(RNS) Each week Religion News Service presents a gallery of photos of religious expression around the world. This weeks photo gallery includes the Buddhas birthday, religious vaccination efforts and more.

Note: RNS is expanding Photos of the Week to include reader photos. Please submit current photos of your practice of religion, spirituality or beliefsHERE. We are especially interested in capturing what it looks like as houses of worship reopen as pandemic restrictions ease. See our first installment below.

Buddhists attend a ceremony to celebrate Buddhas birthday, while maintaining social distancing as precaution against the coronavirus, at the Jogye temple in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, May 19, 2021. Buddhists visit temples across the country to celebrate the Buddhas birthday. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A health worker administers a dose of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine to a Buddhist monk at Priest Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand, May 18, 2021. Thailand on Friday said it had detected its first locally transmitted cases of the coronavirus variant first found in India, even as it announced the formal rollout of its national vaccination plan for next month. (AP Photo/Anuthep Cheysakron,File)

A visitor takes pictures in front of lanterns on the eve of the Buddhas birthday at the Jogye temple in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, May 18, 2021. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Buddhists arrange desks during a cleanup ahead of Buddhas Birthday, which falls on May 19, at Jogye Temple in Seoul, South Korea. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A woman holds out her arms as she prays during a religious march in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Saturday, May 15, 2021. Hundreds of Haitians marched on the streets of Port-au-Prince after church services on Saturday to collectively pray outdoors for peace and an end to the wave of kidnappings that have victimized the citys residents. (AP Photo/Joseph Odelyn)

People visit the archaeological site of Templo Mayor in the historic center of Mexico City, Tuesday, May 18, 2021. The Templo Mayor, or The Greater Temple in Spanish, was the main temple of the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, which fell to Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortes after a prolonged siege 500 years ago. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Mourners pray over the bodies of 17 Palestinians who were killed in overnight Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City, Sunday, May 16, 2021. (AP Photo/Sanad Latifa)

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, center, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, speaks in front of civic and faith leaders outside City Hall, Thursday, May 20, 2021, in Los Angeles. Faith and community leaders in Los Angeles called for peace, tolerance and unity in the wake of violence in the city that is being investigated as potential hate crimes. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Emily Baumgartner, left, and Luke Finley, second from left, join friends from their church group in a birthday toast to one of the members during their weekly Monday Night Hang gathering at the Tiki Bar on Manhattans Upper West Side, Monday, May 17, 2021, in New York. Most of us live alone and we need community, she said. During the pandemic, we started hanging out in the park (Central Park) once a week. Once bars and restaurants reopened, we started coming back to Tiki Bar afterward. Under the latest regulations, vaccinated New Yorkers can shed their masks in most situations. Restaurants, shops, gyms and many other businesses can go back to full occupancy if all patrons are inoculated. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Health workers inoculate residents with the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine inside the Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish church in Quezon City, Philippines, on Monday, May 17, 2021. The church was used to speed up the vaccination process to residents in the area. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Reader Photos

People attend an outdoor service at Stanwich Congregational Church in Greenwich, Connecticut, May 14, 2021. Photo by Nathan Hart

Caroline Perez Hartzel, 8, of Dallas, lets off some pent up energy after her First Holy Communion, Tuesday evening, May 18, 2021. Caroline had just attended Mass for the first time since the pandemic, a special, socially distanced Mass for communicants who studied online all year at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in East Dallas. Caroline developed a deep love of God in her Family Formation classes, but she also has developed a strong love of soccer that has come roaring back as COVID-19 restrictions end. Photo by Tony Hartzel

Archive Photos

Three American Dominican priests cross Freedom Bridge to Hong Kong from Red China, where they were kept under house arrest in Foochow, Fukien Province, circa 1955. Italian priest father Ambrose Poletti, from left, greeted and escorted fathers Joseph E. Hyde of Lowell, Mass., James G. Joyce of Clinton, Mass., and Frederick A. Gordon. The three were among the first group of American clergymen freed by the communists under the Geneva Agreements. With them on far right is Police Superintendent A. L. Gordon, who was in charge of the British side of the border. The trio was pale and had lost weight, but they were in good spirits. RNS archive photo. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society.

