AskDrBrown
Page Liked · June 5 · Edited ·
Can anyone deny this is true? (Remember: This meme does not say this is the only message of the Quran, nor does it say that all Muslims are terrorists. It says these are the verses from the Quran that inspire terrorists, and that is undeniably true.)
Oscar del Rosario
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AskDrBrown
AskDrBrown Remember: This meme does not say this is the only message of the Quran, nor does it say that all Muslims are terrorists. It says these are the verses from the Quran that inspire terrorists, and that is undeniably true.
Like · Reply · 100 · June 6 at 6:36am
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Umar Khan
Umar Khan Each and Every Single Verse is taked out of Context.
Why didn't you quote:
"Whoever kills an innocent is like he killed whole humanity, and whoever saved an innocent is like saving whole Humanity"...See More
Like · Reply · 86 · June 5 at 7:26pm
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Louie Tugas
Louie Tugas FROM DR. ADEREMI AKIN...........................As it stands today, the Islamic religion is the fastest
growing religion per capita in the United States, especially amongst the minority races!!...See More
Like · Reply · 514 · June 5 at 7:16pm
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Anthony Verdin
Anthony Verdin The Quran has nothing to do with Islam!!! Your just an islamaphob... You need to understand the Arabic!!! Wait you can read Arabic? Aaaaaaa deversity is our strength love trumps hate
Like · Reply · 36 · June 5 at 7:11pm
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Pastor-Larry Mangone
Pastor-Larry Mangone Also, the verses supposedly quoted from the Quran are NOT accurate. I only had to look up one verse (8:12) to see that it was misquoted. If Dr. Brown is lying about one verse, what about the others? I don't have the time to look them all up. But clearl...See More
Like · Reply · 18 · June 5 at 9:36pm · Edited
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Jeffrey A Benedict
Jeffrey A Benedict We need to openly share the clear facts of scripture to show what the qur’an really is. Here is Qur'an verses the bible:
This was written by an ex muslim they are not a religion of peace the are voilent look at this…. Quran\ bible...See More
Like · Reply · 66 · June 5 at 9:09pm
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AskDrBrown
Page Liked · June 7 ·
Who knows Islam better, these world leaders or the Islamic terrorists?
Oscar del Rosario
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Benton Collins
Benton Collins They are all either deceived or they are liars. Since they are intelligent people, I consider them to be the latter. They are cogs in the New World Order machine. Their Utopia will be Hell on Earth! Most are Leftists. The others are Globalists. What profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? Are any of them true believers of Yeshua?
Like · Reply · 16 · June 7 at 1:32am
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Kirk Martin
Kirk Martin Great caption.... who know Islam better than Islamic terrorists. Just bypass the millions of Muslims (who are the majority) that practice their religion in peace. Makes ALOT of sense. Smh
Like · Reply · 7 · June 7 at 2:28am · Edited
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Matthew Basiletti
Matthew Basiletti Only Jesus is the Prince of Peace. "My peace I give you, not as the world gives..." Anyone, or group, who rejects the Gospel of Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection cannot and will not have peace. There is no peace without the One who authored peace.
Like · Reply · 4 · June 7 at 5:53am
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Vitale Ponomarenko
Vitale Ponomarenko Alot of those are the same people that created modern day radicals.. While Islam religion is NOT a religion of piece in any way, the middle east was somewhat peaceful in the 19th century. (I'm using that term loosely), Then when western powers (And Rus...See More
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Michelle Hogan
Michelle Hogan They don't know more than them, but they certainly know more than they let on. It's politics to protect and control the oil, poppy fields, the Silk Road along with lots of corporate money so they lie, the problem with their lies are that we live in the information age so it doesn't work with many people anymore.
Like · Reply · 1 · June 7 at 1:46am
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Benjamin Pang
Benjamin Pang I feel sad that all these Western country leaders deceive their people like this. I thought they were honest. The Islamic terrorists on the other hands tell you what they are going to do. They are two different evils.
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Texas Family Says Teen Was Electrocuted In Bathtub While Using Her Phone
Nina Golgowski,HuffPost Wed, 12 Jul 6:00 AM GMT+8
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A 14-year-old Texas girl was reportedly electrocuted while using her cell phone in a bathtub over the weekend, prompting a warning from her family.
Madison Coe had the electronic device plugged into a bathroom outlet at her father’s house in Lovington, New Mexico on Sunday when her family says she was fatally shocked by the device.
“There was a burn mark on her hand,” her grandmother, Donna O’Guinn, told KCBD-TV of the eighth-grader who just graduated middle school in Lubbock, Texas. “The hand that would have grabbed the phone. That was just very obvious that that’s what had happened.”
O’Guinn said the family is sharing what happened in hopes that it doesn’t happen to anyone else.
“We want something good to come out of this ... awareness of not using your cell phone in the bathroom as it is plugged in and charging,” she told the station. The type of cell phone used by the teen was not disclosed.
The Frenship Independent School District, where Coe was a student, mourned her loss in a statement obtained by HuffPost.
“We wish to share our heartfelt sympathy with her family and friends as we carry the burden of this tragedy together,” the statement read.
She is reportedly not the first to die in such a way.
A 32-year-old London man was similarly electrocuted in December after his iPhone’s charger made contact with his bath water, the BBC reported.
Richard Bull’s death led a coroner to announce plans to conduct an investigation into the matter, with the final report sent to Apple in hopes of preventing future deaths. According to The Sun, Bull was found suffering burns on his chest, arms and hand.
A GoFundMe account set up to help pay for a memorial for Coe has raised more than $7,000 as of Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a federal government agency that monitors products’ safety risks, told HuffPost on Tuesday that they are investigating the incident and that their probe is in its early stages.
The Lea County Coroner and Sheriff’s Office did not immediately reply to requests for comment from HuffPost.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost .
Video http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4681636/The-vital-supplies-ll-need-nuclear-attack.html#v-849598077117418574
From breakfast bars to hand-cranked radios: Expert reveals the vital emergency supplies you need to survive a nuclear attack
In the event of a nuclear attacks, you should first seek shelter from the fallout
An expert has listed the items you should grab before heading to a bunker
He said that a radio is important so you can receive emergency broadcasts
Survivors should also pack water, breakfast bars and medical supplies
Those grabbing kit should only take 1-2 minutes to minimise radiation exposure
By HARRY PETTIT FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 15:24 BST, 10 July 2017 | UPDATED: 18:16 BST, 10 July 2017
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With North Korea reportedly testing its first intercontinental ballistic missile last week, experts say the chances of a nuclear war are at the highest in decades.
In the event of a nuclear attack, the safest way to shield yourself from deadly fallout is to find cover in an underground bunker or under several layers of lead.
Those heading to cover will need an emergency kit to last 48 hours after the initial blast, when the chances of radiation poisoning from fallout are at their greatest.
Now, one radiation expert has revealed the vital emergency supplies you should grab to survive the moments after a nuclear blast.
Scroll down for video
A radiation expert has listed four items you should have to hand in case of a nuclear strike. A hand-cranked radio is listed as the most important, followed by enough water for a gallon per person per day and a few breakfast bars. Medical supplies also feature +2
A radiation expert has listed four items you should have to hand in case of a nuclear strike. A hand-cranked radio is listed as the most important, followed by enough water for a gallon per person per day and a few breakfast bars. Medical supplies also feature
THE PERFECT EMERGENCY KIT
The following kit should help survivors last the initial 48 hours after a nuclear explosion.
This initial period is when the chances of radiation poisoning are at their highest.
1) A radio, preferably hand-cranked, to receive emergency broadcasts
2) Water, ideally 1 gallon per person per day, for drinking and sanitation
3) A breakfast bar or two to stave off the hunger
4) Any essential medications or treatments you might need.
The kit should only be prioritised if it does not delay your journey to shelter by more than two minutes, to minimise radiation exposure.
If a full emergency kit is not at hand, Brooke Buddemeier, a health physicist and expert on radiation at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, recommends grabbing four essential items.
He says that the kit should only be prioritised if it does not delay your journey to shelter by more than two minutes, to minimise radiation exposure.
The most important item is a radio, he told Business Insider, ideally a hand-cranked one with a USB port that can charge other devices.
'If you have a cellphone, that'll work too,' he said.
Mr Buddemeier said a radio is better than a mobile phone because 'sometimes the cell towers may be affected', either by power outages or demand.
Radios are important, he said, because you will need to receive emergency broadcasts and instructions.
Second, Mr Buddemeier said, you'll need water - ideally 1 gallon per person per day to drink, as well as to rinse off radioactive fallout after removing your clothes.
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For the third most-important item, Mr Buddemeier said: 'I would probably grab a breakfast bar or two to stave off the hunger a little bit.'
Fourth, he said to grab any essential medications or treatments you might need.
The main thing Mr Buddemeier recommended not to do is grab unnecessary items in the immediate fallout, as this will expose you to too much dangerous radiation.
A radiation expert has revealed the vital emergency supplies you should grab in the moments after a nuclear blast. He said the supplies should help you survive living in shelter for the first 48 hours after an attack, when chances of radiation poisoning are high (stock image) +2
A radiation expert has revealed the vital emergency supplies you should grab in the moments after a nuclear blast. He said the supplies should help you survive living in shelter for the first 48 hours after an attack, when chances of radiation poisoning are high (stock image)
The fallout will damage your cells, making it harder for your body to heal, leading to a condition called acute radiation syndrome or sickness.
'It also affects the immune system and your ability to fight infections,' Mr Buddemeier said.
He said that if people could find good shelters - and are able to receive broadcast instructions from emergency personnel - the blow of a nuclear attack could be softened.
'We may not be able to do much about the blast casualties, because where you were is where you were, and you can't really change that,' he told Business Insider.
'But fallout casualties are entirely preventable.
'In a large city ... knowing what to do after an event like this can literally save hundreds of thousands of people from radiation illness or fatalities.'
Mr Buddemeier is not the first person to publish a list of vital items in the event of a nuclear attack.
The US Federal Emergency Management Agency has previously given its own recommended stock list for getting through nuclear blasts, tornadoes, hurricanes, snowstorms, power outages, and other take-shelter emergencies.
The agency lists water - 1 gallon per person per day for at least three days - as its most important item, and puts a three-day supply of nonperishable food at second.
A battery-powered or hand-crank radio and a NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert and extra batteries for both come next, as well as a flashlight and extra batteries and first-aid kit.
FEMA'S NUCLEAR ATTACK SURVIVAL KIT
The US Federal Emergency Management Agency has previously given its own recommended stock list for getting through nuclear blasts, tornadoes, hurricanes, snowstorms, power outages, and other take-shelter emergencies.
Below are the agency's top items for surviving a nuclear attack.
1) Water: 1 gallon of water per person per day for at least three days, for drinking and sanitation.
2) Food: at least a three-day supply of nonperishable food.
3) Battery-powered or hand-crank radio and a NOAA Weather Radio with tone alert and extra batteries for both.
4) Flashlight and extra batteries.
5) First-aid kit.
6) Whistle to signal for help.
7) Dust mask to help filter contaminated air, and plastic sheeting and duct tape to shelter in place.
8) Moist towelettes, garbage bags, and plastic ties for personal sanitation.
9) Wrench or pliers to turn off utilities.
10) Can opener for food (if kit contains canned food).
11) Local maps. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4681636/The-vital-supplies-ll-need-nuclear-attack.html#v-849598077117418574
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4681636/The-vital-supplies-ll-need-nuclear-attack.html#ixzz4maOnlJA9
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A fraction of Mosul, Syria's Raqqa no less challenging
SARAH EL DEEB,Associated Press Sun, 9 Jul 1:34 PM GMT+8
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BEIRUT (AP) — A month into the battle to capture the Islamic State group's self-styled capital, U.S-backed Syrian forces have encircled the militants inside Raqqa, breached their fortified defenses and inched closer to the heart of the city. Yet the battle has barely begun.
More than 2,000 militants are holed up with their families and tens of thousands of civilians in Raqqa's center, the city's most densely populated quarters.
Although a fraction the size of Iraq's Mosul, Raqqa's urban warfare may prove as grueling, and those fighting the extremists risk being dragged into side battles with other groups in Syria's complex civil war.
In Raqqa's case, the Syrian Kurdish militia that is the main U.S. ally against IS has been rattled by Turkey's mobilization on the other side of the country. Turkey is threatening to launch an offensive against a Kurdish enclave in western Syria with the help of Syrian opposition fighters. Turkish troops have mobilized near the border, and the recent Turkish shelling of Kurdish villages killed at least three civilians.
Kurdish officials warned that Turkey's moves threaten to derail the Raqqa campaign by forcing the Kurdish militia to redeploy to defend its enclave.
Syria observers also point to the lack of capabilities and training of the U.S-backed Syrian fighters, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, compared to the Iraqi troops battling IS militants in Mosul and the surrounding Nineveh province since August.
"So (Mosul) is actually a yearlong campaign. I don't think Raqqa will take that long, but it will take time," U.S. special envoy Brett McGurk told the Dubai-based Al-Aan TV during a visit to the Raqqa front last month. He refused to specify a timeline.
Another issue is who will run Raqqa once the militants are driven out. The area's Arab population is likely to oppose any control by the Kurds, who are the dominant faction of the SDF. The U.S.-led coalition has said a local council formed by the SDF will govern.
Meanwhile, the Syrian government has vowed it will rule Raqqa, and its forces nearby could try to take advantage of the shifting situation and step in.
The coalition last week estimated some 2,500 militants remain in Raqqa. Senior members and foreigners are believed to have evacuated, and most of those who remain are believed to be Syrian fighters and tactical commanders.
