Its a sure sign youve reached maturity in life when you stop trying to have it both ways. As an adult, you probably shouldnt expect to be able to eat all the ice cream in the fridge every night and still avoid the long-term health effects of a poor diet. And yet, when it comes to COVID-19, its as if many in the black community who suffer disproportionately from comorbidities expect the entire country to remain closed until they are no longer at risk of COVID-related illnesses.

Such was the substance of the heated rants of a Rutgers University professor who last week blamed Trump supporters and state officials in Georgia, Utah and Florida who are beginning to lift the restrictions on commerce and social isolation put in place as emergency measures to stem the tide of the virus. Brittany Cooper, a tenured professor in the dubiously named Womens and Gender Studies Department, blamed it all on the white man, stating in a rage-filled Twitter rant, Not only do white conservatives not care about Black life, but my most cynical negative read of the white supremacists among them is that they welcome this massive winnowing of Black folks in order to slow demographic shifts and shore up political power.

By massive winnowing of Black folks Cooper was referring to the fact that as many as 80 percent of the reported hospitalizations from COVID-19 in Georgia occurred among African Americans. But at a reported total of 1,035 deaths thus far in Georgia attributed to COVID-19, even if all of them were African American (they are not), that would hardly constitute a winnowing of the black population. Georgias African American population is roughly 3.5 million, and the leading cause of mortality for African Americans in Georgia is heart disease. In 2017, nearly 18,000 Georgians died of heart disease, and African Americans, at roughly 31 percent of the Georgia population, accounted for nearly half of those deaths or 9,000. In other words, heart disease by itself is 10 times more likely to kill African Americans in Georgia than COVID-19.

And yet, not one of those prognosticators would even think about advocating closing down businesses offering fried foods, confectionary items or barbecue because black people are at higher risk of contracting deadly heart disease from poor dietary habits. In fact, when in 2019 neighbors in a Houston suburb formed a coalition to petition the city to shut down the black-owned Turkey Leg Hut because of concern over noxious fumes emanating from the establishments meat smokers, local black leaders protested that the voiced health concerns of the (mostly white) neighbors masked a racist vendetta against the Huts black business owners.

Again, as a mature adult, you tend to learn you cant have it both ways. And yet, Ms. Cooper persists. As if suppressing a glint of self-awareness as in awareness of the preventable underlying condition that increases not only all-cause morbidity, but also the comorbidity associated with increased rates of critical infection and death from COVID-19 Ms. CooperTwitter-shouts: Black Lives Matter. Black Lives with hypertension, diabetes, and asthma matter ... All Black Lives Matter. Fat Black Lives matter.

But she doesnt really seem to believe that. If she did, perhaps she would sue fast-food restaurants to prevent them reopening in black neighborhoods until there is, say, a 70 percent reduction in diabetes, hypertension and obesity among black folks. That form of protest would seem to be more congruent with her self-righteous contention that black lives actually matter. But the glint of self-awareness quickly dims in the opportunity for political invective.

Professor Cooper is hardly alone in spilling her misplaced ire into the Twitter-sphere. When U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, a black man, advised African Americans this month to take preventative measures to address the COVID-19 threat including, horror of horrors, avoid[ing] alcohol, tobacco and drugs he was widely criticized for pandering to African Americans. Adams was excoriated by PBS NewsHours White House correspondent, Yamiche Alcindor, for offending African Americans because he used informal and idiosyncratic speech, urging people of color: We need you to do this, if not for yourself, then for your abuela. Do it for your granddaddy. Do it for your Big Mama. Do it for your Pop-Pop.

It made no difference that Adams himself has acknowledged on several occasions that he, too, suffers from underlying conditions, including asthma and high blood pressure, which he attributes to a legacy of growing up poor and black in America.

It would be absolute pandering of the most cynical variety for health officials to fail to advise African Americans of their increased susceptibility to COVID-19 given disproportionate rates of comorbidity factors among blacks. And it would be downright criminal for a responsible surgeon general to fail to suggest practical means of strengthening our health in the midst of this pandemic. But that would be true only if fat black lives really mattered.

Armstrong Williams (@ARightSide) is the owner and manager of Howard Stirk Holdings I & II Broadcast Television Stations and the 2016 Multicultural Media Broadcast Owner of the Year. He is the author of Reawakening Virtues.

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Why fat black lives must not really matter | TheHill - The Hill

Most of us prefer tobury the memories of our most vulnerable, blissfully naive teenage years brimming with mistakes and saccharine love. Alt dream-pop darling Joy Downer, however, channelled them into her songwriting. The result: A funky, neon-vibrant melody parading with tongue-and-cheek lyrics. A Song Youd Never Want to Hear is Downers latest single off her debut recordPaper Moon,and features a bold, syncopated bassline underscored by synths and drum machines.

Jeffrey [Joys husband and musical collaborator] was playing a sweet bass line, explained Joy in an email interview. I started to feel that wonderful feeling of inspiration I wrote it as I do most my songs, in stream of consciousness sort of just press record with this sweet sweet bass line rolling, start singing and see where it takes me.

The most sharp lyric on the track, I still dont know why I didnt let you let me go was notably a lyric Joy wrote for a scummy high school boyfriend. The remainder of that song may be history, but from it a gem was born!

Most the vocal you hear is from that very first recording, shares Joy. I always thought I would replace with some more clever and poetic words, or a better vocal take, but when I listened back to the idea, I thought about how it put me back in the mindset of my 17 year old self. How it resonated with who I was when I used to write romantic sappy songs for my high school boyfriend. He never really cared for them, or for my singing

Joy Downers childhood was filled with music her parents, both musicians and music lovers, helped to shape a wide range of influences from Broadway musicals to disco to punk. All throughout school Joy wrote music, whether it was to help her retain information for classes, or to cope with feelings of what she would later learn to be depression.

