The following is an exclusive print story from our archives. Sami Awad comes from a long lineage of Palestinian peace activists, and he is fighting for the peace of Jesus to win out in the land he calls home.

A chosen people, a promised land, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the wall, the two-state solution, settlements, terrorism, armageddon, and two people groups who feel their very existence is on the line: to call the conflict in the Holy Land complicated is a gross understatement.

Peace in the Middle East has become an implausible saying likened to the day pigs fly. Were told its a hopeless cause and that 3,000 years of land rights and religious tension will continue until the end of time, or when Jesus returns, depending on your outlook. Fortunately for those living within the tension, there are a few people who have not given up on peace. Sami Awad is one of them.

_________

On the darkest night of his life, Sami Awad lay in an Auschwitz bunker looking at the pictures children sketched on the walls: kids playing drums, riding bicycles, and kicking balls. In a place full of evil, the children of Auschwitz drew pictures to remind themselves of innocence.

By the time Sami traveled to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps, six decades had passed since the international horror of the Holocaust. He came to bear witness to the lives lost and to learn how fear motivated the wars atrocities. What he discovered instead was a narrative of fear living on in the hearts of people todayincluding his own.

In many ways, Samis story begins not in the bunker where he underwent a spiritual transformation. It doesnt even begin in Bethlehem where he grew up under Israeli military occupation. His story begins generations earlier, with an ancestry of peacemaking shaped by the teachings of Jesus. It was these teachings that set Sami on a journey out of fear and into love.

Samis father was raised in a Palestinian-Christian family in a diverse neighborhood in Jerusalem. For decades Christians, Jews, and Muslims lived together peacefully. Then in 1948, war between an Arab coalition and the State of Israel shattered the peace. Samis grandfather was killed in this violence, shot by a sniper while raising a white flag on his roof to show that unarmed civilians lived below. The Awads buried his body in the courtyard of the house and fled.

Samis grandmother spent her life promoting peace, despite the injustice she experienced as a widow and refugee. Revenge and retaliation have no place for us as a family and in our faith, she often told her children and grandchildren.

The rest is here:
Peace in the Holy Land - Nations Media

Outlook Speakout has emerged as alively platform, for thefinest minds and brightest ideas,dictated by the optimism and anxieties of our times, says Indranil Roy, Chief Executive Officer, The Outlook Group.

Speaking at the event, Indranil Roy explained The Outlook Group's vision of encouraging women who contribute to make the life of others a little better, a little safer.

Here is the full text of his speech:

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Good Evening, and welcome to the thirdedition of Outlook Speakout.

For the last 24 years, the Outlook Group has enjoyed a great reputation in the world of Indian journalism.

In the last three years, we have tried to makeOutlook SpeakOutan outspoken extension of the magazine, on stage.

I must say, we have found our corner and we are proud of it.

Outlook Speakout has emerged as alively platform, for thefinest minds and brightest ideas,dictated by the optimism and anxieties of our times.

In the last few years, sexual assault and womens empowerment movements have upended public conversation about womens issues in India and the world.

Women are waging a battle to reclaim their future: public space to workplace, the freedom to wear anything,do anything, beanything.

And people have started to listen, to the obstacles women encounter in their daily lives, both personal and professional.

As one of the most credible media groups in India,Outlook has shined a light on womens anger and efforts to get their voices off the ground #HappyToBleed or #MeToo.

We recognise and respect womens demand for a safe world. Safe from taboo, stigma, shame, ill-health, prejudice, fear and violence.

Our theme today is: Womens Vision 2022: What Women WantReclaiming The Narrative.

In its scope, it is a continuation, or the logical extension, of last years theme:Women Empowerment. As in the past. we have a refreshing galaxy of minds today to debate openly and thoroughly the great issue of the day.

While, Indian women are being felicitated, celebrated and awarded like never before by political parties and media of all stripes, The Outlook Group doesnt want to honour just a handful of powerful women.

We believe in talking about their problems and encourage women who contributein ways big and smallto making the life of others a little better, a little safer.

I thank you all for joining us in our endeavour to make a difference.

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Outlook Has Shined Light On Womens Efforts To Get Their Voices Heard: Indranil Roy, CEO Outlook - Outlook India

Photo illustration / Shutterstock.com

By C. Moon Reed (contact)

Saturday, Oct. 19, 2019 | 2 a.m.

Perhaps youre seeking answers to deep life questions. Maybe you want advice about a new crush or an old flame or you just want to have a little fun delving into the mysteries of the universe. There are many reasons to visit a psychic or spiritual adviser and no shame in doing so, but how do you find a good one? When baring your soul to a stranger, youre putting yourself in a uniquely vulnerable place, so you want to be smart about it. Just this summer, a group of Las Vegans were indicted for using the pretext of psychic readings to scam a California lawyer out of $1 million. To help readers safely navigate the psychic realms, we offer this beginners guide:

Palmistry/palm reading

Astrology

Tarot

Hypnotherapy

Reiki

Past-life regressions

Shamanic healing

Crystal healing or gazing

Mediumship

Divination

How to find a credible reader

Seek word-of-mouth recommendations. If you don't know someone who uses psychic services, look for reviews on sites such as Yelp and Google. Yes, psychics get reviews, too.

Research everything. There are a ton of options for both services and practitioners, and the internet makes it easy to figure out exactly what is right for you. Do your homework, do your due diligence, advises Melissa Akiima Eggstaff, co-founder and director of Haven Craft, an interfaith organization and church.

Check their license. The City of Las Vegas requires a person or establishment to obtain a license to practice the psychic arts.

Dont be afraid to ask questions. Whether youre quizzing your friends about their experiences or asking the practitioner themselves, its OK to ask about the process, payment, expectations and more. In fact, if a practitioner refuses to answer your questions and/or makes you feel uncomfortable, thats a sign that you may need to find somebody else.

It's OK to believe what you believe.

Positive things to look for

In-person psychic readings ($20-$50 for 15-60 minutes)

Telephone psychic readings ($25-$55 for 15-60 minutes)

Reiki sessions ($45-$125 for 30-90 minutes)

An adviser should help you restore your sense of agency and empowerment, Eggstaff says. They should be helping you find a path that guides you to make gradual and sustainable improvements to your life.

Most issues in peoples lives arent resolved with a shuffling of a tarot deck, a crystal ball or snapping your fingers, Eggstaff says. Theyre resolved one step at a time in a direction you feel comfortable walking in. If somebody else picks the direction, it doesnt work.

Eggstaff says a good counselorwhether theyre working with a tarot deck, via secular counseling or in a churchshould help you on the journey you choose, and they should never imply that they can do the work for you.

An adviser should be upfront and honest about the scope of their practice, Eggstaff says.

Red flags to avoid

Outrageous prices. You dont always get what you pay for. Sometimes expensive prices are a sign that youre being taken advantage of.

Any person holding a position of authority or expertise can use their power to manipulate the vulnerable, Eggstaff says. She adds that predators can exploit members of every community, whether its religious, cultural, spiritual or secular. Many of the tips for avoiding being exploited can be applied to situations beyond the psychic arts.

Curses. If a person tells you that youre cursed or haunted by an evil presence and they want you to pay to remove the curse, theyre likely hucksters.

Unrealistic promises. Its a clich, but if theyre promising you something that sounds too good to be true, it probably is. For example, Eggstaff says, the opportunity for closure with a deceased relative is possible in the psychic arts, but if that closure comes with the promise of inheriting a fortune as long as you pay a fee right now that should ring an alarm, she adds.

Money scams. Eggstaff says scams involving money are common in many fields. Anything where theyre asking you to withdraw a large sum of money should raise some red flags.

Violations of confidentiality. It's a bad sign if an adviser shares the details or stories of other clients, Eggstaff says.

Asks for too much personal information. While an adviser will need some amount of information in order to give good counsel, Eggstaff says to watch out for someone who is just trying to extract financial and personal information from you.

Claims to control the uncontrollable. A psychic (or anybody else, for that matter) cant make your crush love you, cant convince a company to hire you, cant make you famous, etc. Nobody has the power to control someone elses free will.

