Saturday, May 18, 2024

Far-right Christians blame Madonna’s ‘satanic’ concert for floods in southern Brazil

Christian pastors and social media influencers have connected the concert's sexual content with unprecedented floods that have devastated cities in Rio Grande do Sul state and killed 116 people.

Madonna performs in the final show of her The Celebration Tour, on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday, May 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

May 13, 2024

Eduardo Campos Lima

SÃO PAULO, Brazil (RNS) — Conservative Christians are accusing the pop star Madonna, who gave a free concert on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach May 4, of including satanic rituals in the show, with catastrophic consequences for Brazil.

The concert, the last stop on Madonna’s The Celebration Tour, drew more than 1.6 million Brazilians and fans from neighboring countries and was aired in its entirety on Rede Globo, the national TV network.

Besides a diverse cast and some sexual play that LGBTQ+ Brazilians and other minorities said spotlighted their communities, the show projected images of Brazilian human rights icons, including Marina Silva, an advocate for rainforest preservation and Brazil’s minister for the environment, and Marielle Franco, an activist and politician who was assassinated in 2018.

Evangelical Christian pastors and digital influencers with ties to former President Jair Bolsonaro have attacked the concert and posted dozens of videos on social media with analysis pointing out purported diabolical behavior and attacks on the Christian faith. They have connected the concert’s licentiousness with unprecedented floods that have devastated cities in Rio Grande do Sul state and killed 147 people.

A video by motivational speaker Pablo Marçal, who combines career insights with Christian ideas, said Rede Globo, a target of the Brazilian far-right in Brazil for its criticism of Bolsonaro during his time as president, said showing “that pornographer” during the flooding “disrespected the Brazilian people that were drowning and dying.”

Marçal said that juxtaposing the two was equivalent to “making offerings with the corpses from Rio Grande do Sul. Anyone with a basic spiritual understanding knows what happened,” Marçal said in the video.

Madonna performs in the final show of her The Celebration Tour, on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday, May 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

Baptist Pastor Aloizio Penido, a prominent Christian leader from the city of Juiz de Fora, told Religion News Service that the concert was “an insult to God,” and that the images drew an “association with the worst possible segment in society.” He pointed to a picture of Che Guevara and “other anti-Christian leaders.”

Penido also called out the concert’s “agenda” and an implied “endorsement of LGBT people and striptease.”

Penido objected in particular to the funds spent by the Rio de Janeiro city government on behalf of the show.

Lutheran Pastor Romi Bencke, head of the more liberal National Council of Christian Churches, said that the idea of God’s wrath provoking great catastrophes is an outdated concept of how God operates that trivialized the suffering of people in the flooded areas. “The idea of a God of war and punishment is back. But God is not enraged. God is love and compassion. He is not vengeful and is not punishing the people of Rio Grande do Sul,” she told RNS.

“I wonder how a person who lost a family member or a house in a flood feels when confronted with the idea that he or she is being punished by God. It’s inhuman,” she affirmed. Bencke, who is from Rio Grande do Sul, has friends and relatives who have been severely affected by the catastrophe.

A man rows a boat on a street flooded by heavy rains, in Sao Leopoldo, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Saturday, May 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

She said the use of such ideas in modern times raises questions about the motive. “Why are those ideas being disseminated? Who’s making money with them?” she asked.

Bencke thinks that the digital influencers and religious leaders who have been spreading prejudicial ideas are “taking advantage from the people’s lack of discernment in order to make money and become famous.” She argues that some of them should be criminally investigated for such acts.

Some religious leaders in the flooded region echoed the sense that the disaster was a result of impiety, if not a single event. A Roman Catholic priest in the city of Novo Hamburgo, one of the most impacted areas in Rio Grande do Sul, released a video earlier this week in which he implied that the floods are a consequence of atheism.

“Could it be that there’s a message from heaven with all those rains and floods? Rio Grande do Sul, according to surveys, is the most atheist state in Brazil, many times carried away by its intellectual and economic pride,” said the Rev. Marco Antônio Leal, adding that “God wants the people from the state to kneel down and believe in Him again.”

Another Christian influencer has pointed out that Rio Grande do Sul is one of the states with the highest number of centers of Umbanda and Candomblé, African Brazilian religions associated by many evangelical Christians with the devil, so it’s paying the price now.

