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Scratch a libertarian and you will find a prude. It's a truth beautifully illustrated in the season finale of "Minx," HBO's breezy-yet-sharp comedy about a fictional '70s-era magazine that combines Ms.-stylefeminist editorial with dicks-out Blueboy-esque nude male centerfolds. The show's two "shock jock" characters, Willy (Eric Edelstein) and Franco (Samm Levine), use their airtime titillating drive-time listeners with stories about how much they love sex and partying. But Willy's wife Wanda (Allison Tolman) gets her hands on a copy of "Minx" and decides to stand up for her own right to enjoy her life, instead wasting her time giving her husband joyless hand jobs between serving him meals. Suddenly the libertarians aren't so pro-liberty anymore.

The politics of equality are useless, unless joined with a politics of pleasure.

Instead, the shock jocks interview Bridget Westbury (Amy Landecker), a Phyllis Schlafly-esque city councilwoman to announce a new partnership combining "men's rights" with this religious right-tinged war on pornography. With the studio's prominent nude painting of woman looming over the scene, the councilwoman rants about how she plans to clean up San Fernando Valley, and the two men eagerly join in with the anti-porn sentiment they discovered the second they found out that women have sexual fantasies, too. The whole scene is very reminiscient ofDonald Trump smirking next to a smug Amy Coney Barrett, the "libertine" and the Bible-thumper joining forces to crush the hope of women's liberation.

RELATED:Stop feeding Joe Rogan's trolls: Progressives must reclaim the politics of pleasure

It's a hilarious satire of the sort of men who vote Trump and listen to Joe Rogan, and like to imagine they're "pro-freedom," despite having political views that stifle the much more real freedom struggles of women and LGBTQ people.

Amy Landecker in "Minx" (Photograph by Katrina Marcinowski / HBO Max)But this bit also serves a larger, more pointed message aimed directly at the American left, which needs to hear it more than ever: The politics of equality are useless, unless joined with a politics of pleasure. "Give me bread, but give me roses, too" was a feminist slogan in the early 20th century, but it resonates across the 1970s and today for a reason. People aren't moved by dry political treatises about justice. What moves people is imagining what a better life would be like. That means talking about pleasure.

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And on "Minx," that means talking about dicks. "Minx" is primarily the story of the unsubtly named Joyce Prigger (Opehlia Lovibond), a feminist Vassar grad who reluctantly agrees to helm a male nudie magazine for porn publisher Doug Renetti (Jake Johnson). Joyce wants to publish a rather strident feminist magazine originally called "Matriarchy Awakens" but finds, understandably, no one in "respectable" publishing is willing to bet on such an obvious money-loser. But Doug is willing to back her with his company Bottom Dollar. He believes women want to see pictures of sexy naked men and he hopes padding the porn with more high-minded writing will make it an easier sell on the newsstand. Joyce hates the idea of porn and finds the whole subject of sexual pleasure uncomfortable. Still, she goes along, because otherwise, she's never selling her magazine.

Sexy photos are more than just the sugar that helps the feminist medicine go down.

What Joyce soon finds out, with the help of her sister (Lennon Parham) and Bottom Dollar employees Bambi Jessica Lowe) and Richie (Oscar Montoya), is that sexy photos are more than just the sugar that helps the feminist medicine go down. On the contrary, pleasure is central to the feminist project. One reason that sexism chafes so hard is that it deprives women of their right to pursue happiness. But if women don't even know what happiness could look like, it's hard to convince them to fight against the forces that keep them from having it.

Ophelia Lovibond, Lennon Parham, Jessica Lowe, Oscar Montoya and Idara Victor in "Minx" (Photograph by Katrina Marcinowski / HBO Max)

As I've written about before, in recent years, progressives seem to have forgotten about the importance of pleasure. Much of the discourse on the left has taken on a hectoring tone, focused on pressuring people to give up stuff they enjoy, rather than imagining all the new joys that await us if we can liberate ourselves. The pandemic bears much of the blame, of course. The right wing resistance to emergency measures like social distancing and mask-wearing caused far too many on the left to start seeing these misery-inducing behaviors as moral signifiers instead of temporary inconveniences. Truth told, however, the turn to the grim on the left had started well before the pandemic, fueled by the way that social media rewards self-righteous posturing and the politics of showy self-sacrifice over the politics of pleasure.

