Stray dogs in Giza become tourist draw after 'pyramid puppy' sensation

by Menna Farouk

Nov 17, 2024

A pack of about eight dogs has made its home among the ancient ruins of the Giza Pyramids — Khaled DESOUKI

Beneath the blazing Egyptian sun, crowds at the Giza Pyramids gazed up at the ancient wonders, but some had their eyes peeled for a new attraction.

"There he is," one Polish tourist told his wife as they spotted a scrappy dog perched on one of the stones.

They were talking about Apollo, a stray who became an overnight sensation last month after being filmed scaling the Great Pyramid of Khafre, one of the seven wonders of the world.

The viral footage, captured by American paragliding enthusiast Alex Lang and shared online by his friend Marshall Mosher, showed Apollo fearlessly climbing the 136-metre monument, barking at birds from the summit.

"He was acting like a king," Lang told AFP.

As news of Apollo's daring climb spread worldwide, interest grew in the dogs who have long made their homes among the ancient stones.

"He is climbing over there," said Arkadiusz Jurys, a tourist from Poland, craning his neck for a better view.

"It is unusual," he added, describing Apollo as surveying the picture-snapping crowd from above.

Another visitor, Diego Vega from Argentina, felt a special bond with the dogs.

"Connecting with them feels like connecting with the pharaohs," he said, while petting a member of Apollo's pack.

- Sales up -

Apollo's newfound fame has even inspired local guides to include him and his pack in their stories for tourists.

"This is Anubis," one tour guide told two American tourists, comparing Apollo, now known as the "pyramid puppy", with the ancient Egyptian god of the dead, often depicted as a man with a jackal's head.

"He and his pack are now part of our tour conversations," said Sobhi Fakhry, another tour guide.

Businesses around the Giza plateau are also seeing a boost.

Umm Basma, a 43-year-old woman selling souvenirs near the Khafre pyramid, reported an increase in sales thanks to the influx of tourists eager to meet the so-called pyramid dogs.

"We've always seen these dogs climbing the pyramids, but we never thought they would become a blessing for us," she said.

One pyramid guard, who preferred to remain anonymous, also said that some celebrities had paid for permits to have their own dogs photographed with Apollo.

Apollo, a three-year-old Baladi dog, is part of a pack of about eight that has made their home among the ancient ruins.

The dogs, a local breed, are known for their resilience, intelligence and ability to survive in Egypt's harsh climate.

Ibrahim el-Bendary, co-founder of the American Cairo Animal Rescue Foundation, which monitors the pyramid dogs, described Apollo as the pack's "alpha male".

"He is the bravest and strongest in his pack," he said.

Apollo was born in a rocky crevice within the Khafre pyramid where his mother, Laika, found shelter. Sadly, some of Apollo's siblings did not survive the site's perilous heights.

A sympathetic guard eventually relocated Laika to a safer spot where Apollo now stands out with his distinctive curled tail and confident nature.

- Dog adoptions -

The initial focus of Lang and Marshall was the daring canine climber, but their visit led to a deeper connection with Cairo's stray dogs.

Intrigued by the challenges they face, Mosher decided to adopt a puppy from the pack: Anubi, who is Apollo's daughter.

Anubi will join Marshall in the US after she receives the dedicated care she needs in Egypt to grow up healthy.

At the pyramids, local animal care groups are now working with the government in order to set up food and water stations for the strays, as well as for other animals including camels and horses.

A permanent veterinary centre will be established at the pyramids with staff set to receive animal care training, said Egypt's tourism minister.

Vicki Michelle Brown, the other co-founder of the American Cairo Animal Rescue Foundation, believes that Apollo's story can make a difference.

"It sheds so much light on the dogs and cats that are here," Brown said.

"I definitely believe him (Apollo) climbing the pyramids can help all of the dogs in Egypt to have a better life."

 

The Cats of Gaza

by Eros Salvatore / October 11th, 2024

Nine-year-old Jana ignores the gunfire in the distance as she carries a cardboard box across the sand. The box contains her best friend: a four-month-old orange-white kitten that bears her name and cuddles with her when the bombs are falling. A few meters behind her, her twelve-year-old sister Nada carries one of the kitten’s siblings, a silver-grey tabby who likewise shares her name. Their father, Salah El-Din Youssef, named the kittens after his daughters so the girls would become attached to them. He didn’t have to bother. They would have loved the kittens no matter what their names were. And, judging from the calm, serene looks on the kittens’ faces as they peek out over the tops of the boxes, they trust the girls enough to love them back.

Though the sisters occasionally stumble over rocks and debris beneath the hot summer sun, they don’t mind because they know their journey is almost over. Their father has secured a spot on the beaches of Der al-Balah where they can live. They can almost hear the cool sea breeze whispering their names as they get closer. Their father follows them with a box containing the mother cat, Kitty, and another silver-grey tabby kitten named Angie. Salah is relieved. No one in the family was killed or injured during the evacuation, and they were able to take what little they owned. Salah’s wife, Samaher, and their three other daughters, Dana, Yara, and Rahaf, are tidying up the new tarp and stick home when they arrive. They haven’t felt this safe in a while.

Two days ago the Israelis dropped evacuation orders on their camp. We are liberating you from the tyranny of Hamas. Your zone will become a battlefield. You must leave immediately.

Some screamed in response, others silently panicked. The attack could come at any moment. Scattered refugees ran here and there, unsure of where to go. Whole families scurried through the streets carrying as much as they could. Heavy items lay discarded in abandoned camps, too burdensome to move. Everything was pared down to food, clothing, and documents. Flour, lentils, cooking oil. Shoes, shirts, headscarves. ID, birth, and death certificates. Everyone carried something. The sick carried the sickest. The young carried the youngest.

The cats are lucky. They’ve become items of necessity in the middle of a calamity. Who would want to face death without a friend? Salah found Kitty in early spring. Her kittens were born on April 25th. He adopted them all.

“I treat them as if they were my children. I eat and drink from God’s provisions, and my children do the same.”

Between the rockets and hunger, these bundles of soft, warm fur make life more tolerable.

“All the children here love to play with Kitty and her kittens. They were all happy when she became a mother and gave birth to these beautiful babies.”

In a far cry from his pastry chef days before the war, Salah and his family start each day collecting enough food for one meal which they share with the cats.

“My older brother, Ezz, and my younger nephew, Hamoud, like to help. Sometimes Hamoud has to walk long distances to find the type of luncheon meat the cats like. They demand the best—standard cat behavior! Kitty supplements her diet with the occasional bird, though I have never seen her catch a mouse.”

