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)
Saturday, October 29, 2022
'I never said the whole UK was racist': Trevor Noah hits back at critics after claiming 'British backlash' to Sunak becoming PM
29 October 2022, 17:25
Trevor Noah (L) has insisted he never said the whole of the UK was racist. Picture: Alamy/LBC
US talk show host Trevor Noah has insisted that he never meant that the whole UK was racist, after being criticised for claiming that there had been a backlash to Rishi Sunak becoming the country's first Asian Prime Minister.
Daily Show presenter Mr Noah said on his satirical news programme The Daily Show this week that some people are saying that "now the Indians are going to take over Great Britain".
He also opened an earlier show with a reference to a racist caller to LBC, who told presenter Sangita Myska that Mr Sunak "doesn't represent Britain".
LBC: Sangita Myska eviscerates this caller who claims Suank 'doesn't love England'
Former cabinet minister Sajid Javid later said Mr Noah's comments were "completely detached from reality".
And Mr Sunak's own spokesperson, asked whether he believes the country he governs is racist, said: "No he doesn't."
Former Chancellor Mr Javid rejected Mr Noah's comments, saying: "Simply wrong. A narrative catered to his audience, at a cost of being completely detached from reality.
He added: "Britain is the most successful multiracial democracy on earth and proud of this historic achievement."
He replied to Mr Morgan's tweet, saying: "“C’mon Piers, you’re smarter than that.
“I wasn’t saying ‘the entire UK is racist’, I was responding to the racists who don’t want Rishi as PM because of his race. That’s why I said ‘some people’.”
Mr Noah made his original comments on his show earlier this week. A clip posted to social media has been viewed more than 1.3 million times.
He said: "Watching the story of Rishi Sunak becoming England's first Prime Minister of colour, of Indian descent, of all these things and then seeing the backlash is one of the more telling things about how people view the role that they or their people have played in history.
"And what I mean by that is this, you hear a lot of the people saying 'Oh, they're taking over, now the Indians are going to take over Great Britain and what's next?'"And I always find myself going 'So what? What are you afraid of?'"
Sangita Myska. Picture: LBC
Mr Noah's claims came after a now-infamous conversation between LBC presenter Sangita Myska and a caller known only as 'Jerry from Lowestoft' two days before Mr Sunak won the Conservative leadership election.
The clip has now been viewed millions of times. Sangita, who, like Mr Sunak, is of East African Indian descent, said the video had been sent back to her from people all over the world.
She wrote in a later piece for LBC reflecting on the incident: "That conversion on LBC has kicked off a conversation worldwide about the moment the racist underbelly of a society collides with body politic so openly that the world can hear and feel [every] word of hate.
"Racism exists in every society where there is a racially minoritized group. Britain is no exception. It has its own complex historical relationship with ethnic minorities by virtue of Empire and the subjugation of three quarters of the globe – most of whom were people of colour.
"We are now over here, because colonial Britain was over there."
Sangita added: "On my LBC show I encourage my listeners to lean into their complex, difficult feelings - not hide away behind flippant remarks.
"Then, in a safe, honest and open space we explore them together in a nuanced and balanced way."
Bats in a Texas evening sky. Paul Cryan, USGS photographer, 2009.
This post was written by Science Reference Specialist Ashley Cuffia.
Bats get a bad reputation in popular culture, and at no time of year is it more prevalent than Halloween. The image of a furry, flying nightmare with fangs, red eyes and leathery wings swooping down on unsuspecting innocents may play well in the movies; these notions could not be farther from the truth. In all sincerity, these small creatures are largely harmless and perform a wide array of beneficial services such as pest control and pollination. Let’s take a look at the bat with an open mind, and allow them to fly out of our nightmares and into our hearts.
Here are five amazing facts about bats:
Over 300 species of plants depend on bats for their pollination needs. Some of these include avocados, cacao and agave. So without bats, there would be a lot less chocolate, guacamole and tequila in the world!
Each night bats can eat their body weight in insects. This not only helps crops from being destroyed, but also lowers the number of bug bites we will get in the summer.
The average bat in the wild can live up to 20 years with some reaching their 30s. The oddity of this is that normally the smaller the animal the shorter the lifespan, however bats break that mold and spend their long life zipping around the sky.
Baby bats are called pups, and most bats give birth to a single pup. Mother bats will gather all their pups up into a nursing colony in the spring and watch over their young as they grow. Like all other mammals bats feed milk to their young until they are old enough to eat solid food.
As the only true flying mammal on the planet, they are not only unique but incredibly fast. Their rate of flight speed depends on the species, but some can reach up to 100mph.
Color lithograph of red and brown bats in various poses. L. Prang and Co, 1874
So what can we do to help these furry little flying animals continue doing the hard work that they do? Think about planting a bat garden or building a bat house!