Ultimately, Joy Downer, shes not a downer at all, says Joy when asked to describe herself. Her positive outlook and self-awareness, combined with a fearless musical range, have culminated with a stunning collection of 9 songs on her upcoming albumPaper Moon.All nine tracks were written, recorded, and produced by Joy and Jeffrey Downer in their Los Angeles home.

Paper Moonis the highly anticipated follow-up to Joys debut EPRadio Dreamer- released in 2017 to local buzz, prompting Joy to sing a cover of Over the Rainbow for a powerful Honda TV Ad that same year. From there, syncs started rolling in with MTVsSiesta Keyhighlighting Weapons Down and Netflixs Original SeriesSpinning Outtapping In the Water as its theme song in early 2020.

Featured on Grimy Goods Forecast of Artists to Watch in 2018, as well as commended by Refinery29, PopSugar, Earmilk,andMagnetic Mag,as well as playlisting at Apple Music and Spotify Joy Downer is soaring through new dimensions withPaper Moon.

Words: Jenna Dorn

Get down with Joy via her Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

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Joy Downer's Biting New Single "A Song You'd Never Want to Hear" Reminisces About Sappy Teenage Love Songs - Grimy Goods

Editors Note: This article is just over a year old, thus contains no mention of COVID-19; readers can add our awareness of the pandemic to the authors commentary.

ByLonnie Aarssen, Professor of Biology, Queens University, Ontario, via The Conversation

Homo sapiens means wise human, but the name no longer suits us. As an evolutionary biologist who writes about Darwinian interpretations of human motivations and cultures, I propose that at some point we became what we are today: Homo absurdus, a human that spends its whole life trying to convince itself that its existence is not absurd.

As French philosopher Albert Camus put it: Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is. Thanks to this entrenched absurdity, the 21st century is riding on a runaway train of converging catastrophes in the Anthropocene.

Discovery of self

The critical juncture in the lineage toward Homo absurdus was described by evolutionist Theodosius Dobzhansky: A being who knows that he will die arose from ancestors who did not know. But evolution at some point also built into this human mind a deeply ingrained sentiment that one has not just a material life (the physical body), but also a distinct and separate mental life (the inner self).

Theodosius Dobzhansky. Wikicommons

Human self-awareness led to the evolution of cognitive skills that were game-changers for gene transmission success. In our degree of endowment for these skills, our ancestors had the edge over all other hominids.

But the trade-off for this was self-impermanence anxiety a recurrent fear that, in bringing eventual material death, time inevitably also annihilates all that one has done and all that one has been, and that soon it will be as though one had never existed at all.

Buffering for a troubled mind

However, natural selection also gave our ancestors primal impulses that served to buffer the worry of self-impermanence. These involve two novel and uniquely human fundamental drives: escape from self and extension of self.

Both are reflected in a prescient passage from the great Russian author, Leo Tolstoy:

For man to be able to live he must either not see the infinite, or have such an explanation of the meaning of life as will connect the finite with the infinite.

Extension of self connecting the finite with the infinite involves what I call legacy drive: the desire to leave something appreciable behind that will endure beyond mortal existence.

Delusions of symbolic immortality involve three principal domains:

Parenthood: Shaping the minds of offspring to mirror the defining characteristics of ones own selfhood (i.e. values, beliefs, attitudes, conscience, ego, skills, virtues, etc.);

Accomplishment: Earning recognition, status, or fame through talents or deeds that evoke admiration, trust, respect, or astonishment from others;

Identifying with or belonging to something larger-than-self: Membership or belief in a particular cultural world view, one based, for example, on concepts like patriotism, political ideology or religiosity/spiritualism.

Escape from self

For those less driven to produce a legacy, there is escape from self Tolstoys not seeing the infinite. Most commonly, this is achieved through distractions, deployed through what I call leisure drive, an intrinsic disposition to be easily drawn to indulgence in opportunities for enjoyment.

Typically, these involve motivations that hack into the brains pleasure modules and have deep evolutionary roots associated with meeting core needs (e.g. survival, social affiliation, mating, endearment, kinship) that rewarded ancestral gene transmission success.

Modern domains of leisure drive are manifested in many cultural norms and products designed to trigger these pleasure modules like toys, stories, games, aesthetics, social entertainment, consumerism, humour, recreational sex, yoga, meditation, inebriation and psychedelics.

The essential consequence of these distractions lies in arresting the mind firmly in the immediate present, thus temporarily but effectively shielding it from the dread of the infinite, wherein the self ceases to be.

For some, placing the mind firmly in the present may be accomplished by simply keeping busy with purposeful toil or mundane routine. As American philosopher Eric Hoffer put it: A busy life is the nearest thing to a purposeful life.

Work hard, play hard

The delusions of legacy drive and the distractions of leisure drive both help to mitigate the worry of self-impermanence. Strong selection for these drives thus propelled copies of our ancestors genes into future generations.

But self-impermanence anxiety has always lurked stubbornly beneath the surface, repeatedly demanding more and better delusions and distractions. And so, from a long history of striving for an untroubled mind, the effects of natural selection ramped up in momentum, I suggest, like a runaway train.

These drives to work hard and play even harder have fuelled the frenzied and relentless march of progress that we call civilization. With this, our cultural evolution has generated a large menu of available delusions for chasing after legacy, and distractions for chasing after leisure. And this has given us a world of environmental catastrophes that are annihilating other species and their habitats at an unprecedented rate.

Sustained genetic selection for legacy and leisure drives then has generated two dire consequences for humanity: A civilization now moving ever faster toward collapse on a global scale, and an evolved psychology that is now breeding an escalation of human despair anxiety disorders, depression and suicide.

In other words, the growing demands of these drives (resulting from biological evolution) are starting to exceed the supply rate of available domains (generated by cultural evolution) for satisfying them. It becomes harder and harder, therefore, to meet an ever-increasing need for distractions and delusions, including those needed to buffer the mounting eco-anxiety from living in a collapsing civilization.

