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It seems that the world is back to its good old Cold War shenanigans. Russia rapidly mobilizes its troops, the West and its allies scramble to ready what forces they can and Russia quickly withdraws those troops. This is precisely what happened near the Russo-Ukrainian border recently.

Russia sent a large number of troops to their border with Ukraine, which (understandably) alarmed the international community and sent it into a diplomatic frenzy. Russias excuse? The Russian Defense Minister said it was a snap drill to see if their military could defend the country. Ukraine is hardly a threat to Moscow when they are in a stalemate with Russia-backed separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine. Russias goal was to send a message. Prior to 2014, Ukraine had a president who maintained warm relations with Russia. In 2014, after violent protests, the then-President Yanukovych fled to Russia. Ever since then, Ukraine has sought closer relations with the transnational European Union and NATO, the American-led military alliance of Western countries.

Russia isnt the only country that has been testing its Western-aligned neighbors; China is doing the same in the Pacific. In recent years, China has ignored other countries territorial claims by building up islands across the entirety of the South China Sea. The most recent flashpoint in this conflict occurred near the Philippines after the Philippine Coast Guard found Chinese fishing boats in their waters, allegedly with militias on board. Chinese authorities denied this allegation, saying the boats were taking shelter from a storm. Territorial water disputes are nothing new to Southeast Asia. The South China Sea serves as an abundant source of fish and as a passageway for much of the worlds shipping. Tensions in the region ebb and flow over time as China targets one country to another, but they never completely go away.

The South China Sea is the most likely point of tension because almost all the countries in the region have competing territorial claims with each other. Aggressive clashes between countries are not uncommon; encounters range from ships following each other to ships ramming each other. It doesnt help that China claims the entire region based on maps from ancient times. With that logic, a quarter of the world would still be British territory, including parts of China. The Chinese Coast Guard has already been documented chasing fishing vessels away from areas that have traditionally been used. The ultimate goal of both China and Russia is to expand their territory so they are able to have a better international posture. Russia seized the Crimean peninsula in 2014, effectively cutting off the Ukrainian Navy from their own ships and ports. In the South China Sea, China has been creating artificial islands to build airfields and military bases on.

What inevitably comes with these shenanigans is panic. This includes, but is not limited to, countries regularly poking each other with bombs, general hysteria and demonization of an outside group and massive spending on defense. We will get into a weird culture war about how we are losing to them. We already are in the beginning of dumb culture wars to be honest, just tune into Fox News on any given day. In 1956, In God We Trust became the official motto of the country. It replaced the unofficial motto, E pluribus unum to counter the Godless Soviets. The motto change did little, however, to change how the country faced the Soviets. During WWI, anything that was remotely German was considered unpatriotic. Sauerkraut was renamed liberty cabbage and German language newspapers disappeared. The demonization of their heritage ended up convincing some German-Americans to later fight for Nazi Germany.

The difference between Russia, China and NATO-aligned countries is that leadership changes often in the West. In China and Russia, elections dont really happen. They are able to build out their game plan over a much longer period of time than democracies because they know that they will be in power for the foreseeable future. In the West, policy goals change with every election and subsequent new administration. There really is no solution to this dilemma other than to stare at each other and saber rattle, because, realistically, no one wants war. At least, not a direct war. Both sides will most likely support proxies that would be willing to fight over ocean territory because those proxies will also have interests in the territory, whether it be natural resources or simple pride. And so, the Cold War continues as the imperialist countries involved each sponsor a rooster in the coming cockfight. The notable difference between a cockfight and a real war, however, is that lives are at stake.

Excerpt from:
The Cold War is Creeping Back The University News - The University News

MLB pulled its All Star Game Out Of Georgia Because of a new voter law.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida legislature have not yet faced sports backlash after the state placed restrictions on voting by mail and ballot drop boxes. But DeSantis and Florida risk losing events like the Super Bowl in South Florida or Tampa or an NBA All-Star Game in Miami or Orlando, or the NHL All-Star Game in South Florida or Tampa or a Major League Baseball or a Major League Soccer All-Star Game. Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross gets big local government money if he scores a big event for his stadium, Ross could be a big loser here if his fellow owners decide to send a message to Florida politicos. Sports owners know who their future consumers are. They saw them in the streets in the summer of 2020 protesting. Major League Baseball pulled its July All-Star Game out of Cobb County after Georgia passed a more restrictive voter rights bill in April.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association, the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Southeastern Conference do business in Florida. The NCAA has boycotted states before because of political legislation. The NCAA did not stage any post season events in South Carolina and North Carolina in the past because of issues such as the flying of the Confederate flag at the South Carolinas capital grounds in Columbia and a bathroom transgender law in North Carolina. The Florida legislature also passed a transgender law that bans transgender women and girls from female sports teams at the high school and college levels. The NCAA never weighed in on the Georgia voters rights restrictions. Sports owners cannot afford to fight culture wars because young people are increasingly uninterested in culture wars and eventually will be the majority sports consumers.

