Opinion America’s problem is White people keep backing the Republican Party

By Perry Bacon Jr.

 

Washington Post  October 13, 2022

A clear majority of White Americans keeps backing the Republican Party over the Democratic Party, even though the Republican Party is embracing terrible and at times anti-democratic policies and rhetoric. The alliance between Republicans and White Americans is by far the most important and problematic dynamic in American politics today.

Non-Hispanic White Americans were about 85 percent of those who voted for Donald Trump in 2020, much larger than the 59 percent of the U.S. population overall in that demographic. That was similar to 2016, when White voters were about 88 percent of Trump backers. It is very likely that White Americans will be more than 80 percent of those who back Republican candidates in this fall’s elections.

The political discourse in America, however, continues to ignore or play down the Whiteness of the Republican coalition. In 2015 and 2016, journalists and political commentators constantly used terms such as “Middle America” and the “working class” to describe Trump’s supporters, as though the overwhelming Whiteness of the group was not a central part of the story. In this year’s campaign cycle, recent articles, in The Post and in other outlets, have highlighted Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’s supposed weaknesses with Black voters. This is a strange framing. It is likely that more than 70 percent of White voters in Georgia will back Abrams’s Republican opponent, Gov. Brian Kemp, but fewer than 20 percent of the state’s Black voters will vote for the incumbent. If Kemp wins reelection, it will be because of White Georgians, not Black ones.

Republican voters are not just White people without four-year college degrees (a group Trump won by 32 percentage points in 2020), though that has been the common framing in much political commentary. 

The Republican Party is the preferred choice of White people who describe themselves as evangelical Christians (whom Trump won by 69 points in 2020), White people in rural areas (Trump by 43 points), White people in the South (29 points), White men (17), White Catholics (15), White Protestants who don’t describe themselves as evangelicals (14), White people in the Midwest (13), White women (7) and White people who live in the suburbs (4). (These numbers come from post-election surveys and analysis from the Pew Research Center, the Cooperative Election Study and Eastern Illinois University professor Ryan Burge.)

In contrast, the people of color in those demographic groups (for instance, Asian Americans without four-year degrees, Black Protestants, Latino women) mostly favor Democrats.

While the majority of White people with four-year degrees backed Democrats in 2020, about 42 percent of them supported Trump. He also won more than 40 percent of White voters in the Northeast and in the West. The main bloc of White voters that overwhelmingly opposes Republicans is White people who aren’t Christians. (Biden won this group by about 30 points in 2020.

After Trump did better in 2020 with Latino voters (gaining 10 percentage points over 2016) and Black voters (up 2 points in that period), there has again been an effort by some in the media and even some Democrats to play down race and suggest the Trump base is really one of Americans without college degrees or those annoyed by progressive views on gender and race. But the actual percentage of Republican voters who are Black (2 percent in 2020) or Latino (8 percent) is tiny.

Overall, Republicans win the majority of White voters (55-43 nationally in 2020) in most elections.

Being the party of White Americans has given and will continue to give the Republicans two huge advantages. First, White Americans are about 72 percent of the U.S. electorate, about 13 percentage points more than their share in the overall population. White adults are more likely than Asian and Hispanic adults to be citizens (not recent immigrants) and therefore are eligible to vote. The median age for a White American is higher than that for Asian, Black or Latino Americans, and older Americans tend to vote at higher rates. If the electorate mirrored the country’s actual demographics and those groups voted as they did in 2020, Trump would have won only about 44 percent of the national vote, three points less than his 47 percent two years ago.

Second, the electoral college and the Senate give outsize power to less populated states — which in America today tend to be disproportionately White.

The alliance between White Americans and the Republican Party has existed for decades. The last time a Democratic presidential candidate won the majority of White voters was in 1964, a year before Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act. The Republican Party spent much of the next three decades courting White Americans, in part, by casting Democrats as too tied to the causes of minorities, particularly Black people and Latino immigrants.

Through the presidency of George W. Bush and Barack Obama’s first term, however, Republican leaders generally distanced themselves from this style of politics — feeling that the old tactics were not only morally wrong but would doom the GOP in a country with a growing non-White population. But Trump and his allies have brought anti-Black and anti-immigrant sentiments and a focus on White identity back to the center of the Republican Party’s electoral strategy.

Even when Republican politicians are not campaigning directly on racial issues, the party is organized around defending the status quo in America, which is weighted toward White Americans. Policies such as raising taxes on upper-income people and making college free would reduce gaps in income and opportunity between White Americans and people of color. By opposing them, Republicans in effect protect White advantages.

So it’s no accident that Republicans are winning the majority of White voters. It is in many ways the result of a successful strategy. It’s not that Trumpism brought White voters as a bloc to the Republican Party (they were already voting Republican) — but rather it hasn’t scared many of them off.

Perhaps the best way to understand American politics is an overwhelmingly White coalition facing one that is majority White but includes a lot of people of color.

Perry Bacon Jr.: Have Democrats reached the limits of White appeasement politics

Democrats are doing a lot of White appeasement to address this Republican tilt: nominating White candidates in key races; moving right/White on racialized issues such as policing and immigration; trying to boost the economy particularly in heavily White areas where the party has declined electorally.

Some of that has worked; Democrats did somewhat better among White voters in 2018 and 2020 compared to 2016. But it is very likely that the majority of White voters will again vote Republican in 2022 and 2024.

