Storybook slaughterhouse: Expiring copyright lets Winnie the Pooh star in Blood and Honey


Direction plans to create an entire horror universe of beloved children's characters. 

Image: Getty, TND

Genevieve Thorpe

News Reporter@genthorpeee

The creator of a Winnie the Pooh-inspired slasher film says he hopes to create a whole universe of twisted childhood-character horror films.

The iconic yellow bear found itself in the headlines last year when it was announced that a horror movie based on A.A. Milne’s classic was coming to cinemas.

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey has been a shock success, already scoring a killer response in Mexico, where it earned $US1 million in a matter of days ahead of its global theatrical release on February 15.

The film, set to arrive in theatres down under on February 16, is poised to terrify Australian audiences.

Now the film’s creator, Rhys Frake-Waterfield, says he wants to make more movies based on beloved childhood stories and create his own twisted horror universe.
In the public domain

In case you’re wondering how this all came about, no, Disney hasn’t lost its marbles.

In fact, this was all because Winnie the Pooh’s original source material entered the public domain.

According to US copyright law, works enter the public domain 95 years after they are published, meaning they are no longer covered by intellectual property rights.

From January 1 after the conclusion of their 95th year they can serve as the foundation for new creative works, including movies and TV shows.

Frake-Waterfield, who wrote and directed Blood and Honey, says he plans to base more horror projects on children’s classics.

Last year, he told The Hollywood Reporter that a film was in the works based on J.M. Barries’ novel Peter and Wendy, published in 1911. The film, which has the working project Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare, will apparently feature a “heavily obese” Tinkerbell “recovering from drugs”.

Now, in a new interview, Frake-Waterfield has revealed Bambi will be his next endeavour, thanks to Felix Salten’s 1923 novel Bambi, a Life in the Woods entering the public domain in 2022. The English translation of the story was published in 1927, explaining the 2022 expiry.

The book was originally published in 1923 in German, meaning the copyright in Austria and the European Union actually expired a few years earlier, in 2016.

Frake-Waterfield says he’s aiming to create an entire horror universe, in which characters from his films will interact with each other.

“The idea is that we’re going to try and imagine they’re all in the same world, so we can have crossovers,” he said.

“People have been messaging saying they really want to see Bambi versus Pooh.”

 2 minutes, 2 seconds
Watch the trailer for <i>Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey</i>

Disney’s greatest fear

All the aforementioned works would have become public domain in the US much earlier if Disney hadn’t lobbied Congress and pursued legal action to protect its most iconic character.

Of course, we’re referring to the face of the House of Mouse, Mickey Mouse himself. The iconic character first appeared in Steamboat Willie back in 1928, meaning his time is up on January 1, 2024.

The world’s favourite rodent was originally meant to become public domain back in 1984, when US copyright law stated that copyright expired after 56 years.

After much lobbying and in order to protect Disney’s animations, Congress passed a new act that would protect works for 50 years after the death of the work’s author.

This was extended again due to new legislation in 1997, meaning Mickey would be locked up until 2024.

Who knows – Disney could very well make another appeal to Congress to extend Mickey’s copyright again – though it is running out of time.

And, if we’re being honest, Disney would only be delaying the inevitable. Year by year, Disney will also lose the copyright to its other iconic characters.

Members of the Magic Kingdom gang, including Pluto and Donald Duck, will become public domain by 2030 if US copyright law stays as it is.

And Disney’s first feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, will have its copyright expire on January 1, 2033, since it came out in 1937.



But there is a silver lining for Disney. Only the original version of Mickey Mouse, as he appears in Steamboat Willie, will be up for grabs. That means any of the character’s distinguishing features added after 1928 will guarantee ongoing protected.

In the 1928 iteration, Mickey had much smaller feet – his big yellow boots not yet part of the character – and he was in black and white, so not yet wearing his red overalls.
The ever-changing Mickey

He also wasn’t wearing his white gloves, nor does he say a word throughout the entire short, meaning his shrill, high-pitched voice could also remain out of reach.

Plus, Disney also holds trademarks on its characters. Unlike copyright, trademarks do not have an expiry date.

This means that filmmakers hoping to use Mickey in any future projects will have to be extremely cautious.

Anyone who decides to use the 1928 Steamboat Willie Mickey will need to ensure that it does not imply in any way that their project is associated with Disney.

If they use Mickey in a way that makes people think of Disney, the House of Mouse could argue its trademark has been violated.

The game’s afoot for Sherlock Holmes

It’s not only Disney that faces losing the copyright to its most iconic characters.

DC Comics, the main rival to Disney’s Marvel Entertainment, will lose the copyright for three of their most popular comic book characters, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. They made their first appearances in 1938, 1939 and 1941 respectively, with Superman the first of the trio to enter public domain on January 1, 2034.

Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes also had had its copyright expire in January, despite a long-running copyright dispute.

And in 2025, spinach-chomping sailor Popeye will also enter the public domain in the US.

Other notable expirations coming up are the 1931 film Frankenstein (2026) and 1933’s King Kong (2028), along with Flash Gordon and Donald Duck, who debuted in The Wise Little Hen (both published in 1934 and due to expire in 2029).

But that’s not to say there aren’t already a plethora of public domain characters up for reinterpretation.

Creatives already have access to the original book versions of Tarzan, Ebenezer Scrooge, Robin Hood and Dracula, just to name a few.

And since Greek mythology and literature has been around for thousands of years, characters like Heracles (renamed Hercules by the Romans), Achilles, Zeus and Hades are already free for the taking.