American sailors, far left, attend a service in a typical Protestant Bamboo Church in Port Moresby, the capital and largest city of Papua New Guinea, circa 1948. RNS archive photo. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society.

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Photos of the Week: Buddha's birthday; vaccine drives - Religion News Service

I love my adopted state, where I have lived for more than 40 years. For all of its warts and problems, theres something about Alabama that gets inside your mind, your heart and your soul, and stays there.

For starters, its a beautiful place, with the Gulf of Mexico on the south end and the foothills of the Appalachians in the north and east. Its people are friendly and their voices are mellow; and if some Alabamians are suspicious of outsiders -- i.e., folks from other geographical regions, especially the North -- they generally will welcome transplants from other Southern states.

If you marry an Alabamian, as I did shortly after relocating from Louisiana, your welcome is even warmer, and before you know it, four decades will have passed and youll barely remember the times when you lived elsewhere.

Except when your politicians -- and after 40 years, they are yours -- do dumb stuff and you know that in a day or two, youll be reading about the dumb stuff in the New York Times and other national publications. Most recently, Alabamas dumb-stuff-story du jour came courtesy of the state Legislature.

Alabama Lifts Its Ban on Yoga in Schools, the New York Times reported the other day, explaining that nearly 30 years ago, in 1993, the state school board had forbidden schools to teach yoga. Why?

Its complicated, but Ill try to simplify: Yogas roots are in India, you see, and yoga emphasizes exercises and mental reflection, and there are a lot of Hindus and Buddhists in India, and Hindus and Buddhists arent Christians, and if our public schools teach yoga, then before you know it, all of our kids will have converted to Hinduism or Buddhism.

Or something like that.

But wait, you say. In its 2021 session that just wrapped up, didnt the Legislature reverse that ban and say that school districts can offer yoga as an elective? And didnt the governor sign the bill? Whats dumb about that?

Again, its complicated. Certainly, the Legislature did the right thing in overturning the ban, and Gov. Kay Ivey did the right thing when she signed the bill. And certainly, the dumbness originated with Alabamas elected state school board back in 1993.

But this years Legislature couldnt just say to its public schools, Its OK if yall want to offer yoga classes. No, lawmakers had to make double-double sure that their constituents wouldnt think they were condoning Hinduism/Buddhism/whatever-ism, so they spelled it out: All poses shall be limited exclusively to sitting, standing, reclining, twisting, and balancing. All poses, exercises, and stretching techniques shall have exclusively English descriptive names. Chanting, mantras, mudras, use of mandalas, induction of hypnotic states, guided imagery, and namaste greetings shall be expressly prohibited.

And you thought yoga classes were for people who want to exercise, stretch and improve their ability to concentrate.

I have never taken a yoga class, but its not because I fear losing my religion. What I fear is that if I tried one of those twisty, stretchy poses and toppled over, paramedics would have to load me into their ambulance in pieces. My fear aside, however, Ive known all sorts of people whove taken yoga classes, and Ive read news articles about its physical and mental health benefits. And like other people, Ive seen stories about sports teams that use yoga exercises to improve players flexibility.

What I havent read is a slew of articles or news reports about yoga fundamentally changing peoples spiritual beliefs.

What Id like to read one day is a series of national news reports about how Alabama is focusing its political energy on improving public education, and how its involving business and civic leaders in its schools, and how its well-paid and well-trained teachers are successfully preparing todays children for tomorrows world.

Im not sure when, how or whether well get to that point in the state that I love so much, but of this I am pretty certain: When and if it ever happens, the existence or absence of yoga classes in our public schools will be irrelevant.

Frances Coleman is a former editorial page editor of the Mobile Press-Register. Email her at fcoleman1953@gmail.com and like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/prfrances.

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Yoga is another one of those dumb-in-Alabama stories - al.com

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Buddhists all over the world will celebrate the birth, enlightenment and death of Buddha next week on May 26, a day that is also a public holiday in Singapore.

However, Vesak Day this year will be a lot more muted once again considering the rise in community Covid-19 cases in Singapore that led to the Phase 2 Heightened Alert that is currently in place till June 13.

Related: Hari Raya Puasa 2021: 5 of the Grandest Mosques in Singapore

Many public places, including places of worship, have had to stop in-person events and reduce their occupancies significantly. This means that many of the rituals, processions and temple visits that normally happen on Vesak Day will not be able to go on as planned.

