South Korea's record-breaking Olympic archer fought sexism from day one

Issued on: 01/08/2021 - 

TRIFECTA  An San won three gold medals in Tokyo 

ADEK BERRY AFP/File

Tokyo (AFP)

South Korea's An San was ice-cool as she defied online sexist abuse to seal a hat-trick of gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics, but the ace archer has been fighting discrimination since she was a child.

An's three golds in three archery events -- in mixed teams, women's teams and individual, while also smashing a 25-year-old Olympic record -- wrote her into the history books.

She is the first South Korean to win more than two medals in a single Summer Games. She is also the first woman since 1904 to win three golds in archery at the same Olympics.

Not bad for someone who only turned 20 in February, was competing at the Olympics for the first time and was once told to move schools if she wanted to do archery as a girl.

When An first made headlines last week it was not just because of her startling achievements in Tokyo.

Rather, it was because she was on the end of online abuse from some South Korean men about her short hair, which in turn triggered an outpouring of support from women infuriated at her treatment.

An's male detractors said her hairstyle suggested she was a feminist and some demanded that she apologise -- and even give back her Olympic medals.

But she brushed off the online hate to win gold number three on Friday, this time in a last-gasp shootoff in the individual category.

In a statement, she said she "tried not to care" and instead focus on her sport.

The archers' heart rates, broadcast for the first time at an Olympics, showed An's peaked at 119 beats per minute -- far below the 167 bpm of her Russian opponent Elena Osipova.

It was more evidence of An's remarkable calm under pressure, but she admitted afterwards: "When it was all over, I felt like my heart was going to explode."

- 'Boys only' -

An's journey to the top has been far from easy.

She started archery in primary school, initially because -- according to reports in South Korea -- it came with the offer of free fried chicken.

The school team, newly formed at the time, was only for boys, but the young An insisted she also wanted to learn.

At first, the school principal advised her to move to another school if she wanted to do archery, coach Kim Seong-eun told South Korean radio.

But An would not cave in and eventually the school founded an archery team for girls because of her, said Kim.

The team is still going strong to this day, a legacy of An's refusal to take "no" for an answer.

Kim said that An is usually "very cheerful and has a funny sense of humour", but becomes extremely composed -- and even cold -- when competing.

In 2018, while still in high school, An told a TV reporter that she hoped to become an athlete well known by everyone, "including those who don't know about sports at all", on a par with South Korea's Olympic champion figure skater Kim Yuna.

"It looks like San's wish has come true today," her tearful mother, Koo Myung-soon, said after watching her daughter collect her third gold on television.

© 2021 AFP

APARTHEID STATE COLONIALISM = DEATH
Israeli forces kill Palestinian during West Bank funeral protest

Israeli troops shoot dead Shawkat Awad, 20, during the funeral of a Palestinian boy killed by army fire the previous day.

Palestinians carry the body of Mohammed al-Alami, 12, during his funeral in the village of Beit Ummar, near the West Bank city of Hebron, Thursday, July 29, 2021 [Majdi Mohammed/AP]

30 Jul 2021

Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian man in a protest that erupted on Thursday during the funeral of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy shot dead by soldiers a day earlier, the Palestinian health ministry said.

“Shawkat Khalid Awad, 20, died of gunshot wounds to the head and stomach in Beit Ummar,” the Palestinian health ministry said.
KEEP READINGIsraeli army kills Palestinian boy in West Bank: Ministry‘Shocking’: South Africa slams Israel’s AU observer statusIsraeli forces kill Palestinian man in occupied West Bank

Israeli soldiers fired tear gas, rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades at Palestinians attending the funeral procession of Mohammed al-Alami, 12, a Palestinian boy killed the day before in the occupied West Bank.

Alami died on Wednesday after being shot by Israeli soldiers while travelling in a car with his father in the occupied West Bank town of Beit Ummar northwest of Hebron, Palestinian authorities said

.

A masked Palestinian protester shoots in the air following the funeral of Mohammed al-Alaminear the West Bank city of Hebron [Majdi Mohammed/AP]

Videos shared on social media showed the town’s streets trashed with debris and stones following the confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli forces.