Bats love to eat moths, so planting flowers that host moths such as evening primrose and honeysuckle would increase the odds of these furry friends stopping by for a snack.
Trees not only give bats a place to snuggle up, but also provide a buffet of bugs for their diet.
Insects are attracted to very fragrant plants, so not only do you get to enjoy your sweet scented flowers, but also attract more insects for the bats to eat.
Artificial light in your yard will attract bugs, but it will negatively impact bat behavior, so keep that yard nice and dark.
Providing water is also very important, however it is not as simple as putting out a bird bath or bucket. Bats scoop up water as they fly so a pond or water trough 7 to 10 feet in length is ideal for them. Just remember to add in a little ramp out of the water in case one crash lands or another creature happens to fall in.
Finally think about building a bat house, this will give them somewhere warm and dark to spend the day catching some zzz’s.
Scientific illustration of bats. Lithograph by Adolph Giltsch and drawing by Ernst Haeckel. Published in Kunstformen der Natur, 1904
Read more on how bats have captured the hearts of our other LC bloggers:
Bats: Spooky Superheroes? Stephanie Hall, former specialist at The American Folklife Centers discusses the folklore of bats along with conservation efforts
Creatures of the Night : The bat (Order Chiroptera) is a real-life creature of the night which may have made its appearance on this planet 65 million years ago.
REV. LOVEJOY: “I remember another gentle visitor from the heavens. He came in peace, and then died, only to come back to life. And his name was…E.T., the extra-terrestrial. (sniffles) I loved that little guy.”
- The Simpsons, “The Springfield Files,” a.k.a. the one where Mulder and Scully and even Leonard Nimoy show up
When E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial arrived in theaters in 1982, it won the hearts of critics and audiences worldwide. It made Steven Spielberg into an even bigger success story after his previous hits Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. It made people of all ages, especially children, fall in love with the character of E.T., and filled them with thoughts of what it would be like to meet aliens from outer space just like E.T. It was a movie that not only became a beloved classic, but whose impact would go on to spread like wildfire. (Granted, this didn’t stop the Atari video game adaptation of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial from being a massive disappointment that not only contributed to the Video Game Crash of 1983, but also resulted in thousands of unsold copies being taken to a landfill, buried underground, and then having that burial site covered with concrete.)
Unfortunately for John Carpenter’s The Thing, which opened in theaters two weeks after E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial on June 25, 1982, that impact practically ruined any chances the film may have had for box-office success. Because after seeing a kind-hearted alien befriend a lonely young boy in the suburbs of California, nobody wanted to see a mysterious alien organism murdering humans and animals in the freezing cold landscape of Antarctica.
At a scientific research station located in Antarctica, the twelve men who are assigned there notice an Alaskan Malamute running for its life while being chased by a helicopter, which is carrying both the pilot and a man armed with a rifle and hand grenades who has every intention of trying to kill the dog for reasons unknown. The helicopter ends up exploding right next to the pilot, and the rifle-toting man is shot to death due to his refusal to lower his weapon while yelling at the other men in Norwegian, which none of them are fluent in. The dog is taken inside to safety, and once it becomes acquainted with its surroundings, it soon reveals that it is not really an ordinary dog. It is an ancient alien lifeform that can perfectly imitate any human or animal that it comes into contact with, and it has every intention of possessing whoever crosses its path and killing anyone who threatens its survival. The twelve men, including helicopter pilot MacReady (Kurt Russell); senior biologist Blair (A. Wilford Brimley); chief mechanic Childs (Keith David); dog handler Clark (Richard Masur), and station commander Garry (the late Donald Moffat) discover who and what they’re dealing with, and are forced to accept that not only is this Thing willing and able to kill every single one of them, it is also capable of changing its appearance to look, act, and sound like each and every one of them. Which forces each of them to ask: Who can be trusted? And will they survive?
John Carpenter was first approached to write and direct his own re-telling of director Howard Hawks’ Christian Nyby’s The Thing from Another World in 1976 before he grabbed Hollywood’s attention with Halloween two years later. But he was reluctant to take the job, as he held that film in very high regard (For further proof, the scary movie that Tommy Doyle and Lindsey Wallace choose to watch while they’re being looked after by their babysitters is none other than The Thing from Another World), and had doubts as to whether his own version of the story would measure up or even surpass it. But once he took another look at Who Goes There?, John W. Campbell’s 1938 novella that inspired The Thing from Another World, and realized that the story’s themes could be just as powerful and terrifying in the present day as they were when Nyby made his film, he decided to go for it. Carpenter later decided to cast Kurt Russell in the lead role of MacReady, as they had worked well together on both Elvis and Escape From New York. And before he became more well-known due to his commercials for Quaker Oats and diabeetusLiberty Medical, and that inexplicable Cajun accent he used in Hard Target, Wilford Brimley was cast in one of his very first roles as Blair, who quickly deduces what the Thing has planned for his colleagues and for the rest of civilization, and none of it is good.
