Related video above: Wilburforce University cancels student debt The University of Atlanta states that it will liquidate student account balances from spring 2020 to summer 2021 so that students can continue their education through the COVID-19 pandemic. Clark Atlanta University is just west of downtown the city. Said in a news release on Friday that it received a significant amount of support from the federal government under the CARES Law Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, which allowed students to be assisted. The Covid-19 pandemic has created financial difficulties for students and their families. Therefore, we will continue to do everything we can to support our efforts to complete CAU education, said George T. French Jr. The president said in the release. Their academic and professional future is important to me and the entire family at Clark Atlanta University. We care for our students and want to brighten their individuals. Clark Atlanta University said it was able to provide urgent financial assistance with federal support, as well as reduce tuition fees, and refund a proportionate amount of homes. Buy 4,000 Dell laptops for each economically enrolled student for meals in the spring of 2020, and buy hotspots for students with restricted or no internet access at home. According to the universitys website, as of 2019, the university had nearly 4,000 students. In a letter to Clarks students who announced their move on Thursday, the French praised them for overcoming the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 1918 our country and the world experienced the effects of such illness, weakness, and death, he writes. I personally appreciate your resilience, patience, and find a way or make one attitude. Clark Atlanta University is not the first school to financially support students for a pandemic. In May, Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio announced that it would cancel the debt of 2020 and 2021 graduate students. The president of the Historically Black College said at the time that the total amount of debt cleared would be over $ 375,000.

Related video above: Wilberforce University cancels student debt

The University of Atlanta has stated that it will liquidate student account balances from the spring of 2020 to the summer of 2021 so that students can continue their education through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Clark Atlanta UniversityLocated just west of downtown the city, said in a news release on Friday that it received a significant amount of support from the federal government under the CARES Law Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund.

We understand that the Covid-19 pandemic has been a mental and financial challenge for students and their families over the last two years, so to support efforts to complete CAU education. We will continue to do as much as we can, said President George T. French Jr. in the release.

Their academic and professional future is important to me and the entire Clark Atlanta University family. We value our students and continue our journey to pursue and achieve our educational and professional goals. We want to reduce the financial burden on individuals and families so that we can do it.

Clark Atlanta University, apart from tuition reductions, provides emergency financial assistance with federal support, prorated housing and meal refunds in the spring of 2020, and 4,000 per economically enrolled student. He said it is now possible to buy a Dell laptop and the hotspots it offers. Students with restricted or no internet access at home. As of 2019, the university had nearly 4,000 students. According to the website..

In a letter to Clarks students announcing their move on ThursdayThe French praised them for overcoming the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since the 1918 influenza pandemic, our country and the world have experienced such effects of illness, weakness, and death, he writes. I personally appreciate your resilience, patience, andfind or pave the wayattitude.

Clark Atlanta University is not the first school to financially support students for a pandemic.

In May, Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio announced that it would cancel the debt of 2020 and 2021 graduate students. The president of the Historically Black College said at the time that the total amount of debt cleared would be over $ 375,000.

Heres how one university is clearing account balances to help students during the pandemic Source link Heres how one university is clearing account balances to help students during the pandemic

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Here's how one university is clearing account balances to help students during the pandemic - California News Times

While I have been hiking in Maine, I have spent a lot of time reflecting on the last couple of months. This hike has gone by fast and slow at the same time with lots of ups and downs.

I left off my day by day blog entries just as I entered New Jersey so I decided to pick up there with an overview of New England. I know New Jersey and New York arent considered New England but in my head they are so Im including them in the overview.

I left Delaware water gap on a rainy and cold morning. It was such a bummer to get soaking wet right after a zero but thats how the trail works. I hiked ahead of my tramily to get to a road to meet my dad the following day. I was so excited to see my dad since it was the first time on trail seeing him.

My dad and I hiked 13 miles in the cold rain. It was the first time I wore gloves in over a month and I was not happy about it. Having him to hike with made the day so much better and I definitely wouldnt have made it 13 miles without him.

Although my mental game was strong after leaving Pennsylvania behind me I was longing to reunite with my tramily as soon as possible. I felt so accomplished to have left rocksylvania still in one piece and could see my home state of Massachusetts in sight which kept my spirits up.

After three cold and rainy days in a row, I arrived in Unionville where I resupplied and finally reunited with Lady Bird, Shaun, Lindsey, and Shades. I picked up new Oboz boots from the post office (I had my first pair since Neels Gap at mile 30!!) and we hiked five miles out of town to a shelter before deciding to stop for the day.

The next day we woke up bright an early with big miles and ice cream on our minds. Our goal for the day was 24 miles with a farm stand eight miles in and an ice cream shop 22 miles in. The farm was everything I had dreamed of. I ate a whole danish which was the size of my face. I then hiked up the stairway to heaven which was hard but manageable. The terrain started to get more rocky and before I knew it I had completed another state!