Kitty is often thirsty. This is the end of the dry season, and there is little water available on the streets. When Salah brings out a bowl of water, Kitty laps it down as fast as she can.

Salah

Salah feeds and frets about all of the homeless cats the way any animal lover would. When he has the time and money, he buys several cans of potted meat and goes to the areas with an abundance of strays. Dozens of cats come running whenever he calls. It reminds me of a Siamese cat I had as a kid. Every day after school I would stand behind our apartment building and yell out his name: Sudene! Within seconds he would come bounding out of the woods to greet me. Those were the happiest moments of my childhood. In a land where happiness is scarce, those moments mean even more. They help Jana and Nada cope. Salah shows me photographs of them before the war, dressed like pop stars. T-shirts, jeans, and purses. Sunglasses perched atop their heads. Faces decorated with smatterings of lipstick and blush, as they play grown-up. Now here they are in tattered clothes, singing lullabies to kittens in the middle of a genocide. Hush little baby, don’t you cry…sounds soothing no matter what the language.

Like most Palestinians, Salah’s family mimics a feral cat colony full of multiple generations of felines trying to make it in the world. Besides his wife and five daughters, Salah has three brothers and two sisters, each with families of their own. Before October 7th, they all lived on the same block. Now, they live on the ruins of blocks, moving every few months during the forced evacuations, always keeping together. Like the cats he feeds, they live and die in close proximity to each other. And with each bombing, there’s a chance they will all be wiped out.

The cats sense something is wrong when the humans leave the camps. But, unlike stray dogs, they don’t follow. They won’t leave their territories until it’s too late. Only the lucky survive.

Refugees call the cats martyrs when they die. Every innocent creature in their beloved land becomes a martyr when it is murdered. Even their national symbol, the olive tree, is martyred by D9s, Israel’s armored bulldozers.

The cats of Gaza watch our foolishness and folly, as well as our sacrifice and struggle. If they could talk, in between the pets and meows, they would have incredible stories to tell.

Salah’s family has a story too. “My father was killed by the Occupation before the war. He needed surgery abroad, but the Israelis would not allow him to leave. Now my mother, Ummah, is in the same situation.”

Ummah had been injured in a rocket attack. Their neighbor’s house had been blown to pieces and a cinder block fell on her leg, breaking her femur. She spends her days lying on a mattress on the dirt floor, unable to move. Sometimes Salah is able to get medicine for her diabetes. Often she goes without. Medical care in Gaza is limited, especially for adults. Children are more likely to get what little treatment is available. The old are requisitioned to die young. Mothers and fathers are forced to bury, or be buried by, their children. No family in Gaza escapes unscathed.

In the middle of June, after eight months of war, Salah’s tent was burned down by incendiary weapons. The Occupation uses them to scorch the earth and make the land uninhabitable. The family evacuated, with Kitty and her kittens, to the Al-Mawasi/Khan Yunis “humanitarian zone,” where the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) could kill them more efficiently. They had no shelter when they arrived, and for a while, they slept out in the open beneath the stars, too poor to buy a two-hundred-dollar tarp or a thousand-dollar tent.

In mid-July Salah’s twenty-something nephew, Adi, broke his hand running from a missile attack. Now he has to struggle to survive one-handed. No one gets time off to heal. A few days later Salah had to go to the hospital. The salty water they had been drinking gave him a kidney stone. He spent three days at the hospital waiting for the stone to pass, because it was too painful to walk back home. Salah sent me a video of Jana feeding the cats while he was gone, in addition to one of Nada singing for peace in Arabic. Google Translate filled in the main points of the lyrics, even if some of the sentences made no sense. Nada sang to the world, demanding the right to be heard, to play with friends, to be loved by her parents, to have her own home, to go to school, and to live without fear. In response, we pretend they’re all terrorists and encourage Israel to bomb them at taxpayers’ expense. Palestinians use their blood to pay the rent. Remember when the Zionists said, “Never forget!”

On July 24th, Salah’s uncle Ramzi and two of his sons, Diaa and Badr, suffered severe burns in a missile attack. They were taken to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. It has the best care in the Gaza Strip. And that’s a problem, because it’s full, and they’ve run out of supplies. Salah asked me to contact the medical charity I’m friends with, but I doubt they will be able to help.

Badr al-Din Ramzi

Badr dies first. He was only ten years old. Salah sends me a photograph of him playing games on a smartphone. He’s an innocent-looking boy with short black hair and dark brown framed glasses. Ramzi prayed for death when he learned of his son’s passing. His wish was granted a few hours later. Only Diaa survives, facing a long, nightmarish recovery sans skin grafts and painkillers.

Badr’s older brother Ibrahim published a memorial to him on social media: My little brother, a piece of my heart, if it is true to say, you left us, returning to the gardens of eternity, God willing, a martyr and a bird in paradise. You were a full moon that illuminated my life. My words are powerless before you. I regret all the moments that I could not be by your side and the feeling of helplessness that possessed me in your last days, while you told me I would get out of here safely! I, who was your older brother, could not do anything for you in the midst of this cruel war. May God have mercy on you, Badr el-Din.

I told Salah the people at the charity saw my message but never responded.

“Don’t worry,” Salah replied. “God will help us.”

On July 26th, Salah sent me a video of the funeral procession. Orange stretcher, white shroud, mass grave. They do about a hundred ceremonies a day. In this madness, guilt marries shame. Prayers and prostrations can’t overcome pain.

On July 27th, the school adjacent to the area they were camping in was targeted with rockets. Thirty-one died and one-hundred-and-fifty were injured. I suppose God did help Salah—none of the casualties were family or friends.

In the middle of August, Salah’s teenage nephew Qusay had his thumb torn off by shrapnel. His crime? He was shopping with his father. The IDF bombs markets when the refugees have enough food or merchandise to sell.

Later that week, Salah receives flour from friends in Egypt and sends me photographs of it. Even simple things become important life events.

The children get new clothes. Jana, in a black top, white and purple leopard print leggings, and a ponytail, feeds the cats. Nada, clad in a pink dress, hair undone, gives them water. The girls are blessed. How can God deny their entry into Paradise after death?

In early September Salah’s cousin, Dr. Moin Fares Youssef, is killed. He spent fifteen years in Israeli prisons only to be martyred in his own home upon release. There’s a story there, but I never ask Salah what it is. I’ve already learned enough.

As fall begins, Salah sends me a photograph of Kitty nursing four new kittens, eyes unopened. Two orange, one white, and one calico. Someday, when all the wars end and the humans disappear, the cats will still be there: purring and sunning themselves like they’ve always done.

