the personal integrity of the newly appointed justices, who supported the ruling, has been rubbished because during their confirmation hearings, they vehemently denied any intention of disrespecting precedent and overturning landmark rulings. America is now stuck with unprincipled, religiously bigoted ideologically and politically motivated conservative justices whose only goal is to serve the interests of the Republican Party and reverse gains in civil rights which offend their conservative values.
It is becoming increasingly clear to lovers of American liberties that it was a great mistake to appoint supreme court justices for life. They believed that such appointees would always be people of honour and conscience who would place the interests of the nation above their personal prejudices. Now they know better. Prior to overturning Roe v Wade, the US Supreme Court had never rescinded the rights of individuals and conferred them upon states.
The US Chief Justice Clarence Thomas, an African American, exposed his self-righteous bias by condemning legalised gay rights and consensual sexual behaviour but supporting the previously illegal interracial marriage simply because he is married to a white lady. Neither of course did he refer to the right to own slaves. It goes without saying that if the US Supreme Court was to rule that the right to own slaves should be left up to the states, most Republican-controlled states would re-introduce slavery within days! America appears to be moving into a dark age under the rule of unelected self-righteous conservative politicians camouflaged in judicial robes who are hell bent on rolling back civil liberties.
While the US Supreme Court brought itself into disrepute over issues concerning constitutional rights and the administration of law, the Nigerian Supreme Court also brought itself into disrepute by means of a leaked strongly worded letter to the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) signed by 14 supreme court justices. Disappointingly, the aggrieved justices’ complaints were not about jurisprudence, perverse judgments, constitutional matters or indeed Justice Tanko’s superficial understanding of legal technicalities, but rather they centered on official corruption, administrative ineptitude, and their personal welfare.
The Nigerian Supreme Court has since been described as the “lost hope of the common man.” Citizens have little confidence in their impartiality, actions and processes. Most Nigerians who listened to the confirmation proceedings of the “airplane driver” CJN were at a loss to understand why he was ever confirmed in the first place and how come his fellow justices expected good administration from his leadership. In Nigeria, unlike in the USA, the relevance of the Supreme Court has little to do with enforcing citizens’ rights and more to do with politics and elections. The sheer incompetence of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has led to an ever increasing number of election results being litigated against and overturned. Before the 2019 elections, there were 809 pending pre-election cases. Post-election, there were over 1,500 litigations and 64 Certificates of Return had to be withdrawn.
During the recent Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Ondo Branch Week, a legal luminary, Femi Falana, said, “Nigeria is the only country in the whole world where courts elect leaders…” Quite condemnably, the apex court installed several governors and legislators who didn’t win elections. The ruling in Imo State in particular was scandalous. Rather than order a rerun election, the court affirmed the ruling party’s candidate, Governor Uzodinma, as the “winner” despite coming fourth in the polls! He is widely ridiculed publicly and referred to as “Supreme Court Governor”. To restore confidence in the Supreme Court, it is vital for justices to make rulings without interference or bias based solely on law and facts.
The level of acrimony, bitterness and injustice in the just concluded party primaries is expected to result in record-breaking numbers of litigations concerning the 2023 elections. They will all end up in the disgruntled Supreme Court. At least no matter how outlandish or illogical their ruling will be, it will be final and binding unlike in America.
"The Third World War has begun - peace is an illusion"
Hopes for a peace agreement with Vladimir Putin are "mere illusions," Yulia Tymoshenko, leader of the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine told British Telegraph.
SOURCE: THE TELEGRAPH
EPA-EFE/ORLANDO BARRIA
Tymoshenko, who came to power as prime minister during the first Ukrainian rebellion against the Kremlin, warned that any deal that would cede part of Ukraine's territory to Vladimir Putin would only encourage Russian President to further seize the country.
The only solution, according to Tymoshenko, is to "finish" it with the complete destruction of the Russian army, despite the evident increase in the number of dead Ukrainian soldiers, writes the Telegraph.