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It's been especially troubling for me, as I came up as a late third wave feminist and was part of the early aughts explosion of feminist blogging. We early feminist bloggers married the transgressive politics of pleasure to our demands for equality. We didn't just say rape was bad. We had pro-pleasure actions like Slutwalk. We argued that the ever-present threat of rape constrains women from enjoying their lives, by preventing us from doing everything from taking early morning jogs to having late night sexual adventures. We didn't just talk about reproductive rights in terms of coat hangers and young mothers damned to poverty. We talked about how contraception and abortion allowed women to having fun dating and to experiment sexually, instead of being tied down to the first guy you ever slept with.

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"Minx" is set in the '70s, but very clearly speaking to the social dynamics of our time. The joyless progressivism one finds on Twitter is reimagined on the show as a New York City dinner party. Joyce's pretentious Manhattanite friends sneer at her little porn magazine and trot out ignorant assumptions about how Bottom Dollar employees must be a bunch of lost souls and losers. That's probably not how people talked at dinner parties then, but is very reminscient of lefty social media now, with its focus on over-the-top trauma talk and tendency to treat fun as an embarrassing waste of time. Joyce ends up sneaking out to have a drink and make out with a cute guy at a bar. In a sign of how much she's grown, she refuses to apologize for wanting to have a good time. She doesn't even try to justify it by calling it "self-care."

Ophelia Lovibond and Taylor Zakhar Perez in "Minx" (Photograph by Katrina Marcinowski / HBO Max)

As "Minx" cleverly demonstrates, this kind of pleasure-centered feminism has real power. If nothing else, it exposes how the supposed "libertarian" right is no such thing. Evensupposed hedonists like Trump are happy to pass all sorts of draconianrestrictions on sexual freedoms and even free speech, just to keep women and LGBTQ people from enjoying the pleasures that come from equality.

As "Minx" cleverly demonstrates, this kind of pleasure-centered feminism has real power.

Unfortunately, all the grimness on the left these days has served Trump and his acolytes well, allowing them to portray themselves as the "fun" ones opposed to "cancel culture." This, even though Republicans are trying to cancel your sex life, your ability to read what you want, and now even Oreos and Disneyland. The right's is a mean and narrow view of pleasure, mostly about cheap insults and lame trolling. Even figures like Joe Rogan only appeal as some counterpoint to the supposed scolds of the left, but don't really have much on offer in terms of actual fun, especially for anyone who isn't a cis straight guy.

"Minx," in keeping with its pro-pleasure ideas, is a fun show, with lots of laughs and plenty of genuinely sexy stuff. (Though the comically fake penises are a rare misfire.) Freedom is a great idea in the abstract, but to make it worth fighting for, you have to remind people what it looks like in practice. On "Minx," that's lots and lots of dicks. But it can be anything you want, as long as you give yourself permission to enjoy it.

More stories to read:

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"Minx" is a breezy good time reminding the left to reclaim the lost politics of pleasure - Salon

Leo Morris

In the current political context, I am more traditional than progressive, although with a few liberal skeletons in my conservative closet.

But in my philosophical soul, I am a libertarian, with a fervent belief in individual rights and a tolerance for only the minimum government necessary to protect those rights.

A libertarian, not an anarchist, though it can be an admittedly fine line between them, a line I swear the government is making every effort to drag me across.

That is the thought uppermost in my mind as I note the disappearance of the Great COVID-19 Epidemic from the news. Have you noticed that, after two years of raging like a blazing inferno, COVID is now drifting away like the smoke from a dying campfire?

Certainly, one reason is the relentless onslaught of newer fascinations and anxieties. At home, we have spiraling inflation and our race and gender struggles; abroad, there is a war with global implications and real heroes and villains to admire and despise.

But there is also an element of crisis fatigue. We can keep our alert level only so high for so long, so finally we just let it go. Those still dying from COVID will no longer be icons, just victims, like those succumbing to the flu or perishing in one-car accidents on a rural road at night.

We finally just got tired of the whole thing. At least I did, since I should be careful not to project too much.

Tired of being lied to. Tired of being manipulated. Tired of being treated like a child one day, a prisoner of war the next, and a pawn on a chess board every day.

My respect for authority, marginal at best, was stretched to the breaking point. The government, always citing the unchallengeable truth of the great god science, issued contradictory edicts we were all expected to follow. The economy was upended, our schools crippled, lives lost or damaged not by disease but by stupidity. And when the mistakes in judgment became obvious, those in authority doubled down.