You can find out more about Salah El-Din Youssf at his GoFundMeFacebookTwitter

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Eros Salvatore is a writer and filmmaker living in Bellingham, Washington. They have been published in the journals Anti-Heroin Chic and The Blue Nib among others, and have shown two short films in festivals. They have a BA from Humboldt State University, and a foster daughter who grew up under the Taliban in a tribal area of Pakistan. Read other articles by Eros, or visit Eros's website.

INTERVIEW

What does the EU embezzlement trial mean for Le Pen and the French far right?

Marine Le Pen and other senior figures within France’s far-right National Rally party are standing trial on charges of having embezzled millions in European Parliament funds to finance the party’s own political activities. Marta Lorimer, lecturer in politics at Cardiff University, discusses what the trial could mean for the party’s future – and Le Pen’s own presidential ambitions.

Issued on: 02/10/2024 -

Marine Le Pen, a two-time presidential runner-up, attends her trial in Paris on September 30, 2024. 

© Benoit Tessier, Reuters

By :Paul MILLAR
AFP/FRANCE24

The nine-week trial of Marine Le Pen and her far-right National Rally (RN) party opened in Paris on Monday, promising more than two months of very public scrutiny of the party’s use of European Parliament funds over more than a decade.

Le Pen and more than two dozen figures within the party stand accused of having embezzled millions of euros in European Parliament funding to finance the party’s private political activities, funnelling money meant for parliamentary assistants to instead pay the salaries of party staffers that the cash-strapped RN – previously known as the National Front – was otherwise struggling to afford.

The consequences could be severe. If found guilty, each of the co-defendants could be sentenced to up to a decade in prison, or face fines upwards of a million euros each. Le Pen herself is facing the threat of being barred from running for public office for up to ten years, putting her long-held presidential ambitions in jeopardy.

Le Pen and her co-defendants have repeatedly denied the allegations, saying that the staffers in question were legitimately employed as parliamentary aides. The RN has paid back more than one million euros to the EU parliament, an act that it maintains is in no way an admission of guilt.

10:24





Le Pen has gone head-to-head with French President Emmanuel Macron in the final round of two previous presidential elections, each time inching closer towards the Elysée Palace. With Macron’s public support at an all-time low, the 2027 presidential election is seen by many as Le Pen’s to lose.

The trial – which has been in the making since the allegations were first raised in 2015 – comes at the height of the far-right party’s power. The RN won historic support in the European elections earlier this year, prompting a humiliated Macron to call snap legislative elections in the hopes of catching his rising adversaries off guard.

Instead, the RN handily won the first round of the elections, only to fall to third place in the second round as left-wing and centrist voters backed each other’s candidates where necessary to block the party’s ascent. Although the left-wing New Popular Front coalition holds the most seats in the National Assembly, the RN is now the largest single party in the lower house.

Now, after months of political deadlock, the RN holds the whip hand over the newly formed government of arch-conservative Michel Barnier. The party has threatened to join forces with the left in the National Assembly to topple the fragile government with a no-confidence vote if it strays from their uncompromising anti-immigration agenda.

With the party wielding unprecedented political power within the fractured republic, a highly public embezzlement trial stretching over nine weeks seems like it couldn’t have come at a worse time.

FRANCE 24 spoke with Marta Lorimer, lecturer in politics at Cardiff University and a specialist in far-right movements in France and Italy, about what the trial could mean for the RN’s political ambitions.

FRANCE 24: The opening of this trial comes at a moment when the RN is more influential than it has ever been before, effectively holding the fate of the Barnier government in its hands. What impact, if any, will it have on the party’s ability to pursue its agenda under the new government?

Marta Lorimer: The National Rally is probably not very happy with the timing of this trial – because of the risks associated with it. The absolute worst thing that could happen in this trial is that Le Pen is not able to run – she could be judged ineligible for up to ten years.

I doubt they would go for the ten years, but even if she is declared ineligible for one year, two years, or if she has to appeal the decision, this really puts her in a difficult position for the next legislative elections – presumably happening within the next year – and for the presidential election in 2027, depending on exactly when the ineligibility would start.

So I think that for the party it is absolutely not a great time. Then again, I don’t think there is ever a good time for this kind of trial to hit them.

FRANCE 24: The RN has been consistently critical of the EU and its institutions, painting it as an antidemocratic body of bureaucrats that prevents member states from acting in their own national interests. To what extent does this trial, directly pitting the RN against the EU, play into this narrative, and what are the chances that it increases Le Pen’s support among her broadly eurosceptic base?

Lorimer: I think what’s interesting about this trial of course is that the National Rally is using everything in its power to basically suggest that this is not your standard judiciary trial, but that it is a deeply political one – so that the reason that they are being persecuted is that they are being critical of the European Union.

I don’t know how much that narrative will fly given that the MoDems, which are very pro-EU, faced very similar trials recently. But their base is likely to buy into the narrative that if there is a sanction that is particularly strong, there are political reasons behind that. [Editor’s note: centrist politician François Bayrou was acquitted in February of similar charges of embezzling money meant for parliamentary aides, having pleaded ignorance of the scheme. Eight people among the accused were fined and issued with suspended prison sentences, and the MoDem party was ordered to pay back €350,000]

Read moreHow far to the right? France's new centre-right coalition

And that could actually work against the National Rally. There’s this idea that because some of the new voters it has acquired are more your standard conservatives, more law and order types, they would probably not be particularly happy with a leader who’s been convicted of embezzlement.

But it just seems to me that it’s unlikely to have that effect – I do suspect that the way most supporters of the National Rally will read this is that if it’s true that the National Rally misused EU funds, well, that’s probably good, because we don’t really like the EU. It’s not really a crime if you steal from a criminal.

So I think that might be some of the reading that they get, and that part of it is politically motivated, and that the timing has been set so as to ruin the party. So I think there’s a variety of ways that they can use this to actually stoke even more anger in their political base.

FRANCE 24: We’ve seen these kinds of charges have a serious impact on the political future of French politicians at the national level, such as the fake job scandal involving former French prime minister François Fillon and his wife. How heavily are these charges likely to weigh on the mind of the average French voter?

Lorimer: It seems to me that they are unlikely to weigh particularly heavily on them. With Fillon, it was very easy to see it as “someone rich does something bad”. And that is particularly strong at the national level, something that is felt very strongly.

I think with what the National Rally [allegedly] did, there’s probably going to be some sympathy from its electorate concerning the fact that the reason they did this was partly because the party had no money. But also, they were doing political work, or work that is associated with the party. I mean, their voters didn’t care when they got money from Russia, so that’s the baseline we’re talking about.