A fan dances while waiting for the start of Madonna’s last show of her The Celebration Tour, on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday, May 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

Baba Diba de Iyemonja, a prominent Umbanda leader in Rio Grande do Sul, said that the African Brazilian religions are often made scapegoats when a calamity occurs. “We filed a lawsuit against that digital influencer. That has been only the most recent in a series of aggressions that we have been suffering over the past years,” Diba de Iyemonja told RNS.

Diba de Iyemonja pointed out that numerous Umbanda and Candomblé adherents have been impacted by the floods, given that many of them are poor Black people who live in vulnerable areas that were inundated by the swollen rivers.

“We’re now struggling to ensure that federal relief resources will reach us. We are traditionally forgotten at those times,” he added.

Whether or not they saw the floods as divine retribution for Madonna’s antics, evangelicals debated the themes of the show. In a social media debate about whether Christians should attend the concert, 33-year-old lawyer and evangelical Késia Medeiros said she was happy to see so many LGBTQ+ people having fun in the show.

“I wouldn’t attend the concert because Madonna’s music doesn’t reflect my spirituality and my Christian morality,” she told RNS. “But everybody is free to go and be happy about it. I was glad to see older LGBT people, who suffered so much in the 1980s with homophobia and the beginning of AIDS, now being able to celebrate and have fun in Madonna’s show,” she told RNS.

Medeiros, who is a member of a Pentecostal community in Parnamirim, dismissed the idea that Madonna was summoning Satan in her show. “She just found an artistic way of expressing herself — and of making money,” said Medeiros.

As for the floods, they “have impacted Christians and non-Christians alike. It’s not something spiritual. It’s the consequence of human actions,” she said.

PCA cancels anti-polarization panel with David French for being too polarizing

Leaders of the conservative denomination canceled the discussion of dealing with polarization after online backlash.

CANCEL CULTURE ORIGINATED FROM MCARTHYISM

David French, and the Presbyterian Church in America logo. (Courtesy images)

May 15, 2024

Bob Smietana

(RNS) —The Presbyterian Church in America canceled a recently announced panel on helping pastors deal with polarization — saying the topic was too divisive.

“The concerns that have been raised about the seminar and its topic have been so significant that it seems wisest for the peace and unity of the church not to proceed in this way,” the PCA’s Administrative Committee said Tuesday (May 14) in canceling the event.

Instead of the panel—which the PCA referred to as a seminar—the PCA will hold a prayer time at the denomination’s General Assembly, scheduled for June 10-14 in Richmond, Virginia.

Leaders of the 393,000-member denomination, which has about 1,600 churches, had last week announced the panel, titled “How to Be Supportive of Your Pastor and Church Leaders in a Polarized Political Year.” The inclusion of author and New York Times columnist David French, a longtime PCA member who recently left the denomination, led to online outrage.

Critics — many from outside the PCA — labeled French, best known for his vocal opposition to Donald Trump, as liberal and divisive and accused PCA leaders of trying to cause “rancor and controversy” over politics. Those critics mostly disagreed with French’s political views.

Ben Dunson, a PCA minister and founding editor of the American Reformer, a publication that seeks to reform “Christian institutions that have become corrupted by false ideologies and practices,” called French the “most polarizing” panelist the denomination could have chosen.

“I cannot imagine a worse choice to help the PCA through the contentious issues we are facing,” Bunson wrote in opposing French’s presence on the proposed panel, which he said would disrupt the denomination’s “peace and purity.”

Critics also called out bestselling author Nancy French, David French’s wife, for being too critical of the PCA in her new memoir.

David French declined to comment for this story.

The panel would have also included Paul McNulty, the president of Grove City College, a conservative school that published a report rejecting “wokeness” in 2022, along with a pair of PCA pastors, but their inclusion received little attention relative to French’s.

As American society has become more polarized, religious groups have become increasingly divided along political lines. A majority of white Christians, including Catholics, mainline Protestants and evangelicals, are allied with the Republication Party, while Black Protestants, Hispanic Protestants, nones and non-Christians are allied with the Democratic Party. That means churches are less likely to be politically diverse, a reality that intensified during the Trump and COVID-19 era.

The hostility between parties has also grown in recent decades, with each side believing the other is more “immoral, dishonest and close-minded” than other Americans, according to Pew Research.

As a result, voting for the wrong candidate can be seen as a sign of sin or heresy. Cooperating across party lines is often viewed as a betrayal.

The Frenches, along with Christianity Today editor Russell Moore and writer and pastor Curtis Chang, recently launched a project called “The After Party,” designed to bring “Christian virtues like kindness, love and mercy” into political discussions at churches.

Chang said the cancellation of the PCA polarization panel illustrates the problem Christian groups are facing.

