Dear Academy Members,

Last year, the Academy faced widespread criticism after announcing a new Oscar category for outstanding achievement in popular film. The category was quickly tabled, with critics saying the award was a lackluster attempt to boost telecast ratings and appease some studios. But I am hoping that after a year of reflection, Academy members will rally around the idea. Allow me to explain.

Before the 1980s, Main Street and Academy tastes were mostly aligned as nearly all winners of the best picture Oscar were among the top 10 highest-grossing films that year. Preferences began to diverge in the 1980s, as smaller prestige films would find the Oscar spotlight over larger box office spectacles. Since 2010, no best picture Oscar has gone to a top 10 box office hit.

While mainstream moviegoing audiences broadened their tastes to include superhero, fantasy and sci-fi themes, the preferences of Academy members narrowed to sobering, real-life dramas often laced with timely political and social messages. We need to recognize that both types of films are outstanding achievements, each in its own unique way.

Some legendary filmmakers are critical of this art form. While promoting his latest film, Netflix's The Irishman, Martin Scorsese said Marvel movie storylines are not cinema because they do not "convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being." In interviews with French press soon after, Francis Ford Coppola added fuel to the discussion by calling Marvel pictures "despicable" because they do not provide learning, enlightenment or inspiration.

They are wrong. Having conducted more than 1,000 audience studies for major entertainment companies, I know blockbusters achieve success by creating a deep emotional connection across an immense range of audiences. It's not just about special effects, explosions or vast merchandising opportunities. Anyone paying attention appreciated that 2018's Avengers: Infinity War and this year's Avengers: Endgame masterfully wove multiple storylines and characters together into a seamless, suspenseful narrative of empowerment, fear, bravery, love, loss and inspiration. In so doing, Endgame alone made $2.8 billion worldwide that equates to roughly 280 million people eagerly paying $10 each to experience the saga at the theaters. In comparison, Barry Jenkins' Moonlight was one of the narrowest appealing recent best picture winners, drawing about 6.5 million people.

Academy members need to accept that Avengers and Moonlight represent different yet both highly deserving categories of artistry. Unfortunately, when prominent filmmakers voice opposition to this category of artistry, they are undermining the achievements of a vast number of the Academy's talented members, from producers, directors and screenwriters to crafts and production teams. These films also help keep the industry afloat, often allowing studios to take subsequent risks on funding smaller movies that then often find their way to Oscar recognition. Thus, these blockbusters also deserve your respectful recognition.

The Academy recognized the dichotomy of tastes between its members and the general moviegoing audience when it increased the number of best picture contenders from five to as many as 10 nominees in 2010, with hopes that more popular films would be nominated. But the added slots were quickly filled with mostly smaller and mid-sized prestige films. Even when Marvel's $1.3 billion worldwide hit Black Panther was nominated for best picture this year, it lost to Green Book, a film grossing $322 million worldwide a quarter of Black Panther's box office haul.

The fix is simple. The Academy should reconsider an Academy Award for outstanding achievement among blockbusters call it best blockbuster. With that, the Academy would verify the top 10 highest-grossing worldwide box office films and then members would vote for the one that displays the greatest unique achievement. Awards might have gone to Avatar or Wonder Woman. This year, nominations might include Endgame, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Chinese sci-fi hit The Wandering Earth, Joker and the upcoming Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. What a race!

Some are concerned that if a film is nominated for best blockbuster, then Academy members might not include it for best picture. I believe a truly great film would make both lists. The new category might also net a larger audience for the Oscars. This year's viewership on ABC grew to 29.6 million, likely boosted by Black Panther's seven Oscar noms, including best picture.

While some might question that a blockbuster award would be a grab for TV ratings and advertising cash, that ignores the issue of the Academy's cultural relevance. The 33 percent ratings drop of this year's Emmy Awards, partially because of the vast number of nominated shows that few viewers watch, is an ominous message for the 2020 Oscar telecast: Be culturally relevant or die.

I hope many of you agree. If so, reach out to Academy president David Rubin and the board to share your views.

Thank you,

Gene Del VecchioAuthor of Creating BlockbustersFaculty, USC Marshall School of Business

This story first appeared in the Oct. 30 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

Link:
Why the Oscars Should Revive the Best Blockbuster Idea (Guest Column) - Hollywood Reporter

Maliks work, in many ways, defends the values of Enlightenment of the 18th century

Kenan Malik is an Indian-born British writer, lecturer and broadcaster. He had studied neurobiology and the history of science. As an academic author, his focus is on the philosophy of biology, and contemporary theories of multiculturalism, pluralism and race. These are the subjects he draws on elaborately in his books. Maliks work, in many ways, defends the values of Enlightenment of the 18th century as he seeks to show through his writing that the ethos of Enlightenment has been distorted in recent political and scientific discourses. He writes for many newspapers and magazines including the Observer, the New York Times, the Guardian, the Financial Times and the Independent.

'From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and its Legacy' (2009)

From Fatwa to Jihadwas released to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of the Fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie. In this book, Malik recounts the events of the Bradford protests, the fatwa, the Indian riots, as well as government and media responses. Apart from this, Malik also focuses on South-Asian British immigrants, and how they shaped the British-Asian identity. He describes the increase in state multiculturalism and its long-term effects, and also analyses the culture of censoring yourself and fearing the media.

'Multiculturalism and its Discontents: Rethinking Diversity After 9/11' (2013)

After 9/11 and the subsequent terrorist attacks that followed in some parts of Europe, a frequently asked question was to what extent the west can tolerate cultural diversity. InMulticulturalism and its Discontents,Malik examines how multiculturalism affects terrorism and social discontents, and analyses the history of the idea of multiculturalism with its political roots and social consequences. He discusses if people can, and should, try to build a society that has common values.