Living with Homo absurdus

How can we manage our human predicament, now that we are Homo absurdus?

I have suggested that a new model for cultural evolution might come to our rescue involving a kind of biosocial management, based on facilitating and implementing a deeper and more broadly public understanding of, and empathy for, the evolutionary roots of human motivations, especially those associated with our responses to self-impermanence anxiety.

Homo sapiens means wise human, but the name no longer suits us. As an evolutionary biologist who writes about Darwinian interpretations of human motivations and cultures, I propose that at some point we became what we are today: Homo absurdus, a human that spends its whole life trying to convince itself that its existence is not absurd.

We must learn how to successfully regulate our frenetic drive to convince ourselves that our existence is not absurd. And this requires that we at least understand how we came to be so driven.

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Op/Ed: Dealing with the absurdity of human existence in the face of converging catastrophes - Rossland Telegraph

Vanderpump Rules fans slammed Jax Taylor after he raged at his pals and crying wife Brittany.

The Bravo newlywed also admitted how easily he's triggered and that hes been popping Adderall.

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VPR fans went off on Twitter: "The way I DETEST Jax Taylor more than anyone else on Bravo. Not a single redeeming quality. Not a single feud hes been in where I root for him. I dont know a W O R S E person. #PumpRules"

Others said: "Jax Taylor is cancelled forever."

Someone else tweeted: "Well Im glad @mrjaxtaylor apologized. But the erratic behavior is scary."

Others wrote: "GET JAX TAYLOR OFF MY TV SCREEN @BravoTV!!!!!"

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Jax's attitude began spiraling in last night's episode when he refused to come to new cast member Max Boyens' beach cleanup get together.

He sent the TomTom manager a series of nasty texts about how stupid his cleanup idea was.

Making excuses for her husband, Brittany said Jax's mean streak was probably due to "Mercury's Gatorade" instead of the astrological idea of Mercury retrograde.

Followers scoffed on Twitter: "Its 'Mercury is in Retrograde' not Gatorade."

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Jax later went off at Tom Sandoval accusing him talking about him to the group and uninvited him from his upcoming pool party.

He continued going after Max for crying to his wife because he cant come to his house.

But things really got ugly when Jax went after Kristin over rumors of a sex tape with someone other than her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Carter.

The altercation caused a major scene at Kristin's t-shirt pop up shop.

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Afterwards, Brittany was left in tears back at their house in fear the "old Jax" was back.

Jax admitted to Brittany: "I hear something, I get triggered. I have super highs and super lows.

"I smoke a lot, then I get hungry and I gain 20 pounds and I'm like, s*** I gotta lose weight, so I take f***ing Adderall. I can't win."

He went on: "We're not Leave It To Beaver. You want that? I can give you that.

"We're gonna have to move to f***ing Kentucky."

Brittany weeped: "I just don't want to see you start going back to your old ways.

"Breaks my heart."

Exclusive

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VPR followers continued bashing Jax online tweeting: "Who the f**k @mrjaxtaylor think he is for outing @kristendoute and making fun of @ariana2525 mental health issue and use the stigma of mental health as a defense?

"Dude is a cold stone loser. The only time he brings something to #PumpRules is when he is cheating."

Another added: "The nerve. The ordacity. The lack of self awareness. Its too much. #PumpRules #BravoTV."

The rest is here:
Vanderpump Rules fans slam Jax Taylor after he rages at pals and crying wife Brittany and admits hes popping - The Sun

Matt Berninger is calling from lockdown in his home in California. After a long to-and-fro about how the coronavirus crisis is taking its toll on the physical, mental and societal health of America, he admits that the necessary quarantine has given him the opportunity to process, slow down and chew on everything in a different way instead of chasing this one upward trajectory.

It seems that The National frontman is in the perfect mood to take stock and look back over the last decade for the upcoming 10th anniversary of the bands breakthrough album High Violet. (Though as he sagely notes with that familiar social-distancing-induced Groundhog Day confusion: Does time even matter any more?.)

10 years ago, The National enjoyed something of an Indian summer. 2010s High Violet was a landmark record for the band, elevating them from cult curiosity to chart-bothering festival headliners. The introverts opened up and brightened the corners of their black post-punk sound. In the words of the NME review at the time, High Violet was a sign of the band finally becoming fully grown-up, coloured in and going overground.

If they werent separated and trapped in their homes right now, The National would be prepping to celebrate High Violet by playing it in full at a run of shows peppering the schedule for the final lap of their tour for their acclaimed eighth album, 2019s I Am Easy To Find. There was an indiegasm across the internet when the anniversary gigs were announced along with the deluxe vinyl reissue. It was the kind of reaction reserved for one of those very special records. High Violet spoke loudly to the latest generation of kids who were never picked for the football team, who saw their own story in The Nationals tale of geeks longing to be heard.

Why did High Violet strike such a chord? All the songs Ive ever loved are fluid enough for me to sink into them and be the character, Berninger replies. You empathise and get inside their soul a little bit. Whatevers wrong in your heart or in your life, the record absorbs it like a sponge. Later, you play it again and all of that emotion comes out again. All the things we needed were always there in good songs.

The National formed in 1999 in Berningers native Cincinnati, Ohio before they moved to New York. The band endured a prolonged period of obscurity from their 2001 self-titled debut album and 2003s underrated follow-up Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers; while The Strokes were scoring touchdowns for NYCs garage rock revival scene, The National were stuck on the bench.

2005s Alligator, their third album, first perfected the combination of dark, raw-nerved realism and heart-bursting indie anthemics that make up the DNA of the band we know today. 2007s stately and opulent Boxer was showered with acclaim, but the indie darlings were still far from the arena-filling heights of many of their peers. Heading into their fifth album, The National had to figure out who they were, and who they wanted to be.