But I think the idea is that they were just using a different pot of money to pay for them. And again, if you don’t recognise the authority of the European Union, why would you care if the money isn’t being better spent focusing on your national priorities?

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

UK

Right-Wing Watch

Is the media now the real opposition?

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead 

Yesterday

LEFT FOOT FORWARD


The Conservatives' ability to hold Labour accountable has disappeared down the same rabbit hole as the Party itself. As the Tories struggle with their own identity crisis, the press has stepped up to fill the gap.

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“A honeymoon period will be very, very short. Almost non-existent,” said the former Sun editor David Yelland. Some right-wing newspapers may have briefly endorsed Labour during the election, but Yelland, who led the Sun from 1998 to 2003, warned that these outlets would never truly support Starmer. He stressed that Starmer and his team must understand that the two most influential media groups – News UK and Associated Newspapers, the parent company of the Daily Mail – are not their allies.

This became evident immediately after the election when the Sun – despite Starmer’s efforts to cosy up to the Murdoch press by attending the media mogul’s summer party and visiting the Sun HQ, much to the ire of the left – swiftly issued a challenge to the new prime minister. “Better times? Let’s see them … While we wish Labour luck, we will scrutinise every decision and hold their feet to the fire,” wrote the newspaper the day after the election.

And nine weeks into Labour’s leadership, the newspaper has stayed true to that promise.

On September 16, the Sun attacked Starmer and his wife, accusing them of hypocrisy. In a comment piece, assistant editor Clemmie Moodie criticised them for “private jets, cronyism, and free clothes,” eagerly reviving the familiar “champagne socialist” trope often used against Labour figures perceived as wealthy, or hypocritical because they do not live out a ‘socialist’ life as imagined by the likes of Moodie.

The Daily Mail followed with its own sensational headline: “Starmergeddon, after just 68 days,” accompanied by an image of newly freed prisoners celebrating with champagne. The lead article asked, “Who voted for all this?” implying that the country was already descending into chaos after only two months of Labour governance.

These early and relentless critiques from the right-wing press signal that the media, particularly these powerful newspaper groups, may now be acting as Labour’s most vocal and influential opposition. Of course, we would expect the usual right-wing, Tory-loving media to take aim at the new Labour government, recycling the usual attacks – “Labour’s in the pocket of the unions!”, “they’re lying about the ‘black hole,’” etc. But beyond the predictable criticisms, there’s a growing sense that the media in general is taking on a more central role in opposing the government.

The Conservatives, weakened and navel-gazing after years of internal battles and declining public support, seem to have gone AWOL. Consequently, their ability to hold Labour accountable has disappeared down the same rabbit hole as the Party itself. As the Tories struggle with their own identity crisis, the press has stepped up to fill the gap. Publications like the Mail and Express are driving the narrative, scrutinising every move the government makes, but even traditionally more centrist outlets, like The Times newspapers, seem to have adopted a more mocking tone.

The Sunday Times, like The Sun – both owned by Murdoch’s News UK – had endorsed Labour ahead of the general election. In a June 30 editorial, it stated that the Conservatives had “in effect forfeited the right to govern” and that it was “the right time for Labour to be entrusted with restoring competence to government.”

But post-election, the paper’s coverage of the new Labour government seems more exaggerated and critical. On September 15, the newspaper led with a sensational headline: “Starmer breached rules over clothes that donor gave wife,” plastering it on the front page as if it was a major political scandal. While the allegation that the prime minister violated parliamentary rules by failing to declare clothing donations is indeed a legitimate public interest story, the headline appeared unusually tabloid-like for a publication known for its typically serious and measured tone. It seemed more designed to provoke controversy than to provide a balanced account of the situation.

In a commentary piece the following day, the Times Leader called for Starmer to apologise: “Ministers are demanding painful sacrifices by Britain’s pensioners this winter. For most, there will be no one to buy them a warm coat, let alone a designer one. Sir Keir should apologise.”

But did these newspapers take the same moral stance when Boris Johnson, as prime minister, accepted freebies, including the extravagant renovations to his Downing Street flat? On X, author Peter Osborne highlighted this apparent hypocrisy: “Powerful Times leader. I can’t remember any Times leaders making the same point about Boris Johnson’s free holidays, free meals from donors etc. I can remember the Times suppressing Simon Walters’ story about Johnson wanting to make Carrie Symonds his £100,000 pa chief of staff.”

Even the Financial Times, a reputable and respected publication, appears to be following this broader opposition trend. ‘More than half of Britons disapprove of Labour government, poll finds,’ was a recent headline. Polls are of course a legitimate tool for gauging public opinion and reporting such findings is a standard journalism practice, but the FT’s choice to lead with this particular headline simplifies a complex issue into a negative snapshot of public opinion. This editorial decision may be seen as part of a broader shift, with even traditionally neutral or business-focused outlets like the FT leaning into more critical coverage of the Labour government. Whether this is a conscious choice or not, such coverage can substantially shape public perception, especially when it comes from a publication as influential as the FT.

Farage and the press

As the centrist press adopts a more critical stance in its coverage of Labour, seemingly amplifying more minor issues to undermine Starmer’s leadership, the tabloids appear to be rallying behind Farage.

Following the general election, Yelland cautioned that tabloid coverage might increasingly be influenced by the Reform Party in the months ahead. “Farage says he’s coming for the Labour party. He’ll work with the tabloids to control the agenda,” he said. “Most of the tabloids are at least 50 percent pro-Reform now, if not more. Three areas that the right will push are immigration, what they call ‘the war on woke’, and net zero. The tabloids are going to use these tools of the right to oppose the government.”

Farage has said that he aims to become the “real opposition to a Labour government” in the years ahead, and it seems that the right-wing press may be furthering his ambition. This week, the Express ran a headline: “Keir Starmer issued urgent Farage warning as Labour on ‘far shakier ground’ in Red Wall.” The article references a pollster who claims that Farage’s party may have helped deliver an emphatic Tory wipeout, but it could “spell trouble for Labour’s hopes of re-election.” The piece also quotes Reform UK Chairman Zia Yusuf who told GB News that his party is planning a major push in seats currently held by Labour. With Reform targeting key Labour seats, and media outlets amplifying these threats, Farage and Reform could present a significant challenge to Labour in the years ahead.