Israel investigating the shooting

Nasri Sabarneh, mayor of the town, said on Wednesday that the father was driving with his son and daughter when Mohammed asked him to stop at a shop to buy something.



The father made a U-turn, the mayor said, and Israeli troops nearby began shouting at him to stop. A soldier then opened fire at the vehicle, fatally shooting the boy in the chest.

Sabarneh said he knows the family, who lives in town, and had spoken to the father. The father and daughter were not hurt, he said.

Palestinians clash with Israeli security forces following the funeral of al-Alami, 12, in the village of Beit Ummar, near the West Bank city of Hebron [Majdi Mohammed/AP]

“They took my heart from me, they snatched it from me,” the boy’s father told Haaretz.

Earlier, the Israeli military said it launched an investigation into Wednesday’s deadly shooting of the boy.

A military statement said that senior commanding officers and military police – which investigate suspected misconduct by troops – were also looking into the incident. It said soldiers fired at a car that failed to stop at a checkpoint after they fired warning shots.

“After the vehicle did not stop, one of the soldiers fired towards the vehicle’s wheels in order to stop it,” the army said.

“We are looking into the claim that a Palestinian minor was killed as a result of the gunfire,” it said, adding the incident was being reviewed by senior commanding officers.

Alami was the second young Palestinian killed by Israeli fire in days, after 17-year-old Mohammed Munir al-Tamimi died on Saturday of gunshot wounds suffered the day before in the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh, northwest of Ramallah.

And late on Tuesday, a 41-year-old Palestinian man was shot dead, also near Beita, the Palestinian health ministry said.

All Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank are regarded as illegal by most of the international community.

Portland protesters say, ‘Donut cross our picket line’

By Lyn Neeley posted on July 30, 2021

Portland, Ore.

Over 100 workers protested in front of Portland’s Voodoo Doughnuts July 30 for the illegal firing of 11 workers. Joining the picket line were workers representing over half a dozen unions and coming from as far away as Seattle.

July 30 protest. WW PHOTO: Jim Wallace

Workers demonstrate in front of Voodoo Doughnuts. Early this month, when Portland’s record-breaking temperatures hit 116 F, many businesses closed due to unsafe working conditions. But Voodoo Doughnut  workers were expected to keep working inside the kitchen with weak air-conditioning, large southwest-facing windows and deep fryers boiling.

The workers said on their Facebook page that the temperature at the shop was so high that customers stepped inside and immediately departed. “The doughnuts themselves melt in the heat, as the frosting never fully dries.”

When some of the workers started to pass out and show signs of heat exhaustion, the manager told them, “If you’re too hot, you can go home.” (tinyurl.com/9rt5jvk2)

Thirteen workers left for two days until temperatures lowered towards 100 F. But when they returned, 11 of them were fired, some of whom she knew were union organizers.

The workers formed Doughnut Workers United in March of last year, but have not been formally recognized by Voodoo’s corporate office. The union is affiliated with the Portland chapter of Industrial Workers of the World and gets support from Teamsters Local 225. They have filed complaints with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Oregon State Bureau of Labor and Industries and the National Labor Relations Board, for unlawful retaliation for an unsafe work refusal.

Voodoo doughnut has locations in 11 cities including Orlando, Houston, Hollywood and Denver.  Mark Medina with IWW told WW: “There were demonstrations in support of the Portland Voodoo Donut wokers in Los Angeles, Houston and Austin, Texas and Eugene, Oregon.”

 

Thousands of Argentinians condemn US blockade against Cuba

 

Buenos Aires, Jul 31 (Prensa Latina) More than 3,000 Argentinians, including several prominent figures, have so far endorsed a document that condemns the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States on Cuba.

The call, made by the Space for Memory Institute, was delivered to Cuban Ambassador to Argentina Pedro Pablo Prada and has been supported by figures such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo- Founding Line leader Nora Cortiñas, intellectuals Stella Calloni and Luisa Valenzuela, and filmmaker Lita Stantic.

The Institute emphasizes that the unilateral blockade that Washington has imposed on Cuba becomes pressing in the face of the terrible pandemic that is hitting humanity. This policy condemns that sister nation to live in with suffering and hardships, as it prevents the arrivals of essential food and medicine, violating international law, the text stated.