Nearly 1 Million French People March Against Raising Pension Age 2 Years

Protesters gathered in cities across the country in opposition to French President Macron's proposal.

Thomas Adamson and Jade Le Deley

Feb 11, 2023

Protesters rally against French President Macron's plan to raise the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 in Paris.
FIRAS ABDULLAH/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES

PARIS (AP) — Police were out in force across France on Saturday as protesters held a sometimes restive fourth round of nationwide demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to reform the country’s pension system.

Over 960,000 people marched in Paris, Nice, Marseille, Toulouse, Nantes and other cities, according to the Interior Ministry. Protesters hoped to keep up the pressure on the government to back down, and further action is planned for Feb. 16.

In the French capital, authorities counted some 93,000 participants, the most to demonstrate in Paris against the pension changes since the protests started last month.

The weekend demonstrations drew young people and others opposed to the pension proposals who weren’t able to attend the previous three days of action, all held on weekdays.

This time, though, rail worker strikes did not accompany the demonstrations, allowing trains and the Paris Metro to run Saturday. However, an unexpected strike by air traffic controllers meant that up to half of flights to and from Paris’ second largest airport, Orly, were canceled Saturday afternoon.


Several thousand demonstrators organized in Nantes, in western France.

In Paris, some workers and students who wanted to voice opposition attended the protests for the first time, owing to heavy weekday workloads.

“We often hear that we should be too young to care, but with rising inflation, soaring electricity prices, this reform will impact our families,” Elisa Haddad, 18. said. “It is my first demonstration because I couldn’t attend with uni. It is important that the voice of (France’s) parents and students is heard.”

French lawmakers began a rowdy debate earlier this week on the pension bill to raise the minimum retirement age for a full state pension from 62 to 64. It’s the flagship legislation of Macron’s second term.

Saturday’s protests featured flashes of unrest. One car and several trash bins were set on fire on a central Parisian boulevard as police charged the crowd and dispersed protesters with tear gas. Paris police said officers they arrested eight people for infractions ranging from possession of a firearm to vandalism.

Some demonstrators walked as families through the French capital’s Place de la Republique and carried emotional banners. “I don’t want my parents to die at work,” read one, held by a teenage boy.


Protesters holding umbrellas clashed with police who used a lot of tear gas.
JEROME GILLES/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES

The protests are a crucial test both for Macron and his opponents. The government has insisted it’s determined to push through Macron’s election pledge to reform France’s generous pension system. Of the 38 member nations of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, France is among countries that spend the most years in retirement.

The president has called the reforms “indispensable” for ensuring the long-term survival of the country’s pension system and noted that workers in neighboring countries retire years later.

Despite opinion polls consistently showing growing opposition to the reform and his own popularity shrinking, Macron insisted that he’s living up to a key campaign pledge he made when he swept to power in 2017 and before his April 2022 reelection.

His government is now facing a harsh political battle in parliament that could span weeks or months.

Strong popular resentment will strengthen efforts by labor unions and left-wing legislators to try to block the bill.

Unions issued a joint statement Saturday, calling the government “deaf” and demanding French officials scrap the bill. They threatened to cause a nationwide “shutdown” from March 7, if their demands were not met.

During the previous day of protests four days ago, over 750,000 people marched in many French cities, significantly fewer than on the previous two protest days in January in which over a million people took to the streets.

Nico Garriga in Paris contributed.

HINDUTVA IS FASCISM

The Gujarat Genocide Revisited – OpEd

 

The skyline of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India filled with smoke as buildings and shops are set on fire by rioting mobs. Photo Credit: Aksi great, Wikipedia Commons

 February 12, 2023 

By Dr. Habib Siddiqui

Twenty years ago, the Gujarat genocide happened. The victims were the state’s Muslim minorities who were denied any protection by the state police. The Hindu organizations responsible for planning and executing the genocide are the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajrang Dal, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which along with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) collectively form the Sangh Parivar. 

I share below some background information on these parties which will help our readers to better grasp the problem discussed.

The RSS was founded in the city of Nagpur in 1925 by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar with the mission of creating a Hindu state. Since its founding, it has propagated a militant form of Hindu nationalism, called Hindutva, which it promotes as the sole basis for national identity in India. Western thought and civilization are perceived as enemies of Hindu culture. Religions such as Islam and Christianity are seen as the religions of foreign invaders―the Mughals and the British. The RSS wanted “the entire gamut of social life” to be designed “on the rock bed of Hindu nationalism,” a goal that inspired the creation of RSS political, social, and educational wings, a family of organizations that is now referred to collectively as the Sangh Parivar. 

The VHP was formed in 1964 to cover the social aspects of RSS activities. The VHP organizes and communicates the RSS message to Hindus living outside India and holds conferences for Hindu religious leaders from all over the country. The most publicized of the VHP’s activities was its campaign to build a temple to the Hindu god Ram at the site of the Babri Masjid, a historic mosque named after the founder of the Mughal dynasty, Emperor Zahir-ud-Din Muhammad Babur (1483-1530 CE), in the city of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh. On December 6, 1992, the mosque was demolished by members of the VHP, the Bajrang Dal, and RSS-trained cadres. The police did not intervene. The incident sparked violence around the country in which thousands of Muslims were killed. Since then, the VHP has also organized a program to reconvert those who had converted from Hinduism to other faiths (e.g., Christianity and Islam).

The Bajrang Dal is the militant youth wing of the VHP. It was formed in 1984 during the Babri Masjid conflict, in order to mobilize youth for the Ayodhya campaign. Unlike other organizations affiliated to the RSS, the Bajrang Dal is not directly controlled by the Sangh Parivar. With its loose organizational structure, it initially operated under different names in different states. Its activists are believed to be involved in many acts of violence carried out by Hindutva organizations, including the spate of attacks against the Christian community in India that began in 1998.