According to the British newspaper, her remarks are a kind of rebuke to Western leaders who hinted that giving up parts of Donbas would be a necessary compromise for peace.
France and Germany are open to the idea of handing over part of Ukrainian territory to Russia, despite harsh comments after the G7 summit when French President Emmanuel Macron said "Russia cannot and must not win".
Tymoshenko fears that as the economic cost of the conflict for Europe rises, the initiative to push Kyiv towards a peace agreement will become increasingly popular. "I am surprised that some countries continue to advocate a policy of giving in to Putin. This is unacceptable for all of Ukraine. A peace agreement is an illusion, the only way out is victory in the battle. Any peace agreement will be the first step towards the next war," she said.
Tymoshenko added that despite the losses, Putin wants to prolong the war in the hope that divisions within NATO will eventually emerge. She supported Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky's appeals for the West to send as many missiles as possible to Ukraine in order to somewhat balance power in Donbas.
These days, Ukrainian forces are reportedly losing up to 100 soldiers a day in Donbas.
Foto: EPA-EFE/ SERGEY DOLZHENKO
The political career of Yulia Tymoshenko very well outlines the unstable post-Soviet path of Ukraine, a period divided by internal conflicts, as well as Moscow's interventions, writes Telegraph.
In 2004, Tymoshenko participated in the Orange Revolution, which led to mass street protests that nullified elections rigged in favor of pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych. Tymoshenko was then called the Slovenian "Joan of Arc", and her braids were copied on the world's fashion runways.
However, the Orange Revolution quickly turned into internal strife, allowing Yanukovych to take power in 2010. Tymoshenko was then sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of abuse of office. She said the charges were politically motivated, and she was acquitted after the second pro-Western uprising in Ukraine in 2014, when Yanukovych fled to Russia.
Tymoshenko lost to Zelensky in the 2019 election, but supported him after the Russian invasion in February. The former Ukrainian Prime Minister believes that it is very likely that Russia will try to occupy other neighboring countries, primarily Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, as well as the Scandinavian and Baltic countries.
"My advice to those countries would be to not waste time and start building strong armed forces and become NATO members if they haven't already," she said. Tymoshenko also believes that Putin is ready to use nuclear weapons.
"He is ready to cross all lines and play against all rules, that is the source of his strength," Tymoshenko said.
Covid leaked out of a laboratory in America rather than China, it has been sensationally claimed.
Famous US economist Jeffrey Sachs, who led a two-year probe into the pandemic’s origins, said he was ‘pretty convinced’ the virus was the result of ‘US lab biotechnology’.
The claim, made at a global conference last month, has been seized upon by Chinese Government officials who said it warranted a ‘thorough investigation’.
Professor Sachs, who was twice named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, admitted ‘we don’t know for sure’.
‘But there’s enough evidence that it should be looked into and it’s not being investigated — not in the US, not anywhere.’
He added: ‘I think for real reasons, they [US officials] don’t want to look under the rug too much.’
Critics have previously described Professor Sachs as a President Xi ‘propagandist’, dismissing China’s genocide of Uighurs and publicly calling for US cooperation.
China has faced its own accusations of covering up the origins of Covid. Scientists were found to have wiped crucial databases and stifled independent investigations into a lab just miles away from the pandemic’s ground zero.
The virus first began spreading from a wet market in Wuhan, about eight miles from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) which worked with dangerous coronaviruses.
Researchers who fell ill with a mysterious flu-like virus months before the official Covid timeline were silenced or disappeared.
Professor Sachs is the chairman of the Lancet Covid-19 Commission, set up at the start of the pandemic to assist governments and scrutinise responses.
He oversaw a 12-man taskforce investigating Covid’s origins that was shut down in September 2021 when it emerged the team had financial links to the WIV.
The celebrity economist has said previously he believes the pandemic was the result of experiments done between Chinese and American scientists.
But until now, claims the virus was created in the US were confined to Chinese disinformation campaigns.