Threats. Like curses, threats are a warning sign to leave immediately. Eggstaff says to watch out for very grand threatening statements that something terrible awaits unless you take certain steps now. The threats can come in the form of looming disaster or evil, injury, demons or even the wrath of God.

Cults of personality. Beware of echo chambers and yes-men, Eggstaff advises. A lot of these professional spiritual personswhether youre talking about a psychic or a priestbuild themselves little pyramids of power and place themselves up on top, she says. These power structures can lead to abuse of vulnerable people.

Local resources

Crystal Alley Emporium. Self-described largest metaphysical store in the Las Vegas Valley, with a variety of offerings, such as books, jewelry, incense, crystals, tarot cards and psychic readings. 2841 N. Green Valley Parkway, 702-434-7626, crystalalleyemporium.com

Psychic Eye Book Shops. With two shops in Southern California and three in Southern Nevada, the store has been offering mystical supplies and services since 1985. Multiple locations, pebooks.com

Enchanted Forest Reiki Center. Offers reiki sessions, psychic services, classes, yoga, meditation and a gift shop. 2280 S. Jones Blvd., 702-948-4999, enchantedforestreiki.com

Haven Craft. A nonprofit interfaith organization and church that offers education, counseling and advocacy. It recently relocated to North Carolina but is using online programs to continue serving the Las Vegas community.havencraft.org

This story appeared in Las VegasWeekly.

Original post:
How to experience the psychic arts without getting scammed - Las Vegas Sun

Let's be candid: When we talk about "inclusivity," I've seen many people roll their eyes. They see another list, another policy or another process they have to add to what they consider to be an already full to-do list.

But this is not what inclusivity is about. Inclusivity is a representation of our behaviors, morals, ethics, personal standards and acceptance. It's our awareness of others, empathetic leadership and personal accountability. It is also a removal of cognitive bias and dissonance to an open mind. To put it simply, it's a willingness to accept.

I've coached many businesses on how to be more inclusive, ranging from large corporations struggling with programs to integrate women into a male workforce to small businesses striving to embrace inclusivity in all they do. Through this experience, I've seen that organizations tend to offer solutions that can actually perpetuate the problem they're trying to solve.

For example, if you appoint a director or make someone else responsible for engagement, I believe you're giving the board the authority to abdicate responsibility. Engagement is collective and owned by all, not one or a few. Similarly, inclusivity is behavioral and comes from a strong open culture, not an individual's responsibility by job title. When inclusivity and diversity are only owned by one person, they can become "exclusive" and fail.

Inclusivity isn't a job. It's a culture.

Inclusivity is how we should be, not only at work but also in all we do. In business, we know it can benefit the bottom line, engagement and more. If you are a leader and you consider the action of inclusivity to be unimportant, you're preventing your organization from progressing toward an open future.

Your role is to be inclusive and encourage it through your behavior, responses, actions and language. You can ensure inclusivity is achieved through consistent recognition, competence, skill, support, ideas, individuality and collaboration not isolated incidents.

Inclusivity should also be woven into the fabric of your company, including the culture, behavior, values and the very DNA that started the business. Assess how everyone behaves by looking at what influences their decisions, if they're receiving support, the challenges, failures and successes they've seen and more. Review these factors openly and honestly, and remember that equality also sits within inclusivity.

If your business is struggling to be inclusive and diverse, then your culture needs fixing. Inclusivity isn't a policy or procedure it's how you are. Inclusivity is a powerful message. Never assume inclusivity exists or has been achieved.

Below are five ways to help you make inclusivity part of your culture with responsibility for all:

1. Model inclusive behavior.

At my company, rule No. 1 is to model inclusive behavior as a leader. This takes skill, time and practice. It is a personal choice and commitment. It means you have to be self-aware, accept critique, be open, be candid and address noninclusive behavior first, both within yourself and among your team.

To model this, reflect on the values you present, and use the language you want from others. Your overall actions as a leader must directly correlate to the inclusive and noninclusive behaviors you desire.

2. Have a story.

Understand and have a clear story of your business, what it stands for, how it is and what it is. Repeat this story. Speak this story. Love and live this story. Behave according to this story. From my perspective, consistency in a clear story helps create a culture of inclusivity. Diversity, by default, is about a consistent approach to seeing a wider unbiased view. Your story has to reflect this.

3. Allow your people to act.

Empowering your team can easily become a statement or just something you consider "nice to have." But this empowerment needs to be part of your culture. Encourage your employees to make decisions. Doing so creates a culture that's open, honest and without fear. These are the building blocks of an inclusive company.

4. Remove obstacles.

Becoming more inclusive doesn't always mean you have to create separate plans and new communication methods. Sometimes, you simply need to remove any obstacles that are in the way.

Removing barriers can help the culture drive itself to a more inclusive environment. An obstacle might be someones limited belief, unbalanced bias, narrow perspective, commentary that undermines others, etc. To manage and remove these obstacles, act immediately. See it. Hear it. Be aware of it. And deal with it as soon as possible. Removing obstacles creates room for new, more inclusive beliefs, a huge cultural shift for many businesses.

5. Live it; love it; do it.

I used to have a mantra in my corporate roles, which I've since brought to my current company: "Live it; love it; do it." To me, this mantra reminds my team they are encouraged to feel a part of, contribute to, impact and influence the business. The mantra is about taking action. It also speaks to the heart, which I believe is integral to creating a sense of belonging. As a leader, your heart must be in your efforts to making your organization more inclusive. Following a mantra like mine can help.

In conclusion, avoid making inclusivity a role or checklist. When you create a culture based on inclusivity, it will never be exclusive.

See the original post:
How To Build A Culture Based On Inclusivity - Forbes

OCTOBER 19, 2019

ERIK DAVISS NEW BOOK is at once a brilliantly original study and a recap of familiar themes the author has been pondering for the past two decades. Like his pioneering 1998 debut, TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information, High Weirdness explores the way modern networked society tends to inspire revivals of hermetic and other occult traditions. It thus updates Daviss analysis of the convergence of contemporary occult and psychedelic subcultures in Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica (2010). And, like his 2006 volume,The Visionary State: A Journey Through Californias Spiritual Landscape, High Weirdness shows how this epochal conjuncture of mystical worldviews, magical practices, and psychoactive lifestyles expresses a uniquely West Coast sensibility, a fusion of NorCal hippie utopianism and SoCal punk paranoia.

High Weirdness is a revised version of Daviss PhD thesis, produced under the auspices of the Program in Gnosticism, Esotericism, and Mysticism in the Department of Religion at Rice University. As Davis remarked in a 2015 LARB interview, he had long contemplated stepping back from the challenges of freelance life and shoring up the more scholarly side of my writing and research through an encounter with an academic discipline. Happily, this encounter has in no way scotched his restless, omnivorous intelligence or defused the offbeat punch of his gonzo style; indeed, it has helped him to see himself as a kind of counter-public intellectual who brings rigorous theoretical and methodological approaches to bear on some seriously weird shit. While he still views his own writing as part of the same stream of feral, fringe, psychedelically-inflected thought that is his analytic subject, he can now scrutinize these oddball perspectives using all the tools of modern philosophy, cultural studies, and comparative religion. The result can be at times a bit overwhelming as Davis struggles to synthesize a welter of theories, from William Jamess radical empiricism to Bruno Latours Actor-Network Theory to the materialist psychoanalysis of Flix Guattari (and much more) but it is never pedantic or boring.

The core of High Weirdness is a careful study of three major psychonauts Terence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, and Philip K. Dick all of whom, under the influence of far-out fictions, esoteric doctrines, and various controlled substances, were bombarded by a series of hallucinatory visions that were arguably mystical and indubitably life-changing. Seven chapters devoted to these thinkers lives and work are bookended by a wide-ranging exordium that develops a concept of weird naturalism to account for their quasi-mystical experiences, and a coda that explores why this freaky occultural mindset should have emerged precisely when and where it did: in early 1970s California. Daviss introduction makes clear that a key historical development was the psychedelic transformation of esotericism and the occult, which spawned a countercultural zeitgeist fusing the delirious whimsies of LSD gurus with a hybrid pop-hermeticism la Aleister Crowley and a Westernized Tao out of Mircea Eliade via Alan Watts. This potent brew was laced, as the dreamy 60s gave way to the fidgety 70s, with even more outr ingredients, from the tabloid conspiracy theories of UFO cultism to the posthuman pulp metaphysics of H. P. Lovecraft.