“The PCA canceled David because it could not even tolerate hearing from a fellow Christian —David French — who might hold different views from some of its members on various partisan issues,” Chang said. “The PCA canceled David because it is elevating partisan differences over shared fidelity to Jesus.”

Bryan Chapell, the stated clerk of the PCA, did not mention David French by name when announcing the panel’s cancellation but said a panelist had caused controversy. Chapell also apologized for choosing that panelist.

“Had I known some of the ways that the panelist has expressed himself or been understood in past writings, I would have made a different choice for the purposes of this seminar,” he wrote.

Vatican issues new norms to rein in supernatural phenomena

Once left only to local bishops, the Vatican doctrinal office will now have the ultimate say on apparitions, miracles and the supernatural.

FILE - Pilgrims wait their turn to enter the Basilica of Guadalupe, in Mexico City, Dec. 12, 2013. Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the country converge on Mexico's holy Roman Catholic site, many bringing with them images or statues of Mexico's patron saint to be blessed, marking the Virgin's Dec. 12 feast day, the anniversary of one of several apparitions of the Virgin Mary witnessed by an Indigenous Mexican man named Juan Diego in 1531. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)

May 17, 2024

Claire Giangravé

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Weeping Madonnas, bleeding hosts and saintly apparitions will have to be approved by the Vatican’s doctrinal office, according to a new document issued by the same office on Friday (May 17), at a time when social media spreads reports of supernatural occurrences well beyond diocesan borders and away from church oversight.

The new norms “are not intended to control or (even less) stifle” the spirituality of the faithful, read the statement by the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, but “in some events of alleged supernatural origin, there are serious critical issues that are detrimental to the faithful.”

While the Shrines of Lourdes, Fatima, Aparecida and Guadalupe are widely known sites of miracles and Marian apparitions, there are hundreds of supernatural reports every year. Since the 1950s only six cases have been officially investigated by the Vatican, meaning that most cases “were either handled differently or just not handled at all,” the statement read

According to the new norms, the local bishops will have to investigate the supernatural phenomenon by creating an Investigatory Commission, made up of one theologian, one canonist and one expert on the specific occurrence, and submit their judgment for approval to the Vatican’s doctrinal office.

Until the bishop receives the Vatican approval, he is not allowed to make any public pronouncement on the case.

After its own investigations and reflections, the Vatican will confirm the bishop’s decision or issue a new judgment. The Vatican may decide that the case needs further study; that, while some issues remain, its popularity among the faithful makes it difficult to discern; or that a group or individual are using the supernatural phenomenon for their own gain. They might also declare that there are critical issues in the phenomenon that need clarification or that the event is not of a supernatural nature.

Argentine Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, left, head of the Vatican doctrine office, and Sister Daniela del Gaudio, head of the Observatory on Marian Apparitions and Mystical Phenomenon, attend a press conference at the Vatican, Friday, May 17, 2024. The Vatican on Friday radically reformed its process for evaluating alleged visions of the Virgin Mary, weeping statues and other seemingly supernatural phenomena that have long punctuated church history, putting the brakes on making definitive declarations unless the event is obviously fabricated. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

A novelty in the new guidelines is that the Vatican or local bishops will no longer make a pronouncement declaring there is certainty of a miracle, apparition or supernatural event. Instead, the church will issue a “nihil obstat,” which in English translates to “nothing impedes,” which allows faithful to approach the supernatural phenomenon but doesn’t sign off on its miraculous nature. Previously approved cases will not be changed, but only the pope will have the power to confirm a supernatural event from now on.

“Granting a Nihil obstat simply indicates that the faithful ‘are authorized to give (the phenomenon) their adhesion in a prudent manner,’” the document stated.

The Vatican’s doctrinal department can at any time change its pronouncement on a supernatural event, the document states.

The new norms replace the previous ones, which were drafted in 1978 and only made public in 2011. Previously, it was up to the bishops to determine the veracity of a supernatural event, which the Vatican believes led to confusion among the faithful. The bishop’s approval of a miraculous phenomenon “oriented the faithful to think they had to believe in these phenomena, which sometimes were valued more than the Gospel itself,” the statement read.

The previous norms also led to decadeslong investigations and — sometimes contradictory — pronouncements by the Vatican and the local bishops.

The decision by the Vatican to rein in supernatural apparitions is partly motivated by the considerable number of cases where these events are used to trick, defraud or abuse faithful. In the document, the Vatican also warned against doctrinal errors and the spread of “sectarian mentalities.” The recent case of the Madonna of Trevignano, in a small town near Rome, saw the self-declared clairvoyant Maria Giuseppe Scarpulla placing pig’s blood on a statue of Mary to get $100,000 checks from unsuspecting believers.