And the press, which we should have been able to look to for objective reporting and analysis, took sides and became just another player in the circus. COVID became one more manifestation of the red state-blue state battle to the death, angry mobs inflamed by media cheerleaders.

So, the question we should all be asking in this soon to be post-COVID world, is: What will we do next time? When there is an even greater crisis and there will be one, perhaps with the survival of humanity in the balance to whom should we give our trust?

The answer is what it has always been, forgotten though it may be. We should trust ourselves. We take in all the information we can from every source available, process it based on our own knowledge and experience, and use our own best judgment.

Thats the foundational principle of the United States, is it not? We are not ruled by the majority, nor by the wisdom of our best and brightest. We give public servants the ability to use their best judgment, and limit the authority they have in myriad ways, because we know that power is the greatest threat to individual autonomy, and the protection of individual autonomy is the only way to thwart tyranny.

We wont find our salvation in our groups, whether they be defined by race, sex, gender identity, religion or even political-opposition-in-exile advocacy. One tribes advance is often another tribes retreat, with those in power defining the favored tribe of the moment.

Rights inhere in the individual. That is the great truth that makes our constitution the greatest document of freedom in history. And it is the truth we were in danger of abandoning even before Covid and that seems almost beyond reach today.

And we have to get it back. Without a firm belief in ourselves as individuals, we cannot summon even the minimal trust we must give the government, so we will forever cross another of those fine lines, from skepticism to cynicism. Even libertarians cannot survive long in that arid environment.

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OPINION: We can trust ourselves - Daily Journal

LENOIR Primary elections give voters the opportunity to decide from a pool of candidates who should ultimately be nominated by either political party to run in the general election.

Friday, April 22 at 5 p.m. is the deadline for Caldwell County citizens to register to vote or to change their party affiliation.

May 10 is the last day for residents to request an absentee ballot by mail by 5 p.m. Election Day is on May 17, when the polls will be open from 6:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m.

Registered voters across the state can vote in the primary, said Director of Caldwell County Board of Elections Chad Barnes. However, voters affiliated with any political party will be given a ballot of candidates for their party. Unaffiliated voters may choose the ballot of candidates for either the Republican or Democrat party primary. Therefore, unaffiliated voters in Caldwell County in the May 17 primary may choose only a Democratic or a Republican ballot.

For early voting, or One-Stop voting, there are two locations where individuals can vote early: the Resource Center (lower level of the library), located at 120 Hospital Ave. in Lenoir, and the Shuford Recreation Center, located at 56 Pinewood Rd. in Granite Falls. Early voting starts on April 28th and ends May 14th. Residents can come by to submit their votes each weekday from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., as well as Saturdays April 30th, May 7th, and May 14th from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

In Caldwell County, the Democrat Party does not have a primary for Clerk of Court, County Commissioners, Board of Education, N.C. House of Representatives, N.C. Senate, or U.S. House of Representatives District 5, N.C. Supreme Court Associate Justices, or N.C. Court of Appeals Judges. Any Democrat who properly filed for office will therefore appear as the partys nominee on the general election ballot in November.

Right now, the total number of registered voters in Caldwell County is 53,999. The total number of registered Republicans is 26,267, and the total number of registered Democrats is 10,418 people. There are currently 16,939 residents who have registered as unaffiliated, and 375 people have registered as Libertarian.

In 2022, the Libertarian Party does not have any primary elections because there are no contested Libertarian nominations for any office. Any Libertarian candidate who properly filed for office will therefore appear as the partys nominee on the general election ballot in November.

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Deadline to register to vote in primaries is April 22 - Lenoir News-Topic

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) An outcry was heard across the City of Buffalo, as Seneca groups took over Buffalo's Niagara Square, Friday morning.

This was to voice their frustration over what they call "economic injustice" by New York State, to what they said are "aggressive tactics" by Governor Kathy Hochul's Administration.

Here is the timeline of events leading up to Friday morning:

"Our compact, the Seneca compact is one of the worst compacts in the United States," Alleghany Territory resident and former comptroller of the Nation, Odie Brant Porter said.

For years, members of the Seneca Nation have been working to fight for a better compact agreement.

"Right now, New York State is getting a significant portion of any of our revenues," Porter said. "We have what is considered a net slot drop. We have money going into a slot machine. We pay our customers, and whatever is leftover, 25% of that goes right to New York State. Whatever is leftover, we pay 4,000 employees or 4,500 employees. We pay all the vendors in our area."