Despite the changes, Vesak Day is still an incredibly special day for Buddhists. If you are unsure about what Vesak Day is all about, read on to find out everything you need to know about it.

Related: Your Favourite Vegetarian Foods for Delivery in Singapore

Vesak Day, or the day of the full moon, is a sacred day to millions of Buddhists worldwide. It marks the day that Buddha was born, attained enlightenment and then passed away in his eightieth year. It is a time for quiet reflection on Buddha's teachings, joy and peace.

The day that it is celebrated changes each year in accordance with the first full moon of the lunar month of Vesakha. This usually falls between May and early June.

Related: This Astrology-Inspired Dating App Could Help You Find Love Based On Your Star Sign

Buddhism is a religion that is present in many countries and cultures such as in India, Thailand, Singapore and Korea. As a result, each Buddhist culture tends to have its own unique traditions to honour the day.

However, typically, Buddhists will go to the temple at the crack of dawn to participate in the singing of hymns to honour Buddha, his teachings and his disciples. They will also raise the Buddhist flag while singing these hymns. Some Buddhists will even stay at the temple all day and night.

On this day, many Buddhists also participate in good deeds because it is believed that performing good deeds on Vesak Day will multiply one's merit a number of times over.

It is also common to see some Buddhist families decorating their homes with lanterns, taking part in processions and wearing special white clothes. They will also typically only eat vegetarian meals on this day.

Of course, with the new Covid-19 regulations, processions, sadly, will likely not be taking place.

Related: Hari Raya Puasa 2021: All the Shows to Binge-Watch on Netflix This Public Holiday

On Vesak Day, it is common to see people putting up offerings of flowers, candles and joss sticks at the temples.

The point of using these items as offerings is to acknowledge the transient nature of life. Candles and joss sticks will burn away and flowers will eventually decay.

On Vesak Day, one of the most common rituals you will see being performed is that of the 'bathing' of Buddha. This is where Buddhists collectively gather around and pour water over the shoulders of Buddha.

This practice reminds believers to clear their minds of negative thoughts and hatred as well as to commemorate the birth of Buddha. It is a very sacred ritual that is carried out by Buddhists yearly.

Related: Earth Day 2021: The Best Vegetarian and Vegan Tasting Menus to Try in Asia

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Vesak Day 2021: 4 Things to Know About This Special Day - Tatler Singapore

Life is precious, so I am determined to protect lifenot only the lives of human beings but the lives of other species. Thich Nhat Hanh

The bus was about to depart Libourne one August afternoon when a passenger noticed a wasp inside, crawling at the top of a window. The passenger alerted us all to the wasp and then alerted the driver. Another passenger stood and demanded the driver open the door, not to free the wasp, but so that she, the passenger, could get off the bus. She refused to be on a bus with a wasp.

There seems to be a fear of wasps in France, perhaps because of stories in the newspapers about a few people who have died from allergic reactions to stings by the invasive Asian hornet. The invasive Asian hornets sting is no worse than the native European hornets sting, but perhaps seems doubly invasive.

Im allergic myself, so I remember from childhood the fear of stinging insects, from before I learned that bees and wasps would really rather not sting us at all. As with most animals, danger is avoidable with respect.

Regardless of its lineage, this particular wasp presented no danger that I could see. It did not want to be in the bus. It showed no interest in the passengers. It was at the top of the window looking for a way out. There may have been a lot of dangerous animals on that bus, but the wasp was not one of them.

Nonetheless, the driver attacked, first trying to crush the wasp with a roll of paper towels. The wasp fled into a crevice between the window and the drapes.

I thought I should do something to capture the wasp and free it outside. With a cup I could have caught it when it was on the window, but now that it was hidden that would be more difficult. Nor did I have a cup. Perhaps I should have asked if anyone else had a cup. But the bus was already late. Certainly people would object if I suggested we capture the wasp.

So I did nothing.

The driver unsheathed a ballpoint pen and attacked again, stabbing at the wasp where it hid. It fell to the floor, either killed or seriously wounded. The bus proceeded toward Sainte Foy La Grande.

The passenger who reported the wasp seemed satisfied with herself for resolving this perceived threat. The passenger who had demanded to get off the bus returned to her seat.