The result, in Daviss words, was a weirding of religious experience that ushered in a consciousness culture of intense, enchanting, and liberating altered states, navigated by a restless mode of subjectivity that I call the centrifugal self. This deracinated ego, adrift amid a kaleidoscopic relativism of arcane beliefs and alternative lifestyles, was less a coherent identity than an endlessly mutating project: On the one hand, the decentered self becomes a charged vector of exploration and creative re-invention; on the other, it spins like an aimless and lonely satellite through random space. As Davis argues in his concluding chapter, this nomadic subjectivity was particularly suited to if not outright engendered by the complex and abstract behavior of networks, systems, and information ecologies that emerged as a new social paradigm during the postwar years, especially in California (here, Davis builds thoughtfully on Manuel Castellss 1996 sociological classic, The Rise of the Network Society). The quasi-mystical perception that everything in a network is potentially connected gave rise to both libertarian dreams of empowerment, including the hacker ethos of information freedom, and conspiratorial fantasies of mind control, such as the belief that a psychic mafia of paranormal researchers might be soften[ing] peoples brains telepathically.

There is thus a key ambivalence a strangely doubled gnosis at the heart of the visions Davis anatomizes: they seem to give access to higher states of reality while at the same time suggesting that this contact could be manipulative or delusional. A deep strain of doubt underlies the surface credulity: all three psychonauts reported encounters with enigmatic nonhuman intelligences they could neither shake nor entirely believe in. A cautionary counterexample is provided by another figure who didnt quite make it into Daviss mystic pantheon: neuroscientist John Lilly, who used sensory deprivation as a trigger to extra-human communication and supraself metaprogramming, but who eventually became convinced, under the dissociative influence of ketamine, that a Borg-like Solid State Intelligence was in the process of conquering all biological, carbon-based life in the universe. McKenna, Wilson, and Dick all came close to surrendering to such crippling chimeras themselves, but each was saved, finally, by a capacity for wry humor, cool pragmatism, or skeptical self-analysis. Moreover, Davis is less interested in appraising the putative truth of their mystical visions than he is in exploring the rhetorical and conceptual resources these garage philosophers marshaled to narrate and interpret their experiences, in a series of highly imaginative, curiously engaging, and boldly genre-bending texts.

The first and in many ways the least interesting figure Davis discusses is McKenna, a modern techno-shaman who, when he wasnt hymning the ethno-botanical (if not extraterrestrial) powers of psilocybin mushrooms, was claiming to have discovered a fractal math underlying the I Ching that, when read alongside the patterns of the Mayan calendar, forecast an imminent global apocalypse. (McKenna died in 2000 and so was not around to see the failure of his prediction or of the big-budget film based upon it, Roland Emmerichs silly 2009 spectacle, 2012.) While all three of Daviss psychonauts were a bit sketchy and egotistical, willing to shade the facts in the service of a good story (Davis defends them, fondly but cogently, as bullshit artists), it is McKenna alone who comes across to me at least as a flamboyant fraud. Like Wilson and Dick, he was a voracious autodidact, and he could vent his weird fund of erudition a compound of pulp sci-fi, McLuhanist media babble, half-digested Buddhism, and drug lore in intense and witty raps of cannabis-fueled eloquence. (In later years, he became, like his friend and fellow con man Timothy Leary, a fixture on the college lecture circuit, and budding bohemians can readily access his loopy musings online.)

Davis does his best to argue for McKenna as a genuine counterculture intellectual, a psychedelic alchemist who used DMT, magic mushrooms, and other potent substances as metabolic triggers for extra-dimensional experiences. A less generous way to put it is that he was a drug nut not that theres anything wrong with that, but his motives, frankly, come across as more shallow and self-serving than the other two pop-mystics Davis groups him with, whose drug use was more incidental to their visions and who, for all their nascent messianism, never really fancied themselves as gurus.

That said, McKenna was, of the three, the most ardently and admirably peripatetic: rather than waiting for enlightenment to arrive, he actively hunted it down. Davis chronicles his youthful 1971 foray, accompanied by brother Dennis, into the Amazon jungle in search of indigenous psychoactives rare plants and fungi that put Terence in touch with a higher intelligence, either posthuman or nonhuman, which he dubbed the Logos (for his part, Dennis was either transformed into an oracle or had a gibbering breakdown in later years, he wasnt quite sure himself). The brothers Experiment at La Chorrera led to two co-authored books: The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching (1975), which ambitiously constructs a syncretic folk science of New Age shamanism, and the flipped-out, psy-phi Magic Mushroom Growers Guide (1976), in which the drug, personified as an alien ambassador, peddles a dreamy fantasy of cosmic symbiosis. (Ever the huckster, Terence had returned to the States with a hoard of psilocybin spore-prints that he marketed to avid heads under his Lux Natura brand.) Caveat emptor.

The second psychonaut to whom Davis introduces us Robert Anton Wilson was, I think, an altogether more intriguing cat. Born in 1932, he was 14 years older than McKenna and thus had been compelled to carve out a social niche for himself before the 60s made hippie entrepreneurialism a feasible option. A modestly successful freelance journalist, he served, for much of the 1960s, as associate editor for Playboy magazine, where he was in charge along with his friend and colleague Robert Shea of the letters Forum, which the duo remodeled into a clearinghouse for [] alternative views, from right-wing libertarianism to psychosexual anarchism. A bookish pothead with a pronounced trickster streak, Wilson proposed to Shea that they consider the worldviews animating the missives they received as all equally valid, a hypothesis that fed into a lengthy manuscript the pair drafted between 1969 and 1971, eventually published in three volumes as The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975).

The apotheosis of 1970s conspiracy culture, a cross between the pomo delirium of Thomas Pynchon and the earnest hysteria of a Xerox pamphleteer, the trilogy is a bracing tabloid bath of satiric paranoia that I seem to like rather better than Davis does (he claims to find its blend of pulp indulgence and ironic, avant-garde affectation off-putting). Davis is interested in Illuminatus! primarily as a gateway drug that leads to Wilsons later work, as well as for what it reveals about the Discordians, a real-world group of social and spiritual pranksters with whom Wilson was closely associated. Davis warmly defends Discordianism as more than a parody religion; it is rather, he claims, a life-affirming neo-paganism that forges a deep link between anti-state politics and the esoteric imagination. Certainly, its impish ironies are vastly more entertaining than McKennas mycelial metaphysics.

In his later solo effort, Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati (1977), Wilson started to weave the raw material of the trilogy into a more personal, meditative brief for pluralistic psychedelic pragmatism. After leaving Playboy in 1971, the author finally took the plunge into the swirling currents of acid evangelism and pseudo-liberatory eroticism; he joined a small coven in Mendocino, performed rites of Crowleyan and Tantric sex magic, used a tape machine for consciousness re-programming, and generally let his freak flag fly. After a few years of this bizarro diet, Wilsons innate skepticism began to fray in the face of hypnotic patterns of synchronicity and visionary trances that seemed to channel transmissions from higher dimensional intelligences [in] the star system Sirius. The author had entered what he called the Chapel Perilous: either he was truly experiencing an epochal brain change that gave him access to astral realms, or he was being seduced by madness into scripting his own life as a four-dimensional coincidence-hologram.

Happily, this great satirist of conspiracy theory managed to shake off the grip of the hallucinatory schemes in which he had trapped himself, surfacing as a kind of bemused agnostic armed with the practical counter-magic of reason itself. Much of his later writing was devoted to constructing an elaborate but highly playful personal mythology (he remained active well into the 1990s, including penning a sometime column for the pop-hacktivist journal, Mondo 2000). This dialectic of development is considerably more arresting and provocative than anything McKenna put himself through; indeed, as Davis argues, Cosmic Trigger was a major attempt both to communicate the pathological extremes of extraordinary experience and to rescue its author from mysteries whose infectious charisma is nonetheless sustained, and even broadcast, through the act of writing itself. (The book is still in print from Hilaritas Press, but I would personally much rather locate a copy of the authors ultra-rare hippie porn novel The Sex Magicians [1973], which Davis describes as a goofy romp that draws as much from Playboy as from the sleazy excesses of underground comix.)