The rise of far-right media: Paul Marshall buys the Spectator

As the tabloids shift towards Reform and centrist outlets mock Labour, the far-right media is on the march. GB News, created to challenge mainstream UK media, has become a platform for populist right-wing views, focusing on culture wars and immigration, and attacking what it perceives as a disconnected establishment. In an FT article entitled Why GB News is Angrier than Ever, Henry Mance, the FT’s chief features writer, noted: “GB News hoped to reshape British TV news in a post-Brexit world — to provide an alternative to the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky News, which pride themselves on impartial journalism, but which, to some, are guilty of liberal metropolitan bias. Critics worried it would have the same impact that Fox News did in the US: undermining truth, dragging voters to the right.”

A prominent figure at GB News is Sir Paul Marshall, a hedge fund tycoon, owner of the right-wing news site UnHerd, and a major investor in the channel. Earlier this month, Britain’s media landscape was rocked with the news that Marshall had bought the Spectator, which has always been considered the “house journal” of the Conservative Party, with its editorship often used as a springboard to political prominence, most notably Boris Johnson. The Telegraph remains for sale, and Marshall is believed to be in the running to buy it, as he continues his bid to build an empire of right-wing media outlets. The purchase also led to the dramatic public resignation of the magazine’s chair, Andrew Neil, who expressed concerns that Marshall might not fully grasp the importance of the magazine’s hallmark – editorial independence.

Having been bought by a buyer who has a history of providing a platform for hard-right narratives, where the likes of Lee Anderson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and Esther McVey are let off the leash, there is concern that Marshall’s acquisition of the Spectator and possibly the Telegraph will take the outlets even further to the right. As Guardian columnist Zoe Williams writes in a piece about the Spectator, “You only have to look at GB News, in which Marshall is a major investor, to know exactly what makes Marshall tick, and that his project does not set out to excel in ratings and profits, and its impact can’t be measured in those terms.”

This development could pose a real threat to the Labour Party, as these platforms have the potential to amplify opposition voices and shape public opinion in ways that may undermine Labour’s messaging.

But the media’s rightward shift and its bias in marginalising the left is nothing new. The demonisation of Jeremy Corbyn in the media is perhaps the most glaring example. Research by the London School of Economics (LSE) showed that Corbyn was thoroughly delegitimised from the moment he became a prominent candidate and even more so after he was elected as party leader. According to LSE, this process of delegitimisation occurred in several ways: through a lack of or distortion of voice; through ridicule, scorn, and personal attacks; and association, mainly with terrorism.

“All this raises, in our view, a number of pressing ethical questions regarding the role of the media in a democracy. Certainly, democracies need their media to challenge power and offer robust debate, but when this transgresses into an antagonism that undermines legitimate political voices that dare to contest the current status quo, then it is not democracy that is served,” wrote LSE.

The rise of populist platforms like GB News and Paul Marshall’s growing media empire further consolidates the right’s control over influential outlets, allowing them to set the narrative and fuel opposition against Labour on topics like immigration, cultural issues, and climate policies. The press, emboldened by its own political agendas and less concerned with traditional impartiality, is stepping into the role of a primary opposition force. With the Conservatives weakened, the media has filled the void, and Labour faces an unrelenting barrage of criticism from across the spectrum, suggesting that in today’s political landscape, the media is indeed the real opposition.

Goodness knows what would happen if Labour actually tried to do anything at all radical, or even slightly socialist!

Right-wing media watch – Press fuels absurd claims about Kamala Harris

Deciding whether to have children is a deeply personal choice and no one else’s concern. One would think that this would be universally understood, but recent events suggest otherwise. A grotesque term, the “childless cat lady brigade,” has been doing the rounds, pushed by Republican figures and their media allies.

This phase originated from Senator JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice-presidential nominee. After Donald Trump named Vance as his running mate, an old 2021 interview resurfaced in which Vance claimed the US was being run by “childless cat ladies” like Kamala Harris – women, he said, with no “direct stake” in the country’s future.

The remark understandably sparked outrage among most people, but the right-wing media was quick to defend it. Vance had “meant it as a joke” and that it had been “wilfully misinterpreted by Democrats,” claimed Fox News.

This week, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders joined the vile assault. Sanders previously served as press secretary in the Trump White House. During an event in Detroit with Trump this week, Sanders criticised Harris for not having children of her own, saying: “The most important job I have; the greatest title I have is that of being a mom.” She added, “My kids keep me humble. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.”

In response to the smear, a satirical movement has been gaining momentum, with childless women voicing solidarity with Harris. Taylor Swift, who has three cats but no children, recently endorsed Harris, posting a photo of herself with her cat Benjamin Button and signing it “Childless Cat Lady.”

Right-Wing Media Watch might not have picked up on this grotesque smear had it not been reported by the Daily Mail. The tabloid ran a headline this week that read: “Sarah Huckabee Sanders slams Kamala for not having kids after Taylor Swift joins childless cat lady brigade supporting Harris.”

Sadly, this is just the latest in a series of desperate attacks on the vice president. With Harris’s popularity rising, Trump’s camp seems intent on seizing every opportunity for personal attacks. The ugly ‘childless women’ smear followed unfounded accusations that Harris has a drinking problem. The unsubstantiated rumour was reportedly started by Trump campaign insider James Blair on X.

These childish and slanderous tactics are all too familiar with Trump’s campaigns, despite concerns from Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham, who worry that focusing on personal attacks rather than policy may harm Trump’s election chances.

Most sensible observers can see these smears for what they are, a juvenile attempt to tarnish Harris’s reputation by campaign officials mirroring the impulsive immaturity of their leader

Yet, the Daily Mail couldn’t resist joining in, even reporting the baseless claim that Harris appeared drunk during several public appearances, though they admitted there was no evidence of a drinking problem.

They also dredged up a nearly 30-year-old DUI incident involving Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, Harris’s VP pick, though it had absolutely no relevance to the story.

One might expect more from a national newspaper than digging up irrelevant scandals to stir controversy. But the absurdity doesn’t stop there. The article entertained suggestions that alcohol was to blame for Harris’s so-called “lunatic” laughter and her occasional off-script “word salads,” even pointing to a speech where she repeated the word “democracy” three times in 30 seconds.

A Vice President emphasising democracy in a speech? Surely it would be more concerning if she didn’t?

Smear of the week – From swans to strays – Trump’s baseless immigrant smear echoes absurd right-wing media myths

Do you remember when the Sun sensationally claimed that asylum seekers in London were poaching and eating swans? In July 2003, the newspaper published a story about the disappearance of swans in Beckton, alleging that the police had caught asylum seekers preparing to roast them. After complaints, the paper issued a small clarification, admitting that no arrests had been made. But they stood by claims that locals had accused Eastern European refugees of killing swans for food.