Awards

Books written

Read more:
Kenan Malik: Philosophy of science and cultural theories - Dhaka Tribune

Although the Founders wrote and spoke with clarity and brilliance, it is evidently easy for us today to misunderstand them. The evidence is all around us.

David Boaz gives us a particularly vivid and therefore useful example of how its done in his book The Libertarian Mind.

Introducing the American cause to the world, Jefferson explained:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

Lets try to draw out the implications of Americas founding document. Many libertarian scholars have joined Jefferson in making the case for natural rights to life, liberty, and property. (Emphasis mine.)

You saw it happen, didnt you? Jefferson did not declare that we have natural rights to life, liberty, and property. According to the Declaration, we have unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.Boaz has Jefferson making the case for natural rights to life, liberty, and property, but it was John Locke, not Jefferson, who did that. Had Boaz written that many libertarian scholars have joined Locke in making the case for natural rights to life, liberty, and property that claim would have been simply true.

My point is not to pick on Boaz or his valuable book. Because there are so many examples of Americans of all persuasions offering interpretations of the Founders which differ fundamentally from the Founders understanding of themselves, anyone whom I select for this discussion can seem to be unfairly singled out.

Christopher Hitchens offers another example. Although Hitchens was no libertarian, he also made Jefferson sound like Locke. In this passage from his well-received 2005 biography of Jefferson, Hitchens, like Boaz, dropped out unalienable rights and in addition managed to get both property and natural rights in the same sentence as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Watch closely to see how it is done:

And where Locke had spoken of life, liberty, and property as being natural rights, Jefferson famously wrote life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

In fairness to Hitchens and to Boaz, their depiction of Jefferson relying on Locke is standard fare. Open a book or article which discusses the Declaration and there is a good chance you will read that Jefferson put the pursuit of happiness where Locke had placed property. But stating it that way completely misrepresents the logic of what Jefferson did. Making it seem that Lockes list and Jeffersons list are essentially the same, that Jefferson only changed the last item of a list of three, leaves out the most important point. For Locke, property is the overarching concept:

Manhath by nature a power to preserve his propertythat is, his life, liberty and estate.

Glossing over the antecedent of Lockes list creates a false impression. To make that clear, lets put Lockes list and the Declarations list side-by-side:

Manhath by nature a power to preserve his propertythat is, his life, liberty and estate.

Menare endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Lockes triad is appended to property. The Declarations triad is appended to unalienable rights. These are two fundamentally different accounts.

For the American Founders, unalienable rightsnot propertyis the overarching concept. Here is John Adams in the Massachusetts Constitution:

All people are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.

According to the Founders, our property rights are among our unalienable rightsand securing our unalienable rights is the very purpose of government:

that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rightsThat to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.

To provide an account of the Founders ideas which leaves out unalienable rights is to not account for them at all.

Jefferson was not following Lockeand he was also making it perfectly clear that he was not following Locke. Yet Boaz and Hitchens and scholars of every stripe and persuasion who already know going in that the Founders followed Locke always manage to find that the Founders followed Locke.

Of course, if you bring other convictions about the nature of things to your understanding of the Founders, you can manage to find other ways to misunderstand them. Here, for another example, is W.H. Auden in his book The Dyers Hand:

It was then [during the administration of Andrew Jackson] that it first became clear that, despite similarities of form, representative government in America was not to be an imitation of the English parliamentary system, and that, though the vocabulary of the Constitution may be that of the French Enlightenment, its American meaning is quite distinct.

Of course, representative government in America was never an imitation of the English parliamentary system, nor was the Constitution written in the vocabulary of the French Enlightenmentand all that was perfectly clear from Americas beginning. The vocabulary and ideas of the French Enlightenment were a far cry from those of Americas Founders.

Voltaires enlightened despotism and Rousseaus general will came together in a constitutional referendum by means of which the French imposed a new tyranny on themselves by granting Napoleon unlimited political power as their emperor. Americans, operating according to very different ideas and using a very different vocabulary, ratified the Constitution and then elected Washington to an office of limited powers in a government of limited powers.

Auden simply read into the Founders what he knew, the English parliamentary system and the ideas of the French Enlightenment, just as Boaz and Hitchens and others read Locke into the Declaration. Because our forgetting of the ideas of the Founders is widespread and very far advanced today, mistakes of this kind are frequently madeand usually go undetected. There was a time not so long ago when the ideas of the Founders were better remembered and more generally understood. Mistakes like these once would have been unlikely and, if made, quickly recognized.

I quote Auden as a reminder that we can encounter pronouncements about America almost anywhere, even in a book about poetry and literature. If we pay careful attention to these assertions wherever we encounter them, we will often find that they are mistaken, misguided, or misleading.

Go here to see the original:
How To Misunderstand And Misrepresent The Founders - The Federalist

TE Jake Hollister was the final-play hero after his game-winning touchdown reception. / Drew McKenzie, Sportspress Northwest

Russell Wilson. Fercripesakes.

In terms of mastery of craft, the Seahawks quarterback is approaching a level of enlightenment that is thrilling to the point of chilling.

On the final three possessions of a preposterous 40-34 overtime win over Tampa Bay Sunday, he took the Seahawks on scoring drives of 75, 48 and 70 yards. Except PK Jason Myers missed a potential game-winning field goal on the middle drive, necessitating the third drive in OT.

On those three drives, he completed nine of 13 passes for 166 yards, and added a 21-yard scramble his only rush of the game that might have been the most critical improvisation of the afternoon.

Thats 187 yards of offense that produced 13 points to beat the 2-6 Bucs, who probably thought they had won the game at any of a half-dozen junctures, especially since coach Bruce Arians was 4-1 at the Clink from a previous coaching life in Arizona.

But no.