The Jana Sangh Party was formed in 1951 by Syama Prasad Mukherjee as the political wing of the RSS. It was later replaced by the BJP in 1980 under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The BJP and its allies continue at the national level and in various states to implement Hindutvadi agenda for the “Hinduization” of education, mandating Hindu prayers in certain state-sponsored schools and revising history books to include what amounts to spread hatredagainst Islamic and Christian communities. 

The campaign to build a Ram temple at the site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, which was hugely successful in cultivating a national Hindu vote bank, catapulted the BJP into power in the early 1990s. A 2009 report, authored by Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan, found that 68 people were responsible for the demolition of the Babri Mosque, mostly leaders from the BJP, which included Vajpayee, L.K. Advani, and Murli Manohar Joshi. The report also criticized Kalyan Singh, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh during the planned demolition. He was accused of posting bureaucrats and police officers who would stay silent during the demolition.

In 2002, the BJP was heading India’s coalition government, along with twenty-one other parties that collectively formed the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Although the BJP had then suffered electoral setbacks at the state level it still controlled the state legislature in Gujarat.

The state of Gujarat has long been known as a Hindutva lab (since at least 1995). During the BJP rule, since 1998 all the branches of the state government were packed with people from the Sangh Parivar. Importance was given to the cadres from the Sangh Parivar to dominate the numerous advisory committees at the district and taluka levels, including the Police Advisory Committee, the Social Justice Committee and others wielding enormous powers in the appointment and transfer of Government officials. According to an article in the Telegraph, not a single IPS [Indian Police Service] officer from the minority community was assigned a “field posting”. The VHP was encouraged to open schools in remote villages. The syllabus in the schools was often subtly changed to suit the Hindutvadi ideology. 

In October of 2001 due to then-Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel’s failing health and poor public image following the earthquake in Bhuj, Narendra Modi (who had previously served as the BJP general secretary for six years) was appointed Chief Minister. Modi was elected to the legislative assembly soon after. During his tenure as the chief minister, the Godhra incident (27 February 2002) happened when a train carrying Hindu pilgrims caught into fire killing nearly 60 passengers. It was returning from Ayodhya after a religious ceremony at the site of the demolished Babri Masjid. In the weeks preceding the violence in Gujarat, Hindu activists had been traveling to and from Ayodhya, including on the Sabarmati Express.  

Although the exact cause of the fire is still unknown, the state’s Muslim population was scapegoated. The next day, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad called for a bandh (strike) across the state, and anti-Muslim ethnic cleansing spread through Gujarat. Nearly 2,000 Muslims were lynched to death, including  Ehsan Jafri, an MP (Member of the Parliament) from the Indian National Congress. Another 150,000 Muslims lost everything that they possessed. Homes, businesses, and mosques were looted and set on fire; 273 dargahs (shrines) and 241 mosques were either destroyed or damaged. Muslim girls and women were gangraped. All those crimes happened within a period of three days when neither Modi nor the state police did anything to stop the carnage; reportedly many of them even aided the Hindu mob. [Note: the current Union Home Minister Amit Shah, a close ally of Modi, was then the State Minister of Home of Gujarat.]  Human Rights Watch reported that acts of exceptional heroism were committed by Dalits and tribals who tried to protect Muslims from the violence.

In 2003, The Concerned Citizens Tribunal (CCT) concluded that the train fire had been an accident and that Muslims were not responsible. It called the carnage that followed a crime against humanity. A fact finding mission by the Sahmat organization led by Dr. Kamal Mitra Chenoy concluded that the violence was more akin to ethnic cleansing or a pogrom rather than communal violence. The report said that the violence surpassed other periods of communal violence such as in 1969, 1985, 1989, and 1992 not only in the total loss of life, but also in the savagery of the attacks. Truly, it was a genocide, and there is no way to sugar coat this observation. 

The extent of Modi’s involvement in orchestrating the Gujarat Genocide is well-summarized in the documentation by Human Rights Watch (“We Have No Orders to Save You,” Human Rights Watch, April 22, 2002]. “What happened in Gujarat was not a spontaneous uprising, it was a carefully orchestrated attack against Muslims,” said Smita Narula, senior South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “The attacks were planned in advance and organized with extensive participation of the police and state government officials.” Consider in this context, the slogans used by the killers:

Yeh andar ki bat hai. Police hamarey saath hai (meaning: This is inside information. The police are with us).
Jaan se mar dengey (We will kill).
Bajrang Dal zindabad (Long live the Bajrang Dal).
Narendra Modi zindabad (Long live Narendra Modi).

As to the motivation for the state-sponsored carnage, HRW report published after the event reads, “The BJP’s recent electoral losses may have fueled a resurgence of the temple construction campaign and in its wake, the violence in Gujarat. The tragic events of Godhra provide fertile ground for the BJP in Gujarat to recapture some of the party’s lost ground as it heads into assembly elections scheduled for February 2003.” 

The carnage drew serious criticism both inside and outside India, with various human rights activists and government officials blaming Modi for failing to stop the bloodshed, or even accusing him of encouraging it. The U.S. State Department also concluded that Modi was complicit in the riots. As a result, the George W. Bush administration forbade Modi from visiting the United States, and the carnage remained a stain on Modi’s reputation for years—at least, until he became prime minister and the Indian Supreme Court appeared to absolve him. 