They have used many of the same tactics as in Mosul, showing a similar level of organization and discipline. They deploy suicide car bombs and armed drones against advancing fighters and launch street battles in the dead of night. They carry out surprise counter-attacks in areas already recaptured by the SDF.
"This defense is designed to draw out the fight and drive up the cost for the coalition and the local population," said Jennifer Cafarella, a Syria expert at the Institute of War Study.
Last year's battle for the northern town of Manbij, which is half the size of Raqqa but was an important transit hub for IS, lasted over two months and ended with the militants retreating with hundreds of civilians as hostages.
In this case, the militants so far appear determined to fight to the end. If that's the case, the SDF will have to "exterminate everyone before seizing control of Raqqa," said Rami Abdurrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Assad's ally Russia has also made clear it opposes giving the Raqqa militants any exit corridor because they would then head to Deir el-Zour, where the Syrian government is waging its own campaign against IS, Abdurrahman said.
Since June 6, SDF fighters have waged assaults on Raqqa from the east, west and north, seizing around 20 percent of its districts. Last week, they moved across the Euphrates River, which defines Raqqa's southern side, completing the encirclement. From there they punched into the Old City in the center.
But it remains to be seen which side is more overstretched by fighting on four fronts. The militants at one point counter-attacked, seizing parts of one eastern district, al-Sinaa, and it took the SDF days to wrest it back.
SDF fighters face belts of improvised explosives around the city, said Col. Joseph Scrocca, a coalition spokesman.
As they try to get through the bomb-laden streets, the militants hit them with heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, explosive-laden drones and snipers, he said. "There is still a lot of hard fighting to go."
An estimated 50,000 to 100,000 civilians are believed to still be in Raqqa, caught in the crossfire.
The Observatory reported 224 civilians have been killed by airstrikes, including 38 children, 28 women and one of its own activists. Fighting and airstrikes also killed 311 IS militants, while the SDF lost 106 fighters, the Observatory reported.
Abdalaziz Alhamza, a founding member of the group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, which has monitored events in the city since the IS takeover in January 2014, said SDF forces don't advance without a blanket of airstrikes that have kept the civilians locked up in their homes with shrinking supplies of water and food.
Alhamza's uncle was killed last week while getting water from a well in a school nearby. Alhamza said when the first airstrike hit, the uncle rushed to help children taking refuge in the school, then a second strike killed him. He had to be buried in the school because his family couldn't reach his body, Alhamza said, speaking from New York.
His group documented 27 people killed while fetching water at the river in the past month. Drinking river water has also spread water-borne diseases and a fear of cholera, he said.
At the same time, IS has continued arrests and executions of residents accused of collaborating with the coalition or violating the group's extreme interpretation of Islamic laws. One woman was stabbed in the heart with a knife for an undetermined violation, and some were crucified for not fasting during Islam's holy month of Ramadan, he said.
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Ask an Expert: Snakes out Earlier This Year - Eight Things You Should Know
Snakes Out Earlier This YearUnseasonably warm temperatures this year have caused snakes to emerge early from hibernation. So be aware that just because you didn’t encounter a snake on your outdoor adventure last spring at this time doesn’t mean you won’t this spring.
Utah is home to 31 species of snakes. Of these, only seven are venomous and are commonly called pit vipers because of the pit located between their nostrils and eyes. Most pit vipers found in Utah have tails with a series of rattles, hence the name rattlesnake. The venomous snake species in Utah includes the sidewinder, speckled rattlesnake, Mojave rattlesnake, Western rattlesnake, Hopi rattlesnake, midget-faded rattlesnake and the Great Basin rattlesnake. The most commonly encountered of these is the Western rattlesnake.
Because most snakes in Utah are non-venomous, most human-snake encounters are generally not dangerous. However, if you encounter a venomous snake and are bitten, the consequences could be serious, so it is important to know the difference between venomous and non-venomous snakes. Consider this information.
* If you encounter a snake, your best strategy is to leave it alone. Every year, hundreds of want-to-be herpetologists and snake charmers are bitten when they try to capture or kill a snake. Even dead snakes have been known to bite by reflex action. More than 7,000 venomous snakebites are reported every year in the United States. Of these, between nine and 15 are fatal. More than half of the reported bites were a result of someone trying to handle or kill the snake. It is always best to leave the area if you encounter a venomous snake. This will greatly reduce your risk of being bitten.
* As a general rule, poisonous snakes have elliptical pupils and a single row of scales on the underside of the tail. Non-poisonous snakes have round pupils and two rows of scales on the underside of the tail.
* When rattlesnakes are encountered or disturbed, the rapid vibration of their tails will make a characteristic rattling sound to warn the intruder of their presence. However, not all rattlesnakes will “rattle” when disturbed. For this reason, when you are in rattlesnake country, you must pay close attention to where you walk, sit and place your hands. Rattlesnakes can be found throughout Utah in sagebrush, pinyon-juniper woodlands, sand dunes, rocky hillsides, grasslands and mountain forests. They occur at elevations that range from sea level to timberline.
* If you hear a rattlesnake “rattle,” stand still until you can locate where the sound is coming from. Do not try to jump or run. If you do, you may end up within the snake’s striking range.
* Snakes are classified as non-game animals and are protected by Utah state laws. A person cannot collect or possess a live wild snake without receiving a Certificate of Registration from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. When there are human, domestic pet and livestock safety concerns, a venomous snake may be killed without a certificate.
* Non-venomous snakebites are harmless. The only concern may be for potential infection. If bitten, clean and sterilize the wound much like you would a cut or abrasion. Bites from venomous snakes will almost instantly show signs of swelling and discoloration of the surrounding tissue. Other symptoms include a tingling sensation, nausea, rapid pulse, loss of muscle coordination and weakness. Also, bites from rattlesnakes will show two characteristic fang marks (punctures) as well as other teeth marks.
* If someone has been bitten by a venomous snake, there are several things that should not be done. Do not allow the person to engage in physical activity such as walking or running. Carry the person if he or she needs to be moved. Do not apply a tourniquet to the area above the wound, and do not apply a cold compress to the bite area. Do not cut into the bite. Do not give the victim stimulants or pain medications unless instructed by a physician, and do not give the victim anything by mouth. Do not raise the bite area above the level of the heart, and do not try to suction the venom, as doing so may cause more harm than good.
* All venomous snakebites should be considered life threatening. When someone has been bitten by a venomous snake, time is of the essence. If possible, call ahead to the emergency room so anti-venom can be ready when the victim arrives. Until then, keep the victim calm, restrict movement and keep the affected area below heart level to reduce the flow of venom. Wash the bite area with soap and water. Remove any rings or constricting items, as the affected area will swell. Cover the bite with clean, moist dressing to reduce swelling and discomfort. Monitor the victim’s vital signs (pulse, temperature, breathing, blood pressure). If there are signs of shock, lay the victim flat and cover with a warm blanket. Get medical help immediately. Bring the dead snake in for identification if this can be done without further risk of injury.
By: Terry Messmer, Utah State University Extension Wildlife Specialist, 435-797-3975, terry.messmer@usu.edu
Published on: Jun 12, 2017
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Semua foto oleh penulis.
FOOD
This Man Wants to Remind Indonesia That Food Comes From the Earth, Not an App
ADI RENALDI
Jul 10 2017, 7:00pm
Oh, and he fed Obama too.
Bumi Langit is more than a mere restaurant to owner Iskandar Waworuntu. It's a physical representation of his entire philosophy on food and the earth—one that was distilled after years of traveling throughout Indonesia to learn about farming, permaculture, and the natural balance of the ecosystem in the country's fields and paddies, not the classroom.
"Farming is a way of living that involves every kind of aspect of your life," Pak Is, as his friends call him, told me. "Food is the most fundamental aspect of life. You are what you eat."
The restaurant, which is located about 20 kilometers from downtown Yogyakarta in the hills of Imogiri, was more crowded than usual when I arrived. Former US President Barack Obama had just eaten lunch at the spot a few days earlier during his post-presidency holiday in Indonesia. Obama's visit helped Bumi Langit achieve a level of popularity not usually bestowed on restaurants that come with their own credo and a commitment to organic farming—outside Bali's yoga and spiritualism mecca of Ubud, of course.
The newfound popularity was a windfall for a traditionally minded restaurant that serves old-school Javanese food. But it was also a lot of work for a place that hosts educational tours for school children and runs its own organic, permaculture farm as well.
"I feel very humbled by the Obama's visit," Pak Is told me. "Now the restaurant has become more crowded, so I have to be careful."
Bumi Langit is one of the pioneers of permaculture in Indonesia. The agriculture practice, which works with the land in its natural state to create a more holistic form of farming, is slowly gaining traction in Indonesia—a country that before independence was a mostly agrarian nation. Today, agriculture employs more than 40 percent of the total workforce, and is responsible for more than 14 percent of the Gross Domestic Product. But a lot of that workforce labors on large-scale industrial palm oil, coffee, and pulpwood plantations owned by multinational corporations.
Pak Is is talking about a more down-to-earth homestead kind of farming here. Back in 1995, Pak Is, then a teenage boy, dropped out of school and embarked on a journey through Java and Sumatra to learn as much as he could about permaculture farming. He told me that the only way to learn how to actually farm was on the farms themselves. The skills he learned on the road—and the self-discovery—could never be found in a classroom, Pak Is told me.
When he returned to Jogja, Pak Is took a job at Bengkel Teater, which was founded by the city's famed activist, writer, and director WS Rendra. Pak Is told me that he enjoyed the work, but he couldn't shake his love of farming. Permaculture was his true passion, he said. Pak Is sees farming as a self-sustaining economic model, one that isn't trapped in the typically exploitative systems of capitalism and world trade.
He found three acres of land in the Imogiri hills outside downtown Jogja in 2006 and established the Bumi Langit community. Initially, people laughed at Pak Is. His land was barely fertile, and the whole endeavor seemed destined to fail. Pak Is wasn't born into a family of farmers, and few had time for a city guy who came down to Imogiri with all these ideas about "holistic farming."
But Pak Is drilled deep wells and used the permaculture techniques he learned on the road to make the ground fertile. His farm tried to limit the use of chemicals, composted excess food and organic scrap, and turned animal manure into biogas. By the time Pak Is opened his own restaurant, the locals weren't laughing anymore.
Pak Is took the ethics of his farm further, taking a similar approach to his own life. He never uses plastic, makes his own soaps, and keeps his farm off the electrical grid. Most of the time, Bumi Langit uses solar power. But during the rainy season, when the skies are dark with clouds, the farm still needs to rely on a diesel generator, he admitted.
He offered to show me around his farm. Bumi Langit is a beautifully natural place. The farm is surrounded by the forest. The buildings are constructed in traditional Javanese architecture out of wood grown specifically for the house so that they doesn't tax the nearby forests. The farmland itself is built out of irrigated terraces. Chickens wander free range everywhere. A pond of fish sat next to some of the vegetables.
The whole place looked like an idyllic farm, aside from the fact that I didn't see that many people around working. Pak Is told me that Bumi Langit wasn't able to produce the same amount of food as a larger, more industrial farm. He kept things small and manageable to maintain the ethics of the place.
"We're in a state where we're not in charge of our food," he explained. "We no longer know where our food comes from. We have become more dependent on the industry."
Pak Is opened the Bumi Langit restaurant in 2014 on the advice of a friend who said he felt bad always eating Pak Is' food without paying for it. It's far from one of the most-popular spots in Jogja—a city with a rich culinary scene and a steady stream of new tourists. It's also far from expensive. The 12-person Obama party ate for less than Rp 4 million ($298 USD)—or about $24 USD a person for a totally organic handmade meal. It's more pricy than a meal at the local warung, but still far less than a fancy meal at one of the city's trendy tourist spots.
I stopped to eye the menu on the way out the door. They were serving Ayam Goreng Bahagia and Ayam Geprek Kecombrang. I chose the second dish, eating perfectly fried chicken with kecombrang flowers that are apparently good for your health. I then ate fruit jam kefir and mango ice cream made from pure coconut milk for dessert.
For a brief moment I felt like Obama. And that's not half bad.
FARMING
BARACK OBAMA
INDONESIA
YOGYAKARTA
ORGANIC FOOD
BUMI LANGIT
JOGJA
PERMACULTURE
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LAOS
The Laotians Clearing Their Country of America's Unexploded Bombs
SM
STEPHEN M. BLAND
Jul 10 2017, 7:30pm
Members of the Mines Advisory Group in the field. Photo: Sean Sutton/MAG.
The wounds of a secret war.
This article originally appeared on VICE US in 2015, but it's still an important issue today. In 2016, then US President Barack Obama said the US had "a moral obligation to help Laos heal." Today, the bomb clearing continues. It is expected to take decades to clear the poor nation of unexploded US munitions.
The nation of Laos has been shaped by war. The country was dragged into the US-Vietnam conflict in 1953 when the Vietnamese-backed communist forces Pathet Lao began fighting for leadership, aiming to oust the Royal Lao Government. America responded by training around 30,000 Laotian tribesmen, mostly from the Hmong tribe, to go to war against the communists. As both the US and Vietnam had signed a treaty specifying Laos's neutrality, official details about America's involvement were vague, leading the press to dub the conflict the "Secret War."
What was certainly a secret at the time was what would become the most substantial bombing campaign in history. From their bases—largely in Thailand—between 1964 and 1973, the US dropped more than 2 million tons of ordnance on Laos, equivalent to a planeload of bombs every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years. Many of these were dropped simply because no targets could be pinpointed and it wasn't safe for planes to land with their payload still in tow. With up to a third of the shells failing to detonate, over 20,000 people have been killed or injured by UXO (unexploded ordinance) in Laos since the bombing ceased.