Evan Weiners books are available at iTunes https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191

Link:
How Will Sports React To Florida's New Voting Law? - Sports Talk Florida

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.

Today, the Sunday print edition of The New York Times is a thick bundle of news and features, with enough information and diversions to while away the day. But it wasnt always this way. In fact, for the first 10 years of publication, The Times did not print a Sunday edition at all. The New-York Daily Times is published every morning, (Sunday excepted), read the first words of the first issue, on Sept. 18, 1851.

One of the biggest news stories imaginable would change that.

Many of the Sunday newspapers printed in the United States early in the 19th century were weekly editions. A daily Sunday paper filled with the news was not customary, and one big obstacle was the Christian Sabbath. Many worshipers did not want anything competing with the clergy, and new entries were often met with public backlash.

In New York, defenders of Sunday morals railed against anything that smacked of commerce. Vending, drinking establishments and especially trains large, loud and carrying the mail were frequent subjects of ire. Newspapers distracted the devoted. The Observer, The Sunday Courier and The Citizen of the World were three examples of early New York papers that had tried, and failed, to overcome the religious custom in New York, according to the book The Daily Newspaper in America by Alfred McClung Lee.

But in 1851, The Times was founded in a changing city. Sunday distribution was increasing, a trend since cheap dailies began appearing in American cities in the 1830s. The New York Herald had published a regular Sunday edition since 1841. According to Mr. Lee, James Gordon Bennett Sr., who founded The Herald, had learned from Bostons Sabbath rows in the 1820s that the American reader consumes most avidly that which he detests most blatantly.

More generally, Sunday mores were softening. For growing numbers of working class immigrants, Sunday was the only day off and spent socializing in festive public gatherings.

The Times supported the New York Sabbath Committee, a body of civic leaders and clergy members formed in 1857 to rescue Sunday morals and arrest particular forms of Sabbath desecration. That its core readership was upper class Anglo-Saxon society probably played a role. Alarm at fading religious mores appeared frequently in the early pages of The Times, which published letters with complaints about the clamor of trade and German lager houses operating on Sundays. It also reported on the fuss over boats using the Erie Canal on Sundays.

Since the Sabbath Committees first meeting on April 1, 1857, its doings were covered closely by The Times. One of the committees first moves was to write to the heads of the major railroads, through which traffic and travel and moral influences perpetually flow, about their Sunday passages in the city. Soon after (even before liquor), the committee went after the newsboys hawking papers. The Times reported that after an appeal by the committee to Sunday publishers failed to silence the vending, a police order had it suppressed.

The result of this action revealed the true power possessed by the Sunday press, for its course was condemned and the question settled that the Sabbath was a day that the strong arm of the law might keep sacred, read a Times article from a committee meeting in 1859.

If The Times, which was still edited by its co-founder Henry J. Raymond, was equivocating while more Sunday editions cropped up in New York, it wouldnt have to for much longer.

When South Carolina militia bombarded the U.S. Army at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, the country, and newspapers, were changed. And the Sabbath taboo, which had already been weakening, was essentially shattered.

By April 18, with Fort Sumter fallen and war apparent, The Times had to explain to readers who found the paper delivered late and the news stands sold out that we can only urge in excuse that our recent surge in circulation has been far more rapid than we were prepared for.

Two days later, subscribers were told to expect a special Sunday edition the following day.

The culture wars would not fully dissipate during the Civil War. The New York Sabbath Committee regretted that the Battle of Bull Run was fought on a Sunday, and worried that a generation of young soldiers would forget piety. But the news was urgent the United States was cracking up and by the second Sunday after Fort Sumter, The Times committed to a Sunday edition during the war excitement. It even announced that special trains will run over the Hudson River and New-Haven Railroads on Sunday morning, for the newspaper accommodation of the people along the line.

Once readers were accustomed to Sunday editions, there was no going back.

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When The Times Didnt Print on Sundays - The New York Times

Yesterday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an update to their coronavirus masking guidance. Fully vaccinated people can now go maskless outdoors, apart from in crowds, and even people who arent fully vaccinated can exercise maskless outdoors alone or with their household. Everyone should continue to mask in indoor settings. President Biden announced the changes at an outdoor press conference. He walked up to the lectern masked; when a reporter asked what message he was trying to send, Biden grinned and said he wanted people to watch him take his mask off and not put it back on til he got inside. The update was anticipated, but it was nonetheless a big story, and there was no shortage of takes (and jokes) among journalists. If even one of you tries to write a Why I Miss Masks essay for The Atlantic, the journalist Laura Bassett warned, Im going to launch myself into the sun.