A New Show Digs Into the Lou Reed Archives to Reveal Fresh Dimensions of the Godfather of Art Rock Warhol-inspired songs and other rarities are among the gems at the New York Public Library.
Mentor and muse Andy Warhol and Lou Reed, circa 1980.
Photo: Richard E. Aaron/Redferns/Getty Images.
After Andy Warhol’s death in 1987, Velvet Underground founders Lou Reed and John Cale reunited for Songs for Drella, a song cycle about their erstwhile benefactor. Performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, an album followed in 1990—an exemplary dedication.
It turns out this wasn’t Reed’s first batch of songs about his mentor. Reed (who died in 2013) recorded an unreleased cassette around 1975based on the artist’s book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again. In a jaunty number that resembles a children’s song, Reed sings:
Another song wryly expands on Warhol’s “So what?” outlook on life. Discovered in 2019, these unreleased tracks can finally be heard—on headphones, at least—in a recently-opened exhibition at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, “Lou Reed: Caught Between the Twisted Stars.” Although they’re demos, as Reed said in 1973, “My shit is better than most people’s diamonds.”
It’s hard to impress a hardcore disciple, but mission accomplished with this show. “Caught Between the Twisted Stars” doesn’t compete (nor does it try to) with the mammoth “The Velvet Underground Experience,” which debuted at the Philharmonie de Paris in 2016 followed by a three-month East Village stint in 2019. And is there even much more to say about the band after last year’s superb Todd Haynes documentary? Rather, the exhibition (which opened on June 9) fleshes out Reed’s prolific yet oft-overshadowed solo career. It’s an intimate glimpse, not a completist vision.
John Cale and Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground perform onstage at Cafe Bizarre, New York, December 1965. Photo: Adam Ritchie/Redferns.
Don Fleming and Jason Stern—who manned Reed’s archives until the cache was acquired by the New York Public Library in 2017—curated the exhibition, which draws from these holdings, plus the archives of Jim Carroll and the Sal Mercuri Velvet Underground Collection. The mighty trove includes include tour posters, studio notes, and assorted memorabilia. There is some of Reed’s personal correspondence, including birthday cards from VU drummer Maureen Tucker and a letter from another writer who, like Reed, specialized in tales of the disenfranchised and drug-addled, Hubert Selby, Jr. (he signed with his nickname, “Cubby.”) Over the years in photos, Reed morphs from a football jersey-wearing jock to glam-rock goblin androgyne and back again.
The photographer Mick Rock documented Reed in some of his most iconic images, such as the cover of his 1972 solo breakout, Transformer (both it and the follow-up, the devastating 1973 concept album, Berlin, could have been better represented, but presumably the archives weren’t bursting with material from that period). Many of Rock’s lesser-known portraits of the musician appear here instead—outtakes from the Coney Island Baby cover session, Reed sitting in his apartment, flanked by his pet dachshund—and are more affecting than the images one has seen ad infinitum.
A compulsory detour into Reed’s mostly “meh” mullet-and-scooter era from the early 1980s is represented by items like the motorcycle helmet that adorns Legendary Hearts. A Betamax recording shows him energetically performing “Street Hassle” in 1978 wearing a midriff-exposing baby tee. The show excels in conjuring the magic of music-making through objects and artifacts.
Reed’s “Legendary Hearts” helmet and other memorabilia is on view. Photo: Max Touhey, courtesy of the New York Public Library.
The real treats, however, are the auditory gems, of which the Warhol-inspired tape is just one. A 1965 acoustic demo tape documents never-released forays and the gestation of seminal Velvets’ tracks- some years before their release. They include a countrified take on “Pale Blue Eyes” with backing accompaniment and vocals from Cale and a version of “Men of Good Fortune” that shares only a title with the eventual 1973 track. Light in the Attic, a reissue-specialty imprint, will release the 1965 tape in August as Words and Music, but a wealth of unreleased songs in the show are stuck in copyright limbo—such as the attempted piano ballad “Ondine,” by Reed, Cale, and Nico, from 1966. The tunes are worth the wait for the headphone stations and may inspire multiple visits—too bad you can’t skip to play what you want and must listen through.