I regretted that I had done nothing to save the wasp, that I had allowed it to be killed.

But it was only one wasp on one bus on one day, right? Another dead bug, no big deal?

That seems true until we consider the human multiple: there are 7.7 billion humans on earth, most of whom share the attitude that we can kill for our convenience. So take this attitude, multiply it by 7.7 billion, acculturate and industrialize it.

Then its easier to understand why 40 percent of insect species are in decline, including those that provide the invaluable service of pollinating our crops.

Its easier to understand how humans have eliminated 83 percent of wild mammals on earth and half of plants. How only 4 percent of the worlds mammals are wild. How extinction has reached unprecedented rates for this age, with a million species threatened.

We can only address the ecological crisis weve created if we transform our relationship to the rest of the natural world. We can only prevent the suffering looming for all species, including our own, if we stop killing for convenience.

In thoughts like these, the wasp haunted my days at Plum Villages New Hamlet, one of the monasteries in the Dordogne Valley founded by the Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hahn.

Many of the people on that bus were also going to Plum Village, a place devoted to peace, including the woman who raised the alarm about the wasp. In the early days there I would pass her on the path, near the Lotus Pond or the Meditation Hall, and I would think, with chagrin and indignation, Theres that wasp killer!

One might expect that people going to Plum Village would already know not to killBuddhisms first precept.

How would Thich Nhat Hanh regard the wasp? Its not difficult to imagine, for he is the teacher who said:

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we dont even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a childour own two eyes. All is a miracle.

For those who dont like the word miracle, certainly one wasp is a brilliant culmination of 3.7 billion years of evolution, the earths natural intelligence. To snuff out its life is a triumph of ignorance.

But my indignation was tempered by the persistent feeling that indignation itself was incongruous with the peace cultivated at Plum Village.

A few days later, we would hear Thays elaboration on the first precept, what he calls The First Mindfulness Training, Reverence for Life:

Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating the insight of interbeing and compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, or in my way of life.

Notice it is not enough to not kill, we must also prevent others from killing.

My own experiencefailing to speak up for the wasptaught me that reverence for life takes courage, the courage to stand up to convention, to culture, to industry. To stand against the norm and say, let life live.

This should not be a radical act.

But it is. And it also has to be a mindful act. The First Mindfulness Training has a second paragraph:

Seeing that harmful actions arise from anger, fear, greed, and intolerance, which in turn come from dualistic and discriminative thinking, I will cultivate openness, non-discrimination, and non-attachment to views in order to transform violence, fanaticism, and dogmatism in myself and in the world.

At Plum Village that August, the teaching on the First Mindfulness Training came from Fatima Tamayo, a Spanish psychologist whose commitment to the practice has inspired her to develop demonstration projects on sustainable living.

Tamayo reminded us that even as we oppose killing, we must aspire to tolerance, openness, and non-attachment to views. She advised us to realize that often those who kill also believe they are doing the right thing.

On the bus, those who killed the wasp doubtless believed they were protecting themselves and their fellow passengers.

It was only I who had failed to protect.

The needless death of one wasp may have been incremental, but it was an increment advancing a cumulative tragedy: killing has become routine.

Perhaps over tens of thousands of years humans developed an indifference to life that facilitated our survivalmuch as fire facilitated our survival. For tens of thousands of years we needed fire for cooking, for heat, for energy. But where theres fire, theres smoke. The consequences of using fire, compounded by the human multiple, have now compelled us to find cleaner ways to cook, to heat, to make energy.

Likewise, the days are gone in which our survival depended on routine killing. Were entering a new day in which, to survive, we must have the courage to revere.

More here:

The Sting of a Wasp - Tricycle

Buddha Purnima 2021 date: Everything you need to know

The Purnima Tithi (Full Moon day) in the month of Vaishakh is one of the most important days for the Buddhists. It marks the birth anniversary of Gautam Buddha, the founder of Buddhism. The day is referred to as Buddha Purnima, Buddha Jayanti or Vesak and this year, Buddhists shall observe the 2583rd birth anniversary of the enlightened personality. Scroll down to know Buddha Purnima 2021 date and other significant details.