Independent scholars and investigators, however, continued to highlight Modi’s rhetoric and actions during the carnage, including his mocking of displaced citizens, denial of relief funds from the national government, interference with local police and judicial investigations, and alleged encouragement of Hindus who wished to “vent their anger” against Muslims.

When asked by reporters about the Gujarat massacre if he had any regrets, Modi replied that he failed to control the media, which had spread ‘garbage’. He remains unapologetic to this day. Allegedly, he has ensured that all those whistle-blowers who had implicated him are eliminated one way or another. Two such examples are shared below.

Haren Pandya was a state minister of Gujarat in India who dared to be a whistle-blower. Pandya had revealed to the Outlook magazine that on the night of 27 February 2002 Narendra Modi had held a meeting in his residence where he instructed the attending bureaucrats and police officers (which included the Ahmedabad police commissioner and an IG police) to allow “people to vent their frustration and not come in the way of the Hindu backlash.” They were also told they should not do anything to contain this reaction. Pandya also testified about Modi before The Concerned Citizens Tribunal on 2002 Gujarat riots. On 2 March 2003, at about 7:40 am, Pandya was killed by two unidentified assailants who shot five bullets at him when he had just finished his morning walk in the Law Gardens in Ahmedabad. 

Sanjiv Bhatt, a former Indian Police Service officer, is another such victim. He was superintendent of Sabarmati central jail. In April 2011, he filed an affidavit with the Indian Supreme Court stating that he, along with other high-ranking officers, was present at a February 27, 2002, meeting at Modi’s home in which Modi asked top police officials to let Hindus vent their anger against the Muslims in what he calls “state-sponsored riots”. However, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) dismissed his allegations. 

In September (2011), Bhatt was arrested immediately after filing another affidavit implicating Modi in the murder of a fellow government official, as The Hindu reported: “Mr. Bhatt’s arrest comes within 48 hours of his having filed another affidavit, this time in the Gujarat High Court, alleging the indirect involvement of the Chief Minister and his former Minister of State for Home, Amit Shah, in the murder of another former Minister Haren Pandya. Mr. Bhatt had claimed that Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah had repeatedly asked him to destroy some “very important documentary evidence” regarding Mr. Pandya’s murder, but he refused to oblige them, following which he was transferred from the post of Superintendent of the Sabarmati Central Jail and kept without any posting for over two and half months in November 2003.” [Manas Dasgupta, “Modi government arrests Sanjiv Bhatt,” The Hindu, September 30, 2011]

During a hearing on Haren Pandey murder case, he told the Court that Narendra Modi and his former Home Minister Amit Shah had pressurized him to destroy crucial evidence in the Pandya murder case. In 2015, Bhatt was removed from the police service. On 20 June 2019, he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Sessions Court of Jamnagar District in the state of Gujarat in a 1990 custodial death case. Bhatt’s arrest was condemned by the Congress leaders and human rights activists, who accused the Modi government of persecuting Bhatt for his affidavit against Modi. 

Modi called for an early poll in December 2002 and made significant use of anti-Muslim rhetoric during his campaign. As expected, the BJP profited from religious polarization among the voters. In the elections, the BJP won 127 seats in the 182-member state assembly. Having won the next two elections in 2007 and 2012, he remained the chief minister of Gujarat until 2014 before becoming the prime minister of India. 

In a highly toxic environment of hate, the Gujarat genocide of Muslims catapulted Modi’s career into national politics. He came to be seen by many Hindus as a new avatar, a modern-day dagger-carrying, sword-wielding Maratha warrior, a Shivaji-like figure, who is genuinely bent on bringing Hindu-ness into their motherland, making Bharat great again, minus, of course, all those Muslims. He promised no more a ‘repeat’ of the alleged ‘Congress’ politics of ‘appeasement’ (which was truly never there) and ‘vote-banking’ of Muslims – who needs them anyway when they are marginalized and persecuted!

Modi was sworn in as the Prime Minister of India in 2014. Since coming to power, he has held onto power by polarizing the country – pushing the powerful Hindu majority against the weaker religious minorities, triggering timely riots (or more correctly, pogroms), border disputes with neighboring nations and promising Hindu temple constructions at strategic locations, in sync with election cycles. He has birthed new disputes with Pakistan and Bangladesh by revoking the special status of the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir and disenfranchising millions of Muslims from the states of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura (bordering Bangladesh). Under his watch, thousands of mosques have been bulldozed under various pretexts. Even the historical mosques are not immune from being demolished by the BJP-run state apparatuses. In the Indian state of Gujarat alone, some 500 mosques and Muslim shrines have been demolished to date. 

The Indian brand of secularism has now become a laughingstock! Its courts are accused endorsing Hindutva and not being impartial! Seemingly, Hindutva has become a national agenda in Modi’s India. 

In the case of the demolition of the historical Babri Masjid, the Supreme Court on 30 September 2020 acquitted the leaders of the BJP (including Advani and Joshi),  who were accused of conspiracy and complicity even though they owned the crime and boasted about their role publicly. But the court could not find any evidence to convict them even though Anju Gupta, an Indian Police Service officer in charge of Advani’s security, appearing as a prominent witness before the commission, testified that Advani and Joshi made provocative speeches that were a major factor to arouse the Hindu mob to demolish the historical mosque.

How convenient! Are we surprised?