Carpenter’s brilliant directing, Bill Lancaster’s superb screenplay, Drew Struzan’s iconic poster, and an impressive ensemble cast whose performances make you care whether they will live or die, while also wondering which one of them is actually hunter or prey. They all contribute to how incredible and frightening The Thing is, and why it’s a film that is still worth watching and discussing four decades after its theatrical release. But if there’s one person whose work deserves praise, and who is largely responsible for scaring the living sh-t out of most audiences who watch it for the first time, it’s special make-up effects designer Rob Bottin. He was able to make the effects for the Thing itself look convincingly horrifying and gruesome as it unleashed its warpath on MacReady and company. It also helped to maintain the mysterious and unknown nature of the Thing, as we never do see what it really looks like, due to each one of its metamorphoses that causes it to resemble its previous inhabitant. But the damage that it is able to inflict whenever it makes its presence felt, whether it’s absorbing all of the surrounding sled dogs while locked in the research station’s kennel, or turning its own chest into a giant mouth in order to bite someone’s arms off, is truly unforgettable. It’s what convinces both the characters in the film, and the people in the audience, that this Thing is a serious threat that needs to be found and destroyed before it’s too late. (Legendary special-effects creator Stan Winston provided some assistance to Bottin, but he insisted on remaining uncredited so that attention wouldn’t be taken away from Bottin’s own accomplishments. Hence why he is given “Special Thanks” in the film’s closing credits.)
And this article wouldn’t be complete without a shout-out to the late, great composer Ennio Morricone, whose score and usage of synthesizers is not only reminiscent of Carpenter’s own music from Assault on Precinct 13, but is perfect in setting the mood for what’s to come and putting the audience on edge.
As the primary setting, U.S. Outpost 31 is immersed in bitter Antarctic cold while also located thousands of miles away from the rest of civilization, which leaves the research team members to rely only on each other for companionship. Despite that reality, one quickly gets the impression that they’re really not the closest of friends, but they work well together in order to carry out their respective duties and get the job done. Even MacReady mostly wants to be left alone in his shack to play chess on his computer, get drunk, and get some much-needed sleep. The paranoia that suddenly kicks into high gear when the Thing arrives and launches its bloodbath soon results in the men being at each other’s throats, to the point where it’s almost a greater danger to them than the actual Thing itself.
One man ends up dying from a bullet to the head, another comes this close to blowing up everyone else with dynamite when they accuse him of being the Thing and attempt to bum-rush him, and it even reaches the point where the men are tied up and held at gunpoint until they each forcibly take a blood test that proves if they’re for real or if they’ve been infected by the Thing. (The blood test scene occurring in a film that was released in theaters just as the AIDS crisis started getting serious attention from the medical community is naturally hard to ignore.) Much like the classic Twilight Zone episode, “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” the Thing doesn’t really need to do much in order to wear the men down, and make them turn against each other out of fear and exhaustion and distrust. It simply needs to stand back and watch as they do the majority of the work all by themselves.
The Thing was not a box-office success when it opened in theaters. Besides the fact that it was a dark, scary, and violent film that was released in the same month as the heartwarming and family-friendly E.T., it has been said that The Thing not only dealt with poor marketing but also suffered from bad timing all around. Not just because of E.T., but because the film opened when many other sci-fi/fantasy films such as Conan the Barbarian, Blade Runner, Poltergeist, Tron, and The Road Warrior were all playing on the big screen as well that same year, and audiences possibly reached their limit with how much sci-fi and fantasy they were willing to buy tickets for. It also didn’t help that critics were incredibly harsh with their reviews of The Thing, as many of them described it as boring, nihilistic, disgusting, and simply unbelievable. But as the years went on, the general opinion of the film had greatly improved, with more people renting it on home video and realizing that what they had ignored in movie theaters was actually a terrifying and beautifully-crafted work of art. It soon went from being a widely loathed disappointment to a beloved classic now considered one of the greatest and most influential sci-fi films of all time.
This is something that John Carpenter is grateful to hear whenever he’s interviewed and his legendary career is discussed, especially since he has said that The Thing is probably the film he is most proud of. But considering that his career and his confidence both took massive hits as a result of The Thing’s critical and commercial failure, and that he lost several career opportunities because of it (he was originally hired to direct the film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel Firestarter, but Universal Pictures later rescinded their offer), he has a right to be bitter and talk sh-t in his most recent interviews, and to possibly even wonder where all of this adoration and support was when he needed it most back in 1982.