Around 4pm we entered into New York. It was so fun having the tramily all together to celebrate. With five more miles to ice cream, we tried to pick up the pace.

The terrain was extremely rocky and everyone was low on energy. Shaun and I got ahead of the group and we had a great conversation about what we wanted out of our futures. The last few miles went by fast since I was so involved in the conversation. The ice cream shop was delicious but I was so exhausted it was hard to enjoy the treat.

We did the last two miles to camp just as it was getting dark out. I set up my tent in the dark with moths flying at me from every direction. I had trouble falling asleep because my feet were throbbing so much, but finally after taking Advil I drifted off to sleep.

In the morning as we were packing up our tents, Shades announced that he was getting off trail. We all got quiet and stared around, unsure how to react. I had known that his ankle had been bothering him, but it had never occurred to me that he would quit. We said a tearful goodbye, and me, Lindsey, Lady Bird, and Shaun continued on without him.

I spent the next four days hating New York. The constant ups and downs combined with annoying rocks and roots made me really tired and grumpy. The climbs were steep, and the days hot. The only upside of New York were all the delis. I was able to stop and get a cold drink and a sandwich almost everyday.

On the final morning of New York, Feather offered to slack pack me. It was my first time slack packing and it felt amazing! Not having a weight on my back was amazing and I was able to keep up with Shaun going uphill.

As I crossed from New York into Connecticut, I gave a sigh of relief. The sign said gateway to New England. I was now one state away from home territory!

A huge thunderstorm rolled in on the first afternoon of Connecticut. Shaun and I ran to a shelter. We were able to smell the ozone from the lightening and the sound of the thunder was deafening. We passed by another hiker who was sitting on the side of the trail under his umbrella. As we hiked by he said Im trying to decide if god prefers a stationary or moving target today. It made me laugh but I was ready to get away from the lightening. Once safely in a shelter, we waited for Lindsey and Lady Bird.

Once we regrouped, we decided to split a motel room in Kent. All I wanted was a washing machine and a warm shower. My wishes were granted when we got a ride from the cousins grandmas sisters daughter to the motel!

The next couple three days through Connecticut were hot and mentally challenging. I spent a lot of time crying and annoyed at myself for not hiking fast enough. I was so happy to be with my tramily because their encouragement and positive attitude made each day so much more bearable.

One of my favorite memories from Connecticut was all the caterpillars. While sitting in a shelter, I thought it was raining but it turned out just to be caterpillars pooping. Later that day, I had to pick off 14 caterpillars before sitting down on the privy. While hiking with Shaun, he dared me to eat caterpillar poop. Of course I did it.

When I finally reached the Massachusetts border, I was ecstatic. The next 90 miles were all going to be familiar!

I spent Massachusetts seeing friends and family, and hiking alone. It was just the mental boost I needed after Connecticut and New York.

My friend Arielle picked me up on my first day in Massachusetts and we spent the evening catching up and eating ice cream.

The next day my twin brother Seth and other friend Simeon surprised me and I got to spend the whole day hanging out with them. They hiked with me back to the campsite that evening. It was such a fulfilling day full of laughter and fun.

I then spent two days hiking alone. It was fun being able to get up with the sun and then find somewhere to stealth camp when I got tired. I found some beautiful campsites just by looking around whenever I got to a water source.

My mom picked me up in Lee and I spent the day zeroing with her. It was so fun hanging out and eating lots of food. I also enjoyed getting dinner with her and my tramily.

My mom hiked with me for a mile before leaving me to continue on solo. I was sad when she left but knowing I was going to see her in New Hampshire made it easier. The rest of Massachusetts went by fast.

Before I knew it, I was on top of Mount Greylock, the highest point in Massachusetts.

I hiked into North Adams and went to Mass MOCA with Lady Bird, Shaun, and another hiker I had never met before named Booca. It was fun using my brain in a different way and bonding with my tramily over the art. It was the perfect way to end my home state.

With only three states left, the trail was flying by! I was excited that I had the beautiful hiking still ahead of me. Although New England was hard mentally, it was full of beautiful rolling hills of pine forests, amazing friends, and great memories. The crying made me stronger, and as I crossed into Vermont I felt prepared to take on the hardest hiking yet.

My body and mind are changed, and I am ready for my soul to go through the same transitions on the last leg of my journey.

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An Overview of New England on the Appalachian Trail - The Trek

To fight the climate change fight, you need to feel positive, confident and optimistic (Photo: iStockphoto)

Sometimes, it all gets a bit much. Parts of the Amazon are now giving out more CO2 than they are absorbing; parts of Germany and Belgium have been devastated by catastrophic flooding; wildfires rage across the western United States. Thats just the planet.

Then theres the global health crisis, Covid, which also seems to be spiralling with no end in sight if all countries cannot simultaneously get on the front foot with vaccines that work against all variants. This seems like a battle that can never be won.