He has had it: Lou Reed poses for an RCA publicity photo circa 1973 in New York City. Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images.
Reed’s wife, the artist Laurie Anderson, supplied items such as guitars, tai chi weapons, and the handwritten lyrics from 1974’s Sally Can’t Dance. The entire album is plotted out, as well as songs that didn’t make the cut, such as the intriguingly titled “Falling in Love 1 (Andy, Nico, John)” and “Falling in Love II (David, Angie, Iggy + Mick).” The pages have been assembled behind a wall of glass so one can see both sides. It’s perhaps the most moving visual component of the show, where ordinary meets sublime in the blue-inked germination of his work.
“Lou Reed: Caught Between the Twisted Stars” is on view through March 4, 2023, at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023.
Bonwit Teller department store. Photo by George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images.
Donald Trump’s relationship to the Metropolitan Museum of Art was permanently damaged early on. He refused to donate artworks that he had promised to the museum and instead had them destroyed, along with a venerable building that had played an important role in American art history.
At that site, the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 56th Street in Manhattan at which Trump constructed his prestige project Trump Tower between 1980 and 1982, the flagship store of the luxury department store chain Bonwit Teller and Co. had earlier stood. The 1929 building was the work of the same architects who had designed Grand Central Terminal, Whitney Warren and Charles Wetmore. It was intended originally to house the women’s department store Stewart. Bonwit Teller, who took over the building in 1930 and opened it anew, soon worked with world-famous artists. Starting in 1936, the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalà regularly decorated the windows with spectacular installations, for example in 1939, working with the theme “night and day.” In the 1950s, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg worked for the company on the side as window dressers, using the pseudonym “Matson Jones.” Among other things, Johns displayed his now iconic painting Flag on Orange Field behind a mannequin in the windows in 1957. That same year in the same place, Rauschenberg showed his Red Combine Painting along with others. Two years earlier, the large photographic work Blue Ceiling Matson Jones could be seen in the background of the Bonwit Teller windows.
In 1959, James Rosenquist was also working for the department store. A half century later, he recalled: “By the late 1950s I’d begun to lead a double life. In the daytime I painted billboards and designed display windows for Bonwit Teller, Tiffany’s, and Bloomingdale’s; at night and on weekends I hung out with artists and painted.” In 1961, five large-format paintings by the then almost completely unknown artist Andy Warhol stood and were hung in the windows on Fifth Avenue. Warhol was then earning his living mostly with advertising assignments, starting in 1951 with work for Bonwit Teller display director Gene Moore. At the time, this descendant of Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants was not taken seriously as a painter. Ten years later, Warhol changed his approach, putting his own works in the windows of Bonwit Teller, and his global career took off. Today a museum director would kill for one of these paintings—among them, the now famous Blast with its Superman theme, and Before and After 1 which depicts a nose job. “For more than 50 years, Bonwit Teller had an eye for the New York avant-garde art scene,” as the scholarly publication The Art Story summarized the meaning of this New York art site. “Under Moore’s direction in the midcentury, Bonwit Teller gave many modern artists their start in the world of art and design. With free creative reign, avant-garde artists experimented in the department store window, turning a glass case into an alternative art space, and introducing the public to new and exciting styles.”
Trump Tower. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images.
This part of the history of art and of New York City appears to have eluded Donald Trump. And that’s not all: the developer wasn’t even willing to save the artworks inside the building from destruction, breaking a promise to the renowned Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is nearby, because profit and time were dearer to him than culture.
After all, Trump hadn’t bought the Bonwit Teller building for $15 million in 1979 when the department store went bankrupt in order to preserve an historical monument. He wanted to create a monument to himself: Trump Tower. The demolition was already decided upon when the contracts were signed. And the art that decorated the building was only of interest to the developer for a short time, when he believed that he could do some business with it and buff up his reputation, Trump’s eternal principle when it comes to art.