2011 saw the release of The Thing, which was a prequel to Carpenter’s film, and showed the events at the Norwegian research station that led to the Thing being chased to U.S. Outpost 31 by a helicopter and shot at in the first place. It starred Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje.
In 2010, Clarkesworld Magazine published the short story The Things, which was written by Peter Watts, and was told from the perspective of the actual Thing during the events of Carpenter’s film.
It also became known back in 2018 that the scientists who work at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station have a yearly tradition they partake in to signify the changeover when the summer crew of scientists leave the station, and the winter crew arrives. The winter scientists get together and watch all three versions of The Thing to prepare themselves for the eight months of darkness and isolation they will death with as part of their work, even after the very last flight from their station has departed.
As The Thing arrives at its conclusion, MacReady makes it clear to his fellow survivors that the Thing is willing to kill them all before slipping into hibernation until a rescue crew arrives with the possibility of escape and further assimilation, and how that cannot be allowed to happen, even at the cost of their own lives. John Carpenter has said more than once when interviewed that he considers this to be a rather hopeful and inspirational ending for the film, and that it isn’t nearly as bleak and hopeless as most critics and audiences would think. When you look back at these last couple of years, it’s easy to remember how there are far too many humans who used the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to be as cruel, reckless, and selfish as possible, while caring only about their own comfort and satisfaction.
And yet, watching the final scene that shows two men accepting their terrible fate and refusing to put the rest of the world in jeopardy, even as they both wonder if the other has been infected by the Thing? Maybe Carpenter has a point.
Conservation groups sue over Montana wolf harvestSLAUGHTER rules
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Two conservation groups have filed a lawsuit against the state of Montana and its wildlife management agency alleging it illegally set hunting and trapping policies and quotas intended to reduce the gray wolf population by making it easier to kill the predators.
WildEarth Guardians and Project Coyote filed the lawsuit Thursday in District Court in Helena asking for the new laws and resulting increased quotas to be overturned.
Montana’s Republican-controlled Legislature in 2021 passed bills that allowed the state to reduce the wolf population, authorize additional hunting methods, allow extended hunting seasons, allow an individual to kill up to 20 wolves and allow private parties to offer bounties for hunting or trapping wolves.
The conservation groups allege management decisions are being made based on a wolf plan that was created in 2002 and was amended to use a new wolf population model without following state rulemaking procedures and without public participation.
The state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks does not comment on pending litigation, spokesperson Greg Lemon said Friday.
Montana officials authorized the killing of 450 wolves during the winter of 2021-22, but ended up shutting down hunting near Yellowstone National Park after 23 wolves from the park were killed in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. All but five of them were killed in Montana.
A total of 273 wolves were reported killed in Montana last winter. This year, Montana’s Fish and Wildlife Commission authorized the killing of 456 wolves, including just six in an area north of Yellowstone park. Hunters can take up to 20 wolves — 10 by hunting and 10 by trapping.
The conservation groups argue this year’s quota constitutes up to 40% of the state’s wolf population.
Montana and Idaho changed their wolf hunting rules in 2021 urged by hunters and ranchers who wanted fewer wolves on the landscape. The changes included allowing night hunting with spotlights on private land, higher harvest limits, the use of snares and the use of bait.
LETS NOT FORGET WHEN SHE WAS IN BC
Miley Cyrus Gets Cuddly With A Pitbull Miley Cyrus is showing a massive heart as she reminds fans that she's a giant animal lover. The former Hannah Montana star featured on Instagram last week with a super cute shot of herself snuggling up to a Pitbull, also using her post to shout out her non-profit. The Slide Away hitmaker updated via her Happy Hippie Foundation's social media - fans know to check both the main feed and this one. Fans have left over 12,000 likes for a shot of Miley with a total of three dogs, plus a reminder not to stigmatize against certain breeds of canine.
Cute With Her Pooches
The photo showed the pop star lying down amid loud monochrome cushions in an ordinary setting. Miley was smiling while resting on a Pitbull seen next to her. The love was written all over the Midnight Sky singer's face as she gazed towards her pooch and sent out happy vibes. Miley wore a simple gray tank top, flaunting her arm tattoos as she added a little silver wrist jewelry.
The Gucci ambassador styled her blonde locks away from her face and in a bun. A video, meanwhile, was offered with a swipe.
It's Awareness Month
In a caption, Miley's foundation tagged her, writing:
"October is #PitBullAwarenessMonth! Our friends at Frankie, Lola & Friends Rescue brought one very special pit bull, Angel, into the life of our founder @mileycyrus."
It continued: "Pit bulls are often stigmatized as a violent breed, but with the right care and training, they can be sweet, kind and loving. Just like Angel, who's on her way to her official "good girl" certification, which will allow her to visit those in need of a smile!