The final section, on Philip K. Dick, stands out for three reasons. First, it is longer by half than the previous parts, thus suggesting that Davis considers Dick to be a more complex and/or interesting figure than the other two psychonauts. Second, it focuses on someone who had a long career as a celebrated SF writer before his early 70s mystical encounters turned him into a purple sage; he thus had greater narrative skills and generic resources to draw upon when fashioning accounts of his otherworldly exploits. (He was also, quite simply, smarter than either McKenna or Wilson that is to say, more learned, as opposed to just well read.) Finally, this section is the only one that doesnt feature a collaborator, a doting brother or Playboy buddy; instead, Dick had to struggle through his perplexing cosmic baptism more or less alone (though Davis does explore the network of friends and correspondents he regularly bounced ideas off of). As a result, these chapters are more sober and contemplative in tone, and the experience of reading them can be both painful and profound, especially if you are already a fan, like me, of their subjects body of work.

On the one hand, its unfortunate that the wild spiritual ride Dick endured during the final decade of his life, which has generated a host of subcultural responses ranging from a Tarot deck to an R. Crumb comic, has somewhat eclipsed or, rather, subsumed his specifically literary achievements. On the other hand, if it werent for the interest generated by the authors purported brush with extrahuman otherness, his work might well have slipped down the memory hole that has engulfed so many of his genre contemporaries. Instead, Dicks fiction is widely available in editions that are often now shelved with Literature instead of SF in bookstores, and 13 of his best novels have been enshrined in a three-volume set from the Library of America, under the editorship of avid Dickhead Jonathan Lethem. It was also Lethem, along with scholar-editor Pamela Jackson, who persuaded Houghton Mifflin, in 2011, to publish a thousand-page curation of fragments from Dicks Exegesis a personal journal the author began keeping in the wake of the theophanic irruption that scrambled his life in early 1974.

In a 2012 LARB review of The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, I attempted to summarize the authors experiences:

Recovering from oral surgery in February 1974, pumped full of Darvon, lithium, and massive quantities of megavitamins, he began experiencing visual and auditory hallucinations initially sparked by a Christian girls fish-icon necklace but eventually taking the form of a pink laser shooting highly coded information into his opened mind during a series of hypnogogic visitations. Over time, the intrepid author developed an elaborate vocabulary to describe the transfiguring effects of these extraterrestrial dispatches. According to this private argot, on 2-3-74 [i.e., in February and March of 1974] Dick underwent a powerful anamnesis, stimulated by mystical contact with VALIS (Vast Active Living Intelligence System, sometimes also called Zebra or, more simply, God), that unshackled his genetic memory, permitting him to see through the Black Iron Prison of our world into the macrometasomacosmos, the morphological realm of the Platonic Eidos, in the process revealing himself to be a homoplasmate, an incarnation of the Gnostic Logos subsisting in orthogonal time.

As this breathless litany perhaps suggests, the Exegesis is a phantasmagoric rats nest of deranged erudition, feverish guesswork, and scathing self-analysis, with Dick like Wilson in Cosmic Trigger painfully pondering whether he just might have lost his mind. In my previous review, I question[ed] whether this manuscript should have seen print at all, given its often embarrassing rambling and autodidactic fanaticism, with Dick latching onto any stray thread to spin out his cosmogonic web, and I said that it was hard to imagine that there is a widespread audience for this strange assemblage of obiter Dick-ta, even among PKDs more hardcore followers.

Daviss High Weirdness, with its three long chapters parsing Dicks unruly speculations, will very likely test that assumption. Over the course of his own career, Davis has stoutly put his shoulder to the Dickian wheel: the first glimmering of this book project was an undergraduate thesis he wrote at Yale on Philip K. Dicks Postmodern Gnosis, and he labored heroically alongside Lethem and Jackson to midwife the Exegesis, soliciting, coordinating, and in many cases drafting the books superb arsenal of annotations. While Davis does take a few nose-dives down beguiling rabbit holes in his chapters on Dick in High Weirdness, he also provides the most comprehensive and convincing account of the authors mystical experiences I have read, shrewdly navigating between the Scylla of reducing these visions to phantasms of madness or drug abuse and the Charybdis of embracing them as emanations of godhood (the excellent footnotes cite the full range of extant views, and there are a lot of them). Above all, Davis is superbly attentive to the textual nature of Dicks experiences, the way narrative retrospection and redaction both in the Exegesis and in his later published fictions worked to give shape to amorphous events usually experienced on the hazy brink of sleep. Indeed, the authors speculative frenzy in some ways simply shows Dicks plot-weaving imagination in paranoid overdrive.

I will leave it to scholars of religious studies to assess the fitness of Daviss mobilization of Neoplatonic and esoteric discourses in his analysis of Dicks supermundane visions. In terms of the sociocultural contexts Davis cites, I was particularly struck by the evidence he musters for the influence of the 1970s Jesus Movement on at least the outward symbols, if not the redemptive heart, of Dicks evolving creed; these Jesus Freaks were especially active in Orange County, a locale the author quite understandably viewed as emblematic of a foul, fallen world. Whatever the triggering phenomenon, Dick came to believe, at least some of the time, that he was still living in apostolic times, and that the intervening centuries of history were a fabulation. As Davis meticulously documents, this conviction led the author to recast his earlier novels, many of which had depicted delusory worlds manipulated by cynical puppet-masters, as looming prefigurations of the Black Iron Prison he now glimpsed all around him. Conversely, his nocturnal oracles obsessively masticated and transformed in the Exegesis came to provide the numinous fodder for a series of late-career novels, including the cryptic, metafictional VALIS (1981) and the deeply poignant Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982), published shortly after the authors death. As Davis movingly puts it, Dicks final novels were more than disguised testimonies, they were also self-cures for the ravages of revelation.

The proximate cause of Dicks untimely death was a series of massive strokes, though his lifelong abuse of amphetamines was undoubtedly a contributing factor. Unlike McKenna and Wilson, Dick was not particularly fond of psychedelics, or street drugs of any kind, as his 1977 quasi-memoir of his years shepherding a crash-pad of hippie drop-outs, A Scanner Darkly, makes plain. A knowledgeable and compulsive pillhead, he preferred the quantifiable mood modulations of psychiatric scripts. By the time the Gnostic Logos came a-calling, he had already transformed himself into a kind of pharmaceutical cyborg, stuffing his face with Benzedrine tablets he kept in a jar in the refrigerator, along with doses of Stelazine to take the edge off. Davis describes the astonishing regimen in some detail, but he doesnt fully explain how this teeming pharmacopoeia fits into the counterculture scene his other psychonauts inhabited. And while he does discuss the way that amphetamine use shaped and supported the rapid-fire, immersive, and deeply personal way [] Dick wrote his [SF] books, he doesnt really speculate about its impact on the composition of the Exegesis, much less attempt to describe the way a speed-freak mythopoesis might differ from the psychedelic kind generated by a classic head such as McKenna.

Indeed, the main failing of the book, in my view, is the relative lack of comparative analysis of the three authors and their visionary worldviews. There is a bit of this work in the concluding chapter, but it seems half-hearted, with Davis toting up shared motifs like UFOs, the star system Sirius, and H. P. Lovecraft before proceeding to his anatomy of the nascent network society within which their mystic schemas emerged. Ultimately, High Weirdness displays the weaknesses of many PhD dissertations: an opening chapter choked with theoretical references is followed by a series of more or less discrete case studies, the whole capped by a too-brief conclusion that belatedly seeks to sketch some essential connections.

But I have very seldom encountered a dissertation as engaging, as insightful, or as compellingly written, much less one so clearly driven by a personal passion for its subject. High Weirdness is a richly rewarding study of three maverick talents, the occult incubi that plagued them, the ambiguous gospels they formulated, and the sun-kissed, dope-saturated milieu that cradled and nourished it all. I recommend this book very highly indeed.

Rob Latham is a LARB senior editor.