Close to the top of the 11-story building there were two limestone relief panels of two nearly naked women brandishing large scarves, as if dancing, in which the Metropolitan Museum of Art had expressed a strong interest for its sculpture collection. The Metropolitan, one of the largest and most important museums in the world, had also wanted to add to its department of applied 20th century art the six-by-nine meter, geometric-patterned bronze latticework that hung over the entrance at Bonwit Teller. By all accounts, Trump had agreed to donate both, if his workers were able to remove them from the walls.
The New York Times and The Washington Post reconstructed what happened next. Their investigations demonstrated not just that Trump broke his promise and destroyed valuable art. The journalists discovered that, when his cultural crime caused an uproar, Trump hid behind a pseudonym and lied to the public: “What followed was a display of arrogance, excuse-making and avoidance of tough questions that is familiar to anyone who has observed Trump’s interactions with the media throughout his campaign for the White House.”
When journalists inquired of the Trump Organization about the existence of the two limestone Art Deco friezes, a spokesperson going by the name John Barron replied: three independent experts had found that the works had “no artistic value” and were worth at most an estimated $9,000. According to “Barron,” the removal would have cost $32,000 and would have meant a week and a half delay of the demolition work. The alleged costs for the delay were later calculated by Trump’s side to be $500,000. The next day “Barron” was quoted as saying that the bronze latticework that had hung over the entrance to the Bonwit Teller building was also missing: “We don’t know what happened to it.” The artist Otto J. Teegan, who had designed the piece in 1930, responded, “It’s not a thing you could slip in your coat and walk away with.” “It’s odd that a person like Trump, who is spending $80 million or $100 million on this building, should squirm that it might cost as much as $32,000 to take down those panels.”
The journalists didn’t give up searching for these artworks that had been promised to the American public. Three days later, the New York Times wrote, “Repeated efforts over the last three days to reach Mr. Trump have been unavailing.” On the fourth day, the real estate developer contacted the journalists and explained that he had ordered the destruction of the Bonwit Teller reliefs himself: “Because their removal could have cost more than $500,000 in taxes, demolition delays and other expenses, and might have endangered passing pedestrians on Fifth Avenue. ‘My biggest concern was the safety of people on the street below,’ said the 33-year-old developer, who contended that cranes, scaffolding and the most careful handling could not have assured the safe removal of the cracked and weathered two-ton limestone panels from high on the building’s facade. ‘If one of those stones had slipped,’ he said, ‘people could have been killed. To me, it would not have been worth that kind of risk.'” In truth, Trump’s biographer Harry Hurt III confirmed, Trump himself ensured that the workers were told to remove the bronze latticework over the entrance with blowtorches, separate the friezes from the walls with jackhammers and break them off with crowbars, and throw them down into the interior of the building where they shattered into a million pieces. Ashton Hawkins, vice president and secretary of the board of trustees of the Met, was among those outraged and told The New York Times in June 1980: “How extraordinary. I know that there was an offer of a gift in the event that the objects could be saved. I would think that would be sufficient to guide them in their actions. We are certainly very disappointed and quite surprised.” Hawkins dismissed with a single sentence Trump’s argument that the sculptures had no value: “Can you imagine the museum accepting them if they were not of artistic merit?” “The reliefs are as important as the sculptures on the Rockefeller building,” elaborated the gallerist Robert Miller, who had assessed the reliefs earlier. “They’ll never be made again.”
Today as president Trump labels everything that doesn’t conform to his political ideas “fake news,” but he had to admit that he had adopted a false identity to explain his point of view to the public. The alleged press spokesperson John Barron, who sometimes called himself Baron and occasionally identified himself as vice president of the Trump Organization, was none other than Trump himself. In a legal proceeding in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan concerning the illegal employment of Polish workers in the building of Trump Tower for $4 an hour Trump admitted that he and one of his executives have used the name John Barron in some their business dealings. Outside the courthouse, he explained confidently: “Lots of people use pen names. Ernest Hemingway used one.” Sometimes he used the alias “John Miller” for statements such as those about famous women like Madonna or Kim Bassinger who supposedly wanted to meet Trump. In March 2006, Melania and Donald Trump named their son Barron.