Since the traditional Indian calendar (based on Moon) differs from the widely followed Gregorian calendar,Buddha Purnima date keeps changing every year. This year, Buddha Purnima will be celebrated on May 26.

The Purnima Tithi shall last from 8:29 PM on May 25 to 4:43 PM on May 26.

Born as Siddhartha Gautama to King Suddhodana and Mayadevi in Lumbini (now in Nepal), Gautam Buddha was raised in Kapilavastu. However, he relinquished his palace and the extravagances of his royalty at a very young age. He moved away from luxuries searching for the truth after witnessing human sufferings or the fundamental yet bitter realities of life.

Gautama Buddha is said to have given his first sermon at Sarnath after attaining enlightenment in Bodh Gaya. It is said that Buddha travelled from Bodh Gaya to Sarnath five weeks after getting enlightened.

Buddha's five ascetic disciples, known asPanchavargika, had travelled to ipatana (Rishipatana) in Sarnath even when Gautama Buddha was in Uruvilva (Bodh Gaya). After attaining enlightenment, Buddha proceeded towards Sarnath to give his first sermon to thePanchavargika.

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Thus, Siddhartha, born into a royal family, became the enlightened one after years of penance. He attained knowledge while meditating under a Banyan (Peepal) tree and this divine wisdom transcended the material world.

Buddhists worldwide observe Buddha Purnima by remembering Buddha, who preached and practised peace, non-violence and harmony, but the celebration style differs from region to region.

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Buddha Purnima 2021 date: Everything you need to know - Times Now

Jordan Peterson addresses students at fhe Cambridge Union on November 02, 2018 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. (Photo by Chris Williamson / Getty Images)

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To prepare for writing about Jordan Peterson, I asked numerous people I know what they thought of him. They all gave the same answer: Who?

Friends, where have you been? Petersons 2018 book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, sold 5 million copies and has been slated for translation into 50 languages. His YouTube channel has 3.68 million subscribers.

According to the man himself, he is so famous that a waiter recognized him in a restaurant and thanked him for changing his life, which cannot be said, Im guessing, for any other clinical psychologist in the world, or possibly any other Canadian.

This is quite an achievement for one whose work is crammed with references to Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, the Bible, ancient Mesopotamian deities, Jesus, and Jung, and which, under a lot of sexist, conservative, mythological/biblical/evolutionary/animal-behavior folderol, basically tells men to grow up and grow a pair. Work hard, be responsible, demand more of yourself, make your bed. Peterson dragged that simple message out for 370 pages of unbelievably clotted, dreary prose, proving once again that your creative-writing teachers were wrong: Nobody cares about the quality of the writing if the message is what the reader wants to hear. Apparently there are a lot of men (most of his fans are men) who want to be told exactly how to stop making such a mess of their lives (Rule 1: Stand up straight with your shoulders back) and also that human beings are a lot like lobsters, programmed for hierarchy and combat. You can buy Hail Lobster T-shirts, pillows, limited-edition neckties, and even smartphone covers on his website. Scientists have said hes got lobsters all wrong, but whatever. I will never feel guilty about eating a lobster roll again.

You might think 12 rules were enoughby Rule 12, Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street, Peterson seemed to be reaching a bit. He obviously didnt think so, because his new book, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, offers a dozen more and weighs in at 432 pages. Preorders made it reach Amazons Top 10.

Why would so many people want to be hectored by an unpleasant know-it-all whose most recent contribution as a public intellectual was advocating an all-meat diet? The rules are mostly familiar self-help platitudes, which Peterson drags out for dozens of pages each by bringing in everything from his patients and family to Isis, Osiris, and Tolstoy.

Rule 7: Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see what happens. Rule 10: Plan and work diligently to maintain the romance in your relationship. Rule 12: Be grateful in spite of your suffering. There are plenty of cats out there for you to pet.

There have always been men who want to be told exactly what to do to get what they wantin this case, women. Men, you may have noticed, have had a harder time getting quality girlfriends now that women dont have to marry to survive. They have to make more of an effort to be boyfriend material, let alone husband material, and this is not easy for the ones who think a beautiful, complaisant helpmeet should be handed to them on a platter. At worst, these young men become incels, raging at both feminists and alpha men who corner all the pretty ladies. Peterson shares their pain. Hes said some unwise things about how enforced monogamy would solve the problem, by which he did not mean the government doling out wives, as is sometimes claimed, but restoring social pressures to marry. (Good luck with that.) But he is also their drill sergeant: Clean your room. Be good at your job. Life is tough, but remember Rule 11: Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant.