Wed just come off tour with R.E.M., remembers Berninger. Seeing a band that good continue to exist and evolve for that long made us realise that we had to go for that. Michael Stipe teased us saying, Why dont you guys just write a pop song? Why dont you write a radio hit? We were like, Weve been trying since day one! We dont know how! He told us, If youre going to be in a band that lasts a long time, you either have to write a lot of hits or none at all. At that point we were like, Oh shit, maybe were safer going down the none at all route

But, he continues, I didnt want that. I dont think any of us did. We wanted to be a big band. We wanted to reach everybody. Ive had manifest delusion since I was a kid. I wanted to be a rock star. I couldnt play piano, but I wanted to be Tom Waits, I wanted to be Leonard Cohen, I wanted to be Nick Cave. You just pose, you absorb and you try. You get out there and do your best.

Matt Berninger of The National perform onstage during Bonnaroo 2010 (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)

Fully aware of their status as a grower band (though Berninger laughs that that always felt like an underhanded compliment), they set about writing some songs that would connect straight away and on a huge scale. But first they had to iron out some of the creases in their creative process. Any band featuring two sets of brothers (twin guitarists Aaron and Bryce Dessner and drummer and bassist Bryan and Scott Devendorf) is going to have to deal with more tension than most.

We always fought, and we fought so much while making Boxer to the point where it had gotten unhealthy, admits Berninger. Wed been a band for 10 years and were exhausted through all the conflict personal conflict, creative conflict, touring life, living on a bus together for so long. Youve got all that shit going on but then you get into the studio and the record is how you connect it all back together again.

Another thing that Michael Stipe told us was: Remember you were friends first. That pops up in our heads all the time. High Violet was us following all of Michaels advice.

Michael Stipe teased us saying, Why dont you guys just write a pop song?

Feeling happy but depleted and desperate for this record to be good, they started work, then swiftly halted. Already exhausted from recently becoming a father, Berninger was struck down by a nasty bout of flu and then his grandmother died. On the plane back to the funeral, his eardrum burst under the cabin pressure, leaving him unable to hear in his right ear for a while. Sometimes something forces you to shut down for a while, says Berninger of his run of bad luck, and you come back and its an opportunity to remember why youre doing this.

United in their vision and ambition, The National would finish what might still be their most cohesive and complete album to date. High Violet, with a title inspired by overhearing talk of the threat levels in New York after 9/11 (high orange being the most severe), was the crystallisation of all that theyd previously sought to master but with a more accessible sheen.

You can feel this shift from first notes of opener Terrible Love: its there in the Dessners genius sonic textures, which are as rich as ever, but this time with a little more warmth, lift and release. The record may feature guest spots from indie glitterati such as Sufjan Stevens, Bon Ivers Justin Vernon, and Arcade Fires Richard Reed Parry, but they never distract from the record itself. Perfectly measured and never overblown, High Violet is the victorious sound of a band reaching ever upwards.

Lyrically, Berninger reels through his usual themes of trying to figure out who you are and if home is a place. With a number songs written with wife, longtime collaborator and former fiction editor at The New YorkerCarin Besser, the issues of family, time, movement, and the impact of fatherhood weigh heavy on his mind throughout the record. On Afraid Of Everyone he sings: With my kid on my shoulders I try not to hurt anybody I like but I dont have the drugs to sort it out. On England he addresses a missed loved one (You must be somewhere in London, you must be loving your life in the rain) and on Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks he makes the startling observation that all the very best of us string ourselves up for love.

I have so many songs about trying to find out who I am. I think thats a thread I always walk along

I have so many songs about trying to find out who I am, Berninger says. I think thats a thread I always walk along. I had been in New York for over 10 years [when we wrote High Violet], and I definitely felt I wasnt in Ohio any more. I was married, I had a baby and I was an entirely different person. The searching for who I was going to be and trying to figure out who I used to be was all part of that process. I was also wondering if Id make art and music for the rest of my life. I really wanted to so bad.

The album reached Number Five in the UK and Number Three on the US Billboard 100. The venues got bigger, the cult grew stronger and the music press lapped up the nearly-men done good narrative. They headlined the second stage at Latitude Festival 2010, with momentum swelling to such an extent that they returned to headline the main stage the following year. It was a whirlwind period, wonderfully captured in the documentary Mistaken For Strangers, starring and directed by Berningers brother Tom.

In typical National fashion, they couldnt simply savour the taste of success. We loved the record when it was done, says Berninger, but whole career was just a series of moments of going, Weve made it! Oh, no we havent! Never count your fucking chickens. Never. The second you do, its over.

We knew that we hadnt fucked up and we knew we werent finished. Did we feel like wed arrived? I dont think we ever feel like that. We never feel like we achieved what we wanted to do.

Berninger admits that touring was really hard until about five or six years ago, adding he used to battle within himself on stage, but is now far more comfortable in his own skin and less emotionally wrought. His vices of weed and wine are now more an aid to help him slip into the songs, rather than a crutch for anxiety and self-awareness. Even from this distance, though, he finds it hard to tell if he really enjoyed the original High Violet shows as much as you might expect.

Either way, the bands real pinch me moment arrived in September 2010, when they were invited to perform to 25,000 people before a speech from Barack Obama at a rally in Wisconsin. Meeting Obama seemed more important than being on any big stage, says Berninger. Now Im playing in front of these big crowds and realise how much more significant they are than having a few photos with Obama. But at the time [it was] hard to have any perspective on it.

Meeting Obama seemed more important than being on any big stage

In the Obama years, he says, the US exuded a sense of enlightenment, optimism and possibility. He adds: Obama winning was just like, Everything is going to happen now. America is finally going to stand up and be what its claimed and promised for so long but hasnt been. At the same time, there was so much division. Government had got so brutal and disgusting with Bush and even Clinton.