In the case of Gujarat carnage, more than 4,000 cases were registered, but no one was convicted in two years. The Supreme Court of India initially lambasted the Gujarat government as “modern day Neros” who looked elsewhere when innocent women and children were burning and then interfered with prosecution. Following this reproach, police identified nearly 1,600 cases for re-investigation, arrested 640 accused and launched investigations against forty police officers for their failure. In March 2008, a Special Investigation Committee, which was mostly recruited from the Gujarat police, was set up. It decided that the Gujarat government and the then chief minister Modi had no reason to be subjected to a trial. The Supreme Court has upheld that decision. No surprise again. 

But where is the public outrage inside India? Brave voices of Mahua Moitra (MP from Trinamool Congress) are routinely muffled inside the Lok Sabha. Trinamool leaders are threatened for calling the spade a spade. 

Modi’s administration has gone after public figures who criticized him for the riots, like journalist Rana Ayyub and actor Aamir Khan (both are Muslims). The brave university students that tried to bring some sanity by questioning Modi’s divisive policies of exclusion that breed intolerance and hatred of minority Muslims and Christians are either imprisoned or banished for good. 

As Nitish Pahwa puts in the Slate.com modern-day Indian democracy has no regret about mass censorship. Modi’s government has weakened the country’s once robust press, persecuting adversarial reporters and independent outlets. 

Indians have been truly Modi-fied. There is no one pretending to be Mahatma these days. The news of daily Muslim lynching and destruction of their homes and mosques no longer become headlines in major newspapers and media outlets. Media moguls are under Modi’s control. They have created the myth that India is Modi and Modi is India. As the victims of Gujarat are denied justice, in this land of many gods, Devs and Devis, they literally worship him or so it seems. 

On 24 February 2021, the cricket stadium in Ahmedabad was renamed Narendra Modi Stadium by the Gujarat Cricket Association. What’s new?

Dr. Habib Siddiqui

Dr. Habib Siddiqui has a long history as a peaceful activist in an effort towards improving human rights and creating a just and equitable world. He has written extensively in the arena of humanity, global politics, social conscience and human rights since 1980, many of which have appeared in newspapers, magazines, journals and the Internet. He has tirelessly championed the cause of the disadvantaged, the poor and the forgotten here in Americas and abroad. Commenting on his articles, others have said, "His meticulously researched essays and articles combined with real human dimensions on the plight of the displaced peoples of Rohingya in Myanmar, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo and Palestine, and American Muslims in the post-9/11 era have made him a singular important intellectual offering a sane voice with counterpoints to the shrill threats of the oppressors and the powerful. He offers a fresh and insightful perspective on a whole generation of a misunderstood and displaced people with little or no voice of their own." He has authored 11 books, five of which are now available through Amazon.com. His latest book - Devotional Stories is published by A.S. Noordeen, Malaysia.

Revealed: Anti-LGTBQ+ attacks increased after far-right groups starting working together — with boost from Fox

Areeba Shah,  Salon
February 11, 2023

Photo by Jordan Green

The last two years have been the deadliest for transgender people, especially Black transgender women, with nearly one in five of all hate crimes motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ bias, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

Several new reports detailed the growing violence and intimidation against LGBTQ+ people, with white nationalists targeting Pride events and showing up to Drag Queen story hours at local libraries, shouting homophobic and transphobic slurs.

The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) released a report last year, which found that there was a nationwide surge of at least 174 anti-LGBTQ+ demonstrations.

Online and offline these attacks have taken different forms, but all with the same purpose – to demonize the LGBTQ+ community.

The core narratives driving these attacks against the LGBTQ+ community include disinformation about gender-affirming care for LGBTQ+ youth, false allegations of "grooming" children and the indoctrination of a "so-called LGBTQ+ agenda" in schools, said Sarah Moore, an Anti-LGBTQ+ Extremism Analyst at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in partnership with Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).

"This grooming story in particular really picked up in traction in 2021 with the passage of the 'Don't Say Gay' bill in Florida, in which different folks started using the term 'grooming' and misappropriating it by making it into something that is demonizing the LGBTQ+ community as a whole," Moore said.

Republican-controlled state houses across the country have introduced a record 315 discriminatory anti-LGBTQ+ bills with a majority of these bills targeting the transgender and non-binary communities.

Last month, the Arkansas Senate advanced Senate Bill 43, an anti-LGBTQ+ bill that restricts drag performances. If passed, it would classify them as "adult-oriented businesses," where anyone under 18 could not watch.

Banning LGBTQ+ events and spaces – including labeling drag performances as predatory – is part of a large-scale attack on the LGBTQ+ community, which has significantly grown after receiving support from right-wing media outlets and personalities.

Social media accounts with high followings have played a major role in spreading dangerous and false narratives that further marginalize the LGBTQ+ community.

Libs of TikTok, for example, use its influence to push out baseless tropes and conspiracy theories online, which gain even more traction after being picked up by far-right media personalities.

"They're intentionally spreading news to audiences that they know are likely to act upon those narratives," Moore said. "Libs of TikTok is spreading these false allegations of grooming, that same rhetoric [is] being picked up on the ground by folks that are [for example threatening] to let's say bomb Boston Children's Hospital or folks that are protesting at drag shows. They're using the same language and capitalizing upon the same claims that are being made by a number of these influencers."

ADL found that a number of drag events targeted by threats and protests in person were first targeted by right-wing media outlets like Fox News and the Daily Wire, and social media accounts like LibsOfTikTok.

Narratives promoted by LibsOfTikTok have been picked up by right-wing media figures and politicians, including Tucker Carlson, Glenn Greenwald, Ron DeSantis and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Carlson has dedicated Fox News segments to attacking the LGBTQ+ community and even invited an anti-trans author Abigail Shrier to spread misinformation about medical care for transgender people on his show.