And because White people are likely to be the majority of voters for at least two more decades, America is in trouble. Across the country, GOP officials are banning books from public libraries, making it harder for non-Republicans to vote, stripping away Black political power, aggressively gerrymandering, censoring teachers and professors and, most important, denying the results of legitimate elections. The majority of America’s White voters are enabling and encouraging the GOP’s radical, anti-democratic turn by continuing to back the party in elections.

It’s not, as much of our political discourse implies, that the Democrats have a working class or Middle America or non-college-voter problem. The more important story is that America has a White voter problem. And there is no sign it’s going away anytime soon.

Opinion by Perry Bacon

Perry Bacon Jr. is a Washington Post columnist. Before joining The Post in May 2021, Perry had stints as a government and elections writer for Time magazine, The Post's national desk, theGrio and FiveThirtyEight. He has also been been an on-air analyst at MSNBC and a fellow at New America. He grew up in Louisville and lives there now.  Twitter

Can psychedelics combat prolonged grief? Dell Medical School launches study to find out

KUT 90.5 | By Seema Mathur
Published October 13, 2022 

KUT Researchers at Dell Medical School's Center for Psychedelic Research 

and Therapy will use brain scans ...Patricia Lim/KUT

Researchers will examine brain responses following treatment with psilocybin, a psychedelic derived from certain mushrooms, and 5-MeO-DMT, which comes from toad venom.

After serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, some veterans have found themselves fighting an invisible war inside their own minds. In search of relief, many have gravitated toward non-FDA-approved psychedelic therapies and are abandoning prescription medications.

“[Veterans] are in pain and they know that the pharmaceutical cocktail isn’t going to work,” decorated Marine veteran Sgt. Jenna Lombardo-Grosso said. “You only need to call up one of your friends to find out so-and-so committed suicide.”

Courtesy Of Jenna Lombardo-GrossoMarine Sgt. Jenna Lombardo-Grosso (center) said she was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Iraq.

Lombardo-Grosso said during her eight years of service, she saw extensive suffering, including friends die and loose limbs in a mortar attack in Iraq. That attack contributed to her own mild traumatic brain injury. She was also diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, which she mostly attributes to military and childhood sexual trauma.

Years of prescription medication and traditional therapy didn’t help much, she said.

“Before, when a trigger came up, it would be devastating," Lombardo-Grosso said. “Sometimes, I would vomit.”

Lombardo-Grosso left the service in 2012, but it wasn't until this year that she found relief — following just a couple of days of psychedelic therapy in March.

“It’s like I got a software update and there’s more processing power now," she said. “I have the ability to deal with [past trauma] in healthier ways.”

Lombardo-Grosso went to a retreat in Mexico run by The Mission Within, an organization that founder Dr. Martin Polanco says has provided psychedelic therapy to more than 700 veterans since 2017. The retreats are conducted out of the country because the compounds used are not legal as medical treatments in the United States.

“It's unfortunate that patients have to travel to Mexico or other countries to get this treatment,” Polanco said.

Polanco said he knows more evidence is needed before the FDA will greenlight psychedelic therapies and that he's eager to support research.

“We believe it is important to document scientifically what we have been seeing anecdotally," he said.

Measuring psychedelics' effectiveness

The Mission Within will be involved in studies UT Austin's Dell Medical School is gearing up to launch at its Center for Psychedelic Research and Therapy.

The center was created in 2021 by Greg Fonzo and Dr. Charles Nemeroff. After almost a year of planning, they are now poised to find answers to questions about the effectiveness of psychedelics on various mental health conditions. Nemeroff said the studies will evaluate who psychedelic treatment is good for, how often it should be administered and at what doses.

The center's first study will focus on the diagnosis of "prolonged grief."

“It's sort of this black hole of misery in which they get stuck in this particular way of thinking," Fonzo said.

KUT Dr. Greg Fonzo, co-director of the Center for Psychedelic Research and Therapy at Dell Medical School, holds a EEG cap that a patient wears during a brain scan.

For this, researchers are recruiting Gold Star Wives, those whose spouses died while serving in the military. Thirty participants will be studied: 15 will be given psilocybin which comes from specific mushrooms; five will take 5-MeO-DMT, a psychedelic derived from the venom of a toad; and the other 10 will not receive anything.

The Mission Within will administer the psychedelics outside the U.S. Participants will be brought to Austin for a series of tests before and after taking the psychedelics to measure their impact.

“We think psychedelics disrupt those [depressive] patterns and allow the brain to operate in new ways that weren't otherwise possible before," Fonzo said.

All participants will undergo brain scans called functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, which can measure how the brain responds in real-time.

"We're going to be investigating what are called behavioral tasks that people will complete inside the fMRI scanner, some of which are very unique to grief," Fonzo said.

While undergoing brain scans, participants may be shown pictures of their deceased spouses, for example, or look at grief-related words. Researchers will also analyze blood work to see how the participants' genetic makeup influences their response to psychedelic therapy.
'A connection to something greater'

Whether science can explain all that happens after taking psychedelics is yet to be seen.

"This spiritual medicine, what we call psychedelics, creates a venue to pass the filter of the mind, to open up that subconscious mind," said Andrea Lucie, a therapist who monitored and guided Lombardo-Grosso during her retreat at The Mission Within. “This is something that is sacred because it's touching the core of our human being."

Before she ingested the psychedelics, Lombardo-Grosso was instructed to set a clear goal of what she hoped to achieve.

“My intention was to let go of the traumas that were holding me back," she said.