The need (or not) to wear masks outdoors has been a subject of media coverageand impassioned debatefor a while now. Last weekend, Shannon Palus, science editor at Slate, made the case that its time to end the practice, because evidence shows that being outdoors is very, very safe. Numerous medical experts agreed, but some readers vehemently did not; one Twitter user commented that Palus has blood on her hands. The debate continued yesterday on either side of the announcement. This is a good thing, Joe Scarborough said on MSNBCs Morning Joe, of the anticipated update, before turning to his co-host (and wife), Mika Brzezinski, and asking, That makes sense, right? Brzezinski replied that it does, but then added a caveat: I just think that also a lot of adults wearing masks is a good model for society right now when a lot of people are still not vaccinated and we want to be as careful as we can. Online, some journalists wondered how theyre supposed to tell which maskless passersby have been fully vaccinated and which havent, and said they would continue to wear masks outdoors, for reasons of signaling, safety, and ease. Others were more bullish; some experts even said that the CDCs update didnt go far enough. On his CNN show, Chris Cuomo pressed Andy Slavitt, a senior COVID adviser to Biden; given the low risk of outdoor transmission and the effectiveness of vaccines, Cuomo asked, why not let the vaccinated live their lives?

ICYMI: Drew Arrietas Family Album

Meanwhile, on the right, agitators have joined the debate by jumping in at the deepest end possible. On Monday night, Tucker Carlson, of Fox News, referred to people who wear masks outdoors as aggressors, and said that its our job to brush them back and restore the society we were born in. The next time you see someone in a mask on the sidewalk or the bike path, dont hesitate. Ask politely but firmly: Would you please take off your mask? Science shows there is no reason to wear it. Your mask is making me uncomfortable. We should do that, and we should keep doing it, until wearing a mask outdoors is roughly as socially accepted as lighting a Marlboro in an elevator. He wasnt done: making your children mask up outdoors, he said, should be illegal, and anyone who observes masked kids playing should call the police immediately. Contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives. What youre seeing is abuse. Its child abuse, and youre morally obligated to try to prevent it. These comments, predictably, pitched the broader debate at a lower level of nuance, as some conservatives backed him up, while liberal commentators condemned him as a lunatic. Last night, also predictably, Carlson doubled down. The CDC has produced a new round of guidelines that are as indecipherable as a Turkish train schedule, he said. Next stop, Istanbul. Or is it Ankara?

This was merely the latest iteration of a media dynamic that weve seenand that Ive written aboutthroughout the pandemic: right-wing talking heads hijacking the naturally slow-moving, contentious development of science by taking the most absurd position imaginable and forcing those of us who care about reality into a reflexive defense of oversimplified truths, all covered under the flattening lens of the culture war. We saw this a year or so ago, when officials started to advise widespread masking, and, more recently, in the debate around vaccine passports, which some conservatives cast as Satanic Nazism. The more nuanced the debate, it seems, the wilder the right-wing claims about it. As the center of gravity on COVID restrictions has shifted toward more of a risk-mitigation approach, FiveThirtyEights Nate Silver noted yesterday, its telling that the fringes have also shifted toward more extreme positions.

As Ive written repeatedly, its always been important for the press to respect the messiness of scientific discovery. Its more so nowwith vaccination ramping up, the pandemic in the US is entering a new phase where the appropriateness of reinforcing blunt universal rules is being superseded, as I wrote recently, by much finer interpretations of personal and collective risk, and coverage has had to keep pace. Risk calculations involve science, of course, but they also centrally involve social science; the same goes for vaccine passports, with their attendant privacy and equity concerns, and, now, for outdoor masking. These are subjectiveand, to an increasing degreecultural questions. Of course, masks have long been cultural symbols, both in the US and overseas; its true, too, that traditional scientific vigilance around the virus should not let up. (A glance at India will tell you thatand as I wrote yesterday, that story is not a distant tragedy but part of a single global story that concerns us all.) Still, its possible to conceptualize a subtle shift in framing hereone that is less concerned with litigating the culture part of the culture war (its not culture, its science!), and more concerned with the war part. On his MSNBC show last night, Chris Hayes noted that when it comes to outdoor masking, the right-wingers are not really off-base on the science (with some caveats, of course). Rather, they are taking aim at the form of social solidarity that masks have come to represent.

Whether Carlson and his ilk believe their delusions or the whole thing is performance art doesnt really matter. (As Ive written before, obliterating the distinction between sincerity and trolling is a key, dangerous plank of present conservative discourse.) Either way, their continued mask hysteria underscores that the emphasis, for such people, has always been on the war partstaking out an extreme position, intellectual consistency be damned, and aggressively policing it to turn Americans against each other. The job, for the rest of us, is to create a less hostile climate where legitimately contentious cultural and scientific debates can thrive. The CDC changing its mask guidance isnt the final word on what public-health habits individuals and communities will choose to adopt going forwardthrough the end of pandemic, and, perhaps, beyond. If figuring it out involves Why I Miss Masks essays, then so be it.