Ive coined something called the doom sigh. Its the sound I make when reading any article or listening to any report that has an apocalyptic undertone, which is currently, many. Sometimes I doom sigh so much theres hardly any breath left thats an entry point into anxiety and in that state, nihilism wins and I feel unable to cook my own dinner, let alone act as a soldier in the global fight against climate change and pandemics.

Im sadly old enough to know this pattern of media-induced despair and where it leads. For me, this is the path to defeatism a big internal enemy. The its all too much attitude soon enough takes you to a place of I may as well be selfish and just enjoy myself then, because we are screwed anyway. This is not helpful.

Another internal enemy is wilful ignorance. Not reading the news might save you stress and I have huge sympathy for those suffering mental ill health as a result of too much bad news consumption. But not being informed isnt an option if you want to be part of the solution. Controlled consumption of news may be a sensible strategy. For example, during the worst of the first wave of the pandemic, I would only get my information from Channel 4 News one hour a day. For the rest of the day, I focused on my immediate loved ones and work.

Despondency is not going to stop climate change.If you are experiencing it, like in John Bunyons Slough of Despond the thick bog of the careworn and guilt laden inPilgrims Progress, you have to get through it to survive.

To fight the climate change fight, you need to feel positive, confident and optimistic. We have to believe we can create positive change, even in fact especially, when things seem dire. Thats becoming increasingly hard when the bad news is raining down. But like that psychological trick you can play on yourself to make you feel happy forcing a smile if one doesnt naturally occur every day to boost your joy hormones, an artificial boost of can-do spirit is necessary sometimes, especially in the face of such odds.

I often wonder if, in advocating for the power of our personal finances and investment to change the world, I am backing the right horse. Should I instead be working on systems change, regulation or policy? Changing things from the inside rather than placing yet another burden on the shoulders of normal people who must do something, like switch pensions, to feel like they have done their bit? As Ed Gillespie, author of Only Planet, said in a recent podcast, consumer-led change can only take us so far.

But then maybe there are no magic bullets here even regulation and policy have their limits. Planet-saving strategies are all just pieces of a puzzle, with everyone trying to find the right place for their piece. As with the fight against Covid, we all have a part to play in stopping the spread.

The limitations of the investment world are also becoming apparent, with claims last week that the burden of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) box-ticking is becoming too much for publicly-listed companies, costing them time and resources. To private equity investors without the same reporting requirements and fierce external scrutiny from stakeholders, ESG is fat to be trimmed and profit to be made. This, it has been suggested, is a looming threat to the ESG endeavour.

Another is the apparent impotence of investors to preserve and rescue so-called natural capital: nature to you and me, but if you are an investor, its nature that might have some economic value in addition to its hopefully fairly obvious value in and of itself.

Peter Michaelis, fund manager for the Liontrust Sustainable funds, said recently that while the UN Sustainable Development Goals are a useful framework for sustainable investors, the goals for life in water and life on land are difficult to support with profitable investments there are simply not enough companies both making money and meeting these goals for us to support these SDGs meaningfully with our bank accounts, ISAs and pensions. My hope is that a convincing and genuine way to invest in nature will emerge one that doesnt devalue it. But it might be that nature remains something uninvestable and we will have to rely on alternative ways to preserve it that do not depend on capital markets.

Over the last six weeks, Ive had a broken wrist and a Covid infection. Despondency levels were high I was drowning in Bunyons bog. Doom sighing at the news, doom sighing at my own inability to function.

Im feeling better now. The planet can too. Healing, regeneration, renewal. Even now, after so much damage has been done. But we have to believe it is possible and feel that sense of optimism about solutions if we are going to create the ways to make it happen.

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My hope for a convincing and genuine way to invest in nature one that doesnt devalue it - iNews

If constant stress has you feeling helpless, disillusioned, and completely exhausted, then you may very well be experiencing burnout. Whilst many may still take a flippant attitude towards the concept of burnout, it can actually be a serious medical issue. Burnout is essentially a state of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. Burnout tends to surface when you are feeling overwhelmed and unable to meet constant demands.

This state of mental and physical exhaustion can zap the joy out of your career, friendships, and family interactions.Burnout reduces a persons productivity and saps their energy, leaving them feeling increasingly helpless, hopeless, cynical, and resentful. Eventually, you may feel like you have nothing more to give and, left unaddressed, burnout can make it difficult for you to meet the demands of daily life.

Burnout can also cause long-term changes to your body that make you vulnerable to illnesses like colds and flu. Because of its many consequences, its important to not only deal with burnout right away, but take preventative measures. Although it is becoming a much more common occurrence, burnout isnt always easy to spot, particularly in the case of medical professionals.

Medical professionals are undoubtedly pillars of our community. Working longer hours than most and constantly stretched thin, our doctors and nurses are always putting the health of their patients first. But what about their own?