Looking back now, the beginning of an eight-year Obama presidency compared to what weve been living through now with four years of a fascist I mean wow, talk about perspective.

10 years later and whats going on in the White House now seems more backward and gross than ever imaginable. And guess what? The National still dont have a hit to their name. Stipe was right. Theyre still playing the long game and winning, with family and friendship at their core. The National now rub shoulders with Arcade Fire and The Strokes as a bonafide indie institution.

Berninger has just inked a record deal for his debut solo album Serpentine Prison (literally he signed the contract when NME reminded him on the phone). As well as writing songs constantly, hes also working on a sitcom TV adaptation of Mistaken For Strangers with his brother and Besser, as well as a sequel to the original film. Matt Berninger is now the polymath rock star he would pose as back when he was a kid.

While its tempting to trace that thread throughout his life, though, he insists: Im entirely different to the man I was when I made High Violet. We shed our skins, we change, we evolve. We all have the capacity to become whatever we want.

The National release the 10th anniversary expanded edition of High Violet on June 19. The band are raising money for their touring crew during lockdown here.

See the article here:
The Nationals Matt Berninger on 10 years of High Violet: We wanted to reach everybody - NME

Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They dont mean to do harm, but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves. T. S. Eliot

The shiny, white Maybach sped through Manhattan carrying the brash but charismatic 6-foot 5-inch CEO eyeing the passing urban scenery as if he were royalty silently signaling his approval to adoring crowds. The smell of marijuana and Don Julio tequila followed Adam Neumann onto his $60 million Gulfstream G650 as he celebrated the infusion of $4.4 billion in capital into his company from Masayoshi Son, CEO of Softbank. So powerful was Neumanns magnetic effect on people that Son reportedly made the investment after only a 12-minute walk around WeWork headquarters. For a company once valued at $47 billion, that moment marked both the apex of WeWorks rise and the beginning of its precipitous decline. For Neumannthe now famously dethroned founder of WeWorkthat was indeed a very good day. For the investors and employees of WeWork, it was but the first chapter in an unfolding tragedy.

Neumann is a true modern-day Icarus. His flamboyant and often highly questionable behavior that included egging employees on to take shots of expensive tequila at work and conducting middle-of-the-night meetings in the woods was only overshadowed by his grandiose ambitions. Neumann wanted an empire that stretched beyond WeWork into all aspects of human life, with lofty spinoff ideas named, WeGrow, WeBank and WeSail, among others.

The rise and fall of Neumann has been extensively chronicled, but the story of a narcissistic CEO taking investors for a very expensive and value-destroying ride is, sadly, not at all rare. One only need think of the recent headlines involving Uber, Wells Fargo and Theranos to start calculating the lost capital, the jettisoned employees and the toxic cultures to see how society suffers at the hands of self-centered and deeply insecure narcissistic leaders.

Many of the more productive characteristics of narcissismself-confidence, charm, the ability to boldly articulate a vision for a companyare valuable and should be rewarded. The attraction of the narcissistic business leader is not hard to understand. This is a compelling figure who exudes confidence and often personal charisma, is clever and tenacious and is able to use language eloquently and powerfully to inspire investors and employees alike. Usually a fearless and confident risk-taker, CEOs and executives with these characteristics can appear to have the potential to create financial value by breaking convention. They have the audacity to answer big questions and champion big ideas. They capture our imagination and often our allegiance. With distrust in government, religious and other social institutions on the rise, people are increasingly looking to business leaders for inspiration, even meaning. And narcissistic CEOs are happy to be in that spotlight.

While these personality traits can positively impact a businesss ability to thrive, what we also know is that narcissistic CEOs always have a dark side. The dark side of the narcissistic leader is far less well understood, yet some of business and societys greatest failures can be tied to these complex leaders. Investors and employees alike can lose money, reputation and careers because of this irresistibly seductive leader.

Preoccupied with visions of unlimited successand their own causal role in itnarcissistic leaders see themselves as unique and very special people. They are interpersonal alchemists who turn their own lead into gold, often appearing wounded and self-pitying if others dont appreciate their obvious genius and generosity. Such leaders are always over-promising. The combination of limited self-awareness and excessive arrogance is not only deadly for their investors, but CEOs with this personality type rarely learn. In fact, they are often markedly disinterested in learning. Their pervasive sense of entitlement and self-aggrandizement combined with an inability to apologize or admit a mistake can create bad business choices such as overpaying for acquisitions or driving M&A deals that dont make prudent business sense.

But it is behind the scenes with colleagues and employees where the real damage occurs. Narcissists get you to believe in them and their idealized vision for the future. They draw people in emotionally and intensely. This frequently leads to the formation of two camps: those who are skeptical of their promises and may leave, and those who will follow them absolutely anywhere. Often, the quality of talent in these two camps will also vary greatly, with top talent leaving and weaker talent remaining. When I suggested to an otherwise savvy private equity investor that his leading candidate to be CEO of a $2 billion consumer products company was a narcissist, he got very angry with me, ignored my advice and hired the executive. Six months later the new CEO was gone, the portfolio company was in dire financial straits and the board bitterly realized it had significantly overpaid for the asset.

Arrogant leaders with a compelling vision are nothing new. Global business is filled with them. What makes these senior leaders dangerous and puts investor capital at risk is a combination of traits that are very difficult to observe until youre looking in the rearview mirror. These include a profound lack of empathy for others, a desperate need for nearly constant praise and the inability to receive bad news. This last characteristic quickly creates a team of yes-people, undermining open dialogue and rendering the honest exchange of views impossible. One highly narcissistic CEO I worked with had a lieutenant who was so slavishly devoted to him that I was effectively given the choice of signing a loyalty oath or working elsewhere. I chose the latter option.