If there was any question that Wilson is the leading candidate for the Most Valuable Player award, it vanished faster than one can say, Jacob Hollister. Wilson found one of Seahawks most obscure players twice for touchdown passes, including the 10-yard game-winner in overtime.

You know, said a grinning Hollister, you have to expect (the ball) every play.

Since its possible, seeing him week after week, year after year, to take Wilson a bit for granted, one of the beneficiaries of his largesse, WR DK Metcalf, shared a bit of post-game conversation he had with the other side, which explained part of why the Seahawks in the off-season made him the games highest-paid player.

He tells me, said Metcalf of rookie CB Sean Murphy-Bunting, that Im lucky I have a guy like Russ running the show back there.

True that.

Wilson has floated an NFL-average team to 7-2 mostly on his absolute conviction and skill that the offense will score when it matters most. Doesnt always happen, but the belief in him remains rock-hard around the team. When the coin flip for overtime was won, the game was bank.

With Russell back there, it dont matter, said coach Pete Carroll, unleashing from the grip of grammar. You have a chance no matter whats going on. He played phenomenal football today.

Hes done it so many times. You cant have a better guy, almost in the history of ball, doing it.

Some will challenge Carrolls hyperbole. But Sunday, it was hard to argue with a passer rating of 133.7.

The Seahawks were up against the NFLs top run defense, so more air ordnance was ordered up in the game plan. Against a team that blitzes more than any other in the NFL, Wilson delivered 29 completions in 43 passes for 378 yards and five touchdowns with no turnovers.

His counterpart, Jameis Winston, was nearly as good statistically 29 of 44 for 335 yards and two touchdowns. But he had one error, which was hardly his fault.

With 10:48 remaining in a tie at 24, Winston dropped back on a third-and-five at Seattle 40 and was was bumped by his left tackle, Donovan Smith, who had been shoved by LB Mychal Kendricks. The loose ball, Tampas only turnover, was scooped by Seahawks DE Rasheem Green and returned 36 yards.

The possession produced a Seattle lead from a field goal, which began a fourth-quarter cavalcade of 29 combined points. Winston might have answered, but OT rules say first TD wins.

Despite being unable to draw from his holster, Winston was effusive in his praise of Wilson.

I just have so much respect for that guy hes a winner, Winston said. Hes an amazing quarterback. Hes been an amazing help to me with my development as an NFL quarterback. I just thank him for that.

I wish we were on the winning end, but he went out there and did his job.

As always, Wilson had sidekicks: WR Tyler Lockett had career highs in receptions (13) and yards (152), along with two touchdowns, and Metcalf had the best game of his rookie season with six catches and 123 yards, including a spectacular 53-yard TD. Against a stout run defense, RB Chris Carson had a surprising 105 yards in 16 carries, including a 59-yard run that went through four would-be tacklers. He also had two fumbles, one lost.

A partial reason for the gas-pump numbers were due to several in-game injuries that at one point had six rookies populating Tampas defense.

To have the injuries we had at the last second and to take this team to overtime, said Arians, Im really, really proud of our guys. Im not used to losing here.

All of Seattles firepower was necessary because the defense couldnt keep up its end. A bad second half against Atlanta the previous week carried into Sunday, allowing in the Bucs first four possessions hree touchdown drives of 75, 69 and 63 yards for a 21-7 lead. Tampas 34 points were a season high against Seattle.

We struggled quite a bit, Carroll said. We thought we would find more ways to get to the quarterback, and we only got him a couple times. We thought we would make more plays on the ball as well.

Through nine games, it hasnt happened for the defense, despite Sundays debut of what figures to be the safety tandem of the near-term future, with rookie FS Marquise Blair joining veteran SS Bradley McDougald.

Another 418 yards surrendered says that if the Seahawks are to progress in the toughest part of the schedule, including a Nov. 11 Monday night game in Santa Clara against the undefeated 49ers, it will happen because Wilson wills it. Nor is it likely to be helped by Myers, who missed two field goals and an extra point.

I want to say this: Jason is our kicker, Carroll said. It didnt go right today for him, but its going to. Hes a magnificent talent. But we won anyway. Our guys won for him.

As the media began entering the locker room, Wilson turned to Myers, who dresses next to him, and delivered a bro-hug.

A courtesy gesture, perhaps, but after watching Wilson on the final three Seahawks possessions, there figures to be a line of teammates seeking a laying of hands.

DK Metcalf had a bit of trouble getting to the ball through the grip of Tampa CB Jamel Dean. / Drew McKenzie, Sportspress Northwest

The rest is here:
Thiel: Seahawks' good fortune of Russell Wilson - Sportspress Northwest

In the preface to his much admired biography of Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow wrote that to repudiate [Hamiltons] legacy is to repudiate the modern world.

Hamilton, of course, was Americas first treasury secretary. He created the framework for an American empire. That anyone would repudiate the modern world was inconceivable to Hamiltons biographer. Times were good in 2004, notwithstanding the lingering shock of 9/11, for which an appropriate response was underway.

And yet, there were heretics, a word the late University of Minnesota history Prof. David W. Noble (1925-2018) often applied to himself. Noble did repudiate the modern world. With painstaking diligence, he investigated cycles of despair and hope that have been repeated throughout human history. Always wary of hyper-rational wishful thinking, he believed that the free-market modernists had gone too far. Hamilton had helped create Americas system of checks and balances, but this no longer mattered, apparently. The neoliberal ideology promised eternal prosperity, the triumph of reason over nature and the end of history.

In Debating the End of History: The Marketplace, Utopia, and the Fragmentation of Intellectual Life, published in 2012, Noble explains why neoliberalism is extravagantly delusional. What the utopians are peddling, he wrote, is the American dream redux. Noble never believed in dreams of any kind. He believed in and wrote about reality.