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The Ravages of Revelation - lareviewofbooks

Three-year education partnership provides technology and curriculum in U.S., India and Nigeria

Palo Alto, CA, Oct. 14 /CSRwire/ - Today on International Day of the Girl, HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) and nonprofitGirl Risingannounced the launch of new curriculum and technology solutions that will equip up to ten million students and teachers. The multi-year partnership extends to communities in the United States, India and Nigeria, and is a critical component in reachingHPs goal of enabling better learning outcomes for 100 million people by 2025.

We are thrilled to once again partner with HP a company committed to social impact and at the forefront of innovation in the classroom to radically scale our efforts to ensure girls everywhere have the knowledge, skills and confidence to decide their own futures, said Christina Lowery, CEO of Girl Rising. We are devoted to this cause because it is a proven catalyst: giving girls access to education and opportunity is the most effective factor in transforming pressing global issues including health, poverty, and climate change.

HP believes that education is a fundamental human right that creates pathways to new opportunities. Today, more than 130 million girls around the world continue to lack access to education and women account for two thirds of the 750 million adults without basic literacy skills. HP will include Girl Risings teacher training modules focused on youth empowerment and life skills in HP Education Edition PCs. Targeted toward primary and secondary schools, HP will also deploy a suite of curricula and a library of content to accompany the HP School Pack, a suite of software pre-loaded onto HPs EHP Education Edition PC.

HP prides itself on bringing out the best of humanity through the power of technology, said Michele Malejki, Global Head, Social Impact Programs, HP. Girl Rising is doing groundbreaking work to empower women and girls around the world. This has never been more important, and our collaboration will equip millions of both students and teachers with the curriculum and technology they need to thrive.

With the goal to develop the next generation of female leaders, the HP Learning Initiative for Entrepreneurship (HP LIFE) a free e-learning program from the HP Foundation created to support entrepreneurship and skills development will provide additional curriculum in the three markets. HP School Packs, a suite of software for educators, will also be available for the duration of the program. HP will evaluate additional opportunities for Girl Rising content and curricula distribution, including new products and services, as well as additional partners to scale the program over the next three years.

Global education opportunities

Building on the groundbreaking work of each organization and their previous collaborations - launching the Hindi language version of Girl Rising in India in 2015, celebrating every day gender equality champions around the world throughthe Girl Rising Creative Challengein 2018, and the production and distribution ofBrave Girl Risingearlier this year- HP and Girl Rising are now scaling efforts to improve learning outcomes and gender attitudes for both boys and girls.

HP continues to advance education opportunities for women and girls around the world. Last month during UN General Assembly,HP Inc. and UN Women signed an agreementto advance education, entrepreneurship and digital learning for women and girls in five priority countries: Senegal, South Africa, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Morocco.

HPs partnership with UN Women through two UN Women initiatives Second Chance Education and African Girls Can Code possesses immense potential to both scale and address the lack of investment in women and affording them access to opportunities for career work and economic growth.

Both India and Nigeria have rapidly growing populations of young people with extreme numbers of children not in school - 41 percent of the population in Nigeria is under the age of 16, with 10.5 million out of school and India has the worlds largest population of 10-24 year-olds, 47 million of which will drop out of school by the 10th grade. The burden on education in both countries is overwhelming and new, innovative solutions are vital to advancing change.

About Girl Rising

Girl Rising (GR)s mission is to change the way the world values girls and invests in their potential. Driven by decades of research demonstrating that educating girls is one of the most effective ways to address our worlds most pressing issues including health, poverty, peace and stability and climate change, GR creates original media and creative campaigns about the universal benefits of educating girls. Working with local partners, GR reaches youth and their communities through customized curricula designed to build skills and confidence and address powerful social norms that hold girls back.

About HP

HP Inc. creates technology that makes life better for everyone, everywhere. Through our portfolio of personal systems, printers and 3D printing solutions, we engineer experiences that amaze. More information about HP Inc. is available at http://www.hp.com.

Additional Resources:

Media ContactTom Suiterwww.hp.com/go/newsroomTom.Suiter@hp.com

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HP Inc. and Girl Rising Mark International Day of the Girl with Partnership to Empower 10 Million Students and Teachers - CSRwire.com

Looking for something family-friendly to do in Atlanta this weekend? As the weather turns to more fall-like temperatures, you'll find plenty of outdoor events celebrating the UGA Dawgs, your own dogs and more.

RELATED:10 Atlanta festivals you don't want to miss this October

And if you'd rather stay inside, you'll have your choice of activities including a sneaker convention and Chinese ribbon dance production.

Check out the following 16 things to do in metro Atlanta this weekend:

Cobb

HarvestFest. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19. Free. Glover Park at Historic Marietta Square, 50 N. Park Square NE, Marietta. 770-794-5601.mariettaga.gov.

This annual festival features Scarecrows in the Square, arts and crafts, Touch-A-Truck, inflatables, a costume contest and more.

Owl-O-Ween Hot Air Balloon Festival. 6 p.m.-11 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18 and 4 p.m.-11 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19. Fifth Third Bank Stadium, 3200 George Busbee Parkway NW, Kennesaw.https://owl-o-ween.com/.

Bring your family to the 7th annual Owl-O-Ween Hot Air Balloon Festival, which features tethered balloon rides, hot air balloon glows, live entertainment, trick-or-treating, costume showdowns, a kids' zone and more.

Sneaker Con Atlanta. Noon-7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19. $25 plus fees. Cobb Galleria Centre, Two Galleria Parkway, Atlanta. 770-955-8000.sneakercon.com.

Buy, sell or trade your kicks with other like-minded sneaker fans at Sneaker Con. You can also have your sneakers authenticated at the event.

Xfinity Movie Series. 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18. Free admission. The Battery Atlanta, 800 Battery Ave. SE, Atlanta.batteryatl.com.

The Xfinity Movie Series kicks off with a showing of "The Goonies." Bring a lawn chair or blanket if you'd like.

DeKalb

Dunwoody Community Tailgate. 1 p.m.-11 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19. Free admission. Marlow's Tavern, 1317 Dunwoody Village Parkway, Suite 102, Dunwoody.https://www.facebook.com.

Watch UGA take on the Kentucky Wildcats on a big screen at the tree-lined lawn along the parkway. An on-site DJ will be featured during commercials, along with giveaways. You can buy tailgate-themed foods from Marlow's Tavern and play games such as cornhole and giant Jenga.

Stone Mountain Highland Games. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19 and Sunday, Oct. 20. $18-$20 adults per day, $5 for children age 4-12, plus $20 parking per vehicle per day. Stone Mountain Park, 1000 Robert E. Lee Blvd., Stone Mountain. 770-521-0228.stonemountainpark.com.

Scots or "Scots for the Day" will gather for the Stone Mountain Highland Games and activities including Highland dancing, athletic events and piping and drumming.

Brookhaven Arts Festival. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19 and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20. Free parking and admission. Apply Valley Road, Brookhaven with parking behind the Brookhaven MARTA Station.https://www.brookhavenartsfestival.com/.

Over 120 artists from across the country will participate in the Brookhaven Arts Festival, which also features a new kids' section, music and food and drink as well as a classic car show from 1 p.m.-5 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 20.

Atlanta Audubon Society Field Trip. 8 a.m. Friday, Oct. 18. Free. Murphey Candler Park, 1551 W. Nancy Creek Drive NE, Atlanta. 404-308-6279.https://www.atlantaaudubon.org/field-trips.html.

Explore lake, wetlands and mixed woods habitats as you look for resident and migrant birds. The walk is suitable for people over 14 years old.

North Fulton

St. Mary of Egypt International Fall Festival. Noon-5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19 and Sunday, Oct. 20. $1 admission, children 12 and under free. St. Mary of Egypt Orthodox Church, 1765 Woodstock Road, Roswell.stmaryofegypt.org.

Try exotic homemade foods and desserts, browse and buy from diverse vendors and artisans and enjoy musical entertainment and children's events.

Johns Creek Arts Festival. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19 and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20. Green space across from Atlanta Athletic Club, 1930 Bobby Jones Drive, Johns Creek.splashfestivals.com.

The 8th annual Johns Creek Arts Festival will feature 130 artisans and their paintings, pottery, metalwork, folk art, jewelry, glass and more. You'll also find a kids' zone and will be able to listen to varied live music.