Speaking at a press conference presenting the new guidelines on Friday, the head of the Vatican’s doctrine office, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, recounted cases where he had to decide on supernatural claims. One woman once said she felt at home at a Marian shrine, and only later the cardinal learned that it was because she thought she was the Virgin Mary herself. Another woman claimed she was told by God that she would become the mother of the new Messiah, and Fernandez said he was shocked when the woman said he had to be the father.

“These events are quite frequent in certain cases, but it’s often a situation where norms and procedures are not necessary,” he said. “In other cases there may be a phenomena that does not stop and attract the attention of many people,” he added.

Social media has also impacted the Vatican’s evaluation of unexplained phenomena, since strange events are quickly ascribed to the supernatural and can gather a wide following. “Now more than ever, these phenomena involve many people from various dioceses and spread rapidly across different regions and even countries,” the statement read. The Vatican doctrinal office encouraged bishops to create interdiocesan commissions to address cases that spread over various church territories.

Pope Francis has displayed a strong personal devotion to the Virgin Mary and often visited the shrines where she is said to have miraculously appeared, but he has also warned faithful not to be fooled by far-fetched stories and tales of miracles. Such apparitions “are not always real,” he said in an interview in June last year.

Swipe right or left? How dating apps are impacting modern masculinity

The Conversation
May 18, 2024

Man on Dating App (Shutterstock)

What it means to be a man is changing. Critical men or masculinity studies is an emerging robust research field that explores how men and masculinity are being transformed by shifting socio-economic, sexual and political conditions in our post-industrial world.

Fascinating new male-identifying sub-cultures and communities have emerged, like mushroomcore and dandies. Yet heteronormative masculinity is typically framed as threatening, toxic or maladaptive, as in the case of fragile masculinity.

In my years of swiping on dating apps, I encountered different kinds of masculinities, as well as some very offensive and bizarre behaviours. Particularly perplexing was how quickly men vanished — or ghosted — when in-person dates were suggested, despite saying that they wanted physical intimacy. This was confusing and seemed to contradict the dominant narrative that men use dating apps primarily for hookups.

If not for sex, what are straight men doing on the apps? Are dating apps impacting masculinity? How do these changes in gender and tech landscape impact women’s sexual possibilities?

A sexuality scholar writes about experiences with online dating. (University of Toronto Press)

As a sexuality scholar and a woman who has sought intimacy with men on dating apps, these are important questions. I explore many of them in Sticky, Sexy, Sad: Swipe Culture and the Darker Side of Dating Apps, where I applied my academic training as an anthropologist to my dating life.

My book is based on notes that were taken between 2017 and 2022, when I was actively swiping on dating apps. No real names or identifying information are included in these data. Using the researcher’s life as subject is called auto-ethnography, and it’s an established approach that combines documentation with creative or literary techniques, memoir and cultural critique. Auto-ethnography is about articulating insider knowledge of certain cultural experiences of which the researcher is a participant.

Here are some of the most important things I learned about men and male sexual vulnerability while swiping my way into the dark heart of modern romance.

Lack of quality dating resources

Dating apps provide very little instruction for how to date beyond a few dos and don'ts, but there are other resources men can access, including books and coaching services, to fill the void. The problem is that many are business-oriented or rooted in sexist bro culture ideology, where women are positioned as opponents or prizes to be tricked into submission.

Take the titles of some of the leading dating books for men: The Mystery Method: How to Get Beautiful Women Into Bed; No More Mr. Nice Guy! A Proven Plan for Getting What You Want in Love, Sex and Life; The Foundation: A Blueprint for Becoming an Authentically Attractive Man; and the classic The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists.

Also, most dating and relationship coaches, even those who are male, target their services to women, who are consistently framed as searching for love and wanting to understand men. On the other hand, men are typically seen as only wanting sex.
Lack of follow-through

One thing that was very clear during my swiping odyssey is that guys want physical intimacy and are eager to talk about it with people they trust. In my in-person dates and text exchanges with men, I would often ask about their experiences with swiping out of a desire to understand the men better and to provide a compassionate ear. Most of them were eager to share their encounters on dating apps, including the factors that were standing in their way from being able to follow through on the intimacy they were seeking.