Many medical practitioners are routine sufferers of burnout, reporting experiencing feelings of exhaustion, isolation and inadequacy. Author of The Heart-Centredness of Medicine, Dr. Olivia Ong states that over 40% of doctors and almost 50% of female physicians feel burnt out. A dual-trained Specialist Pain and Rehabilitation Medicine Physician, Keynote Speaker and Medical Leadership Coach, Dr. Olivia is making it her mission to aid every frontline healthcare workers be recognised and valued for their true self-worth.

Knowing first-hand the struggles that doctors endure as an occupational hazard, Dr. Olivia draws upon her own experiences to help fellow medical doctors everywhere lead more balanced and inspired lives without burnout. A new young doctor having to learn to walk again after being hit by a car moving at high speed, Dr. Olivia states, My spinal cord injury taught me a very important lesson: self-compassion. Routinely being told it would never happen, Dr. Olivia remained focused upon her goal, finally able to walk again after 4 brutal years of rehabilitation.

When I returned home to Melbourne, Australia in 2012, I continued my studies and I managed to advance my career as a dual-trained rehabilitation medicine and specialist pain medicine physician., Dr Olivia states. I stepped up as a clinical leader at work using my compassionate leadership skills. I became a mum to two beautiful children whom I adore, and I had a very supportive husband, close family and friends.

But the combination of living with a spinal cord injury, motherhood, full-time work, and studying for fellowship exams had exhausted her. Ignoring the warning signs, and viewing burnout as a sign of vulnerability and weakness, Dr. Olivia just kept pushing through until all at once, it became too much. Experiencing the devastating effects of burnout for the first time, Dr. Olivia realised that the only way forward was to implement a well-balanced lifestyle.

On a path to re-discover the passion in her work, restore her mental and emotional wellbeing, and reconnect with family, inner self, and identity beyond the physician, Dr. Oliva discovered the true power of self-compassion and creative development

tools. They helped me thrive at home and at work, and helped me learn how to take ownership of my thoughts to gain a whole new perspective, Dr. Olivia says.

Determined to create change within the medical industry, Dr. Olivia is now focusing her efforts on helping medical entrepreneurs and leaders live heart-centered lives and live their life and business by design, not by roster. Through her program Life Transformation for Doctors, Dr. Olivia offers 1:1 and group coaching, workshops and speaking engagements on burnout, compassion, fatigue and various traumas in doctors so they can stay in the game longer as a compassionate leader and leave a positive legacy for the upcoming generation of young doctors.

As a medical leadership coach, Dr. Olivis also helps medical entrepreneurs and leaders become more confident in public speaking and have more certainty and clarity in their core message so that they can amplify their voice, establish their authority and thought leadership and impact their circle of influence. Her aforementioned book, complements this, helping doctors to find their way

back home to their heart and re-discover their passion in all aspects of life. .

If you are, or know, a medical professional tired of feeling overworked, overwhelmed and out of balance, Dr. Olivia Ong is the person to help you navigate the symptoms of burnout and guide you toward a more fulfilling, heart centred life.

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Dr. Olivia Ong - The Heart-Centred Doctor Tackling Burnout In the Medical Industry Head On - LatestLY

Everyday meetings have become a little more Le Carr due to the pandemic.

Previously journalists like me would enjoy lunches, beers, coffees with contacts to catch up, share stories and gossip and generally have a good time and pretend it was work.

Now, with necessity for outdoor living and an obsession with ventilation, an appointment I had last week was typical. We met in a park, social distanced, sipped our coffees from either end of a bench. It felt a bit more Spy Who Came In From the Cold than State of Play.

But it also demonstrated a too oft overlooked element of the pandemic experience the politics of parks.

Although weve all be isolated and siloed this past year many, if not most, of the population have actually been sharing the same space: the local park. Green spaces previously taken for granted have suddenly become a lifeline a boon for mental and physical health.

And as we emerge from restrictions its important that we continue to value our public spaces that belong to everyone.

The changing attitudes towards our parks speaks to bigger alterations in public attitudes.

The Victorians got it. Waterlow Park in north London that I visited last week was gifted to Londoners by the then lord mayor. He dubbed it a garden for the gardenless. Lord Mayor Waterlow could not have foreseen just how vital his gift would prove 130 years later when a virus hit that toppled everything bar outdoor life.

Not all London mayors are so wise.

Boris Johnsons grandiose infrastructure is well known. His failure to bring most of it to fruition too often overlooked

Near my home in south London is another park that illustrates that Victorian can-do attitude and foresight.

When the judges gathered to choose a design for the pavilion that would house the 1851 Great Exhibition they decided they were all a bit rubbish.

During the deliberations one of the panel, garden design guru Joseph Paxton, was bored enough to sketch a massive glasshouse. Everyone decided this was a winner and so the Crystal Palace was born. Its a tale that begs the question how much better the Millennium Dome wouldve been if wed given Charlie Dimmock a shot at designing it.