Narcissistic CEOs dont attract top talent because the best people need respect and freedom. In fact, these narcissistic CEOs and founders further diminish value creation because the cultures that develop around them often resemble cults rather than healthy, high-performance organizations. And as for sustainabilityboth for the leader and his or her organizationjust look at the WeWork example cited above.

Millions of dollars of value are destroyed every year because a narcissistic leader captures the imagination of people with a need to believe what is being sold and who unwittingly enable the flawed strategy. But you dont have to take the bait. Investors, boards and other C-level executives can guard against this deception in several ways:

Talk to former subordinates. This is NOT the time to trust your gut! Be sure to have honest, privileged conversations with former employees, colleagues, and CEOs. Ask about the candidates ability to learn, to admit and accept mistakes, to feel genuinely and compassionately for others. What kind of cultures do they create and what type of people follow them? Do they accept criticism well? Do they create a loyalty oath culture? Who leaves their organizations and are those leavers the very best performers? Very thorough and pointed reference checking is a powerful tool to see behind the ingenious marketing and self-promotion of such individuals.

Dont skip the pre-hire outside evaluation. For narcissistic CEO and senior executive candidates, the suggestion that they go through a pre-hire evaluation will likely create an angry, offended reaction. Good! That tells you a lot of what you need to know about their personality. Genuinely confident leaders have no issue with an evaluation; in fact, they welcome it. Leaders with an inflated sense of self-worth, latent insecurity or excessive arrogance are always offended. As with anyone you would hire into a critical role, utilize an experienced and well-trained assessment specialist to conduct a very thorough evaluation that focuses on the expanse of their career, their development, the choices theyve made and the impact theyve had. This is vital data in predicting what kind of leader they will be in the future.

Be hypervigilant to unethical behavior. Narcissists genuinely believe that rules do not apply to them, so act swiftly at the first sign of impropriety. At the first unethical or worse, illegal slip, consider termination or, at the very least, a thorough investigation. Narcissists play fast and loose with rules and consider themselves above the law. Only the little people pay taxes, Leona Helmsley famously said.

Dont let them control the narrative. Hold skip-level meetings, maintain contact with multiple layers of management, ensure that there are 360-degree reviews for all senior managers and empower a strongly independent chief human resources officer. The best CEOs welcome actions like these; those who have something to hide do not.

We are living through an epochal time of a pandemic, and CEO leadership is both on display and desperately sought out like it has never been before.

As weve seen, narcissistic CEOs cant take the spotlight off themselves, dont feel empathy and compassion for their people, and dont manifest the commitment to the core values common to all decent people. Thank goodness for CEOs who are not impaired with this condition: leaders such as Arne Sorenson of Marriott, Stan Bergman of Henry Schein, and Bernard Arnault of LVMH, to name but a few. These business leaders and others like them do the difficult work of balancing the hard realities of keeping their businesses alive by compassionately supporting their people and looking for ways to improve our common good.

Perhaps more than any litmus test we could devise, a leaders behavior during a crisis like the one we are currently in will truly reveal their character.

View original post here:
Beware The Narcissistic Leader - Chief Executive Group

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

Never Ricking Morty puts the meta to the metal.

Returning after an unusual four-month hiatus, the latter half of the shows fourth season debuted Sunday night. The first episode, Never Ricking Morty, introduces itself as an intergalactic train caper before derailing itself into a series of split-off, meta storylines based on the trains passengers with varying degrees of success. The train, a literal narrative device, is a promising premise that quickly turns tedious as the metacommentary becomes more concerned with pettiness than insightfulness.

With the fourth wall reduced to rubble, the episode reads as a petulant middle finger to Rick and Morty fans a warning sign that the show has parodied itself beyond recognition.

Never Ricking Morty begins deceptively like any other episode. Passengers recount brushes with Rick Sanchez such as bizarre Christmas stories filled with evil lairs, third buttcheeks and embarrassing family dinners. Unbeknownst to them, however, a disguised Rick slips through the train to meet his grandson Morty before being accosted by a pectorally gifted ticket inspector.

Shattering the window with gas containers of Continuity, Rick and Morty watch as the inspector is bloodily bisected and sucked into space. Meanwhile, the overhead speaker warns that the train is losing continuity due to the breach the first event in the episode that actually matters.

[Related: Alumna author imbues fiction with scientific rigor, feminist principles]

None of the scenes leading up to this point are particularly important, a fact Rick is smugly aware of, as he says, stupid vignettes, imagine if thatd been the whole thing! in response to the passengers stories. And as the episode cuts away to an absurd amount of vignettes, it becomes clear that this schtick is indeed the whole thing. Creators Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland weaponize the meta nature of the storylines not to advance a character arc or provide meaningful growth, but to continuously one-up viewers with each added layer of irony.

However, from a world building standpoint, the meta elements are used to monumental effect. After both literally and symbolically breaking the Continuity of the story, Rick and Morty discover the trains path converges in an infinite loop meaning their stories will never stop unless they infiltrate the engine room and halt the train. The episode cleverly references classic story structures, like Rick crossing the threshold from Joseph Campbells The Heros Journey, to delineate the path the duo are expected to follow, heightening the stakes when they ultimately defy it.

But the shows world building has rarely been the issue. Atop the train, Rick asks Morty to think of a story that satisfies the Bechdel test a clear nod to criticism the show has sustained over questionable portrayals of women and male-dominated writing rooms.

Instead of using the episode to redress these issues constructively, Mortys narrative involves his mother and sister Summer discussing their periods and fighting bow-clad scorpions by shooting lasers out of their vaginas. Somehow, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg becomes involved, dismissively referred to as that judge lady. Yes, Morty is a dim-witted, idiotic teenage boy but his characterization shouldnt be used as an excuse to double down on the sexist tropes the show been criticized for in the past.