Born in 1925, Noble grew up on a small dairy farm that failed during the Great Depression. He saw his own immigrant parents belief in the promise of a new and perfect world shattered. The family was rescued from starvation by Franklin Roosevelts New Deal. Noble learned then to be wary of American exceptionalism (any sort of exceptionalism), and as a soldier in World War II he never forgot how the German people were willing to accept their fuhrers megalomania in exchange for modest financial security and a degree of national pride. To Noble, the Third Reich was an exponentially more horrific version of what could happen anywhere, even in America.

Noble attended Princeton on the GI Bill and developed a taste for literature, in particular lost generation authors like William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Nobles parents belonged to that generation. They, too, felt hoodwinked. Another influence was the historian Frederick Jackson Turner, whose theory of American exceptionalism had an outsized impact on the American ego. A prime example was Teddy Roosevelt. The 1898 Spanish-American War was not just this swaggering presidents finest hour (in his own mind) but Americas first foray into European-style imperialism. It ended with Spain handing over the Philippines, which remained a U.S. colony until 1946.

After Princeton, Noble pursued a history Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin. There he befriended ecologists and learned about the redeployment of war technologies for peaceful purposes. Petroleum-based synthetic nitrogen would feed the world. The ecologists saw this as unsustainable. They predicted overpopulation and soil depletion and the greenhouse effect. They were ignored.

At the University of Minnesota, Noble helped start a department of American Studies. Now he was able to broaden and deepen his inquiry into human nature. He assigned readings on literature, art, science, philosophy and religion. He wrote 10 books. Debating the End of History is his last.

Both memoir and a summing-up of a lifes work, it begins with a critical appraisal of a metaphor known as Platos cave. The cave represents blind ignorance. Dark and suffocating, it is a kind of hell on earth where potentially reasonable people are held captive by nature, the animal nature both within and without. Liberation from Platos cave was the rallying cry of Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers. But the issue most hotly debated then and now is not scientific revelation (e.g., Isaac Newtons law of gravity) so much as methodology specifically, whether truth is mutable or if it can be arrived at through irrational intuition and imagination.

Newton put himself in the former camp. He presented his theories as provisional, fluid. Though a brilliant mathematician, he saw math as a tool, not an end, whereas Cartesian logicians (the so-called positivists) deemed a balanced equation the final arbiter.

That Adam Smith, a staunch Newtonian, also valued subjective reality is largely ignored by free-market purists. In the interests of advancing self-interest theory as seminally explained in The Wealth of Nations, they disregard Smiths call for political systems that would temper animal spirits with what he called sympathy. Noble, for his part, saw the new gospel of enlightened self-interest (unfettered capitalism) as window dressing to mask the animal appetites of a privileged few.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, a world of unfettered excess seemed plausible. Right-wing economist Francis Fukuyama made it sound like a fait accompli in The End of History and the Last Man, published in 1997. After all, a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, was then deregulating Wall Street, cutting welfare and expanding the military to protect U.S. investments overseas. Neoliberalism, as Clinton rebranded neoconservatism to make it sell to social liberals (as if social and economic imperatives were somehow two different things), dodged a bullet just over a decade later, when another obliging Democrat, Barack Obama, signed a taxpayer bailout that left corrupt banks bigger than ever.

Enter the Anthropocene Age. Merit meets money. They fall in love. The union is consummated. The fittest thrive in a dog-eat-dog world, while everyone else well, their demise would prove Platos point. Instead of the meek inheriting the earth, they would be replaced with fewer but higher-quality humans. The modern world is overpopulated anyway. Problem solved.

Noble wrote that historys end would spell doom for an imagination-driven, timeful and artful way of life that modern thinkers associate with primitive peoples and the Dark Ages. He thought humans were happier in a humbler condition, one that acknowledged and embraced the cycles of nature what ecologists call balanced ecosystems and didnt seek to destroy them in the name of individual freedom. His definition of freedom was closer to that of Americas founders than to Ayn Rand. Noble believed that humans would always be conflicted, God love em, because they inhabit two worlds.

To Noble, intuition and objective truth are equally valid and symbiotic. Their collaboration can create havoc, but it also fosters creativity, kindness and love.

Neoliberals argue that the private sector can do better than government at everything. This is the overarching theme of the Aspen Ideas Festival, Davos, TED, the Council on Foreign Relations, the WTO. In The World Is Flat, published in 2005, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman declared that free-market globalization would usher in a utopia in which traditional (national) governments had a minimal role. Consumers would be the new voters in a democratic economy. The grow-or-die capitalism that Friedman implicitly condoned ignored natural limits. If resources run out, well, humans will always find a way to replace them.

Among elitist billionaires, colonizing Mars became a legitimate long-term goal, one that Noble found absurd, not to mention immoral given the plight of Mother Earth and the billions of people whom it could no longer support and who would be left stranded.

Then Friedman changed his mind, making a startling discovery: The world is Hot, Flat and Crowded. Published the same year as the bank bailout, his new book was subtitled, Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America. He admits that he had perhaps been premature in predicting historys end. After all, the first Flat, subtitled A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, was written just five years into the century in question. Now Friedman recommended, astonishingly, a return to nationalism, government-mandated rationing and reinvestment (not just carrots but sticks) in renewables.

Noble commends Friedmans conversion to two-world thinking in Debating the End of History. But in the 11 years since, little has changed in U.S. economic policy. The jury is still out: Will corporations find solutions before consumers are forced to do without such must-have modern amenities as jets, smartphones, SUVs, frosted flakes and disposable clothing?

What goes around comes around. The pendulum swings when youre a mere human with a foot in two opposite worlds. Noble writes that in FDRs world of national interest, politics involved words such as community, equality, social justice and compassion. Sadly, [t]he sacred language of the marketplace could not allow such words. They were replaced by freedom and efficiency [that] expressed the essence of independence, rationality, and objectivity.