The first factor is the gamification of dating: how dating apps are marketed as a game with endless options. This keeps men swiping and can make decisions about who to talk to or get together with feel somehow misaligned with the whole swiping endeavour.

Add to this the links between gaming culture and misogyny, and it’s no wonder men regularly sacrifice sex and intimacy in the name of the swipe.

The second factor is the lack of quality sexual education and resulting dependence on porn. Many matches I spoke with said they learned about sex from pornography sites like PornHub. These sites often depict women in hyper-sexualized ways and don’t include dialogues about how the men featured feel about what they’re doing in an emotional sense. Excessive porn can lead to sexual dysfunction, which has been linked with an increase in sexual vulnerability and anxiety around sex.

The third factor is the perceived social pressure to be sexually sophisticated, to mirror the adventurous lives of celebrities and sports figures. Some men inflate their number of sexual partners or brag to their friends about doing certain acts to uphold a studly image. Yet in our interactions, they shared feelings of guilt and shame about lying to their friends and not being “good enough” at sex. Sometimes this means men avoid sex all together.

The fourth factor is the impact of the #MeToo movement, which began in 2017, around the time I started swiping. Men talked about feeling nervous and worried that they may come across as a creep or overly aggressive for something as simple as showing an interest in women on dating apps. They explained that this is why many of them ignore women who communicated with them or why they flake out on scheduled dates.

In many cases just talking about sex, let alone doing it, can feel too risky.

The fifth factor is the way dating platforms are designed, specifically Bumble. Until April 30 of this year, the heterosexual version required women to make the opening move and men had to wait to be asked out. Intended to put women in the driver’s seat, the role reversal seemed to make men uncomfortable, even though they were aware of the app’s design when they joined.

Indeed, the levels of misogyny on Bumble far exceeded what I experienced on any other swiping platform. This aligns with studies that show how a perceived lack of autonomy and independence — common attributes of masculinity — contribute to toxic masculinity.

Complex vulnerability

Beneath the negative gloss of toxic masculinity, there is a steady stream of vulnerability regarding sex, intimacy and identity among men in our complex contemporary world. These insights enrich our knowledge about how straight men feel about these issues, including sex, which is something that many are willing to forego rather than get wrong.

Men need and deserve to learn about sex, relationships, gendered communication and themselves in ways that are inclusive, welcoming and supportive. As a recent article in The Washington Post stated, when we teach boys and young men to diminish or ignore their emotions and sexual desires, this leads to poor health outcomes, including rising rates of suicide and unsatisfying or violent relationships.

Let’s make the future of dating sexier and safer by making space for boys, men and male-identifying people to explore and learn about these vital aspects of life in a different way.

Treena Orchard, Associate Professor, School of Health Studies, Western University

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

Confusion over how pregnancy dates are measured is widespread, makes for uninformed debate

The Conversation
May 15, 2024

Pregnant Black Woman (Shutterstock)

Most Americans don’t know two key facts about pregnancy, including how they are dated and how long a trimester is – and this could matter, as a growing number of states place restrictions on abortion.

Florida enacted a new law on May 1, 2024, that bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, with a few exceptions – including documented rape, incest and to save the life of the mother.

Florida joins the majority of Southern states that now have complete bans or highly restrictive abortion laws, enacted since the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to get an abortion in June 2022. Many of the restrictive laws ban abortion after a set number of weeks.

Anti-abortion rights groups, such as Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, have called the six-week abortion ban the gold standard in abortion policy. Florida Republicans supporting the bill have labeled it a reasonable compromise between a full abortion ban and few abortion restrictions.

Some OB-GYNs have explained that many women do not even know they are pregnant at six weeks. Research shows that women on average find out they are pregnant at five and a half weeks. About 23% do not know until seven weeks of pregnancy or later.

So, do Americans, including those enacting six-week bans, actually understand how the timing or dating of pregnancy works?

We are scholars of political science, gender and public opinion and are writing a book about public opinion on abortion after the Supreme Court’s reversal of the federal right to get an abortion in June 2022.

People rally in Orlando during a demonstration against Florida’s new six-week abortion ban on April 13, 2024. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

How does pregnancy work?

To gain insights into this issue, we developed a few pregnancy questions and included them in a research survey in late September 2023. The survey had 1,356 respondents, who were broadly representative of the U.S. population. The respondents’ median age was 46. Approximately 49% of these people were men, while 70% were white and 29% were college graduates. Meanwhile, 43% of them were Democrats, and 38% were Republicans.

The first question asked respondents how pregnancies are dated. The correct answer is that pregnancies are dated using the first day of the woman’s last menstrual period, which is often two to three weeks before conception.