Not surprisingly, Peterson takes a dim view of feminism. Basically, he believes all women want to have babiesthey just dont want to have them with a manbaby. This contradictionpatriarchy is good, but men are flubbing itleads him into all kinds of strange places. Famously, he contends that symbolically, men represent order, women chaos. Really? Shouldnt that be the other way around? Who, after all, is cleaning and tidying, cooking, reorganizing the fridge, remembering to pick up the dry cleaning and send out birthday cards and put the parent-teacher conference on the calendarusually while holding down a job as well? Compare the apartments of single men and women in their 20s: Which sex is sleeping on sheets that havent been changed in three months? Maybe men were orderly in the distant past, for example when they served in the Roman armyall that building of forts and organizing of equipment Julius Caesar wrote about, to say nothing of keeping ones armor and weaponry polished and ready for action. But today? Theres a reason why a young man who fails to launch is described as living in Moms basement. Good old Mom. She probably still does his laundry.

I have no doubt that some people have been goaded into self-improvement by Peterson. He is quite right that peoplewomen as well as menneed meaning and purpose in their lives, need to find things they care about and to try their hardest to be good at them. Caught between the belief that they deserve to move forward without having to compete with pesky women, and the fact that the milestones of adulthood, like marriage and parenthood, may be economically out of reach, men can find it hard to resist cheap cynicism. But like it or not, we are social beings, so Rule 1: Do not carelessly denigrate social institutions or creative achievement. Fortunately for the sarcastic among us, carelessly leaves a lot of wiggle room.

When it comes to stern and sober life advice, the best book is still Marcus Aureliuss Meditations, which has been guiding people through the struggles of life for at least a thousand years and is, moreover, well-written and short. Its advice can be summarized as follows. Rule 1: Try as hard as you can to be a good, responsible, serious person. Rule 2: Be aware that much of life is out of your control. Rule 3: In any case, soon you will be dead.

See the rest here:

Jordan Petersons New Rules Are Old News - The Nation

Toronto

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a plan to regulate speech on the internet by placing it under the control of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. His bill is so awful that Peter Menzies, a former vice chairman of the commission, said it doesnt just infringe on free expression, it constitutes a full-blown assault upon it and, through it, the foundations of democracy.

Mr. Trudeaus Liberals claim they merely want to level the playing field between traditional broadcasters and online players such as Netflix and Spotify. Yet on its face the bill goes much further.

To begin with, anyone who makes programs available over the internet would be treated as a broadcaster and under the thumb of the CRTC. While websites wouldnt need a formal license to operate in Canada, the commission would have open-ended power to impose conditions and require them to make expenditures to support the Canadian broadcasting system. Who has to do this and how much do they have to spend? Theyll tell us later.

The legislation also vaguely alludes to the need for the Canadian broadcasting system to serve the interests of Canadians of diverse ethnocultural backgrounds. Again, whod have to do this and what theyd have to do is anyones guess.

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Justin Trudeaus Plan to Control the Internet - The Wall Street Journal

Dare to express a citizens view on Covid and youll be shut down for not having a degree in epidemiology. Only those with the wherewithal to spend six years in medical school are deemed a valid voice on the world crisis were all living through.

ut the scientific purism doesnt seem to apply in the areas of psychology and philosophy, at least not in Ireland. You dont need any qualifications to reinvent yourself as a mental health guru just an impressive line in psychobabble.

Share your own mental health experience and youre a sacred cow, beyond challenge or critique. Justify it under the overarching principle of if it helps one person and nobody can argue. RT will crown you as one of the nations spiritual leaders; a member of the new clerisy that has replaced the church in preaching to us how to live and how to think.

Podcaster and author Blindboy Boatclub is exalted to Socrates. I found myself laughing while watching him deliver moral instruction from his podcast studio on Claire Byrne Live the other night. If this is one giant surreal satire, its a great piece of art. But it appears he takes himself seriously.

Ah, here a fella in his late 30s, with a bag on his head, dispensing life advice, his every platitude hung on as though he were Moses coming down from Mount Sinai.