One of the areas hit hardest by the war was Xiengkhouang Province on the rolling Central Plains. Built in the late 1970s to replace the old provincial capital, which had been bombed out of existence, I first travelled to the regional capital of Phonsavanh—literally, "Hills of Paradise"—in 2009. A concrete grid town of bullfights and cowboy hats, some of the dust-caked buildings were crumbling already.
A bomb casing on the main road in Phonsavanh. Photo by the author
I'd travelled to UXO-littered Phonsavanh to interview Sousath Phetrasy, whose father was a high-ranking official in Pathet Lao, which eventually managed to overthrow the Royal Lao Government in 1975. With the communist victory, the last king of Laos "disappeared" into a re-education camp, never to be heard from again; a 600-year-old dynasty coming to an abrupt end. Predominantly in the royalist camp, the tribesmen who'd fought America's proxy war took to the jungles after being abandoned by their backers. Some turned to a cargo cult about a Jesus who would rise again wearing fatigues, riding a jeep, and toting a machine gun.
"My father, Soth, was the Pathet Lao's spot man, their fixer," Phetrasy explained. "He was their spokesman and later became ambassador to the Soviet Union. When the king was sent for re-education, he stayed in my father's house. They treated him like a regular civilian prisoner. He was furious."
King Savang Vatthana's death has never been reported in Laos. Rumored to be buried in an unmarked grave near the Sop Hao re-education camp, he spent his twilight years separated from his wife and children, a lonely and broken old man. Long since abandoned by the Americans, the last holdouts of the Hmong resistance finally surrendered to the Laotian authorities in the mid 2000s.
"The Hmong came out of the jungle and fainted from hunger," Phetrasy told me. "They'd been living on boiled roots for years."
Only with the Hmong's surrender did the last knockings of the Vietnam War come to an end, but the havoc wreaked by the conflict continues to cast a shadow over Laos.
A former gold smuggler and opium dealer, Phetrasy ran the Maly Guesthouse, its walls decorated with discarded munitions. His life's work, though, had been to open up Phonsavanh's mysterious Plain of Jars to tourism.
The crater-pocked Plain of Jars takes its name from the giant sandstone vessels that have been lying there for thousands of years. Nobody knows what their original purpose was. Some archeologists argue they were tombstones or burial urns, while a local legend maintains they were cups that a race of giants drank hooch from. In his efforts to make tracts of the plain safe, Phetrasy and his family cleared 2,500 kilos of UXO by hand before assistance arrived.
"There are still millions of bombs waiting," he told me. "The Americans painted them like fruit so children would pick them up. We have a song in schools now, the 'bombie song,' explaining the dangers. Because of the war, I feel such rage all the time. Sometimes I have to take my M16 into the fields and just shoot until it passes."
A few months after our conversation, the nervous and animated Phetrasy died of a heart attack.
UXO on the outskirts of Phonsavanh. Photo by the author
Nowadays, a row of new ATMs line the main drag in Phonsavanh. Modernity is coming to the land that time forgot. In the center of town, near a restaurant called Craters, the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) and the Quality of Life Association stand alongside rival operators vying for the spoils of war tourism. In a country where an estimated 35 percent of the territory is contaminated with UXOs, in the absence of other gainful employment the debris left behind presents an opportunity of sorts.
South of Phonsavanh, Keola—a gaunt guide in faded khakis—showed me around some of the Secret War sites. The ground covered with UXO, we carefully picked our way along a winding trail scattered with mortar shells and cluster bomblets.
"When we were children, we thought the bombs were toys," he said. "We played catch with them, until one day my friend caught one and it exploded in his hands."
Stopping to survey a discarded tank, Keola laughed half-heartedly. "There used to be many tanks," he said, "but now this is the only one left in this area. I pay the villagers not to break it up for scrap."
Throughout Xiengkhouang, detritus from the Secret War has been given a new lease of life. Bomb casings have been re-imagined as cattle troughs, barbecues, and struts for stilt houses, smaller scraps of metal shaped into cutlery. In a Hmong village, the wing of a plane has been reborn as a garden fence.
I asked Eva Hegedus, MAG's Program Officer for Laos, how difficult it is to press home the dangers apparent in recycling prospectively valuable materials.
"The great majority of Laotian people are well aware of the presence of UXO and the risks posed," she told me. "Yet the high level of poverty often leaves them without a choice and forces them to use their land, even if they know or suspect it to be contaminated, or to engage in other risky activities, such as scrap metal collection."
Kek with his son, Aloon. Photo: Sean Sutton/MAG
"I was collecting scrap metal in April 2010," 25-year-old Kek recounted through Sean Sutton, International Communications Manager at MAG. "I hit some metal in the ground when I was digging and it exploded. It was just before New Year and we really needed the money for the celebrations, as we are very poor. Next thing I remember after the explosion was waking up in hospital. I had lost both of my hands and had injuries all over me. One eye is nearly blind. I have been married since 2008 and things were good with us. But since the accident my wife has to do everything and it is very hard."
Around Phonsavanh, bomb craters with a circumference of up to a hundred meters stretch for miles, often overlapping. Each containing 540 ball bearings capable of ripping through anyone within a mile radius, cluster "bombies" still lay in wait for victims. Into this environment, non-profit groups such as MAG have brought a renewed sense of hope. Training locals in the skills necessary to clear ordinance and enable farmers to resume cultivating their land without fear, the organization currently employs 427 Laotians who otherwise might well be unemployed. Though it remains impossible to quantify exactly how much of the country is still contaminated, MAG alone has destroyed and removed over 185,000 UXO in Laos since 2004.
"I don't know what my life would be without MAG," Deputy Mine Action Team Leader Nitta Duangdal explained. "It would be very difficult. The work we do is incredibly important—we help poor people, we save lives."
Follow Stephen on Twitter.
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Why 'Face/Off' Was the Ultimate 90s Action Movie
Frederick Blichert
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Jul 10 2017, 7:30pm
Released 20 years ago, John Woo’s now-classic film perfectly encapsulates an absurd decade of action filmmaking.
The 1990s were truly a golden age of high-concept action films, offering the most stripped-down, easily marketable premises, that were basically excuses for their action set-pieces. Convicts on a plane. A bomb on a bus. A wanted man, but the twist is he's innocent. A theme park with dinosaurs, but the dinosaurs have escaped.
I'm not knocking it. Action pics usually work better with a simple set-up, and that kind of popcorn movie has become a rare commodity. It's why we all get so excited when something as to-the-point as John Wick comes along.
For my money, the best of the 90s actions pics was John Woo's 1997 masterpiece Face/Off—138 minutes of unhinged nonsense, tied together by a beautifully simple set up. A cop has to impersonate a dangerous criminal to get information about an impending terrorist attack. The twist is that he needs the info from the criminal's brother, so the two trade faces through a new experimental surgical procedure. Did I mention they're played by 90s mainstays John Travolta and Nicolas Cage?
Adding the sci-fi element was a stroke of genius, keeping the simplicity of other action films (a cop and a criminal trade places) while totally raising the stakes (they literally trade faces!). That genre-blending has always fit snuggly into action cinema, but the 90s were hitting some high notes in the shamelessly cheesy department ( Timecop and Demolition Man come to mind).
If you think about Face/Off's premise for even a minute, it makes no sense at all, but somehow the movie works anyway. The premise also allows for some fun, on-the-nose visual metaphors—a two-sided mirror separates Travolta and Cage, so that when they shoot through it, they're firing on each other and on themselves (it may not be deep, but it gets the job done).
The casting feels like a time capsule preserving Cage and Travolta in their primes. Cage plays criminal Castor Troy, with Travolta as FBI special agent Sean Archer—but then again those roles are reversed for about 95 percent of the movie.
One of the most satisfying features of Face/Off is watching Cage and Travolta impersonating one another. At times, Travolta delivers lines that seem frankly stupid ("we're gonna blow up LA, bro. Ain't it cool?"), that is until you imagine Cage delivering them in an identical tone. Suddenly they make perfect sense. There aren't many actors who could pull off a line like "I'm about to unleash the Biblical plague Hell-A deserves," but Cage somehow nails it—and Travolta's not a bad understudy, in his own unassuming way. We get the full Travolta spectrum here, from stern patriarch, to smooth(ish) cool guy, to hyperactive attention hog. We get echoes of everything from Pulp Fiction to Look Who's Talking. It's pretty impressive to watch him move from one role to the next so seamlessly.
Cage is really the star player here though. It can be hard to believe that Nic Cage was once taken pretty much entirely seriously, but you don't really need to look beyond Face/Off to see why. In '97, he was still riding the high of his Oscar win for Leaving Las Vegas just two years earlier, and he had just starred in Michael Bay's The Rock and the above-mentioned convicts-on-a-plane summer hit Con Air (released the same month as Face/Off). He was on a roll.
But in Face/Off more than any of those, we really see Nicolas Cage's range. He plays the straight-faced good guy, with hints of a serviceable Travolta impersonation, and the over-the-top criminal. But somewhere in between, something really special happens. Cage shows us how perfectly self-aware he is as we watch him playing a bewildered Travolta trying his hardest to become Cage. It's a layered self-analysis that ends with Nic Cage just being Nic Cage in the most compelling way imaginable. He looks at himself in a mirror, slowly turning his mouth into a smile, then into a Joker-ish, maniacal grin. He then opens his eyes wide, turning himself into an internet-meme version of himself. It's the ultimate Nic Cage impersonation.
The initial surgery scene is full of great, gory details, with Archer's face being cut off and replaced before us. At that point, Troy is in a vegetative state, so it's only when he unexpectedly wakes up later that he becomes Archer, after kidnapping the surgeon and forcing his hand. The way this second scene is achieved though, is pure pulpy horror, with the supposedly state-of-the art surgical facility suddenly feeling like a creepy, poorly-lit asylum. Troy wakes up with a bandage wrapped around his head and is soon walking around with the fresh wound where his face used to be completely exposed. Both scenes seem to draw from Georges Franju's classic French horror film Eyes Without a Face, but they're great even if you miss the reference.
I still don't understand why the surgery scenes manage to work so well despite not fitting into the rest of the movie at all—but then there's also a whole section that takes place in a secret prison built into an offshore oil rig where inmates wear metal boots and the floor is magnetized, so who the hell knows? It's the decade that gave us an oil rig crew saving Earth from a stray asteroid. Some questions are better unanswered.
I can't imagine any director other than John Woo making all this work. He packs Face/Off with his signature moves from earlier films like The Killer, Hard-Boiled, and Hard Target. We get the slow-motion doves in flight (so many doves!) that probably identify Woo more anything else. It's a hammy trope that can be used with some degree of restraint (think Blade Runner), but Woo consistently cranks it to 11.
We also get his classic two men facing off with guns drawn in each other's faces. So much of Face/Off feels lifted out of the Hong Kong action films that were having a huge impact on Hollywood by 1997, from Jackie Chan to the many western martial artists having their 15 minutes. Woo's straight-from-the-horse's-mouth directness proved ideal here.
The cherry on top is that the whole thing ends with a speedboat chase for absolutely no reason at all. The decade had a knack for replacing the stale old car-chase finale with something a little more showy. A fighter jet in True Lies, a city bus and subway in Speed, a moving train in Mission: Impossible. Face/Off gets extra points for how out-of-the-blue the boat scene is. As Cage chases Travolta on foot, the two randomly end up at a marina, hop aboard two separate vessels, and the chase is on.
Face/Off really is B-movie material that could have easily ended up as a low-budget straight-to-video dud, and overcoming that is probably its most 90s badge of honour. All of the weird, disparate parts somehow fit together, and Woo injects real heart into the whole thing. We don't care that much that Archer's son was killed by Troy years ago, but it makes his motivation and hatred for Troy believable, and makes Troy's heartlessness immediately apparent. That's information we get in the film's brief opening scene, and the rest of the movie is just as efficient. It pivots from tough-as-nails action sequences to overwrought melodrama on a moment's notice. 90s action movies always seemed to find room for a dead kid, an estranged wife, a rebellious daughter—anything to humanize their heroes just enough to carry the plot along.
There probably aren't any viewers of Face/Off who remain on the fence about it. You either dismiss it as stupid trash or submit to it fully. If you make it past the first 15 minutes, you're in it for good. It requires the kind of suspension of disbelief that's hard to achieve unless you're having a really good time, and more than anything, Face/Off definitely offers that. As a product of the 90s, it's in good company, but it's truly at the top of its class.
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Follow Frederick Blichert on Twitter.
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This Woman Has Engineered Pop’s Biggest Recent Hits, from ‘Melodrama’ to ‘1989’
Cam Lindsay
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Jul 10 2017, 5:00pm
Laura Sisk is pop music's secret weapon.
This article originally appeared on Noisey.
I had never heard the name Laura Sisk until I interviewed Tom Krell, a.k.a. How To Dress Well, last summer. Discussing his then-new album, Care, Krell told me about working with Jack Antonoff (Bleachers, fun.) on a luminous pop song called "I Was Terrible." It was then that he asked, "Have you heard of Laura Sisk?" and informed me that she had produced his vocals for the song. "She's a rad, funny, calm person in a field dominated by annoying, grumpy dudes," he added. "You should write an article on her," he added.
Chances are you haven't heard of Laura Sisk either, but you've definitely heard her work. Over the last six years, the 27-year-old Bay Area native has engineered recordings by names as diverse as Eminem, Shakira, Sigur Rós, tUnE-yArDs, and Big Boi. More to the point, she's been behind the boards for a number of pop music's most significant albums of late: Carly Rae Jepsen's E-MO-TION, Sia's This Is Acting, and most recently, Lorde's Melodrama. Oh, and Taylor Swift's 1989, for which she won a Grammy award in 2016.