The second question asked about trimesters. Many Americans are familiar with the term trimester, and polling consistently shows that Americans find abortion most acceptable during the first trimester. We asked Americans if they knew approximately how many weeks a trimester was. The correct answer is 13.
Americans’ pregnancy knowledge

We found that only one-third of respondents knew how pregnancy is dated. A majority – approximately 60% – falsely thought that pregnancy is dated from conception or in the weeks since the woman last had sex. Less than one-fourth of the respondents answered both pregnancy knowledge questions correctly.

In our survey, we also asked respondents whether they support a six-week abortion ban. Similar to other national surveys, we find that most Americans oppose strict abortion restrictions – only 35% support six-week bans.

Importantly, we find that those who support six-week abortion bans are significantly less likely than others to correctly understand the timing of pregnancy. The statistically significant relationship between having low levels of pregnancy timing knowledge and support for a six-week abortion ban holds in analyses controlling for potentially confounding variables.

Some anti-abortion lawmakers have demonstrated their ignorance about pregnancy before.

There is, for example, a long history of some anti-abortion politicians saying, incorrectly, that it is extremely rare for a person who is raped to get pregnant. Our survey shows that a large swath of those opposing abortion lack knowledge about the basics of pregnancy.

Messages hang on the wall of a group counseling room in a Florida health clinic. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

A gender disparity

Perhaps not surprisingly, women in this survey knew more about pregnancy than men. The question about how pregnancies are dated, for example, was answered correctly by 43% of women compared with only 23% of men. As mentioned above, a majority of Americans incorrectly believe pregnancy is dated from conception, but significantly more men than women think this is true.

This finding is particularly important when considering the gender breakdown of the Florida state lawmakers who approved the six-week ban. Although we do not have data on the pregnancy knowledge of those legislators, we do know that those who voted for the ban were overwhelmingly men.

Florida’s six-week ban will make it much harder for anyone to get abortions there – and it will also affect people in neighboring states who want or need an abortion. In 2023, Florida was home to the closest abortion clinic for 6.4 million women living in the South. In 2023, around 7,700 women from other Southern states, where abortion is now largely banned, traveled to Florida to get abortions.

Overall, our findings raise serious questions about whether Americans without medical training – much like those in our state legislatures – have the necessary knowledge needed to regulate abortion access.

Laurel Elder, Professor of Political Science, Hartwick College; Mary-Kate Lizotte, Professor of political science, Augusta University, and Steven Greene, Professor of Political Science, North Carolina State University

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

MACRON SUCKS UP

Zelensky and Putin react to Paris Olympics ceasefire proposal

2024/05/17

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attends a meeting during a working trip to Kharkiv. -/Ukraine Presidency/dpa

Both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin have expressed reservations about a proposed ceasefire in Ukraine during the Olympic Games in Paris this summer.

The proposal, first mentioned by French President Emmanuel Macron and later discussed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, aims to halt hostilities during the Games.

Zelensky told the online news site Ukrainska Pravda on Friday that the details of the initiative were not clear to him.

He highlighted the risks of Russia potentially using the ceasefire to move military equipment closer to Ukraine then.

Zelensky raised the question of "who will ensure that their forces do not advance towards us during a ceasefire?

"So I don't understand the details. It sounds like a non-viable story to me so far."

Putin, returning from a state visit to China, acknowledged that Xi had brought up the ceasefire idea but did not elaborate further.

However, he criticized the West for demanding that Russia adhere to an Olympic truce while excluding Russian athletes from the Games.

Moscow had also previously expressed doubts about such an initiative, as Ukraine could use the period of the Games to further arm its armed forces and regroup for war.

After Macron brought up the idea earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had said there were no concrete proposals from Paris on how to proceed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a press conference with and Chinese President Xi Jinping (Not Pictured) after signing a joint statement on deepening relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction. Putin is on a two-day state visit to China. -/Kremlin/dpa

olympics

Irish president hits out at UK government 'Troubles' law

Agence France-Presse
May 18, 2024

Irish President Michael D. Higgins criticised new UK legislation on the Troubles (Frederick FLORIN/AFP)

Ireland's president on Friday hit out at new UK legislation designed to draw a line under the violence during the Northern Ireland "Troubles", 50 years on from the biggest single-day loss of life in that period.

Michael D. Higgins said the new law was neither morally acceptable nor politically feasible, in a speech at a wreath-laying ceremony in Dublin.