Comparison with the doomed Dome is worth sticking with. The Dome was mocked, exhibited tat (to be fair, in part because nicking global treasures was out of favour by the 1990s not everything the Victorians did was entirely worthy) and now stands stuffed with capitalism.

The Crystal Palace, on the other hand, was lauded as a modern wonder of the world and after the Great Exhibition it was dismantled and moved from its Hyde Park home to a park in south London for the benefit of ordinary folk.

The park is still in use, and loved for its unique cement dinosaurs, but the Crystal Palace itself tragically burned down in the 1930s. Ever since then a variety of chancers, dreamers and do-gooders have hoped to rebuild it. The most recent episode involved a Chinese developer who promised the palace would rise again. But crucial to the plans was a conference centre and assorted money-making enterprises.

Opponents pointed out that to succeed the proposal relied on the Mayor of London giving away land that belongs to everyone so a Chinese enterprise can spin a profit.

The Mayor of London who expressed no qualms about such a scenario? Boris Johnson. Its a telling episode in the Prime Ministers backstory.

His love of grandiose infrastructure is well known. His failure to bring most of it to fruition too often overlooked.

As well as the the Crystal Palace plan, which collapsed when the local council refused to hand over the land, there was the London garden bridge which was canned only after upwards of 40 million had been spent on getting it off the ground, and the bizarre idea of a floating airport in the Thames.

History suggests that when Johnson talks of a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland or even just a decent train line across the north of England, he wont be able to make it happen.

Many of us took parks for granted before the pandemic. If we are to keep them, then its up to us to value them

And as we move forward looking to retain what gains there have been in the last year such as valuing our public spaces and more generally putting wellbeing, shared experience and public assets at the core of government philosophy its instructive that the man running the show did not quail at privatising public space for the sake of a half-cocked vanity project when given the chance.

Many of us took parks for granted before the pandemic. If we are to keep them, then its up to us to value them. Not, as government and developers might see them, as opportunities to generate cash, but for the vital good they provided during the pandemic and can continue to do into the future.

James Millar is a political commentator and author and a former Westminster correspondent for The Sunday Post

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James Millar: If we take our public spaces for granted again well live to regret it - Press and Journal

Jillian Lavender teaches celebrities, frazzled financiers and sleepless CEOs her stress-busting techniques, charging up to 2,000 for her time. She tells Bridget Harrison how to tackle anxiety

Jillian Lavender

CRAIG FORDHAM

Friday July 09 2021, 5.00pm, The Times

She wears tailored suits, speaks in no-nonsense Antipodean tones and was formerly an executive for a global publishing company. Meet Jillian Lavender, the go-to meditation teacher for hedge funders, top lawyers and chief executives, who sign up to her classes in London and New York, each paying up to 2,000 for her time.

These high-flyers turn to her to tackle stress, anxiety, insomnia and migraines. Brown rice and sandals this is not, Lavender says. A lot of people come to me because they want to stay at the top of their game but find coping with that pressure unsustainable eventually.

Among the thousands of pupils she has taught to meditate over the past decade are the actress Sienna Miller and the wellness expert Jasmine Hemsley.

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Jillian Lavender, the meditation guru who helps high-flyers stay calm - The Times

Water is the lifeblood of the planet but in its salty form, it can also be a threat. Even as drought cripples the U.S. West and other parts of the world, rising oceans are lapping at the shores of coastal communities and islands, increasingly exposing natural ecosystems and built-up environments to flooding, storm surges and erosion.

For over two years, the Northampton theatrical ensemble Serious Play has been developing a multi-dimensional production that grapples with the threats climate change poses to water on different levels, and with it life on the planet as well as what Director Sheryl Stoodley calls our own relationships with water.

Now, after the pandemic wiped out any chance for live performances last year, Moving Water is set for a live debut July 22-25 at the Northampton Arts Trust building at 33 Hawley St., and an online screening July 30-Aug. 1. Using sound and music, movement, drama, video, a rain shower tool and rolling scaffolding, its the most ambitious production Serious Play has ever mounted, Stoodley says.

The technical stuff can make me crazy, she said with a laugh during a recent phone interview. But given everything were seeing today with drought, melting glaciersand rising seas, [the production] certainly seems timely.

And though the pandemic has delayed the presentation of Moving Water, Stoodley noted, its also helped foster a collaborative effort with other arts organizations to get the show to the finish line. Moving Water is being co-produced by the Ko Festival, the long-running summer theater festival at Amherst College which this year is offering virtual workshops and performances.

In addition, Northampton Open Media will record the live performances of Moving Water, then edit and caption them for online viewing July 30 through Aug. 1. Those presentations will also include real-time, post-show discussions with the Serious Play ensemble and guest experts; audience members can ask questions via Vimeos chat function.