Blindboy has never said anything I havent heard before, or thought of myself. Its Wikipedia stuff the majority of us who have suffered anxiety already know.

His contribution on Claire Byrne was his usual mix of regurgitated Jordan Peterson crossed with ancient Stoic philosophy acceptance of lifes suffering, yielding to events beyond your control, living in the now.

Yet the fact he can bring a sentence to its conclusion seems to be enough to elevate him into having magical ability.

He is talented when he wants to be, he can be the sharpest, funniest, most exciting creative in Ireland but we dont see that side of him much any more since he took a position as the nations curate. Doubtless its safer in an era of cancel culture, but I miss his anarchic art.

Blindboy is not a psychotherapist, although it seems many assume he is a qualified authority.

He mentions how he studied psychotherapy for a while, but did not complete it.

He was never a professional, although he has said he might decide to pursue it in time. He should. Benefitting from counselling does not mean youre an expert. Ive had 10 years of cognitive behavioural therapy myself, but it doesnt make me a therapist.

Otherwise, its too easy to conflate opinion with fact for example, the time on the Late Late Show when he told young men with worries about providing for a woman that such concerns were outdated because neoliberalism has made it that you must be equal, its as simple as that. In reality, its not.

Another popular figure who has veered into guru territory is radio presenter and comedian Dermot Whelan. He did a teaching course in meditation and now hes the Dalai Lama.

Whelan, who is also from Limerick (there must be something in the water), is now peddling meditation as a way to help stress, anxiety and depression.

His new book Mind Full promises to help you feel less meh, sleep better, snap at the kids less. Sounds like a bestseller? It is. Theres a real constituency for this stuff.

Its a charming book and noble in its aim, but the key message I got from it is stop drinking your head off and youll feel better. I think we already know about the breathing techniques. Theres a bit of parroting at play when Whelan talks in interviews about how: It changes the shape of your brain, it shrinks your amygdala, it shrinks your fear centre.

Another podcaster, Caroline Foran is regarded as the millennial anxiety guru who has written three books on coping with anxiety, Owning It, The Confidence Kit and Naked, after suffering a breakdown in 2014. She has admitted: I am not an expert, I dont have a qualification and all Ive ever done is share my experience.

It seems to be enough for a successful career. What does it say about how seriously we take mental illness, that we forgo qualifications in favour of amateurs? Do we deem psychology a subjective concept, instead of the medical science it is? Why do we revere those who have experienced it as the experts, instead of the actual experts? We have fallen far from the days of Professor Anthony Clare.

Maybe it comes back to the Socratic paradox: I know that I know nothing.

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Our pop mental health gurus are just the Blindboy leading the blind - Independent.ie

A recent dinner party on The Real Housewives of New York went left, as they tend to do, when Sonja Morgan drunkenly brought up her fears about being a cancellation consolation, whatever that means. Soon all the women were chiming in with their fears and anxieties, most memorable among them Ramona Singer, who asked: Why would we want to cancel culture?

But I want to focus on Sonja at this moment because there is a darkness lingering inside of her and Im not sure we should be watching it crawl out and prance around on television.

Let me set the scene: The women were out at dinner somewhere in the Greater Hamptons. Lu was insistent on the place because she wanted to expand the womens horizons beyond Southampton and Sag Harbor. Predictably, Sonja got extremely intoxicated, while the other women fawned over Lus new man. While sitting just off-camera, the women suddenly heard her exclaim, I dont want to be a cancell ation consolation.

Im still unsure about what that means, exactly.

Of course, its totally unsurprising that a gaggle of rich white womensave newcomer Eboni, who is a total godsend this seasonmight have some anxieties about cancellation, especially when one of them is most famous for partying with the Trumps during quarantine. Add in Lus many strange comments about class, or Leahs totally disturbing respect for Jordan Peterson, not to mention that downright absurd essay in which she wrote that Harvey Weinstein couldnt have raped Asia Argento because she went on to have a consensual relationship with Weinstein for several years. The skeletons are practically clamoring to bust out of their collective walk-in closet.