Despite having "very little idea of what it means, medically," to be trans, as Carlson noted on the segment, he continued to let Shrier make sensational claims attacking best practice care for trans kids.

Shrier, who doesn't have a medical degree, "equated being trans to having anorexia, engaging in self-harm, being involved with witchcraft and 'demonic possession'" in her book, according to Media Matters.

But despite a lack of expertise on the topic, individuals like Shrier drive views and engagement.

Right-wing content about trans kids' health care often receives high engagement according to a Media Matters study of Facebook, which found that content about trans issues from right-leaning sources "earned nearly two times the engagement of all other sources combined" on Facebook.

"Once folks realize that this was something that they could sensationalize and get a lot of traction out of, that's when we started seeing groups picking up on this extremist narrative and turning their attention from previous causes like fighting against mask mandates or COVID vaccines or even the anti-CRT movement and turning that action and that call to action into something that is now anti-LGBTQ+," Moore said.

Media Matters found that Fox hosts spent more time attacking trans people and drag queens than they did covering the second January 6 hearing.

Groups like Gays Against Groomers have even profited off of spreading dangerous narratives attacking the LGBTQ+ community by selling merchandise including phrases like "ok groomer," "protect children" and "protect kids from transitioning."


In the aftermath of the January 6 attack on the Capitol, far-right extremist groups have juggled through different cultural and racial issues, trying to "find purchase" among the wider right and trying to regain momentum, said Sam Jones, head of communications at ACLED.

In 2021, many of these groups started focusing on Critical Race Theory and abortion as issues, but they didn't have the "same staying power" as opposition to LGBTQ+ equality did, Jones added.

"[It] was a natural candidate in many respects, as it fit easily into the false 'child protection' narrative strategy that was already employed around CRT and abortion, for example, and allowed them to repackage longstanding tropes and prejudices for a modern right-wing audience," he added.

ACLED found that anti-LGBTQ+ mobilization — including demonstrations, political violence, and offline propaganda activity — rose to its highest levels since they first started collecting data for the United States in 2020.

Nearly 200 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents were reported in 2022, marking an increase of three times compared to 2021 and 12 times compared to 2020.

Since the attack on the Capitol and through the November 2022 midterm elections, far-right mobilization has only continued to evolve in the United States, according to ACLED.

Despite far-right candidates losing in the midterms, anti-LGBTQ+ organizing succeeded "in mobilizing far-right extremists and bringing them together with other like-minded groups and individuals in the wider activist right," Jones said.

A mixture of different extremist groups have come together coalescing around the messaging of anti-LGBTQ+ tropes and narratives, including the Aryan Freedom Network and the Nationalist Socialist Club, but the Proud Boys has been the most active in anti-LGBTQ+ efforts – attending a third of all of the protests.

Outside of the extremist groups, a number of attendees also tend to be individuals who are not aligned with these organizations, she added. This can be dangerous, Moore pointed out, since the language that is being used by extremist groups "is designed to get an audience angry and drive them into action".

Some of these people include individuals who are part of Christian organizations or QAnon or local white nationalist groups.

"These kinds of events are targets for these large organized groups, both in the sense of the literal sense that they are targeting a perceived enemy politically, but it's also a target for them in the sense that they can typically find people… who are like-minded or trying to get into this kind of activism, and they can take and bring them into their coalition," Jones said.

ACLED also found that demonstrations involving far-right militias and militant social movements are five times more likely to turn violent or destructive than demonstrations where they are not present. That risk factor grows even more for particularly violent actors like the Proud Boys, especially if participants are armed.

Once we get closer to the 2024 presidential election, "Trump's candidacy could further reinvigorate certain sectors of the far right during the campaign season and election period," Jones said.

Last year, ACLED recorded over 100 pro-Trump demonstrations around the country, and about a quarter of these involved far-right militias and violent groups like the Proud Boys.

"The remaining pro-Trump demonstrations were predominantly made up of individuals with no clear affiliation to organized far-right actors," Jones said, "which presents an opportunity for more extreme groups seeking to recruit and expand their networks at these types of events."

'We're feeding the kids': Minnesota House passes universal school meals bill

Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams
February 11, 2023

Children at Lunch (Shutterstock)

The Democratic-led Minnesota House of Representatives voted Thursday night in favor of legislation to provide free school meals for all students, a move meant to alleviate childhood hunger in a state where 1 in 6 children don't have enough to eat.

The bill, HF 5, provides universal school meals—lunch and breakfast—to all of Minnesota's 600,000 pupils at no cost. House lawmakers voted 70-58 along party lines in favor of the measure.

If approved by the state Senate—in which the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), the state's Democratic affiliate, holds a single-seat advantage—and signed into law by DFL Gov. Tim Walz, a former high school teacher, the policy will cost the government around $387 million during fiscal year 2024-25, according to estimates.

"We're feeding the kids," tweeted Rep. Sydney Jordan (DFL-60A), the bill's lead author, after the House vote.



Rep. Mary Frances Clardy (DFL-53A), another author of the bill, said that "as a teacher of 27 years, I've seen the impact hunger has on our students and their ability to concentrate and learn in the classroom. We have the resources to step up and deliver the food security families need."

However, DFL leaders say the program will save Minnesota families between $800 and $1,000 on annual food costs.

According to a fact sheet in support of the bill, 1 in 6 Minnesota children report not having enough to eat; however, a quarter of food-insecure kids come from households that can't get government food support because their families earn too much to qualify.

"When school meals are provided at no cost to all students, these hungry kids no longer fall through the cracks," the publication said. "They consistently get nutritious food that sustains their energy and focus in the classroom."