On Friday, many of its promoters participated in a virtual meeting with the Cuban ambassador and exchanged reflections on the current reality. They also presented some proposals that are being debated in several forums in the region to carry out social and legal actions of solidarity.

In the document, which adds more and more support, the Institute highlights that the Cuban Revolution implied access to fundamental rights, especially health and education, of millions of people excluded by poverty, which has allowed to reach an exceptional level of development in science as the Covid-19 vaccines that Cuba has developed showed.

In addition, the document adds, Cuba has been an example of solidarity with all peoples of the world and that is why it has been a permanent victim of harassment by the empire, which always had in its sights the destruction of its sovereignty and independence.

The signatures include a spectrum from the world of politics, culture, human rights referents, union, social, university, religious leaders, territorial movements, professionals, writers, journalists, artists and citizens who have expressed their support for the Cuban people.

jg/iff/jha/may

Ronald Sanders | Using the OAS to promote discord over Cuba

Published:Saturday | July 31, 2021 
JAMAICA GLEANER

Contributed Sir Ronald Sanders

Much has been written about a meeting, convoked by the present chair of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS), to discuss “the situation in Cuba” which he was obliged to defer after objections by several member states.

The present chair is the ambassador of Uruguay, Abdala Washington. He convoked the meeting on July 26 to be held at 10 a.m. on July 28. While the chair has the authority to convene a meeting of the Permanent Council, it is unusual that he did so without consulting member states. After all, he expected member states to participate in a meeting on a subject matter on which he decided; the least he might have done was to consult with the coordinators of the regional members of the OAS to determine their views. This is a normal practice on any matters that would obviously be controversial.

In any event, no consultation was held, and OAS member states were surprised to be given less than 48 hours to discuss Cuba which had not participated in the OAS since 1961, when it was suspended by a general assembly of the OAS. It should be noted that, apart from Haiti, no CARICOM member state was a member of the OAS when that suspension occurred. Heading countries that voted for the 1961 suspension were such notorious figures as Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay, Nicaragua’s Anastasio Somoza and François ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier in Haiti.

Since the 1961 suspension, Cuba had been discussed by the OAS only once. It was in June 2009 when the general assembly decided to lift the suspension at its own volition; Cuba had not requested its lifting.

The 2009 resolution itself stated that “the participation of the Republic of Cuba in the OAS will be the result of a process of dialogue initiated at the request of the Government of Cuba”. Cuba’s response was that it had no interest in participation in the OAS.

NO PRODUCTIVE OUTCOME

The de facto position, therefore, is that Cuba has not been a participating member of the OAS for 60 years and has no wish to be a member. A sudden, unexplained decision to discuss Cuba in the Permanent Council troubled member states who could see no productive outcome from it. Indeed, if anything, such a discussion was considered to be harmful to diplomatic efforts to try to improve relations between the US and Cuba, which was one of President Biden’s undertakings during his campaign to be elected President.

Further, on the same day that the chair of the OAS Permanent Council issued his unexpected convocation of the meeting to discuss Cuba, CARICOM heads of government had written to President Biden saying that they were “troubled by the circumstances in Cuba”, referring to protests that had taken place on July 11. They attributed the protests to the 61-year-old US trade embargo, punitive measures imposed by the Trump administration, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. They said: “All of this, together with threats to its national security, have contributed to placing Cuba in conditions of abnormality in which normal criteria and expectation cannot be applied.” They called on President Biden to lift the embargo “so that all the rights to which the Cuban state and its people are entitled can be respected and upheld”, and they recalled that “under a previous US administration of which you were a part, significant strides were made in this direction, and could be advanced to beneficial effect”.

Passing strange was an email sent to many OAS delegations by an organisation called “Youth and Democracy in the Americas”, formed by Venezuelan nationals with help from the OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro. Curiously, this organisation told OAS ambassadors on July 27 that it had “presented a petition to the secretary general of the OAS, Dr Luis Almagro and subsequently our President Cecilia Navas met with the president of the Permanent Council of the OAS and also Uruguayan ambassador, Washington Abdala, to request an extraordinary session to discuss the serious humanitarian situation suffered by our Cuban brothers and sisters and the dangers facing democracy in the Republic of Cuba”. They went on to say, “in view of the fact that the Permanent Council of the OAS has accepted our request and has convened a special session for tomorrow, July 28, with the situation in Cuba as its central theme, we therefore request your participation…”. It was evident from this email message that the chair of the Permanent Council and the secretary general had accepted and consulted with an external group that has a specific political agenda, and not with member states of the OAS, on the holding of a meeting to discuss Cuba. A very odd way to behave, causing more questions to be raised concerning the motives for the meeting.