Noble died in 2018 at age 92. He lived just long enough to witness the event that proved him right about history having no end: the election of a neofascist climate-denier, Donald Trump, as U.S. president. Market and social chaos look far more likely now than an orderly transition to utopia.

In the interests of efficiency, we must send our political leaders, not our CEOs, to Paris to forge an agreement with other nations that may or may not save the planet. Time is running out. More of the same is no longer an option. History will not end, nor markets prevail over the rule of law. We live on a finite planet, and only government can be the final arbiter of who gets which of the scarce resources left.

A progressive capitalist with experience and vision is humanitys only hope for a soft landing. In my view the likeliest candidate to bring voters to their senses is U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

I wish I could sit down with Prof. Noble and ask him: Is there still time? My guess is that he would answer: Of course there is! Being both a skeptic and an optimist goes with the territory when you live in two worlds, one rational and the other timeful, artful and imaginative.

Bonnie Blodgett, of St. Paul, specializes in environmental topics. Shes at bonnieblodgett@gmail.com.

See the original post:
OPINION EXCHANGE | The two worlds according to David W. Noble - Star Tribune

Anne Nicholas, NBCs vice president of affiliate marketing, has a unique approach to instilling career empowerment in young women: she invites men.

At the Ladies Get Paid event in Brooklyn on Saturday, Nicholas brought her husband, SummitMedias senior vice president and creative director Val Nicholas, to speak alongside her during a panel on personal branding.

At first when I was first doing these things, I only wanted women in the room, said Anne Nicholas in an interview with Know Your Value. And then I realized what a big mistake that was because we cannot do it without our men. We need to have the men understand, and they need to be behind us.

Anne and Val Nicholas spoke to a standing room-only crowd at the Brooklyn Expo Center. The two noted that men are brought up to fight and be confident, while women are taught to be perfect.

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We have to make everyone happy and make sure that everyone is comfortable, Anne Nicholas said to the crowd. ...For us the word courage is scary.

The couple pointed out some alarming statistics: men apply for a job if they feel 60 percent qualified, while women dont apply unless they feel 100 percent qualified.

Whats holding you back? Its nothing more than fear, said Anne Nicholas.

Val Nicholas also urged women to stop apologizing for no reason.

Stop apologizing. Youre not sorry, said Val Nicholas to the audience. [Men] dont do that. When weve done something wrong, we apologize.

The couple asked audience members to consider their career goals, acknowledge their fears and obstacles, then pivot to positive thinking. For example instead of thinking Im going to be destitute if I make this career move, think of a better thought, said Anne Nicholas, such as I will have a more fulfilling career. This can be especially tough for women, who tend to undervalue themselves.

The better thought is a thought that is going to soothe you, said Anne Nicholas during the interview. And it will allow you to think an even better thought after that. So if you have a goal and just keep practicing that courage ... it does propel you forward.

Community is also a critical part of success, according to the couple. They encouraged attendees to talk to connect to the women around them and invoke support, mentorship and sponsorship.

One of the things that we don't do enough as women, is this, said Anne Nicholas during her talk, referring to the gathering. If we can stay in touch with all the women in this room, we would have so much support its unbelievable.

Anne Nicholas noted that while #MeToo culture has brought about a new enlightenment for women, she urged women not to alienate men from the conversation altogether.

This is incredibly important transition time right now, said Anne Nicholas in the interview. And I think that women are the ones who have the knowledge and the experience and the ease with feelings to really understand it and make it happen ... We can't be man haters because they have so much to teach us. As much as we have to teach them, they have to teach us.

Excerpt from:
Why Anne Nicholas brings her husband to women's empowerment talks - NBC News

QUEER EYE: WERE IN JAPAN! Stream on Netflix. The reboot of this feel-good reality TV show deviated from the original by leaving its mostly New York setting to help people of all genders and sexual orientations across America. Now the Fab Five are taking their expertise in food, grooming, culture, fashion and interior design to Tokyo. With the American-Japanese model and actress Kiko Mizuhara and the Japanese comedian Naomi Watanabe as their guides, Bobby Berk, Karamo Brown, Tan France, Antoni Porowski and Jonathan Van Ness meet four new faces and work to transform their lives. Along the way, the self-help gurus explore the citys cultural offerings, making the mini-series part makeover show, part travelogue.

THE NIGHTINGALE (2019) Stream on Hulu; Rent on Google Play and YouTube. Jennifer Kent, the director of The Babadook, wrote and directed this feature about 1820s Tasmania, where British soldiers rule over convicts who were relocated there from England and Ireland, while also warring with the areas indigenous peoples. Within that ladder of cruelty that A.O. Scott described in his New York Times review, the film follows an Irish convict named Clare (Aisling Franciosi), who ventures out into the wilderness with an Aboriginal guide to seek revenge on the British officer who raped her. The film has been criticized for its portrayal of sexual assault and brutality, but Scott still named it a Critics Pick. This is a difficult movie because the questions it raises are not easy, he wrote, adding, You might say its too angry. Or too honest.

THE AFFAIR 9 p.m. on Showtime. When this show debuted in 2014, it focused on the deception and perspectives of Alison (Ruth Wilson), a married waitress, and Noah (Dominic West), a husband and father of four, who step out on their spouses to engage in an affair. The subsequent seasons have dealt with the fallout from that transgression, exploring how the dissolution of those marriages have affected their family members. By its fifth and final season, the show has expanded even further into two narrative timelines: one set in the present day, and the other decades in the future. The series finale brings together Noahs family for his daughters wedding, while Alisons adult daughter Joanie (Anna Paquin) grows closer to uncovering the truth about her mothers death.