The event was to commemorate the 33 people and an unborn child killed when four bombs ripped through Dublin and Monaghan in 1974, wounding more than 300 people.

Higgins said London's introduction of the legislation had ended any chance the victims' families had of finding out what happened, or of securing justice.

The Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 came into force this month, halting any inquests, civil cases and criminal prosecutions linked to the Troubles.

Most controversially, it granted immunity to former combatants on all sides, including paramilitary groups and British service personnel, who say they have been unfairly prosecuted.

Higgins said the new law had meant families who had spent decades fighting for investigations not only faced further uncertainty and delays but also "the deprivation of legal rights".

He added: "It is not morally acceptable, nor is it politically feasible, to request that those affected by such tragedy should forget about the past, draw a line or move on."

Ireland said in December it had launched legal action against the UK government in the European Court of Human Rights over the legacy law.

All Northern Irish political parties oppose the legislation, and Europe's leading rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, has also expressed "serious concerns".

No warnings were given for the deadly 1974 blasts commemorated on Friday.

Although no one has been convicted in connection with the atrocity, pro-UK paramilitary group the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) admitted responsibility in 1993.

In Monaghan 135 kilometers (84 miles) northwest of Dubin where Higgins also laid a wreath, several hundred local people gathered at a commemoration where the names of victims were read out.

Donal Sherry, 70, who survived the attack, told AFP his memory of it was "still vivid".

"There was a bang and terrible carnage. I can remember a lot of terrible scenes. It broke glass maybe a half a mile away, the ferocity of it," said the retired joiner.

"The families have never really got any justice, the dog on the street knows who did it, but typical British, they are holding all back on us," Sherry told AFP.

More than 3,500 people died during the "Troubles", which began in the late 1960s and ended with a landmark 1998 peace accord.

Global coral bleaching event expanding to new countries: scientists

Agence France-Presse
May 17, 2024

Corals in Key West, Florida in 2023 -- the world is in the middle of a major coral bleaching incident (Joseph Prezioso/AFP)

The massive coral bleaching episode signaled by US authorities last month is expanding and deepening in reefs around the globe, scientists warned Thursday.

Amid record ocean temperatures, coral bleaching has been recorded in 62 countries and territories since February 2023, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said -- an increase of nine from its warning in April.

"This event is still growing in size and impacts," Derek Manzello, coordinator for NOAA's Coral Reef Watch program, told a press briefing, adding: "This is not something that would be happening without climate change."

New coral damage since NOAA's April 15 warning was reported in India, Sri Lanka and the Chagos islands in the Indian Ocean, Manzello said.

Severe or prolonged heat stress leads to corals dying off, though there is a possibility for recovery if temperatures drop and other stressors such as overfishing and pollution are reduced.

The consequences of coral bleaching are far-reaching, affecting not only the health of oceans but also the livelihoods of people, food security and local economies.

The ongoing mass coral bleaching is the world's fourth on record, with three others occurring between 1998 to 2017.

Some 60.5 percent of the world's reefs have experienced bleach-level heat in the last 12 months, a record, according to NOAA.

The previous widespread global bleaching, which occurred from 2014 to 2017, retains the record for the greatest cumulative impact -- for now.

Bleaching could further occur at reefs across Asia and off Mexico, Belize, the Caribbean and Florida as oceans continue to heat over the summer, Manzello said.

So far, the Great Barrier Reef off Australia has been hit by bleaching, which is also affecting coral in Thailand.

- Record temperatures -

There is a 61 percent chance 2024 will end as the Earth's hottest year on record and a 100 percent chance it will be one of the top five warmest years, said Karin Gleason, monitoring section chief at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information.

Last month, meanwhile, the world's oceans saw their hottest ever April temperatures, a record broken each month for the past 13 months.

"The heat stress accumulation has been most unprecedented and extreme in the Atlantic Ocean," Manzello said.

Understanding the consequences of coral bleaching can take time: in the Caribbean, for example, coral could survive the immediate heat stress only to die later from "disease outbreaks or aggregations of coral predators," Manzello added.

Last year was the hottest year on record, attributed to a gnarly mix of climate change and the El Nino weather pattern.

This year, as the cooling La Nina pattern takes effect between now and autumn, "my hope is that... we will start seeing that percentage of reef areas impacted start coming down," Manzello said.

Why so many animals have a third eyelid, including our pets – yet humans don’t

The Conversation
May 17, 2024 11:28AM ET

You can see this dog’s third eyelid in the corner of its eye.