[Related: Party of Five Season 1 review episode 10: Diaspora]

After Mortys story satisfies the Bechdel test, the pair reach the engine room and encounter the Story Lord, the trains impossibly buff captain. He straps them to a machine in an attempt to break the fifth wall, hurriedly pushing buttons to control levels of Narrative Energy, Marketability, Broad Appeal and Relatability.

Again, the world building of the control panels design executes the meta narrative far more successfully than Ricks pointed remarks at the fanbase and insufferable omniscience. As Rick and Morty shift in and out of scenes with Birdperson musicals and Abradolf Lincler, the trains controls remind viewers of the precarious balance between artistry and carefully manicured optics that Harmon and Roiland must maintain.

Unfortunately, the episode quickly returns to its holier-than-thou stance literally. An intensely ripped Jesus Christ appears before Rick and Morty after they realize they can defeat the Story Lord by praying, framed as an action they would never do. In a hopeful glimpse of self-awareness, Morty asks Rick if a Christianity punchline is a cheap shot at fans. Rick, of course, brushes this off alongside any redemption of the episode.

While Rick and Morty has always tested the flexibility of the sci-fi genre often in hilarious and visually captivating ways it rarely must contend with itself and its place within the genre. In Never Ricking Morty, however, Rick and Morty are relegated to shotgun side characters in their own story while Harmon and Roiland steer the train perhaps into the ground.

Original post:
TV review: Layers of irony in 'Never Ricking Morty' derail narration, criticize show's fanbase - Daily Bruin

May 06, 2020 11:30am PT by Jean Bentley

Pari Dukovic/FX

The star discusses her role in the star-studded FX on Hulu miniseries.

Mrs. America chronicles the movement to pass the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and the conservative backlash led by Phyllis Schlafly (Cate Blanchett). But before Schlafly's involvement, there was almost unanimous bipartisan support for the legislation. Jill Ruckelshaus, played by Elizabeth Banks, is the real-life socially progressive Republican who worked to pass the ERA from the right side of the aisle.

Playing Ruckelshaus, who was appointed to a special women's rights commission by President Ford and who co-founded the National Women's Political Caucus with feminist leaders like Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, was a reminder that American politics were not always as divided as they are today.

"For me, playing Jill was a great reminder that bipartisanship was the way of the world for so long in American politics and it's only very recently that we've become as fractured and divisive as we have been," Banks tells The Hollywood Reporter. "That's partly due to the work of Phyllis Schlafly. It was really interesting to think about [the fact] thatI was alive in the '70s. The first president of my childhood that I really remember was Ronald Reagan, and he was a Republican. So for me in Massachusetts where I grew up, which is a very blue, very democratic place we're the birthplace of the Kennedys we were very blue and true, and yet everybody seemed to really like Ronald Reagan a lot of the time."

Banks discusses working with other powerful women, why men need to watch the series and what she's taken from Mrs. America for her next projects. New episodes of Mrs. America debut Wednesdays on FX on Hulu.

Jill Ruckelshaus is not someone who is always remembered in the same context as her liberal counterparts.

I thought it was very interesting to remind everyone that there are so many issues that are not controversial in the larger electorate of America. For instance, most Americans by a big majority agree on background checks for all gun sales. That's an easy one. And yet there is a small group of elected officials with a large megaphone and the backing of the NRA and others who would make it seem like somehow that's a controversial issue. It's not actually controversial in the larger electorate.

I think that women's rights fall into that as well. You know, Roe v. Wade being the law of the land, something like between 80 and 90 percent of people in America think Roe v. Wade should be the law of the land that abortion should remain safe and legal. And that's not really that controversial. And yet we hear every day about these wedge issues. So I find it really fascinating that I was able to play someone who reminded people that the Republican Party in particular at this moment in time is not the Republican Party that existed for most of American history. That there was a lot more bipartisanship, there was a lot more hands across the aisle, a lot of working together that was done, and that compromise and gray area is actually where politics lives. Things are not black and white in people's everyday lives, especially in a country as big as America.

What are some things you learned about Jill or that you admired about her that you came across in your research?

One of the things I admired the most about Jill was her relationship with Bill and her very longstanding, loving, supportive relationship with her husband. They stayed married a very long time. I was able to look at a video of them giving a couple joint interviews over the years, and you just feel the respect that the two of them had for each other, the mutual respect that they had. And you know that in a time, in the '70s and in the '60s when they were also you have to remember all these people grew up in the '50s and '60s so they grew up in a time when women did not work. Women stayed home and made dinners. This revolution really was born in the kitchens of these women's lives because women started going into the workforce more and more and more after World War II. And so I find it fascinating that this was a woman who was juggling her own personal ambition and that of her husband, and that her husband made room for her in their household to have a really interesting and rich life outside of the home. That was not necessarily the norm for married women in America at that time.

She's still alive, right?

Jill is still alive, yes. Her husband passed away very recently, but Jill is still alive.

Has she spoken out about the show at all?

Not that I am aware of. But any time you play a real person for me at least, this isn't the first time I've done so my hope in my heart is that they feel honored in some way, in whatever way, that they feel proud and honored that their story was told.

The show is very immersive in the era, but it's also not necessarily a respite from the real world when it's clear that people are still fighting the same battles for the same rights.

We felt that way when we were making it as well. "You've come a long way baby" I think it's true in some respects and this show really shines a light on really where we are still failing so many women in America and around the world, honestly. We are half the population and we are up against quite a lot of historical patriarchy and misogyny. We thought that we could win these battles quickly and it turns out that we cannot.

The sheer amount of powerful women interacting with other powerful women onscreen is really striking. Do any particular moments from set stand out to you?

