The ‘cancel culture’ war is really about old elites losing power in the social media age | Nesrine Malik

Exactly!

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Those decried as ‘online mobs’ are mostly people who’ve never been able to influence conversations about their own fates

Whenever I talk to people who are suddenly concerned about “cancel culture” or “online mobs”, my first thought is always: “Where have you been for the last decade?” I’ve been online long enough and, like many others, been receiving criticism and abuse online for long enough, to know that what some see as a new pattern of virtual censure by moral purists is mostly a story about the internet, not ideology or identity.

If critics of “cancel culture” are worried about opinions, posts and writings being constantly patrolled by a growing group of haters, then I am afraid they are extremely late to the party. I cannot remember a time where I have written or posted anything without thinking: “How many ways can this possibly be misconstrued, and can I defend it if it were?” It’s not even a conscious thought process now, it’s instinct.

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China’s fresh meat lovers lament death of live poultry markets

Live markets have been source “labs” for past flu pandemics and now Covid-19

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JIANGXI, CHINA (BLOOMBERG) – Chen Yu used to walk a short distance to a nearby market to get fresh poultry.

Now, to stew a pot of chicken soup or cook a whole duck for family gatherings, she has to take two buses downtown to buy the meat.

“Live poultry cannot be sold in my neighbourhood market now,” said Mrs Chen, a housewife in her 50s who lives in China’s Jingdezhen city.

In the bigger market about 40 minutes away, there’s a special containment room for live birds.

“You can see them, point at one of them, then the owner will have it slaughtered. Picking the duck yourself is not what matters. The key is you see them live.”

China will gradually close all live poultry markets to cut public health risks and step up supervision of farmers’ markets amid the Covid-19 outbreaks, Chen Xu, an official with the State Administration for Market Regulation, said this month.

Live animal sales are still taking place in markets with containment rooms in some cities, but they will also eventually stop operating.

The pandemic has put China’s farmers’ markets under global scrutiny as the virus is thought to have originated from a wet market in Wuhan where exotic animals were suspected of being sold.

In some provinces, fresh seafood and equipment like chopping boards are being tested.

Scientists are still probing the origins of the virus.

Bird Flu

China has been temporarily closing live poultry markets because of bird flu outbreaks for years.

In 2017, officials in some affected areas ordered the markets to shut, and culled more than one million infected or susceptible fowl.

Consumers were advised to buy chilled or frozen chicken instead of freshly prepared products from markets, and to thoroughly cook the meat.

In 2006, China’s State Council announced it will gradually ban the trading and killing of live poultry in big cities, encouraging killing to be undertaken at professional slaughterhouses instead.

In Mrs Chen’s city, however, changes slowly started taking place in the second half of 2019 and now her neighbourhood market has stopped selling them.

A fresh Covid-19 attack in Beijing after it largely controlled the outbreak has again triggered concerns about biosecurity.

The capital shuttered its largest fruit and vegetable supply centre last month and locked down nearby housing districts as dozens of people associated with the wholesale market tested positive for the coronavirus.

Despite risks related to live animal slaughter, many meat consumers don’t seem to worry about live birds.

Generally, customers don’t feel assured when they buy poultry from shelves of a shop, said Wang Xiaoying, a poultry dealer in Jingdezhen city of the Jiangxi province.

“They say it’s not fresh.”

QUEST FOR FRESH

Fresh poultry means so much to some Chinese people that Ms Wang uses her WeChat not only as an online messaging tool, but also as a platform to promote fresh poultry delivery.

Posting pictures of fresh, clean and feather-plucked birds from time to time, she emphasises in the caption that the poultry she offers are “freshly killed upon ordering.”

Ms Wang does not worry about the avian flu, saying that she has been in the business for more than two decades.

Whenever the city government orders a ban on live poultry trading amid occasional bird flu outbreaks, her family business comes to a halt.

The longest halt, Ms Wang said, was as long as six months.

For Ms Wang, however, the full ban initiative is bad news.

As of now, she’s still able to operate as the new policy will be implemented in phases.

If the birds are to be processed only at centralised slaughterhouses, she fears her business could halve.

She also sells processed poultry meat, but their sales have been much lower than that of live birds.

The new Chinese policy may disappoint many customers, like housewife Chen.

“We might find it hard at first, but we’ll get used to it,” she said.

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30-year-old dies after attending ‘Covid party’ in Texas | World news | The Guardian

Appleby said in her filmed comments at the weekend that she had been spurred to reveal the case after seeing a “concerning” rise in infections. She said 22% of tests were revealing a case of Covid-19, up from just 5% a few weeks ago.

A broader age range were being affected, with several 20 and 30 year olds critically ill at the Methodist hospital, she said.

“Please wear a mask, stay at home when you can, avoid groups of people and sanitise your hands,” said Appleby.