“Imagine having the opportunity to just be reborn and see your entire reality with a fresh set of eyes." Jenna Lombardo-Grosso

Lombardo-Grosso took both of the compounds Dell Med will be studying. First she drank a cup of tea that contained psilocybin. In less than an hour of the first sip, she said, she began seeing herself in an objective way.

“I was just my child self, going back to the root of some of my deepest traumas," she said. "I felt all these feelings; I was so angry and then after all the anger, it was compassion for myself and for others and forgiveness.”

The next day she smoked 5-MeO-DMT.

“I felt my heart just open up and this pull and push of energy," she said. "Then I started purging. I could feel something being pulled out of me. Once that came out it was this white light and a profound moment where I felt a connection to something greater than myself.”

Lombardo-Grosso said her perspective of the world and herself changed profoundly in just 36 minutes.

“Imagine having the opportunity to just be reborn and see your entire reality with a fresh set of eyes," she said.

Polanco warns if psychedelics aren't used in a structured setting or without adequate support, a person can have a "psychotic break."

"You can have issues where the patient has trouble integrating the experience," he said.
Repairing a bad reputation

Research on psychedelics for therapeutic use is not new. It started in the 1950s, but was shut down by the 1970s after scientific scrutiny and the drugs' recreational use.

“It made it very hard for any research to continue,” Fonzo said. “There was cultural bias associated with countercultural movements of that era and legality issues. I think it has taken a while to circumvent those barriers.”

Given the history, Fonzo and Nemeroff said researchers today are cautious but hopeful their investigations on psychedelics will lead to better treatments to combat the invisible war of mental illness.

Copyright 2022 KUT 90.5. To see more, visit KUT 90.5.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for LSD 

IMF chief urges ‘coherent and consistent’ UK policies
 

WASHINGTON: International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, with IMF Communications Director Gerry Rice, holds a press conference during the IMF and the World Bank Group annual meeting at the IMF headquarters in Washington, DC, on October 13, 2022. – AFP



WASHINGTON: IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva urged Britain and other nations on Thursday to ensure their fiscal policies remain consistent following reports that London is mulling more U-turns for its controversial budget plan. Georgieva said she had a “very constructive” meeting with British finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng and Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey during this week’s annual gathering of the IMF in Washington.

“We discussed the importance of policy coherence and communicating clearly so there can be no-in this jittery environment-there could be no reasons for more jitters,” she said. The International Monetary Fund has stressed throughout this week’s meetings of finance chiefs the need to maintain fiscal discipline while central banks raise interest rates to control soaring inflation.

“Our message to everybody, not just to the UK, to everybody at this time: fiscal policy should not undermine monetary policy,” Georgieva said. This would make the task of monetary policy “only harder and it translates into the necessity for even further increase of rates and tightening financial conditions,” she said. “So don’t prolong the pain and make sure that actions are coherent and consistent.”

Kwarteng sent shock waves through markets last month when he slashed taxes and froze energy prices in a bid to ease a cost-of-living crisis, a decision that raised fears of more debt for Britain.

The move forced the Bank of England, which has been raising borrowing costs, to jump into bond markets to help protect financial stability. Since then, Kwarteng axed his proposed tax cut for the richest earners and brought forward his debt-reduction plans and economic forecasts to October 31.

The British pound rallied against the dollar on Thursday on reports that officials were discussing how to back away from costly tax-slashing measures. While she called for consistency, Georgieva said it was “correct to be led by evidence so if the evidence is that there has to be a recalibration, it is right for governments to do so.”

Meanwhile, a divided G20 held talks on Thursday under the shadow of multiple crises, from Russia’s war in Ukraine to a global economic slowdown, on top of soaring inflation and climate change. Finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 major economies were gathering in Washington during annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank this week that have underscored the multiple challenges the world is facing.

The list of threats ranges from rising interest rates to soaring food prices, along with growing poverty and natural disasters blamed on climate change. The IMF lowered its growth forecast for the world economy for next year earlier this week, warning that the “worst is yet to come.”

But the G20, which includes Russia, is expected to close its meeting without a joint communique, as in its previous gatherings presided by Indonesia this year. “It may be difficult to have a joint communique,” said a source in the French economy ministry. While Western nations have imposed unprecedented sanctions on Russia, other countries have maintained economic ties with Moscow, with India and China stepping up their purchases of Russian oil.

The Group of Seven wealthy democracies is now looking to cap the prices of Russian crude exports, a move aimed at stripping the country of a major source of funding for its war effort.

The G7 — which includes Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States-said Wednesday it had made “significant progress” in key parts of its proposal, noting that it had added Australia to its coalition. Gaining broad global approval for a price cap is a key challenge for the proposal.

The Saudi-led OPEC group of oil exporters has angered the United States by agreeing on a drastic production cut with Russia and other allies, which could send energy prices soaring even higher. US President Joe Biden warned of “consequences” for Saudi Arabia in an interview with CNN this week. – AFP

OP-ED: LATINOS AND ANTI-BLACKNESS—THE SILENT DIALOGUE THAT NEEDS TO BE DISCUSSED IN SCHOOLS

Disgraced former Los Angeles Councilwoman Nury Martinez recently resigned after revelations of her racist comments. Image: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images.

By Tyrone Howard | October 13, 2022

The recent uproar around racist comments by members on the Los Angeles City Council has reverberations that goes far beyond politics. Recent comments by former Los Angeles City Council president Nury Martinez speaks to an issue that plays out in the wider society and in education—the prevalence of anti-Blackness. For those unfamiliar with the context, Martinez offered up some vile comments that were recorded without her knowledge with several other L.A. city council members. Among some of the comments made by Martinez was that one of her colleagues 3-year-old Black son looked “like a monkey,” that he demonstrated behaviors that required “a beatdown” and she referred to Oaxacans as “little short dark people” and” tan feos” or “they’re ugly.” These comments are vile and reprehensible and have no place for anyone in public service.