The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) deemed no further action necessary, as the Sun had published a retraction, a decision that was criticised by Presswise, the media ethics charity, as “disgraceful.”

This lack of accountability likely did little to curb right-wingers’ fixation on immigrants and the bizarre notion that they are eating domesticated, or, in this case, protected animals.

Fast forward to today, and this strange narrative has found new life in an even stranger claim from Donald Trump. During his first presidential debate against Kamala Harris, Trump echoed a conspiracy theory promoted by his running mate, J.D. Vance, (him again) stating that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating cats and dogs.

Kamala Harris wasn’t the only one left bewildered by Trump’s comments, anyone watching with a hint of normalcy was similarly stunned. The jokes and memes quickly flooded the internet. A parody song by the South African musician David Scott mocking the former president’s outrageous claim went viral. A video, entitled “Eating the Cats” by Scott’s band Kiffness, used an edited audio clip of Trump’s viral comment, composed in a Reggaeton-beat style. In the satirical song, Scott urges the people of Springfield not to eat his cat and dog and suggests alternative food options.

A flurry of Bart Simpson memes did the rounds. The BBC’s Have I Got News For You X account shared an image of Homer Simpson and his dog writing: “US Presidential debate: After Trump claims people in Springfield are eating dogs, there’s concern about where he’s been getting his news from.”

Jokes aside, just as the Sun’s nonsensical swan story showcased a low point in media accountability, Trump’s baseless claims show how far political discourse has strayed from serious, substantive issues.

It’s a sad commentary on the current state of politics, where misinformation and sensationalism overshadow meaningful discussion.



Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch

SPACE

Meet Phaethon, a weird asteroid that thinks it’s a comet

The Conversation
September 3, 2024 

This curious rock orbits within 20 million miles of our Sun. Science Photo Library/Alamy

What’s the difference between an asteroid and a comet? A comet is basically a dirty iceball composed of rock and ice. The classic image is of a bright “star” in the night sky with a long curved tail extending into space. This is what happens when they approach the Sun and start emitting gases and releasing dust. It normally continues until there’s nothing left but rock or until they fragment into dust.

Asteroids, on the other hand, are primarily just rocks. They might conjure up notions of Hans Solo steering the Millennium Falcon through an implausibly dense “asteroid field” to escape a swarm of TIE Fighters, but mostly they just quietly orbit the Sun, minding their own business.

Yet these two space objects are not always as mutually exclusive as this would suggest. Let me introduce Phaethon, a “rock comet” that blurs the definitions between asteroid and comet, and let me tell you why it will be worth paying attention to this fascinating object in the coming years.

Phaethon was discovered by chance in 1983 by two astronomers at the University of Leicester, Simon Green and John Davies. They came across it orbiting the Sun while analysing images collected by a space telescope called the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (Iras). Soon after, other astronomers recognised that Phaethon is the source of the annual Geminid meteor shower – one of the brightest meteor displays in Earth’s calendar.

Every December, as our planet crosses the dusty trail left behind by Phaethon, we are treated to a brilliant spectacle as its dust grains burn up in our atmosphere. Yet Phaethon’s behaviour is unlike that of any other objects responsible for a meteor shower.

Unlike typical comets that shed substantial amounts of dust when they heat up near the Sun, Phaethon doesn’t seem to be releasing enough dust today to account for the Geminids. This absence of significant dust emissions generates an interesting problem.

Phaethon’s orbit brings it extremely close to the Sun, much closer than Mercury, our innermost planet. At its closest approach (termed perihelion), its surface temperature reaches extremes of around 730°C.

You would expect such intense heat to strip away any volatile materials that exist on Phaethon’s surface. This should either expose fresh, unheated layers and shed huge volumes of dust and gas each time it passes close to the Sun, or form a barren crust that protects the volatile-rich interior from further heating, leading to an absence of gas or dust release.

Neither of these processes seem to be occurring, however. Instead, Phaethon continues to exhibit comet-like activity, emitting gas but not an accompanying dust cloud. It’s therefore not shedding layers, so the mystery is why the same crust can still emit volatile gases each time it is heated by the Sun.

Our experiment

I led newly published research aimed at addressing this puzzle by simulating the intense solar heating that Phaethon experiences during its perihelion.

We used chips from a rare group of meteorites called the CM chondrites, which contain clays that are believed to be similar to Phaethon’s composition. These were heated in an oxygen-free environment multiple times, simulating the hot-cold/day-night cycles that occur on Phaethon when it is close to the Sun.

The results were surprising. Unlike other volatile substances that would typically be lost after a few heating cycles, the small quantities of sulfurous gases contained in the meteorites were released slowly, over many cycles.

This suggests that even after numerous close passes by the Sun, Phaethon still has enough gas to generate comet-like activity during each perihelion.

But how might this work? Our theory is that when Phaethon’s surface heats up, iron sulphide minerals held in its subsurface break down into gases, such as sulphur dioxide. However, because the surface layers of Phaethon are relatively impermeable, these gases cannot escape quickly. Instead, they accumulate beneath the surface, for example in pore spaces and cracks.

As Phaethon rotates, which takes just under four hours, day turns to night and the subsurface cools. Some of the trapped gases are able to “back-react” to form a new generation of compounds. When night turns to day again and heating restarts, these decompose and the cycle repeats.

Why this matters

These findings are not just academic but have implications for the Japanese Space Agency (Jaxa)‘s Destiny+ mission, set to launch later this decade. This space probe will fly past Phaethon and study it using two multispectral cameras and a dust analyzer. It will hopefully gather particles that will provide further clues about the composition of this enigmatic object.

How Destiny+ will visit Phaethon:

Either way, our research team’s theory of Phaethon’s gas-emission processes will be crucial for interpreting the data. If we are proven right, it will redefine how scientists think about solar heating as a geological process by making it relevant not only to comets but also to asteroids.

Crucially, Phaethon is not alone. There are about 95 asteroids that pass within 0.20 astronomical units (nearly 19 million miles) of the Sun. Whatever we learn from Phaethon could offer insights into their behaviour and long-term stability, too.

Finally, you may be wondering how all this relates to the Geminid meteor shower. Most likely, Phaethon was emitting dust many years ago. This would have produced the debris band that creates the Geminid shower each time the particles come into contact with Earth’s atmosphere. When we talk about gifts that keep on giving, it’s hard to think of a better example.