Im so grateful for the support the Ko Festival and Northampton Open Media have shown us, and for the way art organizations in general have kind of pooled their efforts during this really tough time, Stoodley said. She hopes the videotaped performance can also be used as calling card for finding other venues for Moving Water.

In addition, Ko Festival Artistic Director and Co-Founder Sabrina Hamilton is handling the lighting for Moving Water.

Aside from delaying the plays debut, COVID-19 also took a toll on the cast of Moving Water, which Serious Play members first began researching in 2018. The ensemble held a couple of live workshops in 2019 to showcase parts of the production, but a few initial members of the cast had to drop out during the pandemic for economic reasons,Stoodley said.

Now the story, by playwright Eric Henry Sanders, focuses on three characters, while the pandemic, or an unnamed one, forms a backdrop to the narrative.

In an aging apartment building in acoastal U.S. city, three residents are thrown together amid debate about climate change and a shortage of fresh water. Sergei (Kermit Dunkelberg), the buildings superintendentand a refugee from the Chernobyl nuclear plant meltdownin Ukraine, discovers another resident and friend, Pakistani immigrant Zara, is missing. Two other residents, Luna (Ximena Salmern) and Drew (Will Swyers), join the search for Zara.

But there are complications galore. Zara had been working with Sergei, an older man whos been creating da Vinci-like experiments, as Stoodley puts it, to try and save the building from impending flooding. Meantime, Drew, the building owners son, dismisses climate change and is determined to maintain the status quo. And Luna, an oceanographic student from Mexico, may have very different ideas altogether on how to address water problems.

Luna represents the next generation and how they might approach these issues, Stoodleysaid. Im not sure our generation has the answers. Thats one of the questions [the production] asks: Are there other things we should be considering besides science and technology?

To tell this story on multiple levels, the stage will be backed by a screen on which Robin Doty, Stoodleys husband, will project a number of videos he has designed (including an image of Dunkelberg, wearing a snorkel and mask, walking down a street in a coastal New Jersey town that was underwater during Hurricane Sandy in 2012).

Jonny Rodgers, a composer and multi-instrumentalist from Oregon, has created the soundtrack for the production, a combination of electronic music and sounds from tuned wine glasses, also known as the glass harp. Rodgers will play the latter live at the show, Stoodley says, after working with Serious Play both live and virtually over the last few years.

The production also includes a water tank, and characters will get rained on during the performance. Rolling scaffolding represents the structure of the apartment building. The ensemble will also make use of Playtronica, a new electronic sound sensor technology that can make sound emanate from human skin or inanimate objects.

There are a lot of moving parts to this production, Stoodley noted with a laugh.

Moving Water will be staged in the Arts Trusts large, unfinished space (about 3,400 square feet), which provides lots of roomfor maneuvering but also poses additional challenges, such as rigging special lights for the play, as regular lighting is not yet part of the space.

Stoodley says the play is designed to be a really immersive experience, as its based on company members research and their own personal histories and memories of being in contact with water. That research, she notes, involved talking to and reading accounts of people who grew up in areas of chronic water scarcity.

Its really about the beauty and terror of water, she said. Water is a gathering point for the story but we didnt want to do make this just a story of disaster. We wanted it to be about empathy and about finding ways of coming together to try and deal with a crisis.

Tickets for the live performances of Moving Water, which take place July 22-24 at 8 p.m. and July 25 at 4 p.m., must be purchased in advance no walk-in sales will be available at kofest.com. Seating will be limited to 50 people per show.

Tickets for the online version of the play, at 8 p.m. on July 30-31 and 4 p.m. on Aug. 1, can also be purchased at kofest.com. Tickets for both versions of the production range from $32 (patron price), $22 (discounted price), and $10 for those with SNAP/EBT cards, on unemployment or with income affected by COVID-19.

More information is available at seriousplay.org.

Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.

Link:

Lifeblood out of balance: Serious Play returns to the stage with a meditation on climate change and water - GazetteNET

Today well talk about how to write the classic New York Times column, using Thomas Edsalls recent Trumpism Without Borders as our example. It must have taken him about 40 minutes to write it.

Edsall blames the populist movements sweeping the globe on the same ills that led to a right-wing takeover of the federal government by Donald Trump. To wit: anti-immigrant fervor, political tribalism, racism, ethnic tension, authoritarianism and inequality. Fascism awaits us unless we keep importing low-skilled immigrants and shipping jobs abroad!

For someone worried about the erosion of democratic norms, maybe Edsall shouldnt be referring to the outcome of a free and fair U.S. presidential election as a right-wing takeover of the federal government. We had an election, pal.

But ever since the 2016 election, theres been a frisson of viciousness to the elites usual contempt for ordinary Americans. Never mind that Trump ended up betraying his voters. The establishment is appalled that the issues he ran on were popular. Five years later, they still sputter in rage, unable to comprehend why Jeb or Hillary didnt end up in the White House.