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Even still, Eboni left room to surprise me. Earlier in the day, she had explained to Ramona why she shouldnt call her employees the help, explaining that my grandmother worked her whole life as a domestic, and that historically in our country describing people in the service industry as the help is totally fucked up. Ramona then condescendingly responded in a confessional that she loved how Eboni explained it to her in a non-condescending way. Back to the dinner party. Over swordfish and wine, Eboni intervened when Ramona asked why would we cancel culture? She explained that in this group, shed prefer it if they could talk amongst each other and work out their feelings, rather than cancellation. I was surprised at the amount of grace and professionalism she afforded Ramona in that moment. I certainly couldnt have done the same for someone so clearly bigoted .

Sonja, meanwhile, had been stewing in the corner. Suddenly, she once again busted out another befuddling series of exclamations, this time about poverty and the unhoused crisis happening in New York City and everywhere, really. People dont understand, we need to protect the poor because stocks are going up, the poor are getting poorer, the homeless are getting homeless-er. After she rambled a bit more, Sonja delivered the sucker punch: IVE RAISED MILLIONS FOR AIDS AWARENESS... MILLIONS FOR THE LGBT COMMUNITY. Eboni sat stunned, barely able to contain the shock painted across her face.

Ridiculous diatribes from wealthy white women about poverty aside, its become frighteningly clear that Sonja needs a break from reality television. Her friends seem incapable of helping her control her behavior in public or private. Not to mention the level of drunkenness is personally horrifying, as a sober person who understands the amount of alcohol one might ingest to get to this point.

Her continued inclusion in the cast is more troubling when you consider the official reason both Dorinda Medley and the network gave for her exit after Season 12. According to official reports, she was drinking excessively and terribly mean. Sonja might not have venom in her words, but what sort of standard is Bravo measuring this behavior against, if Dorinda was given a hiatus from the spotlight for what appears to be the same thing? Its clear that unlike Dorinda, Sonja drives ratings. Any reputable Real Housewives viewer can rattle off 10 instances in which she made the show comedic gold. As a newcomer back in Season 3, she felt fresh and exciting: r ich and just ridiculous enough to root for her in her many post-divorce tribulations.

But in the last decade, she hasnt been on an upward climb to success. Instead, she seems to be tumbling into the abyss. Worst of all, shes picking up speed.

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The Real Housewives of New York Are Obsessing Over 'Cancel Culture' - Jezebel

Google is aiming to build a useful, error-corrected quantum computer by the end of the decade, the company explained in a blog post. The search giant hopes the technology will help solve a range of big problems like feeding the world and climate change to developing better medicines. To develop the technology, Google has unveiled a new Quantum AI campus in Santa Barbara containing a quantum data center, hardware research labs, and quantum processor chip fabrication facilities. It will spend billions developing the technology over the next decade, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The target announced at Google I/O on Tuesday comes a year and a half after Google said it had achieved quantum supremacy, a milestone where a quantum computer has performed a calculation that would be impossible on a traditional classical computer. Google says its quantum computer was able to perform a calculation in 200 seconds that would have taken 10,000 years or more on a traditional supercomputer. But competitors racing to build quantum computers of their own cast doubt on Googles claimed progress. Rather than taking 10,000 years, IBM argued at the time that a traditional supercomputer could actually perform the task in 2.5 days or less.

This extra processing power could be useful to simulate molecules, and hence nature, accurately, Google says. This might help us design better batteries, creating more carbon-efficient fertilizer, or develop more targeted medicines, because a quantum computer could run simulations before a company invests in building real-world prototypes. Google also expects quantum computing to have big benefits for AI development.

Despite claiming to have hit the quantum supremacy milestone, Google says it has a long way to go before such computers are useful. While current quantum computers are made up of less than 100 qubits, Google is targeting machine built with 1,000,000. Getting there is a multistage process. Google says it first needs to cut down on the errors qubits make, before it can think about building 1,000 physical qubits together into a single logical qubit. This will lay the groundwork for the quantum transistor, a building block of future quantum computers.

Despite the challenges ahead, Google is optimistic about its chances. We are at this inflection point, the scientist in charge of Googles Quantum AI program, Hartmut Neven, told the Wall Street Journal, We now have the important components in hand that make us confident. We know how to execute the road map. Googles eventually plans to offer quantum computing services over the cloud.

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Google wants to build a useful quantum computer by 2029 - The Verge