Martin D. Suttle, Lecturer in Planetary Science, The Open University

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

Old satellite to burn up over Pacific in ‘targeted’ re-entry first

By AFP
September 6, 2024

An artist's illustrtaion of the Cluster satellite mission to study Earth's magentic field - Copyright EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY/AFP/File Anne RENAUT
Bénédicte REY

After 24 years diligently studying Earth’s magnetic field, a satellite will mostly burn up over the Pacific Ocean on Sunday during a “targeted” re-entry into the atmosphere, in a first for the European Space Agency as it seeks to reduce space debris.

Since launching in 2000, the Salsa satellite has helped shed light on the magnetosphere, the powerful magnetic shield that protects Earth from solar winds — and without which the planet would be uninhabitable.

According to the ESA, Salsa’s return home will mark the first-ever “targeted” re-entry for a satellite, which means it will fall back to Earth at a specific time and place but will not be controlled as it re-enters the atmosphere.

Teams on the ground have already performed a series of manoeuvres with the 550-kilogram (1,200-pound) satellite to ensure it burns up over a remote and uninhabited region of the South Pacific, off the coast of Chile.

This unique re-entry is possible because of Salsa’s unusual oval-shaped orbit. During its swing around the planet, which takes two and half days, the satellite strays as far as 130,000 kilometres (80,000 miles), and comes as close as just a few hundred kilometres.

Bruno Sousa, head of the ESA’s inner solar system missions operations unit, said it had been crucial that Salsa came within roughly 110 kilometres during its last two orbits.

“Then immediately on the next orbit, it would come down at 80 kilometres, which is the region in space already within the atmosphere, where we have the highest chance (for it) to be fully captured and burned,” he told a press conference.

When a satellite starts entering the atmosphere at around 100 kilometres above sea level, intense friction with atmospheric particles — and the heat this causes — starts making them disintegrate.

But some fragments can still make it back down to Earth.

– Fear of ‘cascading’ space junk –

The ESA is hoping to pinpoint where Salsa, roughly the size of a small car, re-enters the atmosphere to within a few hundred metres.

Because the satellite is so old, it does not have fancy new tech — like a recording device — making tracking this part tricky.

A plane will be flying at an altitude of 10 kilometres to watch the satellite burn up — and track its falling debris, which is expected to be just 10 percent of its original mass.

Salsa is just one of four satellites that make up the ESA’s Cluster mission, which is coming to an end. The other three are scheduled for a similar fate in 2025 and 2026.

The ESA hopes to learn from these re-entries which type of materials do not burn up in the atmosphere, so that “in the future we can build satellites that can be totally evaporated by this process,” Sousa said.

Scientists have been sounding the alarm about space junk, which is the debris left by the enormous number of dead satellites and other missions that continue orbiting our planet.

Last year the ESA signed a “zero debris” charter for its missions from 2030.

There are two main risks from space junk, according to the ESA’s space debris system engineer Benjamin Bastida Virgili.

“One is that in orbit, you have the risk that your operational satellite collides with a piece of space debris, and that creates a cascading effect and generates more debris, which would then put in risk other missions,” he said.

The second comes when the old debris re-enters the atmosphere, which happens almost daily as dead satellite fragments or rocket parts fall back to Earth.

Designing satellites that completely burn up in the atmosphere will mean there is “no risk for the population,” Bastida Virgili emphasised.

But there is little cause for alarm. According to the ESA, the chance of a piece of space debris injuring someone on the ground is less than one in a hundred billion.

This is 65,000 times lower than the odds of being struck by lightning.

Bay Area Reds

by Paul Buhle

 August 1, 2024
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Image Source: Cover art for the book “San Francisco Reds” by Robert W. Cherny

The story of the US Left has been pretty much ups and downs, more downs than ups, something hardly surprising in world capitalism’s leading nation with a working class historically divided by race and ethnicity. Among the most startling cases is surely the California Story. Where else would a leading revolutionary of the 1880s also be a leader of the anti-Chinese movement (in San Francisco) and soon, the savant of a utopian colony in the Redwoods? Where else would a millionaire socialist, that is to say Gaylord Wilshire, publish a popular leftwing magazine and get a major city street named after him? And so on.

The California Socialist Party of pre-1920 days elected mayors, guided at least some craft unions, had quite a following among displaced Yankees and a scattering of ethnic groups. The rough conditions of what would one day become known as the Left Coast meanwhile prompted IWW-like, semi-anarchist labor activism. It is a bitter irony that Communists, the successor to all this, could not find their way until the middle 1930s, and that a major portion of the early failure falls upon their own blunders and those of Communists far away. In the end, they built quite a movement but not much of a Communist Party proper. There may be a moral here.

Robert Charny’s new book, San Franciso Reds: Communists in the Bay Area, 1919-1958, is narrowly cast around the CP structure, membership, tactics and projects. If the framework of this wonderful study leaves out much, it nevertheless offers insights in abundance. Research on personalities, some of it from the Moscow files recovered only in recent decades, is rich and dense. He offers a close look at people widely known, including LA leader Dorothy Healy and not-quite-communist ILWU champion Harry Bridges, about whom Cherny’s own biography is an outstanding contribution. He also offers a view of many Communists hardly known at all.

In doing so, he strays from the Bay Area of the book’s title across California, often usefully, albeit sometimes arguably stretching the narrative too thin. There is or could be so much more to say about the State party. Communist Hollywoodites, actors, writers and others once the source of damning headlines, play no role here, for instance. Missed here, most of all, is the way in which the Popular Front enabled a movement to grow far beyond its presumed natural borders.

One large insight hides behind the text and is not quite properly Charney’s subject at all: how different things were for the Left, East of California.  Repression hit everywhere during the First World War. The Wobblies were practically if not entirely wiped out by violent raids on their headquarters and arrests of their leaders. Socialist newspapers were banned by the neat trick of removing their mailing permits. That some erstwhile socialists joined in the global crusade of Woodrow Wilson, all but urging the repression of their erstwhile comrades,  did not help matters.

By contrast, in mostly but not entirely urban parts of the East and parts of the midwest,  immigrant groups especially but not only from Eastern and Southern Europe would bounce back strong in the 1920s, their newspapers and networks transferred from Socialist to Communist without much disruption. In factory neighborhoods where blue collar populations walked to work, the ethnic clubs built support through services, family entertainment and hopes for unionization. In New York but not only there, Leftwing Yiddish culture in the golden age of “Yiddish Broadway” prompted a vast network of leftish activities, speaking or singing to a population facing severe anti-Semitism. Calfornia was not so lucky.