"She's brilliant," says Jack Antonoff over the phone from his Brooklyn apartment. Whether it's for his recordings as Bleachers (including his recent album, Gone Now) or his collaborations with Lorde, Taylor Swift, Troye Sivian and Fifth Harmony, Antonoff always calls on Sisk to help him achieve his vision.
"So many people in my position who do all of these things have a whole team and it funnels through all of these people," he explains. "But it's just the two of us alone in a room. Always. No one else ever touches it. She has such an amazing perspective. It's a big part of why my music works, because there is this female energy in the room. That's her."
If you can't already tell, Laura Sisk is a busy woman. Finally after months of trying, Noisey finally got her to sit down (while vacationing in Europe no less) and answer some questions about her trade, like how she got into sound engineering, what it's like working with a wunderkind like Lorde, how it feels to win a Grammy and how much shit she has to put up with in such a male-dominated industry.
Noisey: So, how did you get into engineering?
Laura Sisk: I've been a musician since I can remember. When I was really young, I started playing piano with my parents as if it were a toy and they decided to get me piano lessons so I would stop destroying it. I started playing clarinet and oboe in middle school in concert band and got really into playing classical music. I went to high school at Marin School of the Arts in Northern California and majored in oboe performance. I played oboe in Marin Symphony Youth Orchestra, had several chamber music groups and played in concert band. My friends and I were applying to summer programs like All State Honor Bands and Orchestras and I learned how to use our school's Roland recording system to record our audition tapes. By the time I started applying for college, I was having a lot more fun recording music than performing it, so I focused on applying to recording programs and decided to go to the Jacob's School of Music at Indiana University. They had an extremely hands-on curriculum and I got invaluable experience in a lot of different fields of audio while I was there.
How easy was it to find work?
I took internships throughout college and landed a job after graduation and moved to LA. I started out as an assistant engineer, and quickly took on more of the engineering role as my technical skills were recognized. Through that position, I got to work with inspiring artists including Bleachers, Phantogram, Shakira, and tUnE-yArDs, and from there I went freelance.
The job description of an engineer is about technical proficiency, but as with any job, a huge element of being successful is bringing good energy to the team. When you work on an album with an artist, for months at a time, you become friends. A lot of the artists and producers I work with most frequently today are people I've clicked with through work and I get most of my work through friends of theirs. Through work, I built up a great network of friends and mentors who have helped me get to where I am. As an engineer, my work is inherently tied to the producers and artists that I get to work with. I'm very grateful to have gotten to work with producers who have empowered me to push my own personal boundaries and allowed me to grow as an engineer.
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Once you got going, did the jobs come to you or did you have to seek them out?
When I first started working in studio recording, I felt like I had fallen into it. At school, I was studying all sorts of sub fields of audio and the first internship I had was at a video game studio. After that, I applied to a lot of different types of audio internships, and the most exciting ones happen to be studio recording. When I first went freelance, it took a while to get a good list of clients going, however, now that I've been freelancing for a while, I have a number of steady clients who fly me around the country to work on various projects. I'm very grateful to get to work with the same producers often which allows me to work with a number of high profile artists within a workflow that I've been able to refine and polish over a number of projects.
Sound engineers don't get the glory that producers do. Should they?
Part of being an engineer is being "behind-the-scenes," which is a really interesting place to be. As an engineer, you are right in the middle of the action, running the technology smoothly while surrounded by creative people working through ideas. Part of what makes me good at my job is the invisibility of what I do. There are usually technical hurdles that present themselves at every session. For example, I might be at a studio that isn't well equipped to record a specific instrument or there might be compatibility issues between the session and computer I'm working on that day. My job is always to run the technology we have available in a way that does not affect or slow down our workflow in any way. When someone has an idea to record, I have to be ready to record it. Keeping creative people in their creative mindset without interrupting their flow with a technical issue is one of the most important aspects of my job and maybe the public doesn't know as much about my role, but the artists and producers I work with appreciate and notice it and that's the attention that matters to me.
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Why do you think engineering continues to be such a male-dominated industry?
The music industry as a whole, and especially on the technical side, is predominantly male. However, the consumers and fans, including me, are much more diverse. I'm not sure why it's so skewed, but I hope that as more attention is brought to this issue, more women will feel encouraged to join the ranks. Making an album requires a whole team and you can be deeply involved with that process through a number of different jobs. There's a lot of room for much more diversity.
How bad does the sexism get?
Fortunately it's usually frustrating ingrained sexism and nothing overt. People don't usually assume I'm an engineer, even if they meet me while I'm in the middle of plugging in a bunch of equipment. One time I showed up to a session and walked the assistant through a very technical setup and then he asked me, "So who's engineering the session?" A lot of people that I work with have never worked with a female engineer before. Sometimes people apologize quickly or get embarrassed and other times I find myself responding to them with extremely technical explanations to prove I am, in fact, an engineer. I hope to see more women get into the technical side of music production so it's not a surprise when I walk into the studio and head to the console in the control room.
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What would you say are your defining traits as an engineer?
My goal as an engineer is to eliminate technical boundaries so that creative people can turn their vision into a reality. I truly love the art and science of engineering. I enjoy the role that I play on the team and I try to excel at tailoring my skills to the needs of each artist and producer. I'm constantly trying to anticipate what the producer and artists are thinking so that I'm a step ahead of them. I make sure that everything is ready to go, so that the second they have a creative idea, we can record it and the artist can stay in their creative mindset. I'm always trying to learn the personal preferences of everyone that I work with so there's never a time when the engineering gets in the way of the recording process. I think the performance of any engineer is gauged by how seamlessly the artist is able to work on their creative vision without ever being interrupted or slowed down by something technical and my ability to make that happen sets me apart from other engineers.
Do you have any favorite records you've worked on?
This year I've had the opportunity to work on two sophomore albums for different artists: Bleachers and Lorde. After going through this process with both of them, I've seen how important second records are in establishing who an artist really is. It's been incredibly gratifying to be a part of this process during which they've both defined themselves with strong and important artistic statements and have shown that they've grown and changed just like everybody else does. It's been an honor to be involved with both of these projects and I'm so excited that everyone else gets to hear what we've been working on now!
You engineered Melodrama, which is one of the year's biggest albums. How did you get that gig?
I work closely with Jack Antonoff as his engineer. He's an amazing producer and songwriter and when he and Ella started collaborating together, he brought me in to engineer. One of the coolest parts of working on this album was watching the songs come into existence. Jack and Ella are both super creative and very honest songwriters and it was thrilling to watch stories or conversations turn into songs that I absolutely love.
What kind of satisfaction do you get from working on albums like Melodramaand 1989, which are bound to be massive hits upon their releases?
It is exciting to know that a large audience will hear something you're working on, but no matter what album it is or who the artist is, the same amount of work and effort and love goes into it. I know I become biased toward the music I work on because I know how much love and thought went into each and every sound or instrument or lyric and I have a memory about every little sound that made it or didn't make it into the final version, but there's a special feeling you get when you really love the music you're working on.
For example, I often listen to small parts of a song on loop while I'm editing a specific section. However, when I was working on Bleachers' "Don't Take The Money," even if I was working on a small section in the verse, I always made the loop large enough to include the chorus because I could not listen to it enough times! I felt the same way about Lorde's "Supercut" and Taylor's "Out of the Woods." Some songs just click with you on another level and it's hard not to keep listening.
Jack Antonoff called you a "really important creative woman" in his life. Why do the two of you gel so well in the studio?
We have very complementary skill-sets, which allow us to work together or independently in the most efficient way possible. Our workflow naturally switches between working together in the same room to working independently in separate rooms throughout the day. We often work on different aspects of the same song in separate rooms and that ability to tag-team the work let's us move at a very fast pace, which is super important given the amount of projects we collaborate on. He's the driving creative force and we jokingly refer to me as tech support. [ Laughs] We also have a ton of fun together in the studio and that's a really important part of our successful working relationship given the amount of time we spend together. Jack is an incredible musician and an extremely creative and thoughtful producer and it's an absolute honor to be on his team. On a personal note, he's also a wonderful human being and it's really inspiring to work alongside him.
In 2015, you won a Grammy for working on Taylor Swift's 1989. What was that moment like for you?
It was truly thrilling. We work long hours and pour our hearts and energy into every song and every recording. It was really special to be surrounded by a huge group of peers who all work so hard and are taking a moment to celebrate the work we put in and the art that comes out. It was an honor to win, but honestly, when Taylor and Jack got on stage and opened the show with one of the songs we were nominated for, I felt like I had won already.
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What tips do you have for anyone that wants to get into audio engineering?
Don't be afraid to make mistakes. You learn a lot less when things go right, so appreciate those moments when they don't and take that opportunity to figure out exactly what happened and how to prevent it from happening again. Those are the invaluable lessons that make you who you are and trust yourself; you can figure it out.
Cam Lindsay is on Twitter.
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Life Can Be a Wes Anderson Film If You Look Close Enough
Caroline Haskins
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Jul 10 2017, 4:00pm
Finally, a subreddit dedicated to finding Wes Anderson’s aesthetic in the wild.
This article originally appeared on Motherboard.
A few months ago, software developer and photographer Simon Sarris became captivated by a picture of Austrian royalty Princess Yvonne and Prince Alexander taken in 1955. To Sarris, the image looked like something out of The Royal Tenenbaums. This ultimately led to him create /r/AccidentalWesAnderson in late April—a dedicated subreddit for all things quaint and fantastical enough to belong in a Wes Anderson film.
Scrolling through the page gave me a combination of wanderlust and déjà vu. I couldn't help but feel that I'd literally seen these places in Moonrise Kingdom or The Grand Budapest Hotel. (Full disclosure: Those are the only Wes Anderson films I've seen.)
Saul Bistro in Guatemala. Photo: DamnISignedUpAgain
Homes in Vietnam. Photo: temporality
However, the page isn't without user-lead moderation. On July 3, user mjgtwo established five guidelines for submitting posts. The post also included five examples of poor posts and four examples of good posts.
"We increased our size by 50% in about three quarters of a month (from June 12th to now we went from ~20k to ~30k) and I worry we might go the way of /r/AccidentalRenaissance with the quality of their posts," mjgtwo said in the post. "They would post cool photos, but not cool photos that look like accidental pieces of renaissance art."
User valeriob made a similar post titled, "Not every Hotel or Train is 'accidental Wes Anderson,'" and provided links to articles that highlight the symmetry, color palettes, and thematic fashion that characterizes Wes Anderson films.
Sarris, the actual moderator of /r/AccidentalWesAnderson, told me via email that he is fascinated by the way Anderson can explain eccentric personalities in just one shot.
"Most of [the posts] have focused on architecture, but I love the way Wes Anderson presents people," he said. "I'm crazy about how much information he packs into little scenes."
"Pax Mongolica" is Sarris's favorite post in /r/AccidentalWesAnderson. Photo: ferrets54
"I really didn't expect it to take off, but I think there's a lot of pent up demand for finding magical worlds in real life," Sarris said. "While [Anderson] uses a really limited color palette, it's always so wild or unusual that you accept immediately anything that comes after. That's why it's so special to accidentally come across it in the real world. It's like accidentally stepping into his alternate world."
A lighthouse in Iceland's Westfjords. Photo: thegussmaster
After looking through /r/AccidentalWesAnderson for a few minutes, I found myself searching for the Anderson aesthetic around the VICE offices here in Brooklyn. I decided to try taking a picture to submit to the page.
The results weren't great (it was rainy at time of writing). I'm not even going to try submitting it. But if the point of /r/AccidentalWesAnderson is to search for the beauty in everyday life, then it's extremely successful.
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Indonesian Police are Learning Magical Martial Arts to Fight Terrorists
RENALDO GABRIEL
Jul 10 2017, 3:19pm
A man practices silat. Photo via FoToYeN/Flickr CC License
Police officers will be able to sense incoming danger, one martial arts master boasted of the training.
ISIS has Indonesian officials on edge. As the Islamic State loses ground in their so-called caliphate spanning Iraq and Syria, its supporters seem more focused than ever on establishing a second front in Southeast Asia. ISIS-linked rebels seized Marawi in the southern Philippines. Here in Indonesia, terrorists have stabbed police officers, suicide bombed police patrols, and plotted numerous other failed attacks all in the name of ISIS.
Police are often the target. So it's no wonder police departments nationwide are looking for something, anything, that makes officers feel safer. Even when that something is magical martial arts.
In Sukabumi, a small city in West Java about 4 hours outside Jakarta, local police have sought the help of Fajar Laksana, the head of a local Islamic boarding school who is known to possess some serious pencak silat skills. "Pencak silat" is just an umbrella term that means "martial arts" in Indonesia. It covers everything from the brutal punches, elbows and kicks seen in The Raid to stuff that's more... magical. Fajar believes that silat practitioners can gain supernatural powers through meditation, prayer, and studying the Quran.
"They are trained in three areas," Fajar told local media. "The first is the physical, to overthrow and disable the opponent. The second is inner power, through breathing. And the third one is supernatural powers, through prayers— wirid [post-shalat prayers] and hijib ijazah amaliah [good deeds[ all combined."
Fajar is teaching the police the Muang Bodas school of silat. It's the kind of martial arts that allow people to show off with feats of strength like getting hit with a whip that's on fire or throwing around a flaming coconut. You can see a demonstration of these skills below:
Fajar told reporters that he would basically turn the police into elite terrorist-fighting superheroes, complete with supernatural powers of their own. He said that officers would become living weapons, and even possess the ability to sense when danger is near, sort of like a third eye version of Spiderman's spider-sense.