Shooty Photography/Shutterstoc

Our family dog used to have a rather noticeable extra eyelid that became especially apparent when he dozed off, usually upturned on the rug. This is the fleshy curtain seen at the corner of each eye, closest to the nose. It’s also commonly called the nictitating (literally “blinking”) membrane.

You may have noticed these “third” eyelids on your pets appear occasionally, perhaps during their sleepy moments, or when they’re enjoying a bit of affection. But what does this unusual structure actually do? And why don’t we have one as well?

Third eyelids sweep in a generally horizontal direction across the eye, instead of vertically as the upper and lower lids do. They’re actually a specialised fold of the conjunctiva – the thin, moist membrane that coats the other lids and the exposed white of your eye (the sclera). They’re found in many mammalian species, but are not unique to them. Birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish can also have a third eyelid.

The structure varies too; in many species a cartilage skeleton provides support, while others contain glands that secrete tears. This variation is probably to help animals adapt to multiple different environments – to the sea, the air and even arboreal habitats in trees.

Several different studies have examined third eyelids to help understand their role in hedgehogs, kangaroos and brown bears.

And research has shown the third eyelid functions much as the upper and lower lids do. It protects the eye, and sweeps away any invading debris. It also distributes tears across the eye’s surface, keeping it moist and preventing ulcers forming. This is particularly important in brachycephalic (flat-faced) dogs, like pugs and King Charles spaniels, whose protruding eyes are not as well protected compared to other breeds.

In the wild

Both domestic and wild animals (including species from canine, feline and equine families) need eye shielding and protection from foreign bodies. Wild animals may need them even more, since they might be exploring grasslands, or contending with bites and scratches from prey or rival animals.

Preventing, trapping and removing debris is crucial for desert animals like camels, where sand and dirt might damage the eye. Their third eyelid is partially transparent and this helps camels retain some vision in the middle of a sandstorm, while covering their eyes.

In bushlands, aardvarks also have third eyelids, perhaps to protect their eyes as they root around for insects.

The third eyelid may offer protection from water, and a translucent membrane can aid underwater vision of aquatic animals, including manatees (curiously, manatees come from the order Afrotheria, which also includes aardvarks). Larger species of sharks (blues for instance) typically protect their eyes with their third eyelid when hunting and feeding.

For birds, fast air currents can prove equally damaging. So, in birds of prey like falcons, the eyelid is used during rapid flight in hunting. Often air gusts will set off third eyelid blinking in these birds (including owls) as a natural protective reflex.

This crow’s third eyelid is visible in this photo. Fotograf Julian/Shutterstock

In other avian species, it might protect against damage from sharp-beaked offspring. Imagine a bird returning with a prize of food to a nestful of voraciously hungry chicks, all pecking and scrabbling to get their share.

Studies suggest third eyelids play a unique role in woodpeckers, whose skulls undergo vibration trauma when drilling a tree trunk with their beak. Two problems arise as a result of this forceful head banging – damage to the softer eye tissue, and sawdust being thrown into them. In this case, the third eyelid may act as both a seatbelt and a visor.

In polar regions, where the white landscape reflects sunlight, ultraviolet rays can damage the eye. This can lead to temporary loss of vision – a condition known as snow blindness. So it’s possible that some arctic animals like polar bears have third eyelids that absorb UV light. There’s no established evidence of this yet, but their third eyelids are clear, assisting them in being skilled marine hunters.

Evolutionary loss

Humans and most primates (except lemurs and the calabar angwantibo, from the Lorisidae family) have evolved to the point where a proper third eyelid is no longer needed. Human and primate eyes are less likely to be damaged by hunting, rivalry and the environment. Plus, human eyes are highly sensitive and able to recognise and respond to danger by closing more quickly.

But the third eyelid isn’t entirely gone. Humans have a remnant of it called the plica semilunaris. This crescent-moon fold can be seen at the corner of our eyes too. Have a look yourself in the mirror.

Some scientists have argued the plica can still help drain tears. There are two small ducts at the angle of our eyelids, which allow excess and old tears to escape into the nasal cavity. That explains why you get a runny nose when you cry.

But would getting our true third eyelid back be of any use to us? Maybe the alien in Men in Black could offer an opinion. Perhaps it could allow us to naturally keep our eyes cleaner, less irritated, or dislodge that contact lens that won’t come out.

We’ll just have to accept we don’t share the clever nature of our pets’ third eyelids. But then we also can’t compete with their night vision, acute hearing or sense of smell. It’s a long list.

Dan Baumgardt, Senior Lecturer, School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, University of Bristol

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

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