Jordan said that "in a state with an agricultural tradition as rich as ours, it is particularly unacceptable that any child go hungry."

"We know hunger is something too many students bring with them to their classrooms," she added. "And we know the current status quo is letting Minnesota school children go hungry."

Republicans, meanwhile, slammed the bill as an example of "reckless spending."

"Paying for lunches for every student, kids that can afford it, families that can afford this, that doesn't make sense," said Rep. Peggy Bennett (R-23A), who offered an amendment to the bill that would expand current eligibility for free school meals, with income limits.

Jordan dismissed the Republicans' argument, saying "we give every kid in our school a desk. There are lots of kids out there that can afford to buy a desk, but they get a desk because they go to school."

Advocates of universal school meals across the country hailed the Minnesota House vote on the bill. U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)—who helped negotiate legislation allowing schools to temporarily drop regulatory burdens such as income-based eligibility requirements in order to deliver free meals to as many students as possible — tweeted that she is "incredibly proud of our state for leading the way to ensure no child goes hungry and receives the nutrition they need to succeed."



Chef and television personality Andrew Zimmern said on Twitter that he is "so proud today to be a Minnesotan."

"Prioritizing meals for kids should be job one and we can figure out the compensatory issues tomorrow," he added. "No child should be hungry. Ever. This is a big step towards that."

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 20 states have considered or passed legislation to establish universal free school meals, with California, Colorado, Maine, and Vermont being the first ones to enact the policy.

In the US, menopause finally gets its due
Agence France-Presse
February 11, 2023

Naomi Watts is one of several Hollywood A-listers who are speaking out about menopause, trying to break a long-held taboo(AFP)

For years, the sweeping physical and emotional midlife change that women undergo has been shunted to the shadowy corners of public view, and barely even discussed among friends.

In the United States, menopause is moving off the back burner, in part thanks to Hollywood A-listers who say it's high time to end the taboo surrounding a biological process that affects half the world's population.

Of course, some of those same celebrities have sought to cash in on an as yet untapped gold mine by offering a range of new products aimed at middle-aged women seeking relief.

Naomi Watts, Gwyneth Paltrow and Oprah Winfrey have all recently gone on the record about the symptoms they have experienced. Michelle Obama tackled menopause on her podcast in 2020.

"Over the course of my career as an actor, I've outrun tsunamis and come face-to-face with 'King Kong.' But nothing prepared me for early menopause," writes the 54-year-old Watts, explaining that she began noticing physiological changes at age 36.

Winfrey, the 69-year-old talk show queen, said her heart palpitations in her late 40s were so severe that she thought she was "going to die every single night."

"I went to five different doctors -- nobody ever once suggested that it could be menopause," Winfrey says, calling for more public discourse to warn women about what is to come, and also to make doctors more aware of the need for better care.

Some doctors appear to be woefully unversed on the topic, or simply embrace the old-fashioned notion that it's a phase to be dealt with and nothing more.
Better patient care?

Menopause, which marks the one-year point after a woman's final menstrual period, is actually the end point of a much longer cycle.

Perimenopause is the final phase of a woman's reproductive cycle and is the time when many of the most troublesome symptoms are noticed -- from night sweats and hot flashes to insomnia, hair loss, anxiety, heavy bleeding and low sex drive.

For some women, this phase can last for up to a decade -- hence the need for better awareness, care and consideration.

Studies suggest a vast majority of women will experience at least one menopausal symptom in their lifetime.

Wen Shen, an associate professor of gynecology and obstetrics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the co-director of its Women's Wellness and Healthy Aging Program, says 20 percent of women with symptoms have "really horrible, severe" issues.

Those experiences during perimenopause can "basically ruin their lives, ruin their ability to focus at work, to concentrate, ruin their relationships," Shen told AFP.

She is in favor of the movement by showbiz power players to destigmatize the condition especially as, in her view, "unfortunately, many doctors are not well versed."

"Traditionally it has been such a taboo. And women were afraid to admit they were in menopause, because it's sometimes shameful. And it was associated with aging," Shen said.

"So I think having glamorous movie stars bringing it out and being honest about it is a good thing."

In 2012, Shen's team did a survey of all OB GYN residents in the United States and found that the majority of graduating residents "did not feel comfortable dealing with menopause."

Some respondents had one lecture about the condition, as opposed to months of training about infertility and gynecological cancers.

Shen says textbooks have been improved in the last decade, but still says there is "not enough emphasis" on teaching the next generation of doctors about an essential phase of a woman's life.

'Menopause solutions'

Alongside the need for better medical treatment, investment firms are pouring oodles of cash into products aimed at middle aged women in the various phases of menopause.

In October, Watts launched Stripes, which offers "menopause solutions from scalp to vag." On offer are lubricants for vaginal dryness, densifying hair masks and probiotic supplements.

For years, Oscar winner Paltrow has sold "Madame Ovary" -- a supplement cocktail of herbs, vitamins and phytonutrients to "help smooth the menopausal transition." A month's supply goes for $90 on her Goop website.

And retired tennis superstar Serena Williams, 41, recently invested in vegan menopause supplement brand Wile, saying it was "changing the game for women over 40."

One of the standard treatments for menopause is hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which replaces the estrogen that a woman's body stops making as she ages, addressing key symptoms such as hot flashes and protecting against osteoporosis.

Once prescribed regularly, the treatment all but dropped off the map in the United States 20 years ago -- the result of a flawed scientific study that sparked panic by suggesting high health risks to women.

Shen says better research over the past two decades and assessment of the risks has markedly improved understanding of HRT, leading to its increased use, but she worries about companies offering the drugs over the phone.