To explain this calamity, Edsall rolls out all the Timesian cliches about losers being upset about losing. He calls this the ubiquity of loss, as if were talking about a natural phenomenon, like beach erosion.

Trump voters, he says, are people who are angry about:

their inability to achieve a standard of living as high as that of their parents,

the decline of the gender pay gap ... and other types of loss relative to women, and

losing employment and earnings to China and other countries.

Edsall acts as if these things are immutable laws of physics. Actually, they result from the deliberate policy choices of our ruling class to benefit some Americans to the detriment of others.

Specific policy decisions were made to import an endless stream of low-skilled workers. Employers got boatloads of cheap labor, while ordinary Americans saw their wages plummet.

Oh, and if were pretending to care about democratic norms, Americans have voted for less immigration over and over and over again. If anyone in the establishment gives a crap about democratic norms, then why do they keep foisting more immigration on us?

Specific policy decisions were made to explicitly discriminate against white men in order to give jobs to women, simply because they were women.

I give you Kamala Harris (Bidens one job requirement for his VP: must be a woman of color); every police chief in the nation (save a couple of black men); and Kara Hultgreen (who died when she crashed a $38 million F-14 after being continuously promoted despite repeated training failures, because the Navy wanted a female fighter pilot).

What crybabies! These guys resent losing jobs because of abject discrimination against them. Koo-koo! Koo-koo!

Specific policy decisions were made to gut our countrys manufacturing base. Globalist bankers got rich, and the working class got the shaft.

The destruction of American manufacturing wasnt, as Edsall claims, a consequence of trade. (Whos buying our stuff?) International agreements forcing Americans to compete with dollar-an-hour third worlders were a gift to Big Business and Wall Street. They get a larger share of a much smaller pie. Sure, our country overall will make $30, instead of $100. But the 1 percent will get $29 instead of $20!

We dont need Thomas Edsall to psychoanalyze Trump voters in order to understand what happened in 2016. We were at DEFCON 1 as a nation. (And thanks to Trumps betrayal, we still are.)

After 20 years, people began to notice: The elites really do hate us. They really are going to ship our jobs abroad. They really are going to replace us with cheap foreign labor. They really are going to let in hordes of illegals. They really are going to bail out Wall Street and preserve their sleazy tax loopholes.

Faced with a choice between the toxic left and country club Republicans, when a complete psychotic came down the escalator, people thought, He might just mean it! (That was a miscalculation.)

The elites screw over ordinary Americans, then to salve their consciences, they call the poor saps racists. They get to maintain a system that benefits only them and at the same time feel morally superior to the people whose lives theyve ruined. Its win-win all around!

Americans dont care about the gender pay gap, climate change or international institutions. They deserve whats coming to them!

Ann Coulter is a syndicated columnist.

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Ann Coulter: Why are they so angry? | Opinion | marshallnewsmessenger.com - Marshall News Messenger

Every revolutionary movement needs a martyr and it appears that the MAGA revolution has finally found one for itself.

Ashli Babbit, the Jan. 6th insurrectionist who was shot by a security guard as she climbed through a broken window just a few feet away from members of Congress,is Donald Trump's Horst Wessel, the German brownshirt who was murdered in 1930 and turned into a martyr by the Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. Trump himself is making the case for Babbit, having mentioned her in every appearance he's made in the last week.

At his recent Florida rally, Trump wondered:"Who shot Ashli Babbit? We all saw the hand... Now they don't want to give the name." At hispress conferenceon Wednesday in which he announced his laughable "class action" lawsuit against the Big Tech companies, he went a little bit farther saying, "there were no guns in the Capitol except for the gun that shot Ashli Babbitt. And nobody knows who that man were...the person that shot Ashli Babbitt right through the head, just boom. There was no reason for that." Then this past weekend he went all the way, describing the insurrection as a love fest and Babbit as an innocent victim in an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo:

Bartiromo took the ball and ran with it, saying that Babbitt climbedoutof a broken window (as if she was trying to escape the vicious gunman) after which both she and Trump speculated that the officer who shot Babbitt was part of a Democratic official's security detail, casually mentioning Chuck Schumer in the process. The implication was obvious: the Democrats shot Ashli Babbitt for no good reason. The fact that we have all seen the footage of the shooting is irrelevant: We can believe them or we can believe our lying eyes.

Over the weekend, Trump appeared at his second CPAC conference in five months this time in Texas. (Salon's Zachary Petrizzo deliveredthesedispatchesfrom the event.) Trump gave his usual speech, to a notably more excited crowd than the last one in February in Florida. He's barely able to keep from announcing to his adoring fans that he's running again and they are all clamoring for him to do it. And it's clear that he will be running to avenge his bogus claims that he actually won the election. The Big Lie will never die.

It all sounds bizarre but when you talk about this stuff in the context of CPAC, it is really not all that crazy. Sure the violent insurrection gives their standard reckless rhetoric a feeling of urgency that wasn't there before, but if you look back you can see that's been there for decades.