RECONSIDER

Thirteen CARICOM countries formally urged the chair to reconsider holding the meeting. I was authorised by those delegations to send the letter in my capacity as coordinator of the CARICOM group. Several other countries sent similar letters, and for fear of calling a meeting for which there would be no quorum, the chair decided to defer the meeting, pending an opinion from the legal department of the OAS Secretariat, which is answerable to the secretary general and routinely produces opinions consistent with his views.

The legal opinion has now been produced and, predictably, it concludes that the Permanent Council has “the competence to consider the situation in Cuba” because since Cuba never formally withdrew from the organisation, it remains a member notwithstanding its publicly stated position that it has no interest in participating in it. It seems membership can be conveniently forced on the unwilling.

No possible useful purpose will be served by any meeting to discuss Cuba. The OAS can enforce nothing on it. Any discussion could only satisfy political hawks with an eye on US mid-term elections, where winning South Florida with the backing of Cuban exiles would be a prize. The task of the OAS should be to promote peaceful and cooperative relations in the hemisphere, not to feed division and conflict.

Sir Ronald Sanders is Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador to the US and the OAS. He is also a senior fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London and at Massey College in the University of Toronto. The views expressed are entirely his own. For responses and previous commentaries, log on to www.sirronaldsanders.com

FALLING RATE OF PROFIT

AstraZeneca Lost Money on COVID-19 Vaccine in First Half of 2021

AstraZeneca said losses on Vaxzevria were the main factor that shaved seven percentage points off its Reported Gross Profit Margin, which fell to 73.5 percent in the first half of the year.

July 30, 2021 

This story originally appeared on The Epoch Times

AstraZeneca, which pledged to provide its COVID-19 vaccine at no profit for the duration of the pandemic, said Thursday that losses in the first half of the year on its vaccine shaved 4 cents off the pharmaceutical giant’s earnings per share.

Sales of Vaxzevria, the company’s COVID-19 vaccine, generated $1.17 billion in revenue during the first six months of the year, including $894 million in the second quarter, according to AstraZeneca’s earnings report, released on July 29.

But while these revenues narrowed AstraZeneca’s hit from offering the COVID-19 vaccine at no profit, the company said losses on Vaxzevria were the main factor that shaved seven percentage points off its Reported Gross Profit Margin, which fell to 73.5 percent in the first half of the year.

“The performance predominantly reflected the significant impact of the equitable supply, at no profit to AstraZeneca, of the pandemic COVID-19 vaccine, together with an increasing impact from profit-sharing arrangements,” AstraZeneca said in the report.

AstraZeneca said losses on Vaxzevria shaved three cents off earnings per share in the first quarter, and one cent in the second quarter. According to a Wall Street Journal analysis, AstraZeneca lost $40 million on its COVID-19 vaccine in the first quarter, and $13 million in the second quarter.

The company reported a net profit in the second quarter of $550 million, missing the Factset consensus forecast of $1.19 billion. AstraZeneca’s net profit in the second quarter of 2020 came in at $756 million.

At the same time, net profit in the first half of 2021 came in at $2.1 billion, 42 percent higher than $1.5 billion in the first half of last year.

“AstraZeneca has delivered another period of strong growth thanks to robust performances across all regions and disease areas,” said AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot, in a statement commenting on the results.

On Thursday, AstraZeneca said it intends to seek U.S. approval for its COVID-19 vaccine later this year. The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker said the application has been delayed because the company decided to ask the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for full regulatory approval, rather than the fast-track emergency use authorization.

Among the concerns AstraZeneca will have to address are reports that the vaccine may be linked to rare blood clots, which have caused some countries to limit its use in younger people.