Dozens of Senecas from the 8,500-member nation came out to share their frustration with the New York State government.

"What we want you to understand is that in the Gaming Compact Dispute, the moneys that were in question were always, for five years, was in a restricted ESGRO account. They are protected. The money was always there. The problem with this is that Kathy Hochul, the Governor, reached in to freeze all of the Nation's account, threw us in a state of economic paralysis, and could not make payroll by the end of that week," Mothers of the Seneca Nation member, Leslie Logan said.

"The Mothers are wanting a better deal. We are going to fight for a better deal and sometimes people, the media will say, 'You made a lot of money, didn't you?' So what, it's still an improper portion to what we should be making. We're going to keep fighting," Porter said.

Mothers of the Seneca Nation member, Leslie Logan, said if there is going to be a revenue-sharing agreement with the State, the Seneca Nation needs something in return.

"We need to make sure that there is a fair and equitable amount of a quid pro quo. We give you something, you give us something," Logan said.

"We contribute significantly to Western New York, and what has New York State given us? Have they given us $1 in investment? No. No. We have gotten 0 from New York Statem" Porter said.

Erie County Libertarian Party chair, Duane Whitmer, also rallied in support.

"She[Gov. Hochul] sees your bank accounts and took your money. Why? To pander for votes by building a stadium for Florida billionaires[Pegula Family]," Whitmer said.

Whitmer plans to pursue any kind of lawsuit against the state's budget.

"I find it fitting we are here on April 15th, which is considered Tax Day. A day where you reconcile how much the government is going to take from you at gunpoint. If you don't believe me, stop paying your taxes and men with guns will come and take your stuff. They'll put you in jail and they'll make you a criminal. Our wonderful Kathy Hochul has expanded her criminal enterprise into bank robbery," Whitmer said. "I find it weird as I drive through Buffalo. We have the Ukrainian flag and a lot of local politicians were quick to say, 'We stand with Ukraine, we support Ukraine.' A foreign entity invading a smaller sovereign area is a problem. Why are they ignoring similar situations in our own backyard. What NYS did is considered an act of war. It is a financial blockade."

"The fight isn't over. We're going to continue to fight and we're looking at other avenues, as a grassroots community organization to ensure that we do get justice," Logan added. "Clearly, this was an act of aggression, we felt. We're still, that Monday, the Nation determined to surrender more than $540M to the state, and here is where we're at today."

Pheben Kassahun reached out to the Governor's office for a response and received this statement:

-- Spokesperson Statement

Portion of funds to be paid to host communities, these amounts are what is due after accounting for advanced payments from the State, according to the Governor's Office.

Read more:
'We need to make sure that there is a fair and equitable amount of a quid pro quo': Seneca Nation rallies in Niagara Square over "economic...

Europe's youngest nation, Liberland, will be the first physical/hybrid country - an extension of the real-life land for citizens to live, work, and play

MIAMI, April 7, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Mytaverse, the immersive platform known for delivering true-to-life 3D experiences, announced today a collaboration with Liberland and global design firm Zaha Hadid Architects to build "Liberland Metaverse" - an extension of the real-life country for its citizens to live, work and play.

A view of the Liberland Metaverse as powered by Mytaverse

The unique Mytaverse technology creates a space where Liberlanders feel like they're physically together when actually not. The virtual space leads to reduced carbon emissions thanks to a reduction in travel, and business becomes more sustainable, streamlined, and even convenient. This unprecedented move into the metaverse marks the first time a country is offering a hybrid of both the physical and virtual to its citizens thus resulting in a permanent existence on the Mytaverse platform.

For the past six months, Mytaverse has worked with Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) to bring the Liberland project into what is called a "cyber-urban" metaverse. The virtual city both enables and empowers novel use experiences, a trait that has made the firm of Zaha Hadid Architects famous. Today, visitors to Liberland Metaverse can experience a 5-story "Cyber Incubator" currently being used - in place of a traditional urban planning committee - for Liberland officials, investors, and architects to meet to discuss and design buildings for the physical and virtual space while tracking ownership on blockchain technology.