Milton Haunted House on the Hill. From sundown to 10:30 p.m. nightly in October. 820 Dockbridge Way, Milton.https://www.facebook.com.

Michael Myers, the haunted forest and spooky spirits welcome you to drive by the annual Milton Haunted House on the Hill. If you'd like to find Pennywise, you'll have to get out of your car, but please stay off the yard. Props will be limited on rainy nights.

Music Under the Pines. 7:30 p.m.-9:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18. $27. Matilda's, 850 Hickory Flat Road, Milton. 678-480-6932.https://www.matildasmusicvenue.com/music.

Enjoy music from Granville Automatic, a duo of Nashville songwriters influenced by The Smiths, Emmylou Harris and Simon & Garfunkel. Bring your own food and drink and come by on the day of the concert if you want to put your name on a table to reserve it. Otherwise, it's first-come, first-served, so you may want to bring your own table and chairs.

Gwinnett

PAWFest. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19. Free, with some activities extra. Praise Community Church, 329 Grayson Highway, Lawrenceville.https://gwinnetthumane.wixsite.com/pawfest.

Bring your leashed dogs to the Gwinnett Humane Society's PAWFest for activities such as lure chasing, a parade, disc dog demos, silent auction, carnival games, $5 nail trims and $12 rabies shots. Dogs will be available for adoption, and you can watch football games at the DAWG-Zone.

AutumnFest. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19. Main Street, downtown Logainville.loganville-ga.gov.

Officially welcome fall with craft and food vendors, live entertainment and plenty of kids' activities.

Ribbon Dance of Empowerment. 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19 and 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20. $17-$24. Infinite Energy Center, 6400 Sugarloaf Parkway, Duluth. 770-626-2464.infiniteenergycenter.com.

This educational, entertaining production intertwines Chinese dance, history, culture and personal story telling. An original mini dance-drama also tells the story of Chinese-Americans growing up in the South.

Sugar Rush. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 19. 5039 West Broad St., Sugar Hill.cityofsugarhill.com.

Join in the fun at Sugar Rush, an arts festival celebrating performing, visual and culinary arts. Artist vendors, a juried art show, inflatables, an arcade, arts and crafts and more are featured.

RELATED:Diwali 2019: Where in Atlanta you can celebrate the festival of lights

Support real journalism. Support local journalism. Subscribe to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution today. See offers.

Your subscription to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution funds in-depth reporting and investigations that keep you informed. Thank you for supporting real journalism.

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Dawgs and dogs: 16 things to do in metro Atlanta this weekend - Atlanta Journal Constitution

Melody Newcomb for BuzzFeed News; Nina Subin

Last August, when the writer Meghan Daum published her essay Nuance: A Love Story on the Medium publication GEN (where shes a biweekly columnist), it touched a nerve. The love story, as detailed in this 28-minute read, was about how Daum a lifelong self-described liberal fell into a YouTube hole populated by the intellectual dark web, the sticky neologism that applies to a loosely connected group of professors and podcasters, including Jordan Peterson, Christina Hoff Sommers, and Joe Rogan.

The groups members, first introduced to the mainstream by a 2018 New York Times piece by Bari Weiss, present themselves as self-styled public intellectuals who argue that their values of reason, which can easily be interpreted as hate speech, are under attack from todays politically correct attitudes. Daum refers to her new friends (which shes careful to note include a handful of this cadre of the intellectual dark web) as Free Speech YouTube. In the piece, she outlines how she went from watching Bloggingheads.TV to curling up with a two-hour interview with Evergreen College professor Bret Weinstein, the locus of a campus controversy on racism and intolerance, on The Rubin Report, a YouTube show hosted by Dave Rubin. I was invigorated, she writes, even electrified, by their willingness to ask (if not ever totally answer) questions that had lately been deemed too messy somehow to deal with in mainstream public discourse.

For longtime fans of Daum, Nuance was befuddling, dissonant, and troubling. Daum is something like a senior statesperson for the young, striving white nonfiction woman writer. Her 1999 breakout essay and subsequent 2001 essay collection, My Misspent Youth, is a cult classic about the pleasures and perils of pursuing a passion for an intellectual life. Her books captured a generations experience in funny and devastating prose: In 2010, she published a memoir about yearning for real estate, Life Would Be Perfect if I Lived in That House, and her fourth book, 2014s essay collection The Unspeakable, looked dead in the eye of traumatic events: sick parents, the question of motherhood, and near-death experiences. She was able to write personal essays from a white liberal feminist perspective that pulled off the neat trick of seeming utterly confessional while also sharply summing up the zeitgeist.

So how did Daum, critically acclaimed and considered a voice of a generation (X, in this case) as well as a pioneer of the 2000s personal essay boom, end up publicly sympathizing with a cohort of self-described public intellectuals who make their money claiming to own social justice warriors?

In some ways, Daums pivot isnt surprising. For many years, she has been a writer committed to saying Hey, maybe its like this and not this. Part of that perspective is her love of nuance; its also a useful contrarian pitch against whatever might be the days accepted ideology among mainstream medias centrist liberalism. (For anyone looking to be published: Editors will often respond to pieces that can be sold as edgy and against the grain, especially when youre just starting out.) As a white woman who votes Democratic, Daum can explore more conservative perspectives and give credence to what she views as its more palatable ideas, if only because they wouldnt affect her day-to-day existence.

Her new book, The Problem With Everything: My Journey Through the New Culture Wars, out on Oct. 22, continues in this vein, wrestling back and forth with what the polarization of America means in a world where a significant part of life is played out on the extremes of the internet. But instead of documenting her life experiences, something at which she excels, Daum spends far more time arguing over simplified conservative and liberal talking points, exposing her blind spots to the current issues that color our experience: race, gender, capitalism, the internet, and power.

In 1996, a 25-year-old Daum had the break that most writers dream of, selling an essay to the New York Times Magazine about how Generation X reacts to the message of safe sex. Published under the title Safe-Sex Lies: the final edit was abrupt, not all that coherent, gratuitously provocative, and suggested that I might have had unprotected sex with upward of five hundred people, as Daum would write in the Believer years later. The Times received hundreds of letters in response, Daum appeared on NBC Nightly News in black leather boots, and she had her first experience of what it was like to be the voice of a generation.

Three years later, the New Yorker published Daums essay My Misspent Youth. Its a psychologically astute portrait of a suburban New Jersey twentysomething who accrued more than $60,000 in debt in order to achieve a life that had less to do with overt wealth than with what I perceived as intellectual New York bohemianism. She discussed her student loans from her Columbia masters degree, credit card debt acquired from dental care, freelance taxes, and daily purchases of fresh flowers. She was funny and self-aware about why she was pursuing a romantic version of poverty. Daum closes with the ultimate flex: While she had a very, very good time in New York, she writes that shes now moving to Nebraska, where she can afford the price of living. (Thanks to a freelance career that she says yielded around $40,000 a year 20 years ago good for her!) The essay is a wonderful piece of writing, and still feels fresh in 2019 even if the average debt for a suburban girl turned aspiring bohemian may be a little bit higher these days, and the possibility of making a living wage as a freelance writer is increasingly diminishing.

How did Daum, a pioneer of the 2000s personal essay boom, end up publicly sympathizing with a cohort of self-described public intellectuals who make their money claiming to own social justice warriors?

My Misspent Youth would also be the title of Daums first essay collection, published by the now-closed indie publishing arm of the late magazine Open City. Its best essays were concerned with the minutiae of Daums twentysomething life: On the Fringes of the Physical World discussed an internet courtship that consisted of enthusiastic emails; American Shiksa detailed what its like falling for Jewish men when youre not Jewish; and Variations on Grief is a tough, honest essay about a friends death at 22, in which Daum writes, Brian is someone who accomplished nothing in life other than his death.

In 2003, Daum published her first novel, The Quality of Life Report, a funny and light read that the original paperback cover marketed as edgy chick lit. By 2005, Daum had landed a weekly op-ed column for the Los Angeles Times, a position that she held for over a decade. In 2010, Daums second nonfiction book came out, Life Would Be Perfect if I Lived in That House, and it solidified her position as a writer who could be wry and heartbreaking.