AstraZeneca has promoted its relatively cheap, easy-to-handle shot as a “vaccine for the world” and has already received authorization from more than 170 countries. The company said it provided about 90 percent of the doses distributed by the COVAX facility for low- and middle-income countries in the first half of the year.

AstraZeneca is the second drugmaker to say it has delivered more than 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine globally, following Pfizer’s announcement on Wednesday.

By Tom Ozimek
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A week ago Media Matters identified hundreds of anti-vaccine Facebook groups. Most of those groups are still active.

Molly Butler / Media Matters

Facebook’s inaction against anti-vaccine groups is part of the platform's pattern of refusing to combat COVID-19 vaccine misinformation

WRITTEN BY KAYLA GOGARTY

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM CARLY EVANS, KELLIE LEVINE, SPENCER SILVA & JEREMY TUTHILL

PUBLISHED 07/29/21 

Facebook has barely taken any action in response to Media Matters’ July 20 report on anti-vaccine groups spreading COVID-19 vaccine misinformation; nearly 85% of anti-vaccine groups that we identified are still active, new groups have been created, and some were even reinstated after appeal.

On July 20, Media Matters reported that we had identified at least 284 public and private anti-vaccine Facebook groups -- more than double the 117 anti-vaccine groups we reported on in April -- that were spreading COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and/or conspiracy theories to over 520,000 combined members. This report followed the Biden administration’s criticism of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation spreading on social media, particularly Facebook.

A week after our reporting, Facebook has barely taken action against the groups, even though the platform told Fast Company that it was “reviewing the report, and will take action against groups that violate our policies.” Of the 284 private and public groups we identified that contained misinformation and conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 vaccine, 236 groups -- or nearly 85% -- are still active on the platform and have gained nearly 20,000 more members. We have also identified 35 additional anti-vaccine groups, including five groups that were created since July 18. These 271 active anti-vaccine groups have over 456,000 combined members.

In our previous report, Media Matters specifically identified six groups with over 15,000 members apiece. Of these groups, only one -- Canadian Deaths and Adverse Reactions -- is no longer active, and two -- Covid19 Vaccine Victims & Families and The Unvaccinated Arms -- appear to have been briefly taken down and then reinstated.

An administrator for Covid19 Vaccine Victims & Families boasted that the group was reinstated after he appealed Facebook’s decision to remove it. The group has since gained roughly 9,000 members, totaling over 57,000 members.



The Unvaccinated Arms was reportedly taken down but is currently active, with an administrator encouraging members to use a backup group and a moderator of the backup group reminding members to use code words to avoid removal. The group has over 21,000 members, and the backup group, which was created July 18, already has over 11,000 members.





Facebook’s inaction against anti-vaccine groups is part of the company's pattern of refusing to combat COVID-19 vaccine misinformation. Even after the Biden administration publicly criticized Facebook, the platform also has failed to deplatform the “disinformation dozen” -- 12 influencers who reportedly account for 65% of vaccine misinformation on Facebook and Twitter. Nearly all of them have been able to maintain a presence on Facebook and/or Instagram despite their role in regularly spreading misinformation:

Joseph Mercola runs a verified Facebook page with 1.7 million followers and a verified Instagram account with 336,000 followers. He continues to post misinformation about COVID-19 and the COVID-19 vaccine on both platforms.

Sherri Tenpenny has had at least one Facebook page and one Instagram account removed, but she appears to be affiliated with at least one other Facebook profile and one other Facebook page for a website that she owns and operates. She uses both accounts to promote her podcast, in which she and other anti-vaccine figures push COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.

Rizza Islam has had at least one Facebook account and one Instagram account removed, but he appears to still have a Facebook profile with over 30,000 followers.
Rashid Buttar has had at least one Facebook account and one Instagram account removed, but he appears to still have a Facebook profile and to be affiliated with a public Facebook group.

Christiane Northrup runs a verified Facebook page with over 550,000 followers, even though she has had an Instagram account removed.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is affiliated with at least two Facebook pages that are still active, even though he has been banned on Instagram. One Facebook page for him has over 300,000 followers, and one Facebook page for his organization Children’s Health Defense has over 160,000 followers.