"The high-fidelity and photo-real Liberland Metaverse anticipates the physical realization of Liberland. It is not either a game or fiction. The physical and virtual together form a continuous social reality. That's one of the core premises of the project," explains Patrik Schumacher. "One of the main draws of Liberland Metaverse is that it is, like a city, a shared platform and caters to an evolving, diverse, and self-organizing community of those deeply interested and invested in Liberland".

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Liberlanders will create personalized hologram avatars that can run, jump, wave, dance, and more. Webcams on avatars can be activated, thus allowing for private, face-to-face conversations between small groups or live presentations. The high-quality content on the Mytaverse's unique pixel streaming technology enables citizens to enter using only their browser on their PC or Mac - no need to install an app, no need for any fancy hardware. Anyone can access their land, join meetings, or events just like being there - regardless of their computing power.

"Today will be long remembered as we break ground in the metaverse," said Vit Jedlika, President of Liberland. "We're building a dynamic space where we can continue to contribute to the economic development of Liberland and let citizens feel the urban development progress. Liberland Metaverse will be our citizens' virtual home, drawing all our engaged communities together in an enriched extension of our country."

Thousands of Liberlanders will have 'anytime-anywhere' access to the platform via one click, move seamlessly from activity to activity, and have true-to-life interactions with each other. For example, their virtual self might walk to pitch a small business idea at the Cyber Incubator, then to a conference at the auditorium, and next to their digital plot of land. Experiences will mirror the physical Liberland world - from cultural/social events and sports to education and essential government functions.

"We built Mytaverse to offer a lifeline for businesses facing travel restrictions during COVID. Having proven our concept with very successful projects revolving around conferences and trainings last fall, we are now expanding to offer companies more sustainable and comprehensive metaphysical solutions similar to what we have created in Liberland," said Kenneth Landau, CEO, and co-founder of Mytaverse. "We're at an exciting point where we've had incredible growth and now looking at the next level of impact for our platform by further evolving it to bring this new country to life."

Liberland Metaverse is now live on Mytaverse. Beginning April 16, Liberland citizens will be able to register businesses, order passports, and e-Residency cards, or rent an office space in the central business hub in Liberland Metaverse. For more, visit mytaverse.com and the Mytaverse YouTube channel. View the Mytaverse press kit here.

ABOUT MYTAVERSE

Founded in 2020 by Kenneth Landau and Jaime Lopez, Mytaverse is a platform radically changing how we do business, enabling people to meet in an immersive, true-to-life 3D world. Built to meet the demand for hybrid and augmented reality meetings and workspaces, Mytaverse uses best-in-class technology to deliver fully immersive environments. The hardware-agnostic approach enables users from anywhere to enter through only a browser on a PC, Mac, or mobile device. For more information, visit http://www.mytaverse.com.

ABOUT ZAHA HADID ARCHITECTS

Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) redefined architecture for the 21st century with a repertoire of projects that have captured imaginations across the globe. Receiving the highest honours from civic, professional, and academic institutions worldwide, ZHA is one of the world's most consistently inventive architectural studiosand has been for four decades. These 40 years of research are inscribed within every design that encompass an unwavering optimism for the future with concepts of inclusivity and integration. Marrying innovative design methods with ecologically sound materials and sustainable construction practices, ZHA does not look at the disparate parts, but works to understand them as a whole.

ABOUT LIBERLAND

The Free Republic of Liberland (hereinafter "Liberland") is a sovereign state located between Croatia and Serbia on the west bank of the Danube River. On some maps, this area is referred to as "Gornja Siga". The nearest towns are Zmajevac (Croatia) and Baki Monotor (Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, Serbia). This parcel of land came into existence due to a border dispute between Croatia and Serbia. This area is not claimed by Croatia, Serbia, nor any other nation or private entity. Furthermore, it remained unclaimed since the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991. In fact, for many decades, it has been uninhabited and no claim was ever made to this piece of land. It was therefore terra nullius a no man's land until Vt Jedlika and Jana Markovicova proclaimed it as the Free Republic of Liberland on 13 April 2015. Liberland has set its boundary with ample margin from neighboring countries to ensure that it does not infringe upon the territory of Croatia or Serbia. The total area is approximately 7 km and is now the third-smallest sovereign state, after the Vatican and Monaco.

Press Contact:Melissa WhitworthLightspeed PR/Mmelissa@lightspeedpr.com

Mytaverse Logo (PRNewsfoto/Mytaverse)

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Mytaverse and Zaha Hadid Architects Build First Libertarian City in the Metaverse - Yahoo Finance