90 DAY FIANC 8 p.m. on TLC. On a new season of this reality show that combines the perils of dating with culture shock, seven new couples allow cameras to capture their tumultuous K-1 visa process, which allows Americans to bring their fianc or fiance into the country for 90 days. In that time period, the couples will have to decide whether theyll walk down the aisle or whether their non-American partner will have to leave the country. In this seventh season, well be introduced to couples who are either meeting in person for the first time or are just getting to know each other. They include a 41-year-old banker and a 23-year-old Brazilian model; and a Nebraskan mother of three dating a man from Turkey despite the language barrier.

Originally posted here:
Whats on TV Sunday: Queer Eye and The Affair - The New York Times

Joan Zeta Zamora came of age in her native Jalisco, Mexico, cleaning up and decorating tombstones with flowers on Day of the Dead.

So when she learned that the Florence Library in South Los Angeles was closing, she turned the commemoration of ancestors and loved ones who have died into a tool for protest.

The 36-year-old constructed an altar in Grand Park, which depicted a politician as Ernesto de la Cruz, the mariachi villain in the Pixar Animation Studios film Coco.

Dia de los Muertos in Los Angeles has always had a political element to it, Zamora said.

Following the release of Pixars Coco, in which an aspiring guitarist is cast to the underworld after defying his Mexican grandmother, the Day of the Dead aesthetic has become especially ubiquitous, used to peddle all sorts of products, from alcohol to lottery scratchers. The Mexican holiday is also used to promote an ever-growing list of events across Los Angeles County, including a bicycle ride in Wilmington and a 5K and health fair in San Fernando.

Lorena Lopez and Maria Bustamante Morales, 4, look at the Day of the Dead Altar for Carlos Zaragoza at Self Help Graphics & Art.

(Michael Owen Baker/For The Times)

Throughout October, vendors in downtown Los Angeles unload trucks chock-full of marigolds. The flowers, known as cempaschil, are no longer shipped from abroad but grown in Oxnard and San Diego. Merchants bundle them up in Korean-language newspapers, then hand them over to the thousands of Angelenos who observe Day of the Dead.

Come November, they will adorn altars throughout the county.

Despite the holidays commodification, for Xchitl Flores-Marcial, a historian at Cal State Northridge, it remains an intimate family affair, with preparations beginning months in advance.

Our entire life, she said, revolves around memory and holding on to the teachings of our ancestors. For her, using the tradition as a marketing tool is historical erasure.

I like to talk about it in terms of science, she continued, because we often forget that part when we talk about how people have appropriated only the things that look fun and festive and colorful.

For instance, she said, there are several different varieties of cempaschil, and because they contain a natural insecticide, they are planted among food crops in Mexico. This is why her family, Zapotecs from the state of Oaxaca, not only decorate their altars in L.A. with them, but also make it a point to include only the highest-quality corn, beans, chiles and squash in their tribute, or ofrenda.

Notes on paper cutout like fish at the Day of the Dead altar Cruzando (Crossing) at Self Help Graphics & Art.

(Michael Owen Baker/For The Times)

This, said Flores-Marcial, is ultimately what were celebrating when were honoring our ancestors. Were saying, This is what weve harvested from this knowledge. That part, this knowledge that indigenous people have, is totally overlooked when people start appropriating these symbols.

Her familys customs, she added, represent just one example of ancestor worship.

You can find it in the Andes, too. You can find it in Guatemala. You can find it in so many places in the Americas. Its not only Mexican, she said.

Betty Avila, executive director of Self Help Graphics & Art in Boyle Heights, learned about Day of the Dead as an adult. For her and her parents, who emigrated from the Mexican state of Zacatecas, Dia de los Muertos is very much an L.A. thing, she said.

I think its interesting for my parents to see their kids really seek out these opportunities to be further connected with home in Zacatecas and, more broadly speaking, our Mexican heritage, Avila said.

Moreover, because Avila learned about the tradition at Self Help Graphics & Art, her understanding of it has always been rooted in political activism. The arts center, she noted, began celebrating Day of the Dead shortly after the Chicano Moratorium, in which residents of East Los Angeles took to the streets to protest the Vietnam War and the disproportionate number of casualties of Mexican descent.

Kristen Johannesen, left, Olivia Ramos and her mother, Dora Magaa, work on papier-mache skulls at Self Help Graphics & Art.

(Michael Owen Baker/For The Times)

From the beginning, said Avila, local artists and residents have made use of traditional Day of the Dead iconography to bring forward other issues and ideas that affect the community. In the 70s, for instance, the East Los Angeles-based art collective Asco combined the tradition with performance art to address the ways that they saw community members dying all around them. In its archives, the arts center preserves a photograph of the event, in which members of the collective not only dressed as skeletons but also as a pill, a switchblade and a syringe.

Today, Day of the Dead at Self Help Graphics & Arts maintains its activist roots, as exemplified by the altars in this years gallery exhibition. Among them is one created by the centers youth committee, which commemorates children who have died while attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border or in the custody of immigration officials.

In addition to traditional elements such as candles and cempaschil, the youth committees altar includes candy and stuffed animals. These elements, said Karla Jacome, a student at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College and East L.A. College, represent the children who lost their lives. Because the items featured in the altar are also an ofrenda, they are meant to give the children some comfort.

I really hope that these children, who passed in such difficult ways, feel how loved they are, Jacome said.

The altar, which displays portraits of migrant children who died, also includes a gallon of water, where the words Suerte en su camino (Good luck on your journey) are written in permanent marker. This message, Jacome said, speaks both to the physical journey from the childrens home countries to the United States, as well as from life to death.

The jug, she added, is also a form of protest, pointing to the prosecution of individuals who provided water to migrants trying to survive in the desert.

The youth committees installation also invites community members to write messages to the dead children on paper fish, which are then deposited in a river made of blue cloth that runs along the altar. One of the messages reads, in Spanish: Beautiful little angels, you will not be forgotten. May you rest in peace.