"With no need for firearms or others, insha Allah, every fist, kick, and body part will become a weapon," Fajar said. "The bullets are our breathing and good deeds, opening the inner eye as well as intuition through premonition when ill will is near."
What's going on here? Well, it's important to remember that the vast majority of Indonesian Muslims (almost 70 percent) believe that magic is, to a certain extent, real. So people with magical superhuman abilities and the immense, sometime mystical, power of silat are pretty common ideas in Indonesia.
Do a quick YouTube search and you'll find numerous TV news reports talking about some pretty unbelievable stuff without a shred of disbelief—like this report where the anchor talks about a murderer who possessed a magical ring that made him impervious to bullets. A police sniper eventually had to shoot his magical ring before the bullets had any effect, the anchor explained like that's totally a normal thing to happen during a police standoff.
Silat even played an important role in Indonesia's independence fight, Fajar said. So of course it could be used to fight terrorists, he concluded.
"Pencak silat was used by our forefathers to fight colonialism," he said. "With nothing but sharp bamboo and shouts of 'Allahu Akbar,' they managed to fight colonizers equipped with more advanced weapons. The shouts ignited our spirit and gave up the energy needed to defeat the invaders."
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Diplo's New 90s Alt-Rock Playlist Will Make You Feel Like a Kid Again
KRYSTAL RODRIGUEZ
Jul 10 2017, 3:15pm
Foto via Wikimedia Commons
Sounds like teen spirit.
This article originally appeared on THUMP.
Have you ever looked at Diplo and thought to yourself, "I wonder what 90s alt-rock he likes to listen to?" Today's your lucky day.
The Mad Decent boss today created a Spotify playlist of "the best, and most iconic alt-rock songs from the 90s," as he put it, and it includes songs by Nirvana, Soundgarden, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters, Weezer, and many more. Currently it's 139 tracks—or nine hours and 23 minutes—long. That's a lot of 90s alt-rock.
As it turns out, Diplo's made quite a few playlists on Spotify over the years. There's one, it seems, for every which mood: Psychedelic rock, late-night R&B, hotel lobby afterparty, and trap/strip club.
Dig into Diplo's 90s alt-rock playlist below.
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ISIS
Fighting ISIS Is More Complicated Than You Think
SAM FRAGOSO
Jul 10 2017, 1:45pm
We talk to 'City of Ghosts' director Matthew Heineman about how to defeat an idea, and whether Trump would like his film.
Where there's terror, there's bravery—but adjectives feel insufficient when describing "Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently" (RBSS), a collective of anonymous activists who banded together when their homeland was overtaken by ISIS in 2014.
In the face of extremism, the "underground journalistic-activist enterprise," as David Remnick wrote in 2014, fought back with truth. Their ammunition came in the form of raw footage that captured the incalculable atrocities being committed by ISIS—the beheadings, sexual assault, and beyond. "Even in exile," Remnick warned, "they are in no way safe."
In the fall of 2015, documentarian Matthew Heineman (Cartel Land) discovered RBSS and was immediately captivated. Shortly after reaching out to the collective, he got to work. "I followed them in Turkey," says Heineman, "and then eventually to Europe as ISIS continued to threaten them." The result is City of Ghosts, a stirring portrait of daily life under ISIS. It manages to be cinematic without cheapening the plight of Syria, and it gives ample room to RBSS members like Abdel Aziz al-Hamza, a former biology student at Raqqa University turned fearless dissident.
"We believe in the Syrian revolution," he tells me. "We knew sitting and watching would not help us." It's the hope of everyone involved in this project, especially Heineman, that this film will.
When we spoke with the director over the phone last week, he discussed his time on the ground with RBSS, why President Trump could find value in the film, and how we're really at war with an idea.
VICE: As a documentarian, you've managed to consistently get your subjects to trust you. How do you approach these dynamics?
Matthew Heineman: Honesty and transparency are key. On the outset—for both Cartel Land and City of Ghosts—I've been very transparent with my intentions and my goal of ultimately gaining intimacy. The real key is time. I don't just helicopter in and out and expect to get gold. I generally spend months and months building rapport. In this case, the fact that I was on the run with these guys as they were hiding in safe houses, "hunted by ISIS." They're in very precarious positions and intrinsically open to revealing their emotions. Trying to get them to do that was one of my goals from the beginning.
When you were on the ground with RBSS, was there something that especially surprised you?
What I didn't know is that this would become an immigrant story—about finding one's self in a new land, and what that means. It became a story of rising nationalism and the cumulative effects of trauma. I had seen the images of James Foley, people on Guantánamo streets being beheaded. I never fully understood ISIS studios, producing these deeply distributing images.
What did you learn?
ISIS is really an idea, and it's not going to be beaten by guns, or bombs, or a ground defensive to regain Raqqa from ISIS. Even if we kick out ISIS from Raqqa, the ideology will remain. There's a whole generation of children who have been indoctrinated by this ideology. We have to figure out ways as a global community to fight this extremist ideology.
How do we beat an idea?
By exposing the fallacy of that idea. In this world that we live in, where truth seems to be malleable, we need to find ways to expose the truth. I'm not a big Twitter-er, but the other day I retweeted a tweet from one of the founders of the group: "Raqqa is not ISIS and ISIS is not Islam." That idea is important. This is a tiny percentage of this religion that has hijacked the narrative and created a culture of fear around the world.
Google has an initiative called Jigsaw, which is an attempt to fight extremism with the machine of Google. Two or three years ago, if you searched "I want to join ISIS," in about 37 seconds you could have all the information needed to either fight in Syria or build a bomb. So one of the things that they're doing is reverse engineering these searches to promote content like what's coming out of RBSS. Instead of "how to join ISIS," you're going to find the atrocities this group is committing against Muslims in Raqqa.
Should he ever watch it, what do you think President Trump's reaction to this film would be?
I've thought about that a lot. In the documentary form, it's so easy to propagate your own beliefs or preach to the choir. But I strongly believe that one of the beauties of the documentary film is to introduce people to characters they may not otherwise get to meet and to worlds they may not otherwise get to see. One of my goals with the film is to celebrate journalism, but also provoke empathy for what's happening in Raqqa and what's happening to the Syrian people.
It was incredibly moving and tragic to premiere this film at Sundance. Our last screening was the day after the Muslim ban. To be on that stage with these guys when, if the festival was a week later, they wouldn't be allowed in our country, was emotional. These guys are our allies in this fight against extremism, against ISIS. We need to be building bridges with Muslim communities around the world and not trying to shut them out.
Follow Sam Fragoso on Twitter.
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Lukaku Arrested for 'Disturbing the Peace' at His Beverly Hills Rager
LIAM DANIEL PIERCE
Jul 10 2017, 1:00pm
Screenshot from IG @paulpogba
Seems like he and Paul Pogba had some fun times.
This article originally appeared on VICE Sports.
The funny thing about trades is that you don't really know they've gone down until they've gone down. That is, unless you're the player and have been in on the dealings for a minute. Despite the fact that Lukaku's $96.7 million Manchester United signing was announced just today, Romelu Lukaku seemingly knew he had something to celebrate on July 2, as he was arrested for disturbing the peace at his Beverly Hills rager, according to TMZ Sports.
The cops tried to break up the party—held at a rental house under Lukaku's name, according to TMZ's sources—a whopping six times. Lukaku's new teammate Paul Pogba was posting like a million videos of him doing pseudo-soccer things at a pearly-white mansion in the hills, though it's not confirmed they're one in the same.
Just check this nonsense out:
And then, as if you don't feel bad enough about missing out on this dope mid-day party, Pogba started posting videos of him and Lukaku's sick new handshake:
Well, duh—that sick handshake is probably what launched the festivities. But those pesky neighbors didn't like what they heard, so they narc'd on them. In short, he was arrested, released on the scene—not taken into the station—and handed a citation.
Here is the full police statement, via BBC:
On July 2, 2017, at approximately 8:00 PM, Beverly Hills Police Department officers arrested a 24-year-old male subject by the name of Romelu Lukaku Bolingoli.
Bolingoli received a misdemeanour citation for Beverly Hills Municipal Code Violation 5-1-104 - Excessive Noise. The citation was issued after officers responded to five other noise complaints from the same location, which resulted in verbal warnings.
These noise violations occurred at a residence in Beverly Hills where Bolingoli was temporarily residing. Bolingoli was released at the scene with the citation and was not physically arrested.
Bolingoli is scheduled to appear at the Los Angeles Airport Courthouse on October 2, 2017.
The funny thing is that international soccer players probably love LA because they're not stopped in the streets every five seconds because they're recognizable. The shitty part about LA for them is that the cops don't recognize them either, so no freebies for the famous soccer players.
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NUCLEAR WEAPONS
No Countries With Nukes Adopted the UN’s 'Historic' Nuke Ban
ALEXA LIAUTAUD
Jul 10 2017, 11:30am
Photo via Getty Images
The nine countries with nuclear weapons boycotted the talks.
This article originally appeared on VICE News.
Over 120 countries adopted the United Nations' first-ever global ban on nuclear weapons Friday, in a significant milestone in the push against nuclear proliferation. Except for one thing: None of the countries that actually have nuclear weapons adopted the treaty, so it doesn't technically apply to them.
The ban, formally known as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, was officially adopted after months of negotiations by the UN General Assembly, with the Friday vote: 122 countries voted yes; one — the Netherlands — voted no; and one — Singapore — abstained. Among those voting yes was Iran, which reached a historic diplomatic accord in 2015 with the US and five other world powers curbing Tehran's ability to acquire a nuclear weapon.
The treaty explicitly says countries cannot "develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess, or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices."
Yet every one of the nine countries that have nuclear weapons — the United States, Russia, Britain, China, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel — boycotted the talks.
"To ban nuclear weapons now would make us and our allies more vulnerable, and would strengthen bad actors like North Korea and Iran who would not abide by it," Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, told reporters at the outset of negotiations for the treaty in March.
"There is nothing I want more for my family than a world with no nuclear weapons. But we have to be realistic," Haley said.
Still, the treaty serves as a symbolic and legal marker against using nuclear weapons in international warfare, Elayne Whyte Gomez, Costa Rica's ambassador to the UN and president of the conference that negotiated the ban told reporters Thursday.
"The world has been waiting for this legal norm for 70 years," said Whyte Gomez, referring to the nuclear bombs the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 during World War II.
Earlier this week, tensions between the US and North Korea markedly escalated after Pyongyang conducted its first successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile. President Trump called on the international community "to confront this global threat and publicly demonstrate to North Korea that there are consequences for their very, very bad behavior."
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Welcome to Hell: Photos of Last Night's G20 Protests
ByLAURA MESCHEDE;photos byGIL BARTZ
Jul 10 2017, 11:00am
Both police and protesters had anticipated some violence in Hamburg, but everyone seemed surprised with how quickly it escalated.
This article originally appeared on VICE Germany
On Thursday, around 12,000 anti-capitalist protesters gathered in the streets of Hamburg, to protest just two miles from where world leaders were meeting for the G20 summit.
Local authorities tried to ban the protest in June, and aimed to keep protesters from setting up camp in the city – even clearing out a formally approved camp for protesters earlier in the week. That, of course, didn't deter protesters, who gathered yesterday for their dramatically named demonstration: "Welcome to Hell."
Both police and protesters had anticipated some violence, but as far as I could tell, everyone seemed surprised with how quickly it escalated. I was standing in the middle of the crowd before the start of the demo, when it was still quite peaceful. Banners were fluttering and I saw a few girls dancing to music someone was playing. Then, police announced that the demo wasn't allowed to start until all protesters had removed anything covering their faces, and I heard people in the block next to me complain that they'd never get very far if that was the case. That's when everything blew up.
Police used water cannons and pepper spray on the crowd – I heard loud bangs, something bounced against my head, people ran by bleeding. The air filled with smoke, making it hard to see much. I saw a woman crying out that a man had fallen unconscious, but a medical team couldn't reach her. Another man in his forties sat down on the ground next to me, bleeding profusely from a large wound on his head. "Fucking cops!" he shouted.
But when the violence died down, the protesters were still there – maybe even more than before the chaos started. And they stayed, which meant that a couple of hours after it was supposed to start, the "Welcome to Hell" demonstration took off peacefully, after all.
Scroll down for more photos from yesterday's protests in Hamburg.
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Double Future 1997: 'Escape From New York' vs. 'The Fifth Element'
ByDYLAN DAWSON;photos byGIL BARTZ
Jul 9 2017, 5:00pm
Comparing a movie set in 1997 to a movie released then.
This article originally appeared on Motherboard.
Nothing dates a movie more than the words "in the not-too-distant future," especially if that future happens to fall within our lifetimes. Because when time catches up to the date predicted in the movie, we can't help but obsess over what it got right, and what it got hilariously wrong.
But a fun, and perhaps more generous way to revisit a "near future" sci-fi movie is to view it alongside another movie that was released in the actual year the first movie was set. The best of the genre is more interested in allegory than accuracy, anyway, so why not gauge a film's prescience by how it compares one actually released in the "not-too-distant future"?
We call this silly cinematic exercise DOUBLE FUTURE, and for our first matchup, we'll look at one movie set in the then-future-year 1997, and another released that actual year.
Escape from New York (1981)
Set in dystopian 1997, John Carpenter's super chill action classic Escape From New York follows war hero turned criminal Snake "Don't Call Me Plissken" Plissken ( peak Kurt Russell) as he's sent into Manhattan, now a lawless maximum security prison, to save the kidnapped President. Carpenter first wrote Escape in 1976, following the Watergate scandal, when, as he puts it, "the whole feeling of the nation was one of real cynicism about the President." Suffice it to say, Escape's allegorical themes hold up big time.