Well, obviously I get to go toe-to-toe with Cate Blanchett, which was a dream as an actor. It's so fun. It's why I really want to be part of this series too. She's such an actor magnet. But at the same time, every single character is played by one of my favorite actresses. So it across the board is one of those all-time great casts of actors and they just all happen to be some my favorite women. I think what you say about women working together onscreen, it's so rare. Actually, I did a lot of research when I was putting together Charlie's Angels, and outside of romantic comedy it's really rare to have scene where only women around the table working to do something that isn't, like, at a magazine talking about how to get an article about a boy written or something. You see teenage girls in YA-type material doing things like that, but grown-ass women in the working world, to see a group around a table working, it's actually really rare in the media. That was one of the more exciting things about making this project for me.

It's true you rarely see that many powerful actresses together outside of, like, an awards season roundtable, right?

We have to invite everybody to the party because it is not a problem that women created, although a lot of women participate in the patriarchy, which is one of the themes of this show. For me, it really is about that. It's about we all have to be aware of what's going on because we can't change it if we don't acknowledge it. One of the things that's so interesting to me about Jill, and Phyllis in the show, and something that Dahvi [Waller, showrunner] and Laure [de Clermont-Tonnerre], the director on this episode who's incredible, and I [discussed], it was the parallels of their lives. They're both long-term married mothers of multiple children. They're around the same age. They both work outside the home unofficially. Jill used to say, "Yeah, I am the head of this commission, but I'm not getting paid." They both unofficially do a lot of work outside the home, and yet only one of them is aware that they are both up against the same enemy, which is the patriarchy. That lack of awareness, that lack of self-awareness especially, I think really has damaged equality and equal rights for all people. It's just about getting outside of your comfort zone, shaking loose of your experience, and understanding that there are a multitude of experiences here and that our system is meant to be more just and more inclusive. It's what is promised in our Constitution.

And this is touched on more in the Shirley Chisholm episode, but the same way that white women have to work within the patriarchy, it's even worse for the black women who have to work within the patriarchy and white supremacy.

I have a lot of sympathy for everybody who's learning, who's willing to be constantly learning. Because how we're raised and what our life experiences [are], it only gets broader and bigger with time and intention. And so I do think that there are well-intentioned people who still just don't know what the hell is going on. And then there are people who just don't care. But I do think if you are a well-intentioned person and you're interested in understanding someone else's perspective, you're going to have a better time in the world. You're certainly going to be more open to more people, which I do think enriches our lives.

What has the reaction been so far from audiences?

I'm not that focused on it. Personally, I'm very protective of the project and protective of the subject matter, which is intense for some people and elicits a lot of catalysts that I've noticed in the past whenever I speak out about women's issues, it can elicit a lot of negativity and backlash. So I sort of protect myself from a lot of the information. I can feel that people are really liking it. My friends are telling me they like it. My mom loves the show. I'm really only paying attention to the people that are closest to me. I can tell that not enough men for my liking are watching the show.

I guess that's to be expected.

I don't know why! I watched every male-dominated thing with a bunch of dudes that features a bunch of guys. No one's like, "Hmm, I can't believe you wanted to watch that." We're all watching that. We're all watching The Last Dance.

Is there anything that you took from this experience that you've put into your own work that you're either developing or directing or writing or acting in the future?

This all goes hand in hand with my heart. I've been trying to work on things with ensembles of women since the first Pitch Perfect movie, and even before that in my own work and just promoting great female characters with agency. It's exciting to be to be doing that in my work and collaborating with really interesting women. I love that. It's not like a big agenda. I mean, it's more interesting because those characters are more interesting. And the older I get, and the more experienced I am as an actor, I'm looking for things that have a lot of depth and agency where I get to go work with interesting people. These are the things that keep coming into my view.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Here is the original post:
Elizabeth Banks on Bipartisanship and Why More Men Need to Watch 'Mrs. America' - Hollywood Reporter

CALGARY -- Research shows as many as one-third of first responders paramedics, police officers and firefighters will experience post-traumatic stress as a result of performing their job duties. And for various reasons, many don't seek out professional help.

A team of researchers at the University of Calgary is now working to change that by developing family-based supports

"There are a number of reasons these men and women may not seek out assistance perceived social stigma, workplace culture, or fear of a reduction in work responsibilities or job loss, among them," said Dr. Kelly Schwartz, principal investigator associate professor at the Werklund School of Education.

"We know that (public safety personnel) members actually prefer to seek out informal support from spouses over more formal avenues of support."

During conversations with first responders and their families while developing the study, researchers realized most existing mental health programs don't involve relatives, so they decided to do something about that.

Schwartzs team is now enlisting first responders for an eight-week, Before Operational Stress (BOS) program.

Designed for first responders BOS is a group-based, proactive psychological intervention program designed to increase self-awareness and encourage authentic, healthy relationships.

"We hypothesize that (first responders) who participate in BOS will demonstrate improved psychosocial and physiological functioning, as will family members who participate," said Schwartz.

"In six and 12-month follow-ups, we hope to see evidence of (first responder) members experiencing greater physical and relational health and less mental health problems.

The study was developed before the COVID-19 pandemic, but Schwartz says it now has added relevance as first responders are experiencing added stress of dealing with potentially infected people.

"It is increasingly likely that the second wave of the pandemic may not be physical illness but rather the impact on first responders mental health. The operational stress will inevitably be carried by the first responder into the home," said Schwartz.

"Our intervention will hopefully strengthen the resiliency of the first responder through these family members so that they can continue to serve in their important public safety occupation."

The researchers will be recruiting firefighters, paramedics and police officers and their families in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario for the study.

To participate, PSP members must currently be employed full-time (including volunteer firefighters), not currently be on sick or disability leave, have been employed for 12 months or more, and have a family member (spouse/partner or youth between 11 and 17 years of age) who lives with them.

Additional details can be found online.

See original here:
University of Calgary study aims to improve first responders' mental health - CTV News

Download copy from here Was Normal As Good As We Thought It Was?

Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46dT8P5DkKM