The call for caution came as top officials in Houston urged the city to lock back down as hospitals struggled to accommodate new coronavirus cases.

Houston mayor Sylvester Turner and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said a stay-at-home order was needed for America’s fourth-largest city to cope with the surge.

Last week, Texas continued to break records for confirmed cases and deaths linked to the disease. State health officials reported 8,196 new cases on Sunday, another 80 deaths and a total of 10,410 people hospitalised due to the virus.

The decision over a lockdown, however, rests with Republican governor Greg Abbott, who has resisted this step, saying it should be a last resort.

 

Source: 30-year-old dies after attending ‘Covid party’ in Texas | World news | The Guardian

Telling Image of Race at DC Emancipation Statue – Reading The Pictures

Telling Image of Race at DC Emancipation Statue

Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/The Washington Post Caption: Tonight, Anais, 26, from DC, who wants the statue depicting President Lincoln with an outstretched arm over a freed slave crouching at his feet removed from Lincoln Park, in an argument with a man who wants the statue to remain, June 25, 2020.

It’s an especially symbolic photo as America reckons with its legacy of Black slavery. Photographer Evelyn Hockstein made the picture at The Emancipation Memorial in D.C. as protesters call for its removal. Dating to 1876, the statue features Lincoln holding the Emancipation Proclamation while a freed slave, shirtless with broken shackles, rests at his feet on one knee. The statue, I should add, was funded by the wages of freed slaves.

The photo is so suggestive, it’s hard to know what to talk about first.

Do you start with the whitesplaining? the mansplaining? the insistence on the white man’s rendition of history?

 

Source: Telling Image of Race at DC Emancipation Statue – Reading The Pictures

Priti Patel criticised over comments on Leicester’s sweatshops | Leicester | The Guardian

Claudia Webbe, the Labour MP for Leicester East where many of the factories are based, who raised the issue in her maiden speech to the Commons in February. “It’s not about the fear of being labelled racist, it’s not about cultural sensitivity, it’s about the failure of government to protect mainly women from migrant communities who have been seriously exploited by unscrupulous employers.”

Source: Priti Patel criticised over comments on Leicester’s sweatshops | Leicester | The Guardian

Gov. Edwards Orders Statewide Mask Mandate, Closes Bars to On Premises Consumption as COVID-19 Continues to Spread Across Louisiana | Office of Governor John Bel Edwards

Today, Gov. John Bel Edwards announced a mandatory mask requirement for Louisiana and ordered bars in the state closed to on-premises consumption, as the state experiences increasing spread of COVID-19. The Governor also limited indoor social gatherings like wedding receptions, class reunions and parties to 50 total people.

Source: Gov. Edwards Orders Statewide Mask Mandate, Closes Bars to On Premises Consumption as COVID-19 Continues to Spread Across Louisiana | Office of Governor John Bel Edwards

‘Why did your father die?’: Serbia’s COVID-19 chaos spills onto Belgrade’s streets · Global Voices

Protester: Tear gas, live rounds, batons, everything against barehanded youth. Dad, this is for you, who died while there were no ventilators… Dad I love you very much, I do this for you and for my recently born son.
Journalist: Why did your father die?
Protester: Because there were no ventilators. To this day I haven’t received his tests, the paperwork said that he died from the corona [virus]. No ventilators were available in the hospital in Zemun. That’s according to the official report. While they [the government] were bragging that we donate ventilators abroad. Dad, this is for you, daddy! I know you would have been proud!

The following day, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić denied the claim that the protester’s father, painter Ljubiša Đurić (71), died due to lack of ventilators. In response, the protester published his father’s medical history report, that indeed admits “lack of free places.” He has demanded an apology from the president.

Source: ‘Why did your father die?’: Serbia’s COVID-19 chaos spills onto Belgrade’s streets · Global Voices

Nobody Asked Me: A Teacher’s Opinion on School Reopening – Teacher Life

Let’s discuss hand washing. If an average class size of kindergartners is 25, then it would take 8.3 minutes for them each to wash their hands for 20 seconds- not too bad you might think. That’s doable- let’s reopen! Unfortunately that does not account for transition time between students at the sink, the student who plays in the bubbles, or splashes another student, or cuts in line, or has to be provided moral support to flush the toilet, because they are scared. It doesn’t account for the fact that only a few students will be allowed in the bathroom at a time and the teacher must monitor whose turn it is to enter and exit the bathroom, and control the hallway behavior, and send the student who just coughed to the “quarantine room” that doesn’t exist BECAUSE THERE ARE NO EXTRA ROOMS. Where are the students in hallway waiting? In line? All together? Six feet apart? No wait, three feet is okay now. Either way, 25 children standing three feet apart is a line over 75 feet long. Who is monitoring this line? Keeping them quiet, reminding them to keep their hands to themselves?

Source: Nobody Asked Me: A Teacher’s Opinion on School Reopening – Teacher Life