Two contemptuous statements Trump made later in 1980 show that the Bonwit Teller affair, which did long-term damage to his reputation in New York’s intellectual circles, continued to trouble Trump. At an event in the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Manhattan, Trump, its owner, expressed his opinion about the table decorations made out of gold mylar and the lion’s head medallions over the entrance to the ballroom: “Real art, not like the junk I destroyed at Bonwit Teller.”
And in the summer of that year, a New York Times story quoted Trump: “‘There is nothing I would like to do more than give something to a museum,’ he said in a recent interview. Why? ‘I’ve always been interested in art.’ A visitor observed that there was no art in Mr. Trump’s office. The developer considered this for a moment. Then, with a smile, he pointed to an idealized illustration of Trump Tower hanging on one of the walls. ‘If that isn’t art,’ Mr. Trump said, ‘then I don’t know what is.'”
Anoana is the first song from Heilungs 3rd studio album Drif.
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The lyrics for this piece are mainly taken from bracteates: golden, circular coins or amulets found in Northern Europe that date from the 4th to 7th centuries CE. They are often fitted with a decorated rim and loop, which indicates that they were meant to be worn and perhaps provide protection, fulfil wishes or for divination.
The bracteates feature a very significant iconography influenced by Roman coinage. They were predominantly made from Roman gold, which was given to the North Germanic peoples as peace money.
In Anoana, the listener has the chance to delve into a collection of likely encoded spells from the Migration Period and get a touch of magic from the Dark Ages.
The intention of the piece is to playfully reconnect to an incantational language of a period where the North was richer in gold than any other region. Our forefathers presumably enjoyed a time of great prosperity and it may make us rethink how dark these ages really were.
Drif has been mastered significantly lower in volume than most modern releases to achieve a greater dynamic range, deeper lowend, transparent transients and a wider stereo image. If you want it louder, turn up the volume on a proper sound carrier.
Credits:
Film crew:
Production Company: Helmet Films & Visual Effects //IG @helmetfilmsvfx
Director: Line Klungseth Johansen //IG @cutestlittlekittenintheworld
Director of Photography: Øystein Moe
VFX-Supervisor: Alexander Somma //IG @alexandersomma
Coordinator: Gard Svalestuen //IG @gardnicolas
1st AC, Aerial Cinematography: Stian Eriksen ///IG @morrysack
2nd AC, Aerial Cinematography, Editor: Arne Vidar Stoltenberg //IG @rayvanilla
Actors:
Hermine Rygvold Thorvaldsen
Aina Malvik
Marleen Moll
Daniella Anoana Ervik Mjønes Westre
VFX Artists:
Henrik Dahl //IG @hnrkdhl
Thomas Rønning //IG @reduxen
Markus Dahlstrøm
Scenography: Marita Kristiansen //IG @michipaou
SFX Make-up: Leo Thörn //IG @leo.thorn
Make-up: Magne Mattsson //IG @ettpustilivet
Costume: Amanda Bjørge //IG @amanda.bjorge
Colorist - Bianca Rudolph, Nordisk Film Shortcut AS
Editor Consultant: Toni Kotka
Assistant Coordinator: Kasia //IG @katsopi
BTS Photography: Aleksandra Suchkova //IG @sandramacadam
Production assistants:
Snorre Ulvåg //IG @snorreulvag
Christian Aakerhus //IG @christianaakerhus
Noah Myren //IG @noahmyren
Jakob Gunby //IG @jakobolopo
Elias Bolme //IG @elias_bolme
Hedin Leinum Parelius
Felix Lianes