Below, more on COVID and the right-wing culture wars:

Other notable stories:

New from CJR: How news publications put their legal risk on freelancers

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Defusing the culture war over masks outdoors - Columbia Journalism Review

LOS ANGELES -- In Sierra Teller Ornelas family, those who could spin a good tale earned a seat at her grandmoms expansive dining table, with lesser voices banished to the living room.

There was the feeling of holding court that was really big in my family, said Teller Ornelas, who happily recalled another of the perks: If I was in trouble and I could say something funny, I would get in less trouble.

The Native American writer is now sharing her narrative gifts with the world at large in Rutherford Falls, a new Peacock comedy she co-created and produces with Michael Schur ("The Good Place") and actor Ed Helms ("The Hangover").

The small Northeastern town of the show's title has, unwisely, kept a statue of its founder in an intersection. A safety relocation plan lacks the ring of a political hot-button but upsets Nathan (Helms), a Rutherford descendant enamored of his family history, and he clumsily goes to war.

In ever-widening circles, the conflict involves Nathans family, his best friend Reagan Wells (Jana Schmieding), a Native American with her own vision for cultural preservation, and the neighboring tribal-owned casino and its powerhouse CEO, Terry Thomas (Michael Greyeyes).

The 10-episode series, released in full this week on the streaming service, has drawn critical praise for its smart and endearing humor, and attention as the rare TV series to feature indigenous perspectives and characters minus stereotyping.

Schur (Parks and Recreation) and Helms worked together on The Office and know what makes for appealing TV. But when they began to develop the concept of Rutherford Falls, they saw what was missing: Teller Ornelas.

"We couldnt write the show without an equal representation of voices at the creative stage, not just in the writers room, but literally from the ground up, who understood the world we wanted to talk about, Schur said. Without her it was impossible, for the simple reason that we couldnt tell the story ... of these two Americas and these two histories.

Teller Ornelas, who is Navajo and Mexican American and was raised in Tucson, Arizona, programmed films at the Smithsonian Institutions National Museum of the American Indian before chasing her Hollywood dreams. She honed her creative skills on Schurs Brooklyn Nine-Nine and on Superstore."

She was finishing a three-year contract as a Superstore writer and producer and planned to develop a Native American anthology series when the invitation came to join with Schur and Helms. It was at a telling point in the project.

Its very rare that you get the call in the beginning of the process where they say, Hey, we have half an idea. Would you like to develop it with us? Teller Ornelas said.

Usually, she said, native people are asked to give their stamp of approval to stories made about them, but without them: 'Were about to shoot. Can you read it now, tell us its OK and sign off on it? was how she described the cavalier approach.

She serves as an executive producer and showrunner, the person who oversees a production and the holy-grail ambition of TV writers. As important as her ethnicity is to the series, Schur said, her talent and competence are more so.

The more important thing is that shes really good at her job, he said, excelling as a first-time showrunner and despite the added burdens imposed by the pandemic.

The result of their collaboration is a show framed by what Schur describes as America's entrenched tendency to ignore its past rather than engage in a nuanced discussion about what our history says about us.

That alone would get the show canceled and possibly bring down Peacock, Schur joked, but he's banking that the talented cast and a roomful of really funny people who write funny jokes" will engage viewers.

The writing staff is half indigenous, reflecting the emphasis on fiction with an honest voice. The casting does as well: charming newcomer Schmieding is a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux. Greyeyes, a veteran actor (True Detective, Fear the Walking Dead") who excels as the ambitious casino boss for the show's fictional Minishonka tribe, is Plains Cree.

In one scene, a journalist gets uncomfortably schooled about whats at stake for the tribe in a soliloquy delivered by Greyeyes' character, who we also see as a husband and dad.

It was really important for us to make sure that every character wasnt flattened, Teller Ornelas said. " Everyone on any given Sunday could be the protagonist on this show.

But Rutherford Falls offers a native perspective, not THE native perspective, she said. She welcomes the prospect of more indigenous-focused projects, including FX's upcoming Reservation Dogs, a comedy set on an Oklahoma reservation and co-created by filmmaker Taika Waititi, a New Zealander of Maori descent.

In modern style, Teller Ornelas is carrying on a family and cultural tradition that's reflected in the maternal half of her surname. It was born of the 19th-century Navajo Long Walk, the brutal relocation of tribal members from what is now Arizona to eastern New Mexico.

At a holding and processing point she compared to New York's Ellis Island, they asked my great-great grandfather, What do you do for a living? He said, 'I'm a storyteller. I'm the keeper of my stories, my people.' That's why they named him Teller."

I really hold that dear to me, knowing that I am doing what he did, she said.

See more here:
'Rutherford Falls' mixes comedy, culture wars, native voices - ABC News