The tech, however, is decidedly retro, with just some sophisticated tracking devices, a digital countdown watch, and a bunch of good ol' fashioned walls with those random blinking lights. Carpenter's low budget didn't allow for much technological premonition, but Escape is a B-movie less interested in future tech than it is with future tensions. And in that regard—with a walled-in city, a veteran hero betrayed by his country, and a cocky, simpering President— Escape's vision of the future is so of-the-moment now as to feel almost heavy-handed.
A remake has been in the works for a couple of years, and naturally fans of the original—including Russell—are less than thrilled. But re-watching it today, it seems like Escape might be the one 80's movie that demands a reboot. Until then, enjoy Carpenter's initial vision of the near future. And instead of watching the kinda-fun-but-mainly-dumb sequel Escape From L.A., follow it up with another cult classic about an ex-Marine reluctantly chosen to save the world…
The Fifth Element (1997)
When 1997 finally did roll around, things were by no means utopian, but with the dot com bubble just beginning and a cloned sheep named Dolly dominating headlines, the world wasn't exactly the police state Carpenter had envisioned (again, yet). And in Hollywood, this relative cultural stability was reflected in a year of films that seemed particularly obsessed with extra terrestrials. Men in Black, Contact, Starship Troopers, and Alien: Resurrection were all released in '97, and apart from Contact, they represented a rather goofy slew of close encounters.
But the most gonzo alien flick of them all was Luc Besson's The Fifth Element, a bright, manic, space jam featuring Bruce Willis as a New York City cab driver in the year 2263 who finds himself in the middle of an intergalactic adventure when fiery-haired alien Milla Jovovich literally falls into the back of his flying cab.
The Fifth Element is completely bonkers, which makes sense given that Besson began developing it as a teenager. He also later stated it's not "a big theme movie" beyond its 'love conquers all' message, which, in 1997, was a perfectly palatable foundation for a sci-fi film. That's an arguably harder sell these days, but perhaps Besson's next space adventure, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, coming out this July, will be just the late-90s utopian sci-fi throwback we need.
Bonus Third Future
Luc Besson was recently sued by John Carpenter for copying Escape from New York in 2012's Lockout (known in some circles as "Space Jail"). Besson lost the case, and understandably so. It is a super-dumb, shameless rip-off—one that I secretly enjoy and recommend if you want to make this Double Future a full-fledged triple.
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WONDER WOMAN
Everything You Need to Know About the Nazi Villain from 'Wonder Woman'
ByROBERT RATH;photos byGIL BARTZ
Jul 9 2017, 1:29pm
Ludendorff, the real life general, is a well-chosen counterpoint to Diana.
This article originally appeared on Waypoint.
I walked away from Wonder Woman thinking about a man.
That's a bit of a faux pas. Wonder Woman is a spectacular superhero movie with themes that resonate especially with women and girls, yet I can't stop thinking about its portrayal of General Ludendorff, the gas-sniffing villain played by Danny Huston. Ludendorff is a well-chosen counterpoint to Diana, at every moment embodying the traditional old-world patriarchy she struggles against. In a broad sense, Diana is not fighting a villain, but the very concept of the First World War—and Ludendorff, who will do anything to win, serves as an admirable stand-in for the men who egged the world onto slaughter. But the reason I can't let him go is because Ludendorff was a real person. And in portraying a historical figure as a literal comic book villain, Wonder Woman raises interesting questions about how filmmakers portray history on screen.
Of course, any exploration of this topic has to center around one question: who was Erich Ludendorff, and did his character mirror the man portrayed in the film?
Wonder Woman's Ludendorff is a proto-Nazi, a cold-blooded officer who personally executes his own soldiers as an example to others. This Ludendorff has little to no respect for life, is obsessed with winning the war, and thinks nothing of casualties. He'll kill his own commanders in order to stop an armistice, use poison gas to murder enemies, and hatch bizarre plots with a mad doctor.
Strangely, though that characterization is wrong in its specifics, it's fairly correct in the broad sense. The historical Erich Ludendorff was a brilliant general who fought for victory at any cost, a man who descended into madness and conspiracy, and indeed a was a dyed-in-the-wool Nazi during the early days of Hitler's rise.
Wonder Woman's Ludendorff is a proto-Nazi, a cold-blooded officer who personally executes his own soldiers as an example to others.
Erich Ludendorff was born into a middle-class family in 1865, and even as a child he showed an obvious drive to succeed. He finished top of his class at Cadet School and graduated from a top-flight military university. Commissioned in 1885, he shot upward in rank and spent 1904-1913 in Alfred von Schlieffen's General Staff in Berlin, designing the opening moves of the coming First World War.
But this devotion to duty and workaholic nature had a dark side. Ludendorff seemed largely uninterested in other people. He had followers rather than friends, and even as a child refused to play with schoolmates. Though a devoted husband and stepfather—he married a wealthy woman when he was 45—he was known for being humorless and uncompromising, with a nervous temperament. Aides always knew Ludendorff was mired in anxiety when he would sit quietly at dinner, rolling hunks of bread into balls with his fingers.
Were he any other man, these might be dismissed as quirks or character flaws—but during the First World War, they turned deadly. Ludendorff may not have shot his own men as depicted in Wonder Woman, but he did show a casual disregard for the human costs of the war. He was among the worst of the behind-the-lines generals, thinking of casualties as mere statistics and at peace with monstrous new weapons like gas bombardments.
Though Ludendorff was a staff officer when the war started, he quickly made a name for during the Battle of Liège. The Kaiser gave Ludendorff a medal for the action and appointed him as chief of staff to General Paul von Hindenburg, posting both men to the Eastern Front to turn back the Russian invasion of Prussia.
A week after arriving, the Germans under Hindenburg encircled and destroyed the Russian Second Army at the Battle of Tannenberg, taking 92,000 prisoners. The press hailed Hindenburg as a hero and Ludendorff as a strategic genius, but the two began squabbling over the credit almost immediately. For the next two years, Hindenburg and Ludendorff presided over a largely successful campaign in the East, which provided a contrast to Germany's grinding defeat at Verdun in the west.
Though they were rivals, Hindenburg and Ludendorff needed each other. Ludendorff proved himself a consummate military planner and administrator, able to pull off monumental feats of coordination and logistics. Hindenburg served as the stolid figurehead, keeping the ship stable when the nervous, impatient, and second-guess-prone Ludendorff threatened to upset the apple cart.
After the disaster at Verdun, Kaiser Wilhelm II knew that new leadership was needed at the German Supreme Command—a military body that controlled the country during wartime. In August of 1916, the Kaiser gave Hindenburg and Ludendorff joint leadership over the country and tasked them with turning the war around.
But while Hindenburg again served as figurehead, the day-to-day operations of the war were actually conducted by Ludendorff—making him essentially Germany's military dictator. Ludendorff set to work, drafting government policy and minimizing the Kaiser and undermining civilian officials. His main task was to throw every element of the German state behind the war effort, a political posture he, in later writings, dubbed "total war."
But despite Ludendorff's record of military success, his nearsightedness in the political arena triggered a host of disasters. He knocked Russia out of the war, and forced them into a treaty so shockingly putative that it caused the Allies to slap Germany with the similarly harsh Treaty of Versailles. Instead of freeing up troops for the Western Front, Russia's defeat tied German troops into garrisoning Eastern Europe. His unrestricted U-boat campaign, targeting neutral ships as well as enemies, helped push America into the war.
Ludendorff and his command regularly scoffed at the possibility that Americans could mobilize in time to make much difference, yet soon the US Navy had arrived to fill gaps in the British blockade. His decision to send Lenin to stir up trouble in Russia plunged the country into revolution, emboldening German labor organizers and socialists who'd chafed under Ludendorff's restrictive new labor laws. Morale may have been grim and determined at the front, but at home Germans were short on food, sick of the war, and angry at the stagnation in the aristocratic class system.
If Ludendorff had sued for peace while Germany was in a position of strength, the country might've avoided political collapse. Instead, he threw everything into a last spring offensive—the one depicted in Battlefield 1's Kaiserschlacht campaign—that started with one of the largest gas bombardments of the war.
He came up short. He didn't have the troops, and by that time 300,000 American infantrymen were arriving every month. When British tanks broke through in the Battle for Amiens, German forces finally retreated in what Ludendorff referred to as "the black day of the German army." Ludendorff's mental health began to fail, exacerbated by seeing one of his stepsons exhumed from a battlefield grave. A month later, Pershing's American offensive pushed the Germans out of positions south of Verdun that they'd held since 1914.
Yet on Ludendorff's orders, news of battlefield defeats were hidden from both the army and public. On September 27th, 1918, Berlin newspapers printed front-page stories that Germany was on the verge of winning the war.
The next day, Ludendorff suffered a mental breakdown. He locked himself in his study and raved for hours, screaming about how the Kaiser, the navy, the politicians and even public were to blame. At 6:00 PM he quietly walked downstairs and told Hindenburg that the military position was untenable. Germany must seek an armistice.
But Ludendorff's plan for that armistice was naïve and unnecessarily complicated. He installed a civilian government and invested the Reichstag with real power, believing a democratic Germany could get a better deal. He also opened negotiations with President Wilson, thinking the Americans would offer terms that let Germany keep conquered territory in Poland and Alsace-Lorraine.
He was wrong. Wilson demanded unconditional surrender, offering terms more in line with those Ludendorff had himself foisted on Russia. And ironically, the German military situation seemed to be improving.
With his initial plan failing, Ludendorff promptly reversed himself, ordering the civilian government to reject the armistice he'd personally ordered them to seek. He wanted to continue the war. Instead, they forced him to resign and opened negotiations with the Allies. This is the point in the war when Wonder Woman takes place, with the world teetering on the brink of peace and Ludendorff convinced Germany can still win better terms. In the film, Diana kills him during an attempt to gas London—but in reality, he donned a disguise and fled to Sweden as the German government fell apart.
In Ludendorff's absence, Germany suffered a period of instability. Strikes and food riots, often led by Communist instigators, ground cities to a halt. Political murder and street-fighting entered the mainstream. Rightwing militia groups that paved the way for Hitler's SA and SS sprang up to "keep order."
With conservative forces rallying against the resurgent left, Ludendorff returned to Germany where he was consumed with thoughts of the war. Germany, after all, did not seem like a country defeated. On the contrary, it had won a string of victories. Most of the fighting had occurred outside its borders. It still occupied several conquered territories. Added to this, Ludendorff's censorship meant ordinary citizens didn't realize how desperate the military situation had become. Back in Berlin, Ludendorff told anyone who would listen that the Armistice—the one he had orchestrated and advocated—was the fault of politicians who'd betrayed German armies in the field.
"You mean you were stabbed in the back?" asked one British officer, trying to make sense of Ludendorff's rambling explanation. Ludendorff agreed enthusiastically, and adopted the phrase. It soon became a rallying cry for the rightwing fringe.
After the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, conservative opposition parties—including the Nazis—grew in strength with rhetoric about punishing these "November criminals" who had betrayed Germany. More often than not, it was not simply liberals and democrats who were blamed, but Jews.
Now back in German politics, Ludendorff's apartment became a meeting place for the extreme right. He participated in the abortive Kapp Putsch, fleeing to Munich after the coup fell apart, and quickly fell in with the Nazis. When Hitler staged his 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, he planned for Ludendorff to take over the military. Though it's unlikely Ludendorff knew of the plot in advance, he was an enthusiastic participant once informed. When police opened fire on the Nazi marchers—and everyone else scattered—Ludendorff kept marching directly into police lines and offered himself for arrest.
He attended the resulting trial in full dress uniform, practically daring the court to imprison one of Germany's most famous war heroes. But as usual, Ludendorff's plan backfired: he was declared innocent, but only because the court ruled that that he had been "emotionally overwrought" and not responsible for his actions during the putsch. Ludendorff stormed out of the court, calling the acquittal "a disgrace to the uniform and decorations that I wear." But charges of insanity would become a common occurrence for the general.
He embarked on a brief political career, winning a seat in the Reichstag for one of the far-right parties that formed after the government barred the Nazis. He tried unsuccessfully to bring the splintering ethno-nationalist movement under one banner, and at Hitler's urging ran for president in 1925. He lost, badly, winning just over 1% of the vote. It soon became clear that Hitler had predicted the defeat, hoping to embarrass and diminish a possible challenger. To add to his humiliation, Ludendorff's rival Hindenburg won the presidency.
Ludendorff's behavior became more erratic. Years before, he had begun a romantic affair with psychologist Dr. Mathilde Kemnitz, a Nazi hanger-on with delusional theories that Word War I had been orchestrated by an alliance of Jews, Catholic Jesuits, and Freemasons. Former friends distanced themselves from him, with even the Nazis eventually declaring him too extreme. He eventually divorced his long-suffering wife and married Kemnitz.
The couple began publishing bizarre pamphlets insisting that Hitler had turned the German government over to Jewish-controlled Catholics, and how Freemasonry "breaks the race consciousness, the national pride, and the masculine will of men and makes them 'artificial Jews,'—a tool of the Jews that has no will of its own." In place of organized religion, they experimented with neo-pagan blood-and-soil beliefs that they hoped would serve as a national religion that tied Germans to their ethnic roots.
This strange chapter in Ludendorff's life parallels his relationship with Doctor Poison in Wonder Woman. In both instances we see Ludendorff working in secret with a woman, delving the mysteries of life and death with a hint of sexual tension underlying their scenes. And in both real life and the film, neither side of the relationship appears quite sane.