The Syndicalism Acts of California in 1921, aimed at an IWW already repressed but with capabilities in agriculture, also hit the new Communist movement hard. The small collections of Communists, barely emerging from the 1919 spit in the Socialist Party, limped into the internecine wars of competing communist factions (not to mention the work of Bureau of Investigation operatives), and damaged themselves badly. The further sectarian impulse to separate Communists from the “merely” but often popular reformist socialists successfully separated them from a populistic sentiment symbolized in radical novelist Upton Sinclair. Later on, that bitter opposition cost them dearly.

From another angle, the New York leadership of the Communist Party repeated the lack of insight shown by the leadership of the earlier Socialist Party, from their Chicago headquarters, and for that matter the  New Left, Trotskyist and Maoist small-scale organizations later on. None could quite grasp the need for different approaches and the vast political opportunities in the complex and contradictory California scene. All expressed degrees of frustration, as if California leftists just couldn’t see what needed to be done.

Cherny beautifully explains the flawed, worse than flawed, internal logic of the CP toward its California faithful in the 1920s to the early 1930s and this takes up the first three chapters of the book. They could not win for losing, and every new opportunty seemed to present a lost opportunity. An elderly Communist explained to me, in the later 1970s, that after the Trotskyist and Lovestoneite (“Left” and “Right” so called deviations) had been expelled at the end of the 1920s, factionalism repeated itself as personality versus personality within the leadership, and this was abundantly clear when local and regional Communists tried to climb back from failed efforts.

In the California case, it was possible to rally large numbers behind Robert La Follette in 1924, but the national leaders went a different direction. By the early 1930s, California Communists launched major defense campaigns for imprisoned unionists, drawing in young actor James Cagney among others, but could not manage to create a “front.” Any more than they hold onto the Mexican-American agricultural workers, who had last supported the Wobbly efforts to organize them.

By mid-book, Cherny moves onward to the Popular Front years or rather to 1934, anticipating the Party’s golden age. The San Francisco “General” Strike, which effectively brought the Longshoremen from relative isolation into a union of great influence and Harry Bridges from obscurity to global fame, marked a turn in more ways than Communists abroad could easily grasp. Bridges himself sturdily denied affiliation with the CP, and it was as an influence within the ILWU (some would say control, others would say that local leadership could never be categorized in this fashion) that the Left moved forward. Membership did not surge forward in the expected European Communist fashion. Men and women in the Bay Area and far beyond, buillding the ILWU all the way to Canada and Hawaii, would fight to the point of laying down their lives and yet feel no urge to join (more likely, to stay in) a Communist organization.

That the same 1934 marked the CP’s running a candidate against Upton Sinclair marked a foolishness not repeated until 1948, when the CP seemed to have little  room to manuever. In between, especially through the unions but also in related campaigns of all kinds, including the brave support of racial minorities, the Party filled in many of its gaps of influence on labor and liberalism. Characteristic but not much discussed here is the Peoples Daily World, more lively, with better prose and illustrations, than the Daily Worker back in New York. Or consider the National Union of Marine Cooks and Stewards, the most openly gay union in the CIO and the most obviously Red, allied closely to the ILWU. Nothing in global Communist movements could have predicted this.

Or for that matter, the Communist chicken-farmers around Petaluma, north of San Francisco, rushing to help striking Mexican-American workers and risking their own livelihoods. As repression struck, they fell back upon their own Yiddish-based communal culture of music and literature, recalling the ghetto struggles a world and half a century away in Eastern Europe.

Leftwing Californians had some great human material to work with, including a dedicated cadre of screenwriters, a handful of them future Oscar winners, but also a wide-ranging and often unexpected cadre of members and supporters. A section of the middle class, Yankee and Jewish, had mostly held back from the CP until the Popular Front and then entered full flush. Fundraisers could be held in Charlie Chaplin’s mansion with Lucille Ball welcoming guests including plenty of high profile actors, labor leaders and liberal politicians. We can wince today at Ring Lardner’s quip that the CP had the smartest intellectuals and the prettiest girls in Hollywood, noting the “girls” were smart and active and given to asserting their own rights.

Cherny points to the repressive power of California conservaties and the State taking swift action at any sign of weakness. Following years of anti-fascist agitation, the CP entered isolationism 1939-41 and lost a lot of its support—regaining most of it, and more, after Pearl Harbor. But HUAC investigations, already begun in the “Pact Period,” would be back soon and more deadly than ever. That the Congressional “investigating” comittees were openly anti-Semitic helped discredit reactionary claims in advance, but future California politicians, greatly aided by the FBI (Ronald Reagan’s own brother was an agent), had already set a trap that Communists and their allies could hardly evade.

For my taste, writing as a social historian, the Party history pre-1945 is rather too thin in seven chapters, the history 1945-58 arguably too thick in the final two. So much social history exists in the former, so little in the latter, especially after 1948, when the California CP, like its national counterpart, pretty much falls apart. And yet even here, the ILWU as anti-racist unionism across California, the return of Communist veterans (perhaps no longer party members) to assisting the organization of farm workers, and the role of Communist-influenced Democrats in the California state legislature as well as local offices—all this “counted,” if not in CP terms.

Cherny is at his strongest when he offers insights from the personal angle, much about what leaving a hectic political life for a personal life meant. A recognition that the glorious era of the CP was really over, certainly, but also a sense, insufficiently expressed here, that the country had changed. The unionized part of working class had established a certain status, at least for a generation. Consumer goods, inexpensive automobiles, even blue collar suburbs could allow depoliticized leftwingers feel as if they could live “normal” lives, especially when FBI harassment had done its career-worst and left them alone.

The links with the movements of the 1960s-70s might have been developed suggestively, although this could logically be part of another book. A curious bit of research into the youth culture scene of LA during the 1960s has turned up nightclubs owned by savvy former CPers. Others of the fading generations hit the streets all the way up to Santa Cruz, where hundreds relocated in the 1970s-80s, leafletting and agitating for political and environmental causes as long as their legs could hold them.

Some of the many oldtimers still around, Japanese-American Communist Karl Yonenda most notably, became the subject of great admiration, considered kindly grandfathers and grandmoothers to the new generation, offering contacts, sympathetic advice and assistance. Another might become the documentary photographer of the Vietnam Day Committee in San Francisco, Harvey Richards, capturing demonstrations when the commercial press had not caught up (or not been allowed to catch up) with the new mass movements. Perhaps more than any other sector, aged Communists of color met up successfully with young activists in every possible venue, explaining things that had never been well understood within the “white” Left.

All that said: a good book, a necessary book.

Paul Buhle is a retired historian, and co-founder, with Scott Molloy, of an oral history project on blue collar Rhode Islanders.