Ty and Charlene Bollinger are affiliated with at least three Facebook pages and two Instagram accounts that are still active, even though at least one of their Instagram accounts has been removed. The Facebook pages have a combined total of over 1.2 million followers and the Instagram accounts have over 124,000 total followers.

Sayer Ji and his website GreenMedInfo both have Facebook pages, even though Instagram removed at least one account for GreenMedInfo. Ji’s wife Kelly Brogan, who is also considered one of the “disinformation dozen,” still has an Instagram account, which she uses to post anti-mask content and COVID-19 misinformation.

Ben Tapper has at least one Facebook page and one Facebook profile, but he claims that Instagram removed his account and backup accounts.
Kevin Jenkins and his organization Urban Global Health Alliance each have a Facebook page and an Instagram account.

Facebook’s failure to take action against anti-vaccine groups and figures on its platforms is just another example of the company refusing to take any concrete actions to address its persistent, and deadly, problems.

Protesters demand probe into Canada's indigenous schools

CGTN

Demonstrators wearing orange in solidarity with survivors of residential schools gather in front of Parliament Hill on Canada Day in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, July 1, 2021. /Getty

Hundreds of protesters in Canada's capital called on Saturday for a probe into a boarding school system for indigenous children, as outrage built after the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at several of the facilities.

Until the 1990s, some 150,000 indigenous, Inuit and Metis youths were forcibly enrolled in the schools, where students were physically and sexually abused by headmasters and teachers who stripped them of their culture and language.

"Indigenous Peoples need truth and justice," MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq wrote on Instagram.

"That means a special prosecutor and a fully-funded independent investigation, with international observers present, into Canada's crimes against Indigenous Peoples," she added, calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Justice Minister David Lametti "to stop making excuses" and launch a probe.

Shoes placed on the steps of the Manitoba Legislature to honor hundreds of children recently discovered in unmarked graves on the sites of several former residential schools across Canada near the now toppled statue of Queen Victoria in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, July 2, 2021. /Getty

The demonstrators gathered on Parliament Hill in Ottawa after two lawmakers from the left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) called for a protest.

The NDP called on Trudeau's government in early July to appoint a special prosecutor to lead an independent investigation into the country's painful history of residential schools for indigenous children.

"People have been shocked by the number of graves that have been found... These are not accidents; these are not tragedies; they represent a policy that was about the destruction of a people," NDP lawmaker Charlie Angus told public broadcaster CBC.

Since late May, more than 1,000 unmarked graves were found near former residential schools -- discoveries that have outraged the country.

More than 4,000 died of disease and neglect in the schools, according to a commission of inquiry that concluded Canada had committed "cultural genocide."

Read more:

Canada's cultural genocide of indigenous people

China calls for investigations of genocides in western countries
Source(s): AFP

 Why Hugh Hefner Ended His Friendship With Donald Trump

Charley Gallay/Getty Images

BY VINNEY WONG/JULY 31, 2021 

It didn't matter if you loved him or hated him, Hugh Hefner was considered a cultural icon who revolutionized the magazine industry. Per CNN, Hefner launched Playboy magazine in 1953, which ushered in a new era of sexualization and journalism. Interviews in Playboy magazines were highly popular because of celebrities' and politicians' admissions about their personal lives and sexual preferences. Additionally, scantily dressed women who wore the oh-so-famous bunny ears — otherwise known as playmates — enticed readers and drove millions of sales in the early 2000s, according to Business Insider. Photo shoots were seductive, but also offered a chance for prominent names to share the spotlight, like former President Donald Trump.

Trump appeared on the cover of Playboy magazine in March 1990 with playmate Brandi Brandt and was so proud of the accomplishment that he had the magazine framed in his office in Trump Tower in New York. "I was one of the few men in the history of Playboy to be on the cover," he told a Washington Post reporter in 2016. While Trump was appreciative of Hefner's invite at the time, their friendship seemed to have ended when the "Celebrity Apprentice" host became president. Find out why Hefner decided to cut ties with Trump below.

Donald Trump went against everything Hugh Hefner stood for

For many, it may have seemed like Hugh Hefner had a lot in common with Donald Trump. Both were millionaires and had an affinity for attractive women, but it turned out that they had a lot of ideological differences. Newsweek reported in 2017 that Hefner ended his friendship with Trump over his campaign platform on gay marriage and conservative ideals. Hefner was "a lifelong supporter of LGBT rights," the outlet noted, and "[spoke] out on high-profile issues such as sodomy laws, same-sex marriage and transgender rights," prior to his death.