Detail from the Day of the Dead Altar for Carlos Zaragoza at Self Help Graphics & Art.

(Michael Owen Baker/For The Times)

On any given Saturday in October, the mural-laden building in Boyle Heights can be found teeming with friends and multiple generations of family members, including pets. Some of the crafts are incorporated into the arts centers community altar, a majestic, multi-tiered piece by master altarista Ofelia Esparza. This year, it includes framed photographs of Toni Morrison, Rep. Elijah Cummings, and local rapper and community activist Nipsey Hussle, all of whom died this year.

Many of those who participate in the Self Help Graphic & Arts weekend workshops take their work home. Often, they say they plan to make altars of their own.

The point, she said, is to bring the community together, to get people talking about loved ones who have died. The ability to share out that loss publicly, she added, is also part of the healing.

Read more here:
For many in Los Angeles, Day of the Dead is a chance for activism - Los Angeles Times

Source: Nastasia Mora / Courtesy of Taylor Elyse Morrison

For Taylor Elyse Morrison, fitness is about a lot more than the physical; your ability to perform certain tasks of daily living or movements involved in work and sports to a certain level. Instead, she believes that in order to truly be fit, you need to be intentionally caring for all aspects of yourself, including the emotional and the mental. Of course, most group fitness classes out there only focus on getting you in good shape in terms of the body, and might throw in a mediation moment here and there to help you tap into the internal as a cool down, but the 26-year-old Chicago native wanted a class to focus on whats happening within us. When she initially started to prioritize her own self-care, it helped her look at the benefits of physical activity differently.

Ive been putting a lot of focus on self-care and listening to what my body needs and not thinking about calories, she said. Im not thinking about how good Im going to look in a pair of jeans or something, but really knowing that when I work out, my stress levels go down and Im better able to deal with my anxiety and looking at it from that perspective.

Once she was able to do that, Morrison realized it was something that everyone needed, so she created Inner Workout. She describes it as a mat-based self-care practice for your whole being on Instagram, but specifically, its self-care focused on five parts to help you gain access to the layers that encompass you. You reach them through the physical, which is the yoga, dance and kinesthetics class participants do, as well as through the energetic of breathing, the mental of journaling, the wisdom of active meditation, and the bliss, which is using the last five minutes of class to do whatever brings you great joy.

The idea for my workout came into being because I saw a lot of group fitness classes, but nothing that was really focused on looking within and learning how to actually build that skill into self-care, she said. For me, that is listening within and responding in the most loving way possible. So Inner Workout is yes you move your body and you might sweat a little bit, but its really about building that muscle, so to speak.

We spoke to Morrison about the importance of tuning in, how the Inner Workout works, and the necessity of prioritizing something far greater than the physical for true fitness and happiness.

MadameNoire:What inspired you to create this workout and how did you start working within to make self-care a priority for yourself?

Taylor Elyse Morrison: I am really interested in self-care because Im honestly really bad at it. I have burned myself out a lot of times. Ive always been a person who will have a full-time job and then a side hustle and then maybe volunteering at a non-profit on top of being in a relationship and trying to hang out with friends. There was one summer where I had a pretty demanding full-time job, still had clients for my side hustle and then had also just recently gotten married. I was spending a Sunday night trying to do work and Im just sitting in front of my computer typing and switching between tabs but realizing that Im not doing anything. So I closed my laptop, took a bath, and that was like my first self-care practice: shutting down on Sunday nights, taking a bath and not looking at anything work-related until Monday morning. When that really started to feel good for me, I started to think, how can I incorporate that feeling outside of baths? So I started doing more with journaling and meditation and just trying to listen to myself. As I did that, and I would talk about it more, other people would ask me questions about self-care, and I realized that this is something were not really taught. Were not taught how to listen to ourselves, were just kind of taught, okay, eat healthy, exercise, accomplish all your goals and try not to burn yourself out in the process. But no one tells you how not to burn yourself out.

How did you get to a place of focusing on the internal and having a sense of gratitude? What was the work that needed to be done to prioritize that regularly?

With practice. I talk about self-care being proactive and reactive. So the proactive things are my Sunday night baths or taking a walk with my dog in the morning, things I know that set me up for a good day. Then there is the reactive self-care where I feel like super anxious and I could sit and I dont know, scroll down Instagram and try and numb myself, but I would teach myself to tune in and say, okay, youre feeling really anxious. What are the things you could try right now? You could try taking some deep breaths. You could try calling a friend. You could try dancing to Lizzo in your living room, whatever it is. But its about training myself to have that moment before going into kind of the crutches and numbing myself out. Im actually seeing what productive things I can do. Its all an experiment. It changes. What works for me when Im anxious today might not be what works for me when Im anxious tomorrow.

What does your class consist of? I read that its a blend of movement, breath work, meditation and journaling.

Its a 60-minute class and really the teacher is the facilitator. Its not like a yoga class where you need to be in a specific pose and hold it for a certain number of breaths. This teacher, the facilitator, gives you a set of movements, and then you flow within it. Youre training yourself to listen to whats going on. You might find one part of the flow where you just need to hang out there because your hips are tight. You dont even need to worry about the rest of it. So the first 20 minutes or so are movement, and then you move into a time of breath work, which is really a time to access your breath but also start to notice your energy. Then you move into journaling. Theres always two journaling prompts. Its called journaling, most people write, some people dont connect to writing, some people doodle. You have a good chunk of time to do that and then we move into a meditation. After journaling, youve brought up a lot of stuff, and so the meditation is a good time to kind of observe your thoughts and synthesize. And then the final portion is five minutes of flow. So hopefully, by this point of spending 55 minutes listening to yourself, youre starting to understand what you need. So the last five minutes, some people will do more stretching, some people will journal more, some people will just lie there and breathe. Its really your time to say, okay, what do I need in this moment? What can I give myself?