When Daum released her second book of essays in 2014, The Unspeakable, I wrote in a review for Flavorwire that Daum was like a big sister to me, warm and realistic and not afraid to seem like an asshole. There are some duds in this book do I have to dig into Honorary Dyke, an essay whose cringey title really says it all? but there are resonant essays too, like Matricide, about her mothers death, and Diary of a Coma, about her own near-death experience. Instead of boilerplate reactions to brutal life events, Daum was willing to express her ambivalence in the face of subjects as heavy as death.

Theres an essay at the heart of The Unspeakable, one that shows the force of Daums talent, called Difference Maker. She writes about her experience as a volunteer court-appointed advocate for foster children, centered on her relationship with a young kid named Matthew. Age, race, and circumstances mean that as much as Daum wants to be a positive presence in this kids life, shes trying her best in a situation thats set up to hurt, and Matthew is well aware of it too. This attempt at caretaking contrasts with her own explorations of potential motherhood, a subject about which she is mostly conflicted, and she remains rooted in that ambiguity as she and her husband deal with the aftermath of a miscarriage. All of this familial questioning in her marriage is referred to as the Central Sadness, and it holds a lot of weight especially when compared with Daums faltering forays into the foster care system.

On the heels of this book, which won the 2015 PEN Center USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction, Daum edited Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision NOT to Have Kids. I interviewed her when the book was released, noting its calm, fair tone and lack of sneering at either side. She said, The conversation [on whether to have kids] gets framed in this hyperbolic way that doesnt serve anyone. At the time, I appreciated her thoughtfulness, and her willingness to discuss, off the record, the looming specter of my own mothers death. Daum was frank and unsentimental. It wasnt what youd expect to hear from a writer and death can inspire the most sentimental clichs. At the time, her words served as a kind of balm as I was stuck in a liminal space, waiting for the next terrible phone call that would change everything.

Daum didnt set out to write a book thats nearly punditry; as she writes in the introduction of The Problem With Everything, it began as a critique of the current state of the womens movement, delving into her frustrations about the lack of shading and the bluster from social media. Over the period in which she wrote the book, starting in late 2016 and finishing earlier this year, the work shifted from being solely concerned with feminism to looking at sexual harassment at work, sexual assault on campus, comedy, the #MeToo movement, identity politics, social media politics, divorce, the intellectual dark web, Bari Weiss, and aging.

Daum wrestles with both sides of issues in a manner that she would classify as the pursuit of nuance, but too often she just ends up seeming out of touch with peoples everyday lives and excessively attuned to arguments on the internet. She writes, for example, about the term woke in a manner that is wholly ignorant of the words roots in black activism she attempts, embarrassingly, to coin the term wokescenti about NPR-listening liberals turning the term into a catchall for yuppies who love to virtue signal and tone police.

As a white woman who votes Democratic, Daum can explore more conservative perspectives and give credence to what she views as its more palatable ideas, if only because they wouldnt affect her day-to-day existence.

Then again, Daum oversimplifies constantly. Take her perspective on #MeToo and its consequences. Discussing the Shitty Media Men list in the first essay, "Sign the Petition: From the Meat Grinder to #MeToo," she jokes, Weird lunch! Welcome to publishing! Im going to write a memoir of my early days in New York and call it Weird Lunch. Shes wary of the idea that #MeToo will fundamentally change how men and women treat each other in the workplace and in relationships.

For Daum, #MeToo is less about women coming forward with stories of sexual misconduct and potentially changing society, and more about younger feminists cluelessness. She takes special pleasure in criticizing an as told to Babe.net piece about Aziz Ansari, widely considered by conservatives and some older feminists (such as Daphne Merkin and Caitlin Flanagan) as a classic case of #MeToo run amok. Daum claims that the story, about a young womans experiences with Ansari, was received entirely along generational lines: Older feminists thought this was an unremarkably bad date, while younger feminists thought it was assault. She fails to recognize how many millennial feminists were skeptical of Babes decision to publish the story, and how many millennial feminists are, in general, skeptical or ambivalent about some of #MeToos influence. Weiss, whos made a career of pointing out that her peers are wrong, naturally pops up as the only millennial with a tolerable point of view because she claimed that Ansaris only problem was not knowing what his date wanted. (The two are now friends: Daum appeared at the Moderate Chic book party for Weisss How to Fight Anti-Semitism; Weiss will be interviewing Daum on her book tour.)

Daum is all over the place, arguing against one strawman after the next from a perspective that ends up feeling blinkered. She raves about her childhood, growing up in the 70s as a kid, gender-neutral, and not being classified as a girl. She argues that this shared childhood is why Generation X is invested in being tough. She compares this toughness to what she classifies as the millennial obsession with fairness, which, to Daum, creates a slippery slope toward a sense of protracted victimhood.

She argues against corporate feminism, circling back over and over to the idea of branded products imprinted with words like badass or male tears, which she views as part of the angry younger generation. Shes a bit obsessed with ironic feminism, in fact, citing memes that are nearly a decade old. (She mentions confused Betty White GIFs so often that Im convinced were not on the same internet.)

But again, Daum fails to recognize the fact that millennial feminists have also been critical of the commodification of womens empowerment. Jia Tolentino discusses a similar scourge in a small section of her new book, Trick Mirror, called The Story of a Generation in Seven Scams, digging into #GirlBoss corporate feminism trends (she also cites the male tears mug). The difference between the two writers to some people, the voice of Generation X and the voice of the millennial generation, and who are both compared ad nauseam to Joan Didion is that Daums observations ultimately peter out after shes satisfied with berating angry millennial straw women. Tolentino, with the advantage of her experience at Jezebel, places the corporate feminism trend in a greater context; internet memes go mainstream, she argues, due to the celebration, exploitation, and mainstreaming of feminism under capitalism.

Its hard to know, according to Daums worldview, who the real villains are.

By writing that current feminism is angry, Daums arguments have more than a whiff of maternalistic condescension. She writes that young women swear a lot and that their language ruins the efficacy of their protests against the cruelty of the current age, a both sidesism that she admits can be boiled down to respectability politics. She applauds the Freedom Riders of the civil rights movement for being dressed well; she then, with all the cluelessness of white feminism, wonders why young women of today cant do the same.

Its hard to know, according to Daums worldview, who the real villains are. Shes correct in saying that when Justice Brett Kavanaugh was first nominated to the Supreme Court, the sexual assault reports distracted from Christine Blasey Fords testimony a subject thats reported on with far more authority in Jodi Kantor and Megan Twoheys recent book, She Said. But then Daum uses the bizarre rhetorical tactic of trying to establish that women can be abusers too by writing, Raise your hand if youve ever threatened to harm yourself if a man breaks up with you or doesnt want to see you anymore. She follows this up with seven other mundane and ridiculous hypotheticals. To quote Tolentino once again, Daum relies on the kind of whataboutism thats appealing to people who wish to seem both contrarian and intellectually superior.

Whats frustrating about Meghan Daum is that, ultimately, she is a good writer. She knows how to put together an argument (even when shes only arguing with herself). The effect can be seductive. But the aimlessness throughout The Problem With Everything is confusing even though, in some ways, it feels as if shes been writing toward this kind of contrarianism throughout her whole career. Exploring both sides is an obsession that doesnt feel particularly useful or urgent. It seems to me that these times call for action rather than intellectual hedging.

The conservative streak that blossoms here may turn Daum into a full-on professional pundit, someone with a future discussing the problem with something women, men, misogyny on someones angry podcast. Its a shame, however, as theres so much more to pay attention to these days so much more thats worth the time of someone as smart and concerned as Daum is. Younger writers like Tolentino have taken on the internet and expanded what it means to write about this new world from a feminist perspective, looking at how capitalism affects young people, even when they dont see themselves as consumers. The feminist perspective that Daum brings here isnt nearly as expansive, let alone accurate, at times.

The lasting image Ive retained from The Problem With Everything is one of a woman alone at her computer, in her New York apartment, reading as much as possible and arguing with herself. Its a lonely image of someone producing writing of the laziest sort: shaped by YouTube, Twitter, the 24-hour news cycle. It is the image of a working woman writer looking at something like her own impending obsolescence and lashing out at the present.