Cedrik Friis
Mia Lilleby Hjulstad
Vegard Evjen
Producers:
Line Klungseth Johansen, Øystein Moe
Thanks to:
Sunniva Ervik Mjønes, Andreas Westre //IG @sunnivaervik
Myskoxcentrum i Härjedalen (att Ida) //IG @myskoxcentrum
Gjørv Gård
Leira kapell
Leif Moe
Roy Tronstad
Namsskogan Familiepark
Jenny Hilmo Teig
Prosjektor Filmproduksjon
Nina Aune
Frich's Hjerkinnhus
Eggan Nedre (att Elin)
Sitters:
Belle Juul: Luna Sitter
Luna: Belle Sitter //IG @lunathetourdog
Extras:
Tonje Årolilje Størseth Digre
Christofer Adolfsson
Jørgen Antonisen Sognnes
Ørjan Trotland
Magne Heia-Gideonsen
Ove Slgeggmann
Rasmus Saksgård
Leif Erik Solstad
Sondre Jacobsen
Thor Anders Berg
Eva Barck
Natalie Summers
Isskandar Fischer
Ina Viola Mielhe
Veronica Strand
Sølvi Mathisen
Didrik Rossbach
Geir Sagberg
Elsa Margrethe Reppen
Una Isailovic
Martin Damhaug
Per Einar Pettersen
Goran Moen Grendal
Lars Harald Nordgård
Anars Wekland
Special thanks to:
Michael Barbarian and the whole Season of Mist family for believing in this project.
This video is supported by: CNM France
Anoana is composed, written, created and performed by Kai Uwe Faust, Christopher Juul, Maria Franz and our ancestors.
The song is produced, mixed and mastered by Christopher Juul at Lava Studios Copenhagen
Guest performances by:
Vocals: Annicke Shireen, Emilie Lorentzen, Mira Ceti
Drums and Percussion: Jacob Hee Lund, Nicolas Schipper
Warrior chanting: Ruben Terlouw, Pan Bartkowiak, Marijn Sies, Gwydion Zomer, Isabella Streich, Martin Skou, Samiye van Rossum, Nadia Kalamieiets, Eadweard Boyter, Nina Cornelia Schilp, Mitchell Bosch, Gwydion Zomer and Katalin Papp
Warriors and percussion recorded at Wisseloord Studios by Fieke van den Hurk and Marie de Koning
Heilung is Amplified History from early medieval northern Europe and should not be mistaken for a modern political or religious statement of any kind.
Remember, that we all are brothers
All people, beasts, trees and stone and wind
We all descend from the one great being
That was always there
Before people lived and named it
Before the first seed sprouted
PILOTS STRIKE Scandinavian Airlines files for bankruptcy protection in US
NEITHER SWEDEN NOR DENMARK WILL BAIL THEM OUT
SAS planes are grounded at Oslo Gardermoen airport
(NTB Scanpix via AP) TUE, 05 JUL, 2022 - 10:35 JAN M OLSEN, AP
Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) has filed for bankruptcy in the United States, warning that a walkout by 1,000 pilots a day earlier had put the future of the carrier at risk.
The move adds to the likelihood of travel chaos across Europe as the summer vacation period begins.
The Stockholm-based group said it had “voluntarily filed for chapter 11 in the US, a legal process for financial restructuring conducted under US federal court supervision”.
Filing for chapter 11 in New York puts civil litigation on hold while the business reorganises its finances, dubbed SAS Forward.
SAS said that its operations and flight schedule will be unaffected by the announcement.
CEO Anko van der Werff said that the strike had accelerated the move. “I think we have been very clear that this could happen,” he said.
“The important thing is that this is about bankruptcy protection, it is not about a bankruptcy, but it is about financial reconstruction.”
The carrier said it is “in well advanced discussions with a number of potential lenders … to support its operations throughout this court-supervised process”.
The rescue plan, presented in February, is aimed at securing long-term competitiveness.