What is important to note is that Martinez at one time served on the Los Angeles Unified School District board. One can only imagine how a person with such anti-Black beliefs acted in her role as a board member. How did such beliefs affect how she led on the board of the second largest school district in the nation? How did she see Black children? What did she think of Black families? What were her perceptions of Black communities? What policies did Martinez support or thwart that were harmful to Black students? These questions are all fair game now. One can only wonder.

What is certain is that Martinez is probably not the only person involved in governing schools who hold anti-Black beliefs. Anti-Black racism are beliefs, thoughts and actions that any person, regardless of race, can have towards Black or dark-skinned people. So yes, Latinos can and do hold anti-Black beliefs. The idea of Black-Brown unity has been lauded as a way for the nation’s two largest minority group to recognize that they share more in common than they have differences. Yet, what is unspoken is that beneath the surface there is a minority of Latinos who share ideas similar to Martinez, and this conversation needs to be had. It is the silent dialogue that needs to be had immediately.

The UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools released a report in 2018 called “Beyond the Schoolhouse,” in which they documented the declining presence of Black families in Los Angeles County. In short, the report documents that critical mass matters, and the declining numbers of Black students has resulted in intense exclusion, hostility and disproportionate punishment of Black youth in schools. It is important to note that one of the important tenets of anti-Blackness is the embracing or upholding of whiteness. I have worked with numerous school districts across the country, and have often been criticized when I talk about the need to challenge whiteness in schools. To be clear, I make the distinction, whiteness is not the same as white people. Whiteness is an embodiment of the belief that white people are superior to non-whites, and those that are non-white are undesirable, unattractive and deserving of inferior support, services and treatment. And to be clear, people of color can and do subscribe to tenets of whiteness. Council person Martinez’ comments make that point loud and clear. Any references to Black children as monkeys and references to people of indigenous Mexican lineage with darker hues as “ugly” lifts up the ugliness of whiteness.

And what does this mean for schools? Needless to say, Black children and other darker-skinned children are subjected to anti-Black racism daily in school yards and classrooms from adults and peers. What can and should schools do?

Believe Black Children

Many Black children have shared accounts of how they are vilified, excluded, made to feel less than or frequently referred to as the N-word by peers; yet, there are no ramifications for the perpetrators. Some of my own research with Black students has revealed jaw dropping accounts of what they are subjected to at school by peers and adults. Administrators and teachers have a professional obligation to make sure that all students have a safe please to learn. Verbal assaults and insults are not safe ways to learn. Dark-skinned children cannot learn equitably when they are deemed as being inferior to anyone. Thus, accounts of anti-Blackness cannot be dismissed, ignored or overlooked. Education professors Luke Wood and Frank Harris refer to the concept of race lighting, wherein individuals point out and explain issues of racism, but are often told by others that these things really did not happen.
Upstanders Are Needed

One of the most common concepts in the literature on bullying is to ask children who are privy or a witness to bullying to speak up, and to stand up to the harmful behavior of others. Children are asked to do this, but frequently adults do not. The disappointing aspect of Council member Martinez's comments were that other leaders were present and co-signed. For educators who hear colleagues make incendiary comments about Black students, the hope is that they will speak up, stand up and be the upstanders that we ask students to be. It is important to note that silence in the presence of racist language and behavior is a form of complicity.
Anti-Bias Training Is Not Enough

In many districts across the country, the response to acts of racism or discrimination is to engage in a single session of “diversity training.” Such trainings have become quite popular for many districts, and most rarely never change adult behaviors. Schools need to commit to ongoing professional learning about how to unlearn anti-Black racism. School and district leaders have to initiative and sustain these dialogues. Moreover, equity audits are needed to see how anti-Blackness is prevalent in curriculum, teacher-student interactions, access to opportunities and perception of parents and caregivers.

Anti-Blackness has no place in our politics, our schools and society at-large. The ugliness with the L.A. City Council this week has opened an opportunity. An opportunity for all of us to talk about how certain students are deemed undesirable, inhumane and worthy of violent behavior. Such thoughts and actions need to be stopped. Our students deserve better.

Tyrone C. Howard is professor of education at UCLA. He is the president-elect of the American Educational Research Association.

REST IN POWER

Winnipeg biochemist, human rights advocate Krishnamurti Dakshinamurti dies at age 94

Rachel Bergen - Yesterday 

Family and friends are celebrating the full life of a Winnipeg human rights activist and biochemist who worked to ensure the world was a better place when he left it.

Krishnamurti Dakshinamurti died on Thursday after his health declined three weeks ago. The Winnipeg-based biochemist and human rights advocate was almost always seen wearing a suit and bowtie.© Submitted by Sowmya Dakshinamurti

Krishnamurti Dakshinamurti died in palliative care in Winnipeg on Thursday morning at the age of 94 after suffering a heart attack three weeks prior.

His youngest daughter, Dr. Sowmya Dakshinamurti, said she thinks of a quote by the British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell when she thinks of her father.

"'The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.' It makes me sad but it makes me happy. That's really how I would describe my dad," Sowmya said in an interview on Friday.

"A life in science, a life in community service, a life in advocacy — he's had a lot of lives."