Hefner's son, Cooper, confirmed his father's feelings towards Trump in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in the same year, calling Trump's 1990 Playboy cover a "personal embarrassment." "We don't respect the guy," he added.

Cooper elaborated his comments further in a series of tweets, writing that Trump's ideologies ran counter to Playboy as a company. "Why am I embarrassed about this cover? Because we promote a philosophy that encourages ALL individuals to choose the life they want to live," he wrote. "If the 1990 team at Playboy would have known Trump's platform than the President would have never found his way onto our cover." However, there have been clues that Hefner wanted to end his friendship with the businessman way before he was elected as president.

Hugh Hefner didn't like Donald Trump interfering with his creative decisions

Though Cooper Hefner verbalized disdain for Donald Trump after his father Hugh Hefner's death in 2017, former Playboy editor Heidi Parker noted that their dislike for each other went back as far as 2004. In a tribute to Hefner for the Daily Mail in September 2017, Parker wrote that Trump wanted female cast members of the "Celebrity Apprentice" to pose on the cover of Playboy with him, to which Hefner responded "Ewww."

Hefner declined Trump's suggestion and told Parker that he didn't like the idea. Trump then demanded Parker to be fired, which, of course, became a go-to-phrase for him on the show. "I was shocked Trump wanted me fired and even more shocked Hef pretended to be his friend but really didn't like him at all," Parker wrote.

Though Trump frequently visited the Playboy mansion after that incident, his friendship with Hefner was beyond repair — so much so that Trump didn't even release a statement after Hefner's death in 2017.

Read More: https://www.nickiswift.com/475543/why-hugh-hefner-ended-his-friendship-with-donald-trump/?utm_campaign=clip

Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States

In more and more of the country Amazon acts like an employer in a company town, sucking up whole communities and shaping public goods and services to fit its profit-making needs.

Employees arrive at an Amazon warehouse in San Bernardino, California, where Amazon created a "Pathways" program at a local public high school. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

BY ALEX N. PRESS
07.24.2021

JACOBIN


Athesis: Amazon’s warehouse zones are “the major working-class space of suburban and exurban socialization. So even if you’re building a tenant union or a political party, this is a major social space. It has a broader importance.” This comes courtesy of organizer and geographer Spencer Cox, quoted in the New York Times.

The author of the Times article, labor reporter E. Tammy Kim, follows Cox’s quote with a congruent assertion from socialist Seattle city councilor Kshama Sawant. “If you look at the consciousness of Amazon workers, it’s a guide to where the working class is as a whole,” says Sawant.

If class is a social relation and the working class is made and remade daily, that formation is increasingly happening inside the massive structures that house Amazon’s warehouses, where workers face capital embodied in the whir of machinery and barking managers and the beeps of the scanner in their hands, prodding them to pick up the pace. It is happening in the parking lots outside, where people smoke and linger and chat and dread. Whether Amazon is really the major space of socialization, or merely a major one, is less important than grasping the degree to which Amazon is operating as a near force of nature in working-class life.

The extreme geographic bifurcation of Amazon’s operations complicates the matter: some communities are vacuumed up almost completely by Amazon, while in others, people don’t know anyone who works for the company. Such unevenness is of further importance given that the warehouse worker is neither seen nor heard by the customer; at least at Walmart, you go to a store and you see the workers — you know they exist.

Here’s how it plays out in many communities near one of the warehouses. Amazon’s application process is, often, perfunctory. You apply, you get a job. Doing away with interviews or much conversation at all between potential employer and potential employee enables the company to beef up during “peak,” which consists of the holiday season as well as the time around Prime Day, the company’s holiday that exists to break up the summer lull. During these periods, Amazon’s already immense workforce cannot keep up with surging demand, so the company brings in armies of “seasonal associates,” temporary workers who enlist for quick cash — $15 an hour, Amazon’s starting wage, is below the average for the warehousing industry, but it’s still a hell of a lot more than our $7.25 federal minimum wage. Almost all of these temps are let go when the surge in sales recedes. This process has only intensified over the past year as Amazon, buoyed by increased sales during the pandemic, has gone on a hiring spree almost unprecedented in history, adding nearly five hundred thousand people to its payroll in a matter of months.