After the Nazis solidified their power, the regime occasionally acknowledged Ludendorff and used him during public events. During a photo op on the general's 70th birthday in 1935, Hitler surprised the increasingly senile Ludendorff with a promotion to Field Marshal. Ludendorff exploded, angrily insisting that the rank of Field Marshal should only come from success of the battlefield. He would, however, accept his own self-created title: "Field Lord of the First World War."
He died two years later in a Catholic hospital, tended to by nuns from a religion he'd attacked for over a decade. It was an ignominious end for a man who had ruled Germany, and one he decidedly deserved. Hitler, by then dictator, organized a lavish state funeral for the man who had helped him achieve power. In death, he was a prop.
It was the undignified death that Ludendorff deserved. In Wonder Woman, Diana cuts him down at the height of his power. He's still a respected, if corrupted, general—not an insane old man who helped the Nazis to power. This is the bizarre contrast of Wonder Woman: it turns Ludendorff into a villain that's cartoonishly evil, yet removes him before he can commit his worst sins. The film defames with one hand and absolves with the other.
And while it raises interesting questions about whether WWII was different in the DC Universe, I can't fault it too heavily. The film, after all, isn't bad as a "child's first war film." Much like my generation got their first glimpse of WWII from the Indiana Jones movies, Wonder Woman will likely introduce a new generation to the Great War. I expect that more than a few parents ended up fielding questions about trench warfare, mustard gas, and the Ottoman Empire in the theater lobby. And frankly, more than a few straight historical movies—from Braveheart, to The Patriot, to Gladiator—have fudged the death of their real-life villains for dramatic effect. Given that Wonder Woman gives speaking roles to Greek gods, it seems unfair to hold it to a higher standard.
Plus, it's hard to hate a movie where a Jewish actress rams a sword through a prominent Nazi.
Did that happen? Nope. But the world might be better if it had.
FILM
MOVIES
WORLD WAR II
NAZI
WORLD WAR I
1997
THE FIFTH ELEMENT
90S NOSTALGIA
SOUNDGARDERN
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Sumber Gambar: PA Images
FOOTBALL
How David Beckham Became Football’s First Truly Global Brand
ByWILL MAGEE;photos byGIL BARTZ
Jul 8 2017, 4:00pm
Though many players of the nineties and 2000s were at least as iconic as Beckham, and several more talented, ‘Golden Balls’ broke the corporate mould like no other. Here’s how he ceased to be a footballer and became a brand instead.
This article originally appeared on VICE Sports.
David Beckham was an unlikely candidate for the first truly global brand in football. Ever since Pele decided to take practically every commercial opportunity available to him some time between the release of his self-titled soundtrack album and the filming of Escape to Victory, there have been players who have been financially successful outside of football, but Beckham was unprecedented in the way that he managed to transcend the game. He had the requisite good looks, shy affability and clean-cut image to appeal to advertisers from the very start, but he also had a series of naff haircuts and mannerisms which were something of a gift to uninspired television impressionists. In fairness, there is a good degree of hindsight involved in declaring his haircuts 'naff', with high street barbers across the country inundated with requests for Becks' latest look around the turn of the millennium. Still, that was in Britain, not across the world, and it was only later that Brand Beckham reached the lofty global pinnacle where it has remained ever since.
The first step for Beckham was to create a legacy at Manchester United, which he earned for his part in their six league titles between 1995 and 2003. His was a career of highlights, with his set-piece ability, lung-busting work-rate and thumping shots and crosses giving a conspicuous edge to the team. He won the double with the rest of the 'Class of '92' in 1995-96; he scored his seminal goal from the halfway line against Wimbledon on the opening day of the following season; he was a huge part of the treble-winning side in 1998-99 and got his hands on a Champions League winner's medal at the age of 24, and so became a household name in Britain and on the continent as well.
This was at a time when the Premier League brand was booming and Manchester United along with it, and Beckham no doubt benefitted from his association with the corporate miracle of English football. Global exposure, international investment and voracious profiteering had come to the game, and with Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and the rest of his teammates far less suited to the limelight, Beckham was now the most famous player, at the most venerated club, in the most marketized league in the world.
Another thing that set Beckham apart from his teammates and contemporaries was his seamless segue into the world of pop culture. While the Spice Boys at Liverpool achieved a tawdry form of celebrity recognition largely at the expense of their careers in football, Becks managed to find fame off the pitch while still delivering something like his best when called upon. His relationship with Victoria 'Posh Spice' Adams – a tabloid obsession from 1997 onwards – certainly caused tension with his managers, and was cited as one of the reasons that Glenn Hoddle left him out of the first few games of World Cup 98, this before he was sent off for kicking out at Diego Simeone during England's Round of 16 defeat to Argentina. Though Becks briefly became the most hated man in Britain in the aftermath, and was widely criticized for putting stardom above football, his performances for England over the next decade were indicative of his ability to juggle fame and the game with relative grace.
The Beckham marriage was announced in 1998 to enormous fanfare, and so the 'Posh & Becks' phenomenon was born. The pair became incredibly popular with the British public and Victoria Beckham even bestowed her husband with a new nickname, 'Golden Balls', while their ability to manipulate the media – no doubt aided by Simon Fuller, the massively influential talent manager who had masterminded the Spice Girls and with whom David Beckham signed just after leaving Manchester – saw them ride out several tabloid scandals almost completely unscathed. Being married to a pop sensation and increasingly influential figure in fashion launched Beckham into the media stratosphere, but it would take two monumental transfers for him to break through the glass ceiling and achieve near-universal recognition. The first was his move to Real Madrid, where he was wanted as a footballer almost as much as for his spiraling renown.
Speaking after the breakdown of their professional relationship had seen Beckham move to Real in 2003 – again, the baggage which came with celebrity was said to have been the main cause of the fallout – Alex Ferguson said of his former protege: "Getting married into that entertainment scene was a difficult thing. From that moment his life was never going to be the same. He is such a big celebrity, football is only a small part." Ferguson wasn't being entirely fair, with some of Beckham's best performances coming in his last couple of seasons at Old Trafford. The expectation at the Bernabeu was gargantuan and while he never quite lived up to his Galactico status – winning a solitary La Liga title and one Supercopa de Espana with Real, even as the Galacticos concept became fabled the world over – Beckham continued to be the star man for England and to thrive on the international stage.
PA Images
If his transfer to Real Madrid exposed Brand Beckham to an even bigger global market, it was Becks' move across the Atlantic which secured his status as a commercial deity. With Victoria Beckham's fashion career burgeoning in the USA, her husband found himself able to launch a line of fragrances with multi-million dollar backing, as well as pose for fashion shoots, appear on the front cover of glossy magazines and grace the lucrative American talk show circuit, cultivating an ever-more marketable persona and refining his image and mannerisms along the way. While there were many back in Britain who felt that Beckham had put himself out to pasture too soon, his move to LA Galaxy saw him leave Britain behind and become a transatlantic idol, with football now firmly second to being an A-lister (even if he did win the MLS Cup twice with Galaxy). Like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and George Michael before him, Becks had broken America, and was even afforded swansongs with AC Milan and Paris Saint-Germain to make sure the French and Italian-speaking worlds were similarly keen to invest in the products now bearing his name.
With Beckham still a source of daily news four years after his retirement from football, we can safely say at this point that his personal brand is here to stay. Unlike the likes of Pele before him, football now seems incidental to his success, with the keepy-uppy gimmicks which haunted his Brazilian forebear well into his retirement almost entirely absent from Beckham's public image. The Premier League boom; his success at Manchester United; the insane ambition of the Galacticos project; the shrewd decision to conquer MLS; the reflected fame of his other half and the business acumen of her manager; Beckham's transcendent celebrity is a mix of circumstance, commercial genius and good fortune. With the possible exception of Cristiano Ronaldo, another prodigious self-promoter forged in the fires of Old Trafford, the upshot is that Beckham has become a brand which is rivaled by no other footballer on earth.
@W_F_Magee
DAVID BECKHAM
MANCHESTER UNITED
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AC MILAN
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1997
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FIGHTING WORDS
The Pesticide in Your Produce is By No Means Safe
ByLAURA ULLMANN;photos byGIL BARTZ
Jul 8 2017, 11:00am
The UN has accused the pesticide industry of “systematic denial” of health and environmental harms.
This article originally appeared on Tonic.
Fighting Words is a column in which writers rub you the wrong way with their unpopular but well-argued opinions on fitness, health, nutrition, what have you. Got something to get off your chest? Send your pitch to tonic@vice.com.
In 1962 Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, an exposé of the long-term health and environmental damage caused by chemical pesticides. Since then, pesticides have been regulated to a greater or lesser degree, and government bodies like the Environmental Protection Agency in the US have been created to oversee implementation. Yet despite this progress, much of what Carson wrote then still applies.
The most notorious pesticides sprayed in the 1960s may no longer be in use, but in many cases they have simply been replaced with others. Although the names and properties have changed, pesticides are still very much with us.
Glyphosate, for example, is one of the chemicals promoted as a "safer" alternative to more noxious pesticides. Marketed by Monsanto under the brand name Roundup (it's also a key ingredient in many other pesticides) glyphosate is "the most used agricultural chemical ever." Given its widespread use, it has been found practically everywhere—in streams, in foods such as bread and flour, in drinks such as beer. Among just over 2,000 people tested in Germany, 99.6 percent were found to have detectable levels of glyphosate in their urine.
In 2015, the cancer agency of the World Health Organization classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen. While the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) have not linked glyphosate to cancer, the EFSA said it carries high long-term risks to birds and mammals and the ECHA has said it poses lasting dangers to aquatic life. Although there's not yet enough evidence to come to a definitive conclusion, studies show that exposure to glyphosate can also disrupt human reproduction and our hormone system.
This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, given that herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides are all designed to be lethal for a variety of organisms (the suffix "-cide" means "killer"). Nevertheless, we didn't know all about the harmful effects of glyphosate when it was introduced in the 1970s. It was regarded then as a safer substitute for other dangerous chemicals such as 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D.
In that sense, glyphosate is just like many others. Pesticides are often used for decades and tacitly accepted as safe before we learn that they are highly toxic. Like 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D and like the organochlorine and organophosphate pesticides which first came to public attention in the 1960s and 70s, it has taken decades for the environmental and human health impacts of glyphosate to be acknowledged. Use of DDT was so widespread in the 1950s and 60s that, like glyphosate today, it's estimated that almost everyone in the US was exposed to it. The polluted waterways, bird, and livestock deaths as well as cancer in humans revealed in Silent Spring led to an outcry and eventually to an American ban of spraying DDT on farms in 1972.
If we're serious about protecting our health, as well as the environment, we need a more radical change than substituting one chemical for another. Due to the massive uptake of pesticides in farming, agrochemical companies such as Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Bayer and Dow have gained unprecedented power, locking farmers into a costly relationship and established pesticide-dependent industrial farming as the predominant agricultural model.
The UN human rights council has accused the global pesticide industry of "systematic denial" of health and environmental harms, "aggressive, unethical marketing tactics" and heavy lobbying of governments which has "obstructed reforms and paralyzed global pesticide restrictions." To make matters worse, the same agrochemical companies are in the midst of mega mergers. In the next few years, three giant companies are expected to hold huge sway over what is farmed and what we eat. Politicians will find it increasingly hard not to kowtow to an all-powerful cartel that would control more than 75 percent of the world's agrochemical market and more than 60 percent of the seed market.
Who controls our food and how it's farmed is a matter of public and planetary health. At the same time, the recent revelations surrounding the "Monsanto Papers" show that the laws and agencies designed to protect us are susceptible to corporate meddling. Much like what Rachel Carson revealed about chemical companies in the 1960s .
If we want to eat food that's not tainted with toxic chemicals, then we need to reimagine how we farm—and while it sounds idealistic, many farmers are already showing that it works and that it's possible to get off the chemical treadmill. Organic farming combines modern science and innovation with respect for nature and biodiversity, while ensuring healthy farming and healthy food.
In Europe at least, there's an opportunity to take a step in this direction. A movement supported by more than a million people is asking governments to ban glyphosate, just when Europe's farm subsidy scheme is under review. This gives governments a unique opportunity to clamp down on the use of toxic pesticides, while supporting a switch for farmers to more environmentally friendly practices that are not detrimental to our health or our planet.
Laura Ullmann is a communications officer at Greenpeace EU.
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VIEWS MY OWN
The Oxley Road Fight Was About So Much More Than a House
ByALICE .;photos byGIL BARTZ
Jul 7 2017, 7:22pm
A street in Singapore. Photo by Khánh Hmoong/ Flickr CC License
The Facebook fight that captivated Singapore is over. But that doesn't mean we should stop talking about what it all meant.
Singapore's first family reached something of a truce on Friday, promising that if they couldn't stop fighting over the future of Lee Kuan Yew's Oxley Road home, they could at least agree to keep the family feud offline and behind closed doors.
"My sense is that the Lee siblings may realize that the rather public private feud is heading nowhere, and that generating more acrimonious exchanges on social media would hurt rather than help their cause, with their father's legacy becoming collateral damage," Tan Ern Ser, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore, told The New Paper.
And thus ended what was possibly Singapore's most-exciting political fight in years. The city-state prides itself on presenting an orderly and business-like face to the world. The wealthy city-state has historically been an oasis of stability in an often turbulent part of the world, the kind of place where the sidewalks are clean (or, you know, are actually sidewalks), the MRT runs on time (and actually exists), and major international corporations feel safe setting up shop.
So imagine how shocking a public dispute between Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his two younger siblings—Lee Hsiang Yang and Lee Wei Ling—would be for the region. The Facebook fight was reported by media outlets worldwide, with some online calling the whole thing a MediaCorp remake of House of Cards.