Born in India in 1928, Dakshinamurti's father served in the British Army during the First World War in what's now known as Iraq. His father's experience in combat affected Dakshinamurti's worldview greatly, Sowmya said.

"The idea that there are non-violent ways of making things better grew into him," she said, adding that he became very interested in the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, meeting him once at a student rally that Dakshinamurti had organized in the 1940s.

Before he left India and eventually settled in Manitoba in 1965, Dakshinamurti married his wife of 61 years, Ganga Dakshinamurti, which their daughter says was the high point of both of their lives.

"They lived the perfect life where each of them was full of projects, and full of passion, and full of energy and full of things they were doing, which weren't necessarily the same thing, but they each supported each other so much," Sowmya said.

Human rights work in Manitoba

Dakshinamurti is the founder of the Mahatma Gandhi Centre in Winnipeg, which has worked to foster the Indian legend's teachings of non-violence and respect for human rights since it was started in 2007.

Up until his last days on earth, his coworker and friend Sudhir Kumar says Dakshinamurti was involved in the centre as the president.

For the last 15 years, Dakshinamurti has overseen the centre's peace award, which is bestowed to people who have been at the forefront of promoting and preserving human rights.

Two days before he died, Dakshinamurti was texting Kumar about their award celebration next week, which they haven't held since before the pandemic.

Dakshinamurti also ensured that youth interested in working towards those rights have money towards their education.

"That's the way he wanted his legacy, that the human rights should be known very well all over the world and especially in Canada," said Kumar.

"He is a mentor for me to continue on his legacy."

Award-winning biochemist

In addition to his work advocating for human rights, Dakshinamurti was a well-respected biochemist who published nearly 190 articles, many of which were on metabolic syndrome disorders and the pharmacology of vitamins.

He was an long-time professor at the University of Manitoba and a senior advisor to the St. Boniface Hospital Research Centre.

Raj Bhuller was a PhD student under Dakshinamurti in the 1980s, and now is a professor at the University of Manitoba in the faculty of health sciences.

He says Dakshinamurti was an easygoing, gentle mentor, who was brilliant but unassuming.

"Mentorship at that stage, at the early stage of education was the key to succeeding later on, so I think that was a great takeaway for me," Bhuller said in an interview on Friday.

In 2020, he was named to the Order of Manitoba for his biochemistry work.

Dakshinamurti was publishing articles until he was 92, his daughter says.

He was happiest when he was doing scientific research or supporting others doing so.

"My email inbox is currently full of scientists around the world contacting me to say, 'He's why I got into this,' 'He inspired me,' 'He made me want to do better, research better,'" Sowmya said.

Sowmya says Dakshinamurti's science work and human rights work were the perfect marriage.

"Science is … a process and a search and as you learn new things, you improve the state of knowledge as you go, and you make things better for the people who are going to come after you," she said.

"I feel like he really did see human rights as that same kind of evolution."

Involved in community

Sowmya will remember her father as very supportive and involved, an impeccable dresser (always wearing a suit and bowtie) and a slight but captivating man, who made a mean martini.

During his decades living in Winnipeg, he was very involved in community events, taking part in everything from Folklorama to Lunar New Year celebrations to sitting on the original committee to develop the Centennial Concert Hall.

He was fearless, she says, getting involved in community building in Winnipeg when his family was among the first South Asian families to settle in the area.

"He never kept himself in a cultural or social silo. He never wanted to just be involved in 'Indian things.' He wanted to be involved in his community and he wanted to make his community better," Sowmya said.

"My dad, to his last minute was a proud and happy Winnipegger."

The mighty Mississippi is so low, people are walking to a unique rock formation rarely accessible by foot

Allison Chinchar - CNN

Tower Rock – a massive island in the middle of the Mississippi River south of St. Louis – is typically surrounded by water and only accessible by boat. But as severe drought spreads across the Midwest and pushes river levels to near-record lows, people can now reach the rock formation on foot.

“The river has dropped low enough that you can walk over to Tower Rock and not get your feet wet or muddy,” Missouri resident Jeff Biget told CNN. “I only remember being able to do this one other time in my life.”

Photos taken by Biget show people hiking across the rocky river bed to the island tower – a trek that poses little risk in the near-term as water levels are expected to continue to drop for at least the next two weeks.

Tower Rock can be reached on foot when the water level is below 1.5 feet at the Chester, Illinois, river gauge, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation. That gauge dropped to around zero on Thursday and shows no sign of significant recovery in the forecast.

More than 55% of the contiguous United States is in drought, according to the US Drought Monitor, which is the largest area since April. And more than 133 million people live in those drought-stricken areas – the biggest population affected since 2016.

Severe drought covers more than 70% of Arkansas and nearly 40% of Missouri, up from just 5% a month ago. Several locations have seen record-low precipitation over the past few weeks, including Memphis, Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Springfield, Missouri. The forecast from the Climate Prediction Center is dry, with below-average rainfall in the outlook through at least October 23.



Tower Rock is part of the Tower Rock Natural Area on the Missouri bank of the Mississippi River. - KFVS

The drought’s early autumn expansion in the central US has had a significant impact on the Mississippi River. In Memphis, the river was at its lowest level since 2012 this week and and its fifth-lowest on record. By next week, the forecast calls for it to decline further, to the third-lowest level on record.

More than 40 river gauges in the Mississippi River Basin are reporting low water levels, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

CNN Weather

Bailey White, who lives in Tennessee north of Memphis, tells CNN she has never seen the Mississippi River’s water level drop this low. White says she and her family boat on the river a few times a month, but they had a difficult time putting it in on Saturday.