Pilots reacted strongly to the news of the Chapter 11 filing. Roger Klokset, head of the SAS pilots’ union, said the group “had stretched negotiations and mediation from November last year until the day before the application, without ever having the intention of entering into an agreement with the SAS pilots”.
The pilots in Denmark, Sweden and Norway walked out on Monday, citing inadequate pay and working conditions and expressing dissatisfaction with the decision by the carrier to hire new pilots to fill vacancies at its subsidiary airlines, SAS Link and SAS Connect, rather than re-hire former company pilots laid off due to the pandemic.
Mr van der Werff said the strike was “devastating for SAS and puts the company’s future together with the jobs of thousands of colleagues at stake”.
The walkout is estimated to lead to the cancellation of approximately 50% of all scheduled SAS flights, affecting around 30,000 passengers per day.
Flights operated by SAS Link, SAS Connect and SAS’ external partners are not affected.
The airline is part-owned by the governments of Sweden and Denmark.
In 2018, Norway sold its stake but holds debt in the airline, and has said it might be willing to convert that into equity.
Strike-hit Airline SAS Files For U.S. Bankruptcy Protection
By Anna Ringstrom and Stine Jacobsen 07/05/22 AT View of SAS Airbus A321 and A320neo aircraft at Kastrup Airport parked on the tarmac, after pilots of Scandinavian Airlines went on strike, in Kastrup, Denmark July 4, 2022. TT News Agency/Johan Nilsson via REUTERS
Scandinavian airline SAS has filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States to help accelerate restructuring plans, it said on Tuesday, warning strike action by pilots had impacted its financial position and liquidity.
Wage talks between SAS and its pilots collapsed on Monday, triggering a strike that adds to travel chaos across Europe as the peak summer vacation period begins.
That accelerated the airline's decision to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States, the airline's Chief Executive Anko van der Werff said at a press conference on Tuesday.
The company said in a statement it would continue to serve its customers throughout the bankruptcy process, although the pilot strike is impacting its flight schedule.
It said the purpose of the filing with a U.S. federal court was to accelerate a restructuring plan announced in February.
"Through this process, SAS aims to reach agreements with key stakeholders, restructure the company's debt obligations, reconfigure its aircraft fleet, and emerge with a significant capital injection," SAS said in a statement.
It expects to complete the Chapter 11 process in nine to 12 months, it added. SAS shares fell as much as 6% after the filing was announced, and were trading 2% lower at 0728 GMT.
During the pandemic, other non-U.S. airlines including Avianca, Aeromexico and Philippine Airlines have used the Chapter 11 process to renegotiate contracts with key suppliers like aircraft lessors while continuing to operate.
Rival Norwegian Air emerged from bankruptcy protection involving courts in Dublin and Oslo last year.
"It doesn't mean anything for the normal operations. They are trying to repair the motor while driving," Sydbank analyst Jacob Pedersen told Reuters of the SAS filing.
"This is happening because SAS hasn't been able to accomplish the changes through negotiations."
SAS needs to attract new investors and has said that in order to do that it must slash costs across the company, including for staff and for leased planes that stand idle because of closed Russian airspace and a slow recovery in Asia.
The airline said on Tuesday its assessment was that its cash balance of 7.8 billion Swedish crowns ($756 million) was sufficient to meet its business obligations in the near term.
SAS said discussions with lenders regarding another $700 million of financing to support its operations during the restructuring were "well advanced".
It added however that the strike "has a negative impact on the liquidity and financial position of the company and, if prolonged, such impact could become material".
Nordnet analyst Per Hansen said the application showed SAS needs a fresh start and that it thinks the strike will drag on.
"Chapter 11 protection comes early," he said. "Management and the board want to make it absolutely clear for all stakeholders that the situation is very serious."
View of SAS Airbus A321 and A320neo aircraft at Kastrup Airport parked on the tarmac, after pilots of Scandinavian Airlines went on strike, in Kastrup, Denmark July 4, 2022. TT News Agency/Johan Nilsson via REUTERS