The result is that whole communities are absorbed into the warehouse. For an example of what that looks, take this reporting about JFK8, an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island, New York, that has been a particular site of ferment:

As dusk settled and trucks rolled by, Tiara Mangroo, a high school student just off her shift, embraced her boyfriend. He worked for Amazon on Staten Island too, as did her father, uncle, cousins and best friend. Keanu Bushell, a college student, worked days, and his father nights, sharing one car that made four daily trips between Brooklyn and JFK8. A mother and daughter organized containers of meals for their middle-of-the-night breaks; others packed Red Bull or Starbucks Frappuccinos in the clear theft-prevention bags that workers carried. Most said they were grateful just to be employed.

These are entire families employed by Amazon. Many of them will be let go within weeks, though many others will quit even sooner, unable to endure the stress and strain of the job. This churn is a concern for the higher-ups at the company, who are increasingly busing people in from farther and farther away to maintain the staffing levels required during peak. As Paul Stroup, who led Amazon corporate teams in analyzing the warehouses, tells the New York Times,“Six to seven people who apply equals one person showing up and actually doing work. . . . You need to have eight, nine, 10 million people apply each year.” As the newspaper notes, that’s about 5 percent of the US workforce.

Look to the other coast and you find a similar dynamic playing out. Zoom in on certain locales and you get glimpses into one possible future: a company town, in which a monopsony employer effectively becomes the governing structure for public goods and services. That this description increasingly applies to Seattle, where Amazon has as much office space as the next forty largest employers combined, has long been true. But the way this applies to areas near the company’s warehouses is less understood.

Take the Inland Empire, a rural and exurban region in California saturated with warehouses because of its proximity to Los Angeles. At Cajon High School, a public high school in San Bernardino, students — many of whom have family members employed at Amazon — can take classes in the Amazon Logistics and Business Management Pathways career track.

Writer Erika Hayasaki visited Cajon High. Here’s what she found:

A dozen students sat clustered at work tables inside an air-conditioned classroom, which was designed to emulate the inside of an Amazon facility. On one wall, Amazon’s giant logo grinned across a yellow and green banner. The words “CUSTOMER OBSESSION” and “DELIVER RESULTS” were painted against a corporate-style yellow backdrop. On a whiteboard, a teacher had written the words “Logistics Final Project,” and the lesson of the day was on Amazon’s “14 Leadership Principles.” Each teenager wore a company golf shirt emblazoned with the Amazon logo.

Students and staff members expressed pride in being associated with the company. Amazon partnered with the school as part of its five-year anniversary in the Inland Empire, donating $50,000 to start the pilot program, the giant sweepstakes-style Amazon check displayed prominently at the classroom entrance. The students had already taken field trips to tour the nearby Amazon warehouse.

A public high-school classroom designed to resemble an Amazon facility, with students wearing Amazon logos on their clothing as they memorize Amazon’s leadership principles (which, it is worth noting, also include “Ownership” and “Think Big,” injunctions that hold merit for readers of this magazine when imagining how we might solve the problems exemplified by Amazon). Such a relationship between the company and public goods like a high school is part of what it means to consider Amazon as “the major working-class space of suburban and exurban socialization.”

The behemoth is here, producing not only profit but people, too. That entails corporate indoctrination, social estrangement, and profound alienation from one’s labor, which is particularly meaningless as one breaks one’s body to get so many goods to people’s doors.

But were a culture of resistance and organization to emerge, it could become something quite different: the warehouse as site of struggle and contestation and solidarity, and Amazon as object of scrutiny, an enemy. There are currently people, both inside and outside the warehouses, working toward the latter outcome, and even the likes of Jeff Bezos can’t stop them. As a noted historian of a different era put it, “The working class did not rise like the sun at an appointed time. It was present at its own making.” It still is, and with each shift it is remade anew. Whether that will lead to despair, militancy, or something else entirely, remains to be seen.

Alex N. Press is a staff writer at Jacobin. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Vox, the Nation, and n+1, among other places.