“I’ve seen the water levels drop a little and I’ve seen them super high – but I’ve never seen them this low before,” White said. “We couldn’t even get our small boat on the river. We had to try five different docks until we were able to do so. It’s a small boat, so it doesn’t sit deep in the water, but we definitely had to pay extra attention a few times or we would’ve hit some sand.”

Photos show how the river has contracted away from its banks. The usually mighty Mississippi looks more like a trickle in some areas, with dry sand exposed where several feet of water usually flows.


The mighty Mississippi is so low, people are walking to a unique rock formation rarely accessible by foot© Provided by CNNThe Mississippi River at Memphis -- shown here near the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge -- has slowed to a trickle. It was at its fifth-lowest level on record this week and continues to drop. - Bailey White



The mighty Mississippi is so low, people are walking to a unique rock formation rarely accessible by foot© Provided by CNNLow water levels shown in the Memphis area. - Bailey White

The low water levels come at a crucial time of the year for the transport of crops from the nation’s heartland, CNN has previously reported. The Army Corps of Engineers has been dredging portions of the river to keep traffic flowing – albeit at a much slower pace. Hundreds of barges and vessels have been queuing up, waiting for the all-clear to pass through the treacherously-low river.

The Consolidated Grain and Barge Company, which buys, stores and sells crops for shipping, can usually move grain on barges loaded up to 80,000 bushels, according to David Gilbert, the company’s superintendent at its Greenville, Mississippi, office.

But recently the low water levels have forced the company to keep the loads far lighter, at around 55,000 bushels.

“I ain’t seen it lower than it is now,” Gilbert told CNN. “We’re not loading right now.”

Gilbert said that instead of shipping their harvests right now, many farmers are “just throwing it in their bins” and waiting for better conditions, which could still be weeks away.



Tower Rock, left, taken this week. Tower Rock aerial photo, right, under normal water conditions.

But even as the supply chain crisis grows, a playful mood is taking hold around Tower Rock.

“Tower Rock, walking on the river out to it only happens every so often,” Elainna Froemsdorf told CNN affiliate KFVS.

She took her grandchildren to make the hike on Monday, which was a school holiday.

“Today was no school, so it means fun grandma day,” Froemsdorf said.

She tells KFVS that her grandchildren are the third generation in her family to experience walking out to the formation. And her granddaughter, Adilyn Chowder, was happy for the new experience.

“I haven’t done anything like that before, and it was kind of challenging, but it was fun,” Crowden told KFVS.

CNN’s Carroll Alvarado, Amanda Watts and Judson Jones contributed to this story

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com

Opinion: University of Alberta's system of governance under threat

Opinion by Carolyn Sale - 

In the last few years, the University of Alberta has faced twin attacks that pose a threat to its future as one of Canada’s top research universities. It has had hundreds of millions of dollars lopped out of its budget by Alberta’s UCP government. These cuts have been devastating. But equally troubling internal developments are threatening the university’s system of governance.


University of Alberta campus.© Provided by Edmonton Journal

When the university was incorporated under The University Act of 1906, it had only one governing body, with members appointed by the government. But in response to the recommendations of the Flavelle Commission , which sought to prevent political interference in public universities, the university joined all other universities in Canada in embracing a bicameral model of governance under which the senior academic body of the university has responsibility for academic affairs and the board of governors has responsibility for financial and administrative matters.

This was formalized in the revision to The University Act in 1910 and has been a cornerstone of all revisions since. The current law specifies that the university’s general faculties council (GFC), “subject to the authority of the board, … is responsible for the academic affairs of the university.”

Since 2020, GFC’s ability to fulfill its statutory role is being undermined. On his first official day on the job in 2020, President Bill Flanagan announced he had laid off the person responsible for safeguarding the university’s governance processes, university secretary Marion Haggarty-France. Across the fall of 2020, the GFC faced considerable obstacles to it playing something that resembled its proper statutory role even as the university community experienced a shallow consultation process about the radical restructuring forced by the UCP’s cuts.

Then, when GFC, responsive to the strong message it had heard from the university community, did not agree to recommend that the board create new senior administrators called “college deans,” President Flanagan refused to represent the GFC’s position to the board.

The outcry from the university community at his choice to “recuse” himself from the board’s decision-making was tremendous. Formal expressions of concern included a letter from department chairs claiming a breach of trust and the establishment of an ad hoc committee of GFC to review what had happened. That committee’s final report in March 2022, declared that “[t]he events of fall 2020 demonstrated the need to reinvigorate bicameral governance at the University of Alberta and to take seriously the role of GFC as the body responsible for the academic affairs of the university.”

Despite these developments, just three months later the university community had to learn from a student reporter’s tweets that the president had decided to bypass GFC altogether and take his recommendation for how these new college deans are to be selected straight to the board.

Nothing could possibly have more impact on the academic affairs of the university over the next five years than the work of the college deans who will be appointed under the new selection procedure, but GFC could not make a recommendation in regard to a proposed policy item about which it was kept in the dark.

At its September meeting, the board chair informed GFC that the board had “pressured” the president to bring the recommendation straight to the board. Both she and the president are now claiming that the board has an “exclusive jurisdiction” over the appointment of senior academic officers that allows them to circumvent GFC’s right under Section 26.1(o) of the Postsecondary Learning Act to make recommendations to the board on any matter.