"Some of them do advise other forms of treatments that are not evidence-based, have not been researched adequately, that may actually be harmful," she warns.

Shen suggests that women experiencing serious symptoms ask their doctor to be sent to someone specializing in menopause care, who would be able to prescribe the proper treatment, including HRT.

© Agence France-Presse

Pope Francis faces 'civil war' at heart of church
Agence France-Presse
February 11, 2023

Pope Francis (AFP)

From his reforms to his foreign relations, criticism of Pope Francis has intensified since the death of his predecessor Benedict XVI, revealing a climate of "civil war" at a time when the Catholic Church is engaged in a global conversation about its future.

Benedict, a conservative German theologian who was pope for eight years before resigning in 2013, died on December 31 at the age of 95.

Within days of his death, his closest aide, Georg Gaenswein, revealed Benedict's concerns at some of the changes made by his successor Pope Francis, notably his decision to restrict the use of the Latin mass.

The criticism was not new. Many in the conservative wing of the Roman Curia, which governs the Church, have long complained the Argentine pontiff is authoritarian and too focused on pastoral matters at the expense of theological rigour.

But it was followed by the death of Australian cardinal George Pell, and the subsequent revelation that he had authored an anonymous note published last year that directly attacked Francis.

The note had described the current papacy as a "catastrophe", and among others criticized "heavy failures" of Vatican diplomacy under his watch.

Pell, a former close adviser to Francis, was jailed for child sexual abuse before being acquitted in 2020.

Then, at the end of the month, German Cardinal Gerhard Mueller published a book adding fuel to the fire.

The former head of the Vatican's powerful congregation for the doctrine of the faith denounced Francis' "doctrinal confusion" and criticized the influence of a "magic circle" around him.

Civil war

Mueller's book caused consternation among some inside the Vatican.

"When you accept a cardinal's cap, you agree to support and help the pope. Criticisms are made in private, not in public," said one senior official in the Secretariat of State.

Pope Francis himself told reporters on his plane back from South Sudan last Sunday that his critics have "exploited" Benedict's death to further their cause.


"And those who exploit such a good person, such a man of God... well I would say they are unethical people, they are people belonging to a party, not to the Church," he said.

Italian Vatican expert Marco Politi said Mueller's book "is a new stage in the unstoppable escalation by the pope's adversaries".

"There is a civil war in the heart of the church which will continue until the last day of the papacy," he told AFP.

Global consultations

The tensions come as the Catholic Church conducts a vast global consultation on its future, the "Synod on Synodality" launched by Pope Francis in 2021.

Designed to decentralize the governance of the church, it has revealed key differences, with the German Catholic Church, for example, showing distinctly more appetite for reform than Rome.

Discussions include everything from the place of women in the church to how to handle the scandal of child sex abuse, from whether priests should marry to how the Church welcomes LGBTQ believers.

With the synod, which is due to conclude in 2024, "we will see the weight of the different currents within the Church", Politi said.

He said critics of Pope Francis are already converging into a "current of thought capable of influencing the next conclave", and by extension the next papacy.

A conclave, a global gathering of cardinals, would be called if Francis died or resigned.

The pope has said he would be willing to follow Benedict's example and resign if his health stopped him doing his job.

But despite knee problems that have seen him use a wheelchair in recent months, he remains active and in charge -- and extremely popular all over the world, as the crowds during his recent trip to Africa showed.

"This knee is annoying, but I go on, slowly, and we'll see," the 86-year-old said on Sunday, quipping: "You know that the bad weed never dies!"

© 2023 AFP

Mexico City seeks to grow reputation as international art hub
Agence France-Presse
February 10, 2023

The center-piece of Mexico City's week of art fairs, Zona Maco has brought in 216 exhibitors according to organizers © NICOLAS ASFOURI / AFP

Artists and collectors from around the world are descending on Mexico City this week for several fairs aimed at consolidating the capital's position as a Latin American hub of modern and contemporary art.

The headline event, Zona Maco, counts 216 exhibitors, nearly half of them foreigners, according to organizers.

Spanish and US gallery owners have a strong presence at the week-long event, attracted by a vibrant local market that includes some 170 museums and scores of private collectors.

"Mexico City is a very important hub for collectors internationally," said Mauricio Sampogna, visiting from Houston on behalf of the Art of the World gallery, which offers works by Colombian master Fernando Botero.

Zona Maco's new artistic director, Juan Canela, said that "more than 55 international museum groups" had come to the fair, while buyers for private collectors had arrived "from various places in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the United States of course."

"There's a growing interest in Mexican cultural industries," said Julien Cuisset, a French gallery owner who has lived in Mexico City for more than 20 years.

Highlighting the global ambitions of the fair, Mexico's Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard even made an appearance.

Zona Maco is "a very singular event, very important for Mexico," said Ebrard - viewed as a possible successor to current leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Mexico, which often acts as a bridge between the United States and Latin America, "has considerable cultural power," he added.

Another event, Bada, seeks to connect artists directly with individual buyers and collectors, bypassing galleries in Mexico.


The fair is a godsend for digital designer Anni Garza Lau, who is exhibiting her fictional scientific images generated using artificial intelligence.

"There's no purely digital art gallery in Mexico City," she said, adding that for that reason she does not usually sell her work.

Buyers also like the concept.

"You can find good deals at prices that are more accessible and not inflated like in the galleries," said art aficionado Cecilia de la Vega.

Two other events are also being held this week: the Material contemporary art fair and Salon ACME -- described by organizers as "an art platform created by artists for artists."

© 2023 AFP