For the first time, Daums writing feels evanescent, and thats because shes solely interrogating the online world, and not herself. At the heart of things, these incoherent arguments seem to be someone wanting despite their best instincts to connect.

Elisabeth Donnelly is a journalist and screenwriter. She has written about books, culture, and other passions for numerous places from Oprah to Topic Magazine to New York City Ballet. You can find her writing at elisabethdonnelly.com. Shes currently working on a nonfiction book about wellness.

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How Did This Liberal Feminist Writer Fall In With The Dark Web? - BuzzFeed News

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October 18, 2019

This holiday season, Jordan Brand celebrates the power and impact of the Air Jordan I franchise withnew interpretationsandcollaborationsin the Fearless Ones collection, along with fresh articulations of contemporary classic colorschemes. Eachpair servesto extend the defining spirit of the pioneering silhouette.

The Fearless Onescollection is led by theAJI High FlyEase, which exemplifies the symbolic power of the AJI as a conduit for stories thatshare what it means to be fearless. The remainder of the Fearless Ones collection follows this theme by highlighting communities,collaborators (cultural leaders from across the globe whoinspire people to reach new heights in their respective fields)and illuminating stories connected to MJ'sintrepid drive.

Taking insights and inspiration from adaptive athletes, the Air Jordan I is the first Jordan Brand shoe to feature Nike FlyEase technology. The AJI High FlyEase adds the new benefit of easy entry while staying true to the silhouettesiconic look, colors and materials. It features a zipper and strap FlyEase System for easy, one-handed heel entry andexit, and an adjustable eyestay hook and loop for top entry.

Women's Air Jordan I High OGFearlessMade to shine, this AJI features a textured upper with metallic rose gold panels and a Fearless Ones branded insole.

Air Jordan I High Zoom FearlessLike the OG, which was a culture-shifting movement disguised as a basketball shoe, the AJI High Zoom is more than meets the eye. Using an iridescent-inspired upper, the color shifts with the light, beautifully displaying another side to its appearance and challenging viewers to appreciate what lies beneath the surface. Additional details include full-length Zoom Air for superior cushioning and an icy sole with a color fade and Z (Zoom) graphic.

Air Jordan I High OG FearlessInspired by the first three AJI patent leather mid colorways, this version pays tribute to MJs basketball journey by combining University Blue and Gym Red on a patent leather upper. The original black/gold patent leather colorway sees its tribute come to life on the gold jeweled Wings Logo.

Sky Jordan

Theclassic "Shattered" colorway is now available in the kid-exculsive Sky Jordan silhouette. The shoe features a Wings-inspired forefoot strap for easy in and out.

Sky Jordan

ThisSky Jordan,featuringa Wings-inspiredforefoot strap for easy in and out, carries the famous University Blue colorway.

Air Jordan I Low React Fearless Ghetto GastroCreated in collaboration with the culinary collective, Ghetto Gastro, this silhouette brings a new flavor to the AJI. Inspirations include comfort, unity and the streets of New York City where design, art and empowerment intersect.

Air Jordan I mid SE Fearless Blue the GreatDesigned in collaboration with Los Angelesbased artist, Blue the Great, this AJI leans on his love for primary colors on a suede and corduroy upper with his BTG artist signature featured on the heel.

Air Jordan I mid SE Fearless FacetasmBrought to life by cutting-edge Japanese brand, FACETASM, this AJI is inspired by their expression of Tokyo and features their signature crinkled look, a woven brand label and heel tab for easy entry and exit.

Air Jordan I mid SE Fearless Maison Chateau RougeParisian lifestyle brand Maison Chteau Rouge applies African-inspired design cues and hand-stitched details to the AJI mid to honor its founders roots.

Air Jordan I mid SE Fearless Melody EhsaniLos Angelesbased designer Melody Ehsani brings her signature style and message of self-expression, female empowerment and paradox to the AJI mid. Highlights include a decorative gold watch dubrae and hand-lettered quote on the midsole that reads: IF YOU KNEW WHAT YOU HAD WAS RARE, YOU WOULD NEVER WASTE IT." Additional hidden inspirational messages from Ehsani are hidden throughout.

Air Jordan I mid SE Fearless Edison ChenCLOT founder Edison Chen adds his personal twist to the AJI with a woven nylon upper and fadeaway Swoosh that represents the hidden details revealed under the shoes upper by natural wear or customization. A Chinese token-inspired design detail spells out Jordan.

Three Air Jordan I releases this season will celebrate iconic MJ stories with a fresh perspective on the cherished colorways.

Air Jordan I High OG Black/OrangeHighlighted by a crinkled patent leather upper, this AJI uses Black, Orange and Sail for a fall-inspired colorway.

Air Jordan I Retro High BloodlineA new take on the iconic black and red colorway, this AJI High features a leather upper for a refined look and feel.

Air Jordan I Come Fly With MeDressed in a premium black leather upper, this AJI mid pays homage to a classic 90sJordan campaign that asked, Who said man was not meant to fly?

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Jordan Brand Fearless Ones Air Jordan I Collection - Nike News

THIS MONTH, Tate Modern will mark the third anniversary ofUniqlo Tate Lateswith a free evening of art, music and film.

These after-hours eventshave attracted over 350,000 visitors to since they began in 2016, becoming one of the UKs largest museum late programmes and providing a vital platform for Londons creative talent.

On the evening of October 25, Tate Modern will celebrate Kara Walkers spectacular Hyundai Commission,Fons Americanus.

Takinginspiration from thisbreath-taking 13-metre-high fountain in the atmospheric surrounds of the Turbine Hall, Octobers Uniqlo Tate Late will exploreideas of freedom, monuments and personal and collective memories.

The evening will include an eclectic array of music, art, discussion, film and workshops:Gal-demwill host a series of conversations and pop-up readings in the Turbine Hall from texts inspired by Walkers works, which will be performed by young creatives includingAbondance MatandaandKai Isaiah Jamal.

BroadcasterZezi Ifore,poet Bridget Minamoreand curatorPriyesh Mistrywill be part of a panel discussion reflecting on Walkers work and how artists can communicate unsettling histories.Visitors will have the opportunity to come together in a round table discussion on monuments, museums and (post)colonial memory organised by researcherShelley Angelie Saggar.

A Vibe Called Techwill run a series of workshops exploring the role of technology as both a tool of empowerment and oppression. Artists, writers and activists includingShiraz Baujoo,Tanya Compas,Inua EllamsAnya Rao-MiddletonandRyan Lanjiwill discuss the theme of memory in15 minute art chats.

In a full gallery takeover, events will spill out into the Terrace bookshop where spoken word artist and writerIsaiah Hullwill be reading from his debut poetrycollectionNosebleeds. NTS Radio have programmed a special soundtrack for the evening with DJs in the Terrace Bar and The Tanks, featuringLA Timpa,Oli XL,Sandra JP,Cherrie FlavaandChampagne Funk.Visitors can also enjoy pop-up food stalls and bars serving Ume Lager, a new bespoke brew created in collaboration with Tate Modern, UNIQLO and Harbour Brewery and available exclusively at the gallery.

Taking place on the last Friday of every month, Uniqlo Tate Lates have quickly made their mark on Tate Modern and Londons wider cultural scene, offering a free and accessible creative hub for people to come together, socialise and exchange ideas.

Over the past three years, pioneering programmes have created memorable moments for hundreds of thousands of visitors, from celebrating women in the arts to exploring the global influences that shape our arts and culture.

These evenings have also showcased emerging talent alongside well-known DJs and world-famous artists. Highlights from previous nights have included an international premiere by Kahlil Joseph, a major installation of Jenny Holzerstruisms, a specially-composed version of Yoko OnosMend Piece, and unique video projections from Solange Knowles Ferguson and Wolfgang Tillmans.

Uniqlo Tate Lates will continue into 2020, exploring themes inspired by Tate Moderns programme of exhibitions and displays, and turning the volume up on Londons creative talent.

October 25, then every final Friday of each month (except December)18.00 22.00 (with the Terrace Bar staying open until 22:30)Admission freeFor information call +44(0)20 7887 8888 or visit tate.org.uk

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Celebrating three years of Uniqlo Tate Lates - The Voice Online