To ensure GFC could exercise that statutory right, the president was advised a motion would be brought to the next GFC meeting calling on the president and provost to notify GFC in advance of any policies they were planning to bring to the board. At the Oct. 3rd meeting of the GFC executive, the president declared he would rule any such motion out of order. He added that if someone wishes to take the matter to judicial review he will be happy to see them in court.

It is a very sorry day for a treasured public institution in which generations of faculty, students, alumni, and taxpayers have invested for its president to seek to defeat the GFC’s statutory right to play its proper role in the development of policies relating to the academic affairs of the university.

Perhaps it is time for a 21st century successor to the Flavelle Commission. An independent investigation of what has been occurring could be the opportunity for recommendations to strengthen the bicameral system of governance not just at the University of Alberta, but across Canada.

Carolyn Sale is an associate professor, Department of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta.

Senior KFC executives opt for retirement as interest rates hit pension payouts -WSJ

(Reuters) - Three senior KFC executives have notified the U.S. fried chicken chain's parent company Yum Brands Inc that they will take early retirement as rising interest rates threaten to dent lump sum payouts for corporate pensions, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.


FILE PHOTO - Vehicles line up around Kentucky Fried Chicken after a state mandated carry-out only policy went into effect in order to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in Louisville© Reuters/BRYAN WOOLSTON

KFC's U.S. Chief Operating Officer Monica Rothgery, Chief Financial Officer Trip Vornholt and Jeff Griffin, its director of national field operations will leave the company this year, the report said, citing company messages without specifying between whom.

KFC and Yum Brands did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

"Because of these interest rates, some associates across Yum! and its brands who qualify for pensions have decided to retire in 2022," the report quoted one of the KFC messages as saying.

Vornholt will leave at the end of November, the report said.

The Federal Reserve has raised its policy rate from near-zero in March to the current range of 3.00% to 3.25% as it battles inflation. A fourth straight 75-basis-point interest rate hike is expected next month after data on Thursday showed inflation accelerating faster than expected in September.

(Reporting by Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Iranian-Canadian director prevented from leaving Tehran to attend London film fest

An Iranian-Canadian director says he was unable to attend a film festival in London Friday as Iranian authorities prevented his departure.


Iranian-Canadian director prevented from leaving Tehran to attend London film fest© Provided by The Canadian Press

Director Mani Haghighi said in an Instagram video he couldn't be at the screening of his film at the London Film Festival because Iranian authorities stopped him from boarding his flight in Tehran and later confiscated his passport.

The British Film Institute said in a statement that Haghighi was due to present his film "Subtraction," which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last month.

While promoting the film, Haghighi told Variety his Iranian-Canadian identity was important to him. Haghighi attended school in Ontario and Quebec, and he told the entertainment publication he still has close friends in Canada.

Canadian music critic, Carl Wilson said he went to McGill University with Haghighi in the late 1980s and has been friends with the director ever since, even providing editorial help on some English subtitles for “Subtraction”.

Haghighi later went to study in Ontario, and became a Canadian citizen in the 1990s said Wilson.

In his video message, Haghighi said he was given no reasonable explanation by authorities for the confiscation of his passport.

Two weeks earlier, Haghighi posted a video criticizing Iran's mandatory hijab law and recent crackdown on youth protesters.

Public anger in Iran has coalesced around last month's death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had been detained by the country's morality police, an advocacy group said. Amini's death has led to a series of demonstrations against the government, some in which girls and women remove their mandatory head scarves on the street in a show of solidarity.

As the movement entered its fifth week, at least 233 protesters have been killed ⁠— 32 among the dead were below the age of 18, according to U.S.-based rights monitor HRANA.

Haghighi said that he believes authorities have kept him in Tehran to watch over him and to prevent the director from speaking out.

"The very fact that I am talking to you in this video right now undermines that plan," said Haghighi.

Despite the inability to attend the festival in London or leave Iran, Haghighi said in a video that he is honoured to bear witness to history in Iran, and that he would rather be in Tehran than anywhere else in the world.

“Being here in Tehran right now, is one of the greatest joys of my life," said Haghighi in a video. “If this is a punishment for what I've done, then by all means, bring it on."

The London Film Festival said it supports Haghighi and all filmmakers in their freedom to present their films around the world.

Global Affairs Canada said it's aware "of reports of a Canadian citizen in Iran" and that officials were ready to provide consular assistance, but would not disclose any more information citing privacy concerns.

Spokesperson Patricia Skinner also said in an emailed statement Canadian citizens should avoid all travel to Iran due to the volatile security situation.

Canada stands in solidarity with women and other protesters in Iran and calls on the Iranian regime to listen to the concerns of its citizens and protect their right to peaceful protest, Skinner said.

Haghighi could not be reached for comment.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 15, 2022.

Caitlin Yardley, The Canadian Press

Affordable housing should be treated and funded as 'core infrastructure,' says Edmonton's mayor

Lauren Boothby - Thursday - Edmonton Journal

Affordable housing should be treated as core infrastructure that all levels of government invest in long-term as Edmonton anticipates a growing need, says the mayor.


Housing and Diversity and Inclusion Minister Ahmed Hussen, left, Tourism Minister and Edmonton Centre MP Randy Boissonnault, Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, and David Mitton, president of Leston Holdings (1980) Ltd., announce the Heritage Flats project, that includes 102 affordable housing units for members of Enoch Cree Nation, in southwest Edmonton on March 15, 2022.

During a discussion of Edmonton’s affordable housing strategy at city hall this week, Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said he wants to see a shift in how the city, and others, think about this topic. Edmonton’s recent housing needs assessment found 59,000 households, mostly renters, will be in core housing need by 2026 .