Source: Nastasia Mora / Courtesy of Taylor Elyse Morrison

Youre based in Chicago and the classes take place in the city. I see that you have a way though for people to get involved remotely, online. Since they cant be physically in the class, what is it that theyre getting?

So theres two aspects of online. Theres the free online community and thats open to anyone, whether or not they want to do Inner Workout. Thats just a place for conversation, for encouragement, for accountability. Its really cool at this point because its something that were co-creating together. So the people who are the members now are getting to see what they want to make it into. Then the other piece is, in January, well be launching video classes. You can buy the pre-recorded classes and incorporate an Inner Workout class into your day or your week, however it fits for you. Theres a package thats available for pre-order where they can get an Inner Workout journal that can go under the tree or whatever you do for holidays, and then whoever youre gifting it to can then enjoy the videos when they launch in January.

How important is it for people to prioritize self-care in this way, the way you offer with Inner Workout? It seems especially important at a time when people are becoming more comfortable talking about mental health and fitness in general has become more appealing.

In general, I think mental health is extremely important. I think its good that were starting to have this conversation, especially in communities of color where traditionally, its something thats a little more taboo. I think where Inner Workout is really helpful is that it provides a time and a structured framework for this. Theres so many people, my friends and myself included, where we know the things that are good for us. We know we should meditate, or journal, or stretch, but its something that at the end of the day gets put down on the to-do list. Whats great about Inner Workout is its something that you can put on your calendar and come to whether youre in Chicago, or schedule a time to watch a video. Youve got everything you need to have a really rich self-care practice. But Im also a big proponent of saying you dont have to buy anything to practice self-care. You just make a commitment to listen to yourself and respond with love. Its going to be hard and youre going to have to keep working at it. Even right now, as Im saying that Im thinking, I dont think Ive had any water today and were halfway through the day. I havent been doing a great job of listening to myself, but Im committed to doing the work, and thats all any of us can do.

And how important is this message of fitness not just being about the physical?

I love that you mentioned that. Thats why I love that were rooted in the kosha model because its the five layers of yourself, or the five aspects of yourself. In self-care and fitness and wellness, were still focused on the wellness, what goes into our physical bodies, how were moving our physical body, and not thinking that we are whole, multi-dimensional human beings who have so many layers and things that are going on. So yes, I think its great that we have pushed the conversation and were starting to talk about health and mental health and wellness and fitness, but yes, to really in my opinion be someone whos a fit person, you have to be accessing all of who you are, which goes beyond just the things that you can do in the gym.

Be sure to follow Taylors Inner Workout page on Instagram and check out the rest of our inspiring Fitness Fridays profiles here!

Continued here:
Fitness Fridays: After Realizing She Was Really Bad At Practicing Self-Care, Taylor Morrison Created A Workout Class To Help Others Listen Within -...

Zaria Howell, Op-Ed ContributorNovember 3, 2019

For me, college is a lot like a very slow race, but a race nonetheless. I always feel like Im rushing to get to the end of something the end of a negative emotion, the end of a cloud-filled day, the end of a draining lecture where the professor talks for entirely too long.

However, this race is unlike your typical one, as its an everyday, four-year-long battle. Some days you chalk it up to the highs and lows of college something you and your friends complain about over poor, borderline-inedible dining hall food. Other days, these things feel like blows to your soul, and you ask yourself: Am I enjoying my experience here? Why dont I feel as alive as Id like?

My dad frequently FaceTimes me out of the blue, asking me with a little too much urgency in his voice: How are you? I can tell from the concerned tone that hes not asking me about my latest friend drama or the grossest thing I came across in my dorm bathroom recently. Hes asking me about my literal mental health. He and I are both fully aware that just last year, a student on my campus died by suicide. Hes aware of the pressures of the monotony of college. So when he asks, I listen. And I reflect, almost like Im as concerned as he is.

On days where I dont feel my best, I pull out my repertoire of self-help aids: morning meditation sessions, evening journaling sessions, deep breathing exercises in nature, long phone calls with my mom. If I feel even an urge of sadness, or notice an absence of emotion at all, I pull out all the stops. Theres nothing scarier for a college student than the possible prospect of depression because theres the threat of not being to prevent it and not knowing how to deal with it once it arrives.

Even as I write this piece right now, Im borrowing a tool from that repertoire I just mentioned, writing. I feel oxygen and the universe and Gods presence, all at once, starting to fill those gaping holes in my soul. I reject bad vibes and possible negative energy more than frat parties. Its honestly an art form.

If I had to give a piece of advice to my fellow college students, itd be the advice my therapist gave me: Find what nurtures your soul and do a lot of it. Does cycling give you joy? Cycle until your thighs feel like stone. Does studying in particular places on campus make you feel more alive? Make those spaces your second home. Does being alone in your dorm room bring you comfort? Decorate it well, and allow it to be your oasis. Does being a part of a particular club make you feel like youre surrounded by family? Devote all your time to that and nothing else.

In college, it may seem like getting your degree is the most important aspect of your experience here. After all, we were all told at some point in our lives that we are at institutions like these to learn. But why does learning have to be strictly academic? Some of my most fruitful growth has taken place outside the classroom, outside of the impostor syndrome its confines impose, and its probably mold-ridden walls.

Whos to say that college, as it stands, might not be one of those things that you decide doesnt nurture your soul? And if it isnt, then how do you fix that? Id say: Find the version of college that makes you happy, and if that means changing your major three years in or finding a whole new group of friends, even though you already have some, then so be it.

This is your life. How would you like to live it?

Zaria Howell is a Medill sophomore. She can be contacted at zariahowell2022@u.northwestern.edu. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to opinion@dailynorthwestern.com. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.

Read the rest here:
Opinion | The race of college - Daily Northwestern