Let's get the specifics out of the way. Lee Kuan Yew is Singapore's founding father, a figure who is revered for raising the Lion City "from the third world to the first" in one generation. But before he died, the elder Lee told his children that he wanted his modest bungalow on Oxley Road demolished. The elder Lee had no love for the kinds of cults of personality common elsewhere in Southeast Asia. So it was better to tear the whole thing down, he concluded.
But after LKY's death, his eldest son PM Lee announced plans to turn his father's home into a site of national importance. That sent into motion a three-week-long Facebook fight that had PM Lee's younger siblings alleging some pretty serious claims of abuse of power and nepotism at the prime minister and his family. It was the kind of stuff you rarely see in print in Singapore, or even abroad. The city-state has sued the New York Times for even implying what Hsiang Yang and his sister Wei Ling were openly saying on Facebook and to the press.
PM Lee fired back with a video of his own. Then the whole thing eventually made it before Singapore's parliament where Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong recently accused the prime minister's siblings of trying to drag down their brother, and possibly Singapore's reputation with him.
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"From what Lee Hsien Yang and his wife are freely telling many others, it is clear that their goal is to bring Lee Hsien Loong down as PM, regardless of the huge collateral damage suffered by the government and Singaporeans," Goh said at parliament.
Now the family has promised to lower their sabers and take the fight offline for a while. But does that mean Singaporeans are going to stop talking about the Oxley Road dispute? Probably not. Why? Because it's about so much more than a house.
This dispute was really about the role the Lee family continue to play in Singaporean politics. And it's a sign that in a nation where one family has played such an important role, personal disputes like this can take on the air of national importance pretty quickly.
PM Lee's siblings accused him of harboring political ambitions for his son Li Hongyi—an allegation the prime minister steadfastly denies. (Even Li Hongyi himself says the whole idea is untrue). They accused his wife Ho Ching of playing an outsized role in the governance of the city-state. And the siblings said that PM Lee only wants to preserve LKY's home as visible reminder of the Lee family's importance in the Singapore story.
But why does this matter so much? Because the allegations of nepotism leveled by the younger Lee siblings cut to the core of the city-state's founding ideals as a meritocracy. Your track record, not your family name, is supposed to matter in Singapore. So when Hsiang Yang and Wei Ling claimed that PM Lee was trying to set up a political dynasty, the allegation threatened to undermine a core tenant of the Singaporean system.
LKY was a proponent of what Singaporeans called "compassionate meritocracy." Here's LKY talking to the New York Times in 2007:
We knew that if we were just like our neighbors, we would die. Because we've got nothing to offer against what they have to offer. So we had to produce something which is different and better than what they have. It's incorrupt. It's efficient. It's meritocratic. It works.
The system works regardless of your race, language or religion because otherwise we'd have divisions. We are pragmatists. We don't stick to any ideology. Does it work? Let's try it and if it does work, fine, let's continue it. If it doesn't work, toss it out, try another one. We are not enamored with any ideology.
So the first family may hold numerous critical positions in Singapore, but they are also incredibly accomplished with the kinds of CVs that would make any job recruiter salivate. Why shouldn't they hold these positions? And LKY argued that his son succeeded him as prime minister not because he was a Lee, but because he was the best candidate for the role.
Here's LKY in his 2005 book The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew:
"We run a meritocracy. If the Lee family sets an example of nepotism, that system collapses. If I were not the prime minister, he [Lee Hsien Loong] could have become prime minister several years earlier."
But the critics of the current administration and the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) tell a different story. They argue that family does matter in Singapore. And so does race. The country is coming to terms with its "Chinese privilege"—a system where the ethnic Chinese majority set the standard and therefore the terms of success. This privilege is real. How do I know? Because I benefitted from it.
Let me get this out of the way first: I am a diehard LKY fangirl. And why shouldn't I be? I have so much to thank him and the PAP for. I moved to Singapore from my family's home in Indonesia to attend high school thanks to a scholarship program that gave me free meals, free housing, and a free education.
This education helped me get into Harvard University, where I am still a student. And the Harvard-MIT connection put me in touch with the créme de la créme of Singaporean society: President's scholars and even some of PM Lee's children. Singapore likes to put its smartest people in government and a lot of the city-state's brightest go to Ivy League schools in the United States. So there's a good chance that a lot of my classmates might become the next generation of leaders in Singapore.
But being a part of this system also taught me something about privilege. Most of my fellow Indonesian scholarship awardees looked suspiciously like me, meaning they were ethnically Chinese, but from a country where we represent only a tiny percentage of the population. And my classmates were the cream of the crop, the upper echelon of a very small place. They were friends, lovers, and eventually spouses. Their kids would be equally privileged, and thus the cycle continues. Meritocracy is great and all, but what happens when the system feeds a cycle of greatness that keeps the same names at the top of the list?
It's a conversation I am not entirely comfortable having. I totally recognize how much I owe the government of Singapore and the PAP. I have nothing but respect for the Lee family and the city-state itself. But it's still an important conversation to have, right? And if it takes a Facebook fight over LKY's old home to bring it to the surface, then so be it.
During the open debate at parliament, Nominated Parliament Member Kuik Shiao-Yin urged Singaporeans to welcome the whole issue as the start of a larger conversation over the city-state's future.
"This Oxley Road saga is painful but there are many thoughtful commentators who don't think this is necessarily a bad thing," she said. "If anything, a deeper and more open conversation about how political power works in Singapore may be just what our system needs to truly grow up as a post-Lee Kuan Yew democracy."
So lets get talking.
Alice is a writer-anthropologist currently living in Boston. Her passion is over-analyzing her personal experiences and turning them into opinion writing.
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TECHNOLOGY
The Inventor of the ‘Like’ Button Wants You to Stop Worrying About Likes
ByJULIAN MORGANS;photos byGIL BARTZ
Jul 7 2017, 7:00pm
Former Facebook employee Leah Pearlman explains how validation came to rule the internet, then ruin it.
The Facebook like button just sort of slipped into our lives. One day it appeared on our feeds, and suddenly we were all desperate for likes—or more precisely for a measure of how important our thoughts and opinions are to others. And this mechanism basically changed the operation of the internet. Today, all social platforms have a version of the like button and entire companies, ideas, and movements sink or swim thanks to their like tally. Producing internet content could make me biased, but to me it feels like the introduction of the like button affected the internet as dramatically as the iPhone.
So how did this all come about? How did one little tool on one social media site tap into something so fundamental to human psychology? To find out, I got in touch with Leah Pearlman, a current comic book artist and former Facebook employee from Denver who is credited with the button's inception.
I initially wanted to ask her about the specifics of its development, but naturally we started talking about the broader issue of craving validation. Interestingly, Leah says she found herself hooked on likes just like everyone else—but to the point where she started to worry.
VICE: Hey Leah, let's start with how you got to Facebook.
Leah Pearlman: Well I was always a math-science kid. I loved problem solving and I loved getting the answers right. I think it was also really because I was a girl in math, and that also felt cool. So I studied hard at maths and left Brown University with a degree in computer science. I first got a job at Microsoft and worked there for two years but I just didn't find it inspiring. I had some friends going over to Facebook and I was really impressed with their product. I thought their site had a special user design and there was some magic in it, so I went for an interview. I was 23, and it was just like 100 other 23-year-olds working together in the same office, and they were all super smart and fun. This was during 2006 and it just had magic to it. I could tell straight away.
Did Mark Zuckerberg have magic?
He didn't interview me, but I'd say he's one of my favorite people on the planet. One of his genius qualities is that he's actually not a perfectionist. He'd say, "Yeah we're going to offend some people, it's not going work in some areas, but we're going do it anyway." One of our company's mottos was move fast, break things, and he was always like that. I would say he's a role model and that has grown from the beginning of the time when I met him—when he was young and I was young.
So how did the like button come about? What problem were you trying to solve?
I was trying to solve what we called the redundant problem. So for example, if you write "We're getting married!" all the comments used to say "Congratulations" over and over again. I found that really aesthetically ugly, plus, every time someone did say something heartfelt, the post was hard to find among all the other redundant ones. So I wanted to solve both problems at once.
Do you remember the exact lightbulb moment for the like button?
No, it was an evolution. The beginning of the idea was something called the bomb button, which was similar but slightly different thing my friend came up with. He posted it on our ideas board but for some reason it didn't attract attention. So then I did a slightly different version and called it the awesome button. And for some reason it got attention from the team and we all worked on it together. It was a co-creation.
Was it hard to get the design right?
Yes! It was really hard. The thing was that different symbols would be inappropriate in different countries. Different words didn't work—"awesome" felt too young, "love" felt too cheesy. Designers would get frustrated and leave the project and we'd have to get a new team. In the end we had the design, and Mark was finally like, "It's going to be like with a thumbs up, just build it and ship it, we're done with this." So he finally made the decision.
Do you remember the point it took off?
It was successful immediately. I remember that really satisfying sense of "I knew it!" The stats went up so fast—all the stats we thought would be affected, but 50 comments became 150 likes, almost immediately. Those people would start making more status updates, so there was way more content and it all just worked.
That was in 2009. How do you feel about the like button eight years later?
At first I felt like this thing we'd built was amazing. But then about two years ago I noticed the newsfeed algorithms changed so certain content wouldn't get as much distribution. And at that time I'd started drawing these comics. The comics were my way of drawing and sharing my internal world, and I was putting them on Facebook getting more and more fans and I loved it. But when Facebook changed their algorithm my likes dropped off and it felt like I wasn't getting enough oxygen. It was like, wait a minute, I poured my heart and soul into this drawing but it's only had 20 likes. So even if I could blame it on the algorithm, something inside me was like they don't like me, I'm not good enough. I need to start buying ads!
You started buying ads?
Yeah, suddenly I was buying ads, just to get that attention back. Although I feel embarrassed admitting that. I don't think I've ever admitted that before.
It's fine, my life is governed by likes too. But what I find interesting is that you're just as motivated by likes, even though you created the system. Do you feel responsible for what you've done to the internet?
I feel like I should feel responsible, but I don't. I look back and I think it was the right thing to do at that time and there was no way around it. My housemate is building artificial intelligence and he gets a lot of people telling him to stop, but we literally can't. Someone is going to build it. There was no way to not do that, so I don't feel responsible.
Do you think you need social validation more than others?
Yeah I do. It's a blessing because sometimes if I'm going to get public validation—like in a TED Talk—I'll really try to do a good job and it fuels my integrity. But the curse is that if I'm not getting attention, I can freak out and feel like I'm not enough.
A lot of people are reluctant to admit that. Why do you think that is?
Well from my experience, if you notice I'm trying to get your attention, then you won't give it. It ruins the game. Also there's some admission of a lack of self-confidence— please validate me because I'm whiny and weak—and that just goes against the exact image I'm trying to project.
So why are you happy to admit you crave public validation?
Because although I don't feel responsible for creating [the like button], I feel I have a responsibility to talk about validation. As a person who needs validation, and as the person who focused this need in others, I should talk about authenticity.
So you do agree that you changed how the internet operates, even if you don't feel responsible?
Well, do you know that episode of Black Mirror, that one where everyone is obsessed with likes? When I saw that I suddenly felt terrified of becoming those people, as well as thinking I'd created that environment for everyone else.
How are you trying to avoid becoming like that?
So there are a bunch of things that I find uncomfortable, such as certain thoughts or judgements. And my response is to check my phone to avoid that discomfort. I'd started building this entire life around avoiding discomfort instead of just focusing on things that give me joy. And I'm trying to change that. Right now I'm focused on joy and having clarity about what brings me joy. Activities like just looking at an ocean. I just want to jump in and that's joy, that's easy love. And on the other side, when I notice something feels uncomfortable, I just pay attention to it. I journal it, interview it.
So I said to you before that my life is governed by likes. A lot of that is my job as a writer, but a lot of that is just me and my dumb need for social validation. How would you recommend I stop caring?
Well if you're genuinely worried about how many like you're getting, then you're not actually worried about being worried about how many likes you're getting. You just really want a lot of likes. And if that's the case, I say go for it. Let yourself want to be liked. Give yourself full permission to do that. And if there's self-consciousness there, just notice that too. Allow yourself to feel that and observe how it feels. I won't tell you to stop in any way, because from my experience that doesn't work. I would say the last thing we need is more self-judgement for anything. I think that's one of the things that created this epidemic to begin with. It's like we judge ourselves and then we need someone else to validate us. So yeah, it's okay. You're allowed to want to be liked.
That's really interesting. Do you think there's an answer there for the internet just in general? Is there a way to put the brakes on this validation-powered hyperspace we're living in?
To me, it's like that Einstein quote: "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." And there's an even a better quote by Buckminster Fuller: "If you want to change the system, just build a better one and the old one will fall away."
So my suspicion is that something more interesting will eventually come along and that type of internet will shift, hopefully. The experience of external validation compared to true inner validation doesn't even compare. I mean being really deeply personally satisfied with myself when I do something I'm incredibly proud of—that's nothing a Facebook like can compete with.
Thanks Leah.
Interview by Julian Morgans. Follow him on Twitter or Instagram
FACEBOOK
MARK ZUCKERBERG
TED
INTERNET ADDICTION
LIKE BUTTON
LEAH PEARLMAN
THE FIFTH ELEMENT
90S NOSTALGIA
SOUNDGARDERN
CON AIR
… So my suspicion is that something more interesting will eventually come along and that type of internet will shift, hopefully. The experience of external validation compared to true inner validation doesn't even compare. I mean being really deeply personally satisfied with myself when I do something I'm incredibly proud of—that's nothing a Facebook like can compete with.