Back in 1973 when the American Conservative Union (founded in 1964) first started holding these get-togethers, the GOP was in terrible disarray in the wake of Watergate and far-right organizers saw an opportunity to reshape the party in their conservative image. They invited Ronald Reagan to give the first keynote and the "New Right" never looked back.

CPAC has always been used as a way to take the temperature of the party activists and in that way, it's very instructive. The straw poll that's taken every year (or now, every few months, apparently) has not always been predictive of the party's nominee, but it shows what ideas and issues most excite the base. It's almost certain that the feedback loop between this group and the right-wing media guides the party as much as party officials and pollsters do. For the first quarter-century, the conference was an ideological gathering designed to promote the conservative movement agenda of anti-communism, small government, strong military, Christian Right values, low taxes, etc. But with the rise of the right-wing media first talk radio, then Fox News by the turn of the century, it became much more of a right-wing celebrity spectacle that sought to shock the political media, which loved to cover it since it was always held in DC. (This is the first year they've ever held the event outside of DC.) In fact, for the past 20 years, CPAC was basically the same circus that Trump took on the road for his beloved rallies. During the Bush years, politicians showed up and there were panel discussions of issues but the stars of the show were people like Ann Coulter, who pretty much made her name at these events. And they said things which, looking back, make January 6th seem inevitable.

At the 2002 meeting, Coulter said, "we need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too, otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors." A few years latershe made news againwith another notorious speech:

On Democrats: "Someday they will find a way to abort all future Boy Scouts."

College professors: "sissified, pussified." Harvard: "the Soviet Union." John Kerry: the other "dominant woman in Democratic politics."

Her post-9/11 motto: "Rag head talks tough, rag head faces consequences." For good measure, she threw in a joke about having Muslims burn down the Supreme Court with the liberal justices inside.

Then came questions. A young woman asked Coulter to describe the most difficult ethical decision she ever made. "There was one time I had a shot at Bill Clinton," Coulter said.

She meant that literally. Meanwhile, down in the bowels of the hotel hosting CPAC, they sold merchandise with adorable sayings such as "Happiness is Hillary Clinton's face on a milk carton" and "Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required." At the next year's event, Coulter said, "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'fa**ot,'" and when she was rebuked for saying it, she called it "speech totalitarianism."

There is nothing new under the right-wing sun.

In recent years, some of the acts were scrapped. Coulter was not invited in 2015, and in 2017 the right-wing provocateur Milo Yianopoulos wascanceledwhen it was revealed that he had made positive statements about pedophilia. They were no longer needed anyway. The show was by then dominated byDonald Trump who had made his first big political splash there in 2013spreading the "birther" lie, which the attendees ate up with a spoon. And while Coulter climbed her way back to CPAC this weekend, participating on an obscure panel going onabout immigrationand making grotesque racist statements, as usual,her act doesn't shock anymore and nobody cares. Who needs Coulter anyway when you have Trump?

Heather Digby Parton, also known as "Digby," is a contributing writer to Salon. She was the winner of the 2014 Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism.

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Trump cranks it up at CPAC: Why raising the spectacle of right-wing madness right now is so scary - Salon

The chief priest of an Ashram in Sayala of Surendranagar was allegedly murdered by his sewak (helper) after a dispute between the duo, with police forming multiple teams to arrest the accused.

According to police, the incident took place in Nageshwar Ashram at Vanki village of Sayla taluka in Surendranagar on July 4 night, when head priest Bhavani Shankargiri Bapu, said to be above 60 years old, was allegedly assaulted by his helper Sitaram (Ramji), 30. Bapu died during treatment in a Rajkot hospital on July 6 night, after which police lodged a case of murder against Sitaram who is absconding.

I arrived at Nageshwar Ashram with my guru Dharmendragiri Bapu for a satsang On July 4 night, Dharmendragiri Bapu, Bhavani Shankargiri Bap, Sitaram and I were sitting in the ashram. Bhavani asked Sitaram to get him dinner and water The latter got infuriated and started abusing him. Sitaram picked up a wooden stick and assaulted Bhavani Shankargiri multiple times on his head due to which he fell unconscious. He then assaulted Dharmendragiri and myself with the stick and demanded keys of my motorcycle. He then locked us inside the ashram and left on the motorcycle, said Ashish Shekhalia, helper of Dharmendragiri Bapu, in his police complaint.

We called on 108 helpline and Bhavani Shankar Giri was taken to a hospital in Surendranagar. He was later shifted to Rajkot based hospital where he died on July 6 night during treatment, the complaint added.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Surendranagar Superintendent of Police Mahendra Bagadia said, The accused assaulted Bapu over demanding dinner and water. He is absconding as of now and teams have been formed to arrest him.

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Police look for helper who murdered head priest in Surendranagar ashram - The Indian Express