“We never stop building roads, we never stop building the LRT, we never stop building fire halls and recreation centres, but we tend to stop building affordable housing — not just us, but every order of government,” Sohi said at the community and public services committee on Tuesday. “We have always seen affordable housing as an add-on, not as core infrastructure. I think that’s why I would like to see that mind shift.

“Affordable housing is so integral to our economic growth, to our community’s well-being, and the well-being of individuals and families,” he told reporters.

The mayor wondered whether the city could look at converting empty commercial or office spaces into housing. City administration said they are investigating this idea.

Related
Edmonton expects housing affordability shortage by 2026 hitting nearly 60,000 households, mostly renters

Edmonton councillors urged to include precariously housed people in creating affordable housing solutions

Alberta's affordable housing plan raises red flags among critics

Sohi said the city also needs to figure out how to mobilize the private sector and gather support from the province and the federal government to fill the need.

Ward papastew Coun. Michael Janz said Edmonton needs a regulatory environment that encourages investment in housing, and other governments need to chip in as well.

Janz pointed to renters protection policies, vacant lot or homes taxes, and inclusionary zoning — a policy that requires an affordable housing contribution through the development approval process — that he would like to see contemplated for the city’s refreshed approach.

Inclusionary zoning is a power currently available to the city under the Municipal Government Act, although Edmonton is not using it.

“Trusting the development and real estate industry to solve homelessness is like asking grocery stores to end hunger — it’s not going to happen,” Janz said on Tuesday. “We need to look at conditions and to treat housing the way we do other institutions that require investment, require regulation, require a serious contemplation of how we, as the city, can get the outcomes that we want.

“I’m really worried about what we’re seeing in other cities around the world where the financialization of housing is putting homes out of (reach) for the vast majority of citizens.”

Susan Morrissey, executive director of the Edmonton Social Planning Council, agrees with the mayor that affordable housing needs to be treated as core infrastructure.

The more people that are housed, the better quality of life they can have, and the more they can contribute to the community, she said.

“Housing is a right, not a privilege. We should all be able to have a roof over our head, so the fact that the supply and the demand don’t square together … has been troubling for many years, and it continues to be an issue,” she said in an interview Thursday.

“It’s been neglected. Both new builds and also maintenance of existing housing, and it does come down to government.

Edmonton’s housing needs assessment identifies the withdrawal of funding for affordable housing in the 1990s by all orders of government as responsible for creating the gap that the market alone cannot solve.

Deeply subsidized homes needed

Edmonton’s affordable housing plan approved in 2018 aimed to build 2,500 units from 2019-2022 with a $132 million investment. By the end of the year, the city will have built 2,842 affordable homes, including 704 supportive housing units, in this time period. Another 1,559 social housing units were renovated.

However, the vast majority of the units the city helped pay for in this period are “near market” rentals, meaning they can charge up to 80 per cent of current market rates. This is much higher than what a significant number of Edmontonians can afford, according to the housing needs assessment.

By September, apart from the supportive housing units, only 36 of these new homes were deeply subsidized.

Christel Kjenner, director of the city’s affordable housing and homelessness files, said the updated plan will look at how to create more deeply-subsidized homes.

“The market alone will not provide adequate affordable housing for all income levels, so there needs to be investment by all three orders of government in affordable housing,” she said.

Provincial and federal housing plans

Last month, the Alberta government announced plans to sell off, transfer or redevelop affordable housing stock which critics say will worsen an already dangerous shortage.

Dylan Topal, spokesman for Seniors and Housing Minister Josephine Pon, said while direction could change under the new premier, Alberta’s current 10-year affordable housing strategy aims to expand help to 25,000 more households, and that they consider “affordable housing” to be housing expenses not exceeding 30 per cent of household income.

In an interview Thursday, he said the new management plan won’t mean people lose their affordable housing spot.

“I want to be explicitly clear … we aren’t going to be selling apartments where some people are living in some of them, we’re not going to be kicking people out … I will strongly imagine that is not going to change,” he said.

“The properties that we’re going to be selling, these are under-used, or not utilized at all for affordable housing … we can sell them to a developer, and when we get the proceeds from the sale we can reinvest that back into affordable housing.”

Asked whether the reason they aren’t being used is because the province hasn’t maintained them, Topal said this isn’t the case.

For example, one building up for sale soon in Edmonton isn’t housing people, is “an eyesore,” and it will be sold to fund more affordable homes, he said.

“Some of these buildings, to renovate them, it would cost us more to do that than to just build new. We’re being good stewards of government-owned assets and of taxpayers’ dollars and doing these things effectively.”

He said the province will work with municipalities as their housing needs change using a new questionnaire.

In 2019, the federal and Alberta governments signed an agreement to spend $339 million each as part of the National Housing Strategy.

Arevig Afarian, press secretary to federal Housing and Diversity and Inclusion Minister Ahmed Hussen, said the federal government could not answer a question about how much more affordable housing, and of what type, will be built in Edmonton because of confidential agreements.

So far, she said nearly $90 million has been contributed toward projects by the federal government in Alberta to help more than 31,000 households either through building new housing, repairing of existing housing, or through rental supports.

“We look forward to continue working with Alberta to keep investing in affordable and safe housing options for Albertans and Edmontonians through this bilateral agreement,” she stated.

“We are committed to close the housing gap and ensuring all Canadians access safe and affordable housing that is right for their needs.”

Topal said the province has fulfilled its side of the funding agreements with the federal government.

lboothby@postmedia.com

@laurby