Society's ChildS


Bug

Black Widow: Now that female superheroes are mainstream, are people ready for a RUSSIAN one?

Matthew Kadish
RT
Tue, 10 Mar 2020 09:44 UTC
Scarlett Johansson
© Marvel StudiosScarlett Johansson in Black Widow (2020) Dir: Cate Shortland
Black Widow is a movie about a female superhero - supposedly a big selling point in the #MeToo era. The problem is she is also Russian, a risky label in these politically charged times. Or are Americans too jaded to even care?

Much is being made in the media about Marvel Studio's female-led superhero movie Black Widow, starring Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff, the highly trained superspy who has been a mainstay in many Marvel films, dating back to her debut in Iron Man 2 in 2010. Though Johansson's portrayal of the character has been extremely popular among audiences, Marvel has been slow to give the character her own movie, until now.

This snail's pace of development for such a high-profile female superhero has drawn much criticism from both the media and fandom alike, along with controversies surrounding Johansson being paid less than her male counterparts in the Avengers films. With the success of female-led films such as Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman, many who support women's representation are eyeing Black Widow to help elevate the role of women in the superhero genre - a movie genre that has traditionally been dominated by male characters.

But the real question when it comes to the Black Widow film isn't so much 'are audiences ready for a female superhero?' After all, the success of recent female-led superhero movies and characters proves that they are. No, in this politically charged time period during an election year, the better question is, 'are audiences ready for a Russian superhero?'
Read More...
Passport

Sanity prevails: UK appeals court rules people cannot define themselves as gender neutral on passports

Maya Oppenheim
The Independent
Tue, 10 Mar 2020 17:06 UTC
uk british blue passport
© Shutterstock
A campaigner who wants passports to include a category for those who do not identify as male or female has lost a Court of Appeal challenge over gender neutral passports.

Christie Elan-Cane, who wants passports to include an "X" category for such individuals, believes the current UK passport policy infringes the right to privacy. But senior judges dismissed the appeal, a decision Elan-Cane described as "devastating".

The campaigner, who has been fighting for legal and social recognition for non-gendered identity for more than 25 years, added: "It is bad news for everyone who cannot obtain a passport without the requirement imposed by the UK government that they should collude in their own social invisibility.

Comment: Non-binary people may have an 'identity', but their DNA still has an immutable gender. No piece of paper can undo that. What will the activist do if/when passports include biometic data? Some have already succumbed to the madness:

Read More...
Monkey Wrench

Panicked politicians making a show of 'doing something' are the real danger of the coronavirus outbreak

Frank Furedi
RT
Tue, 10 Mar 2020 12:25 UTC
pandemic, global epidemic, coronavirus
© Getty Images / caracterdesign
It does not help that numerous psychologists are telling us 'don't let coronavirus tip society into panic'. As a sociologist with a professional interest in how fear works I can confirm that nobody decides to panic.

People panic when the messages communicated to them incite them to be afraid of fear itself. Unfortunately, the message that we frequently encounter is one that makes me feel like I am in the middle of a very, very slow but very long Hollywood disaster movie.

In recent weeks the West European media has become obsessed with worst case scenarios. It is as if they are overcome by a disturbing malaise of disaster pornography and love exposing their listeners to speculative forecasts about the millions that could die if the coronavirus turns out more prevalent and more deadly than we now imagine.

Comment: The following articles give a more realistic perspective of the danger posed by the virus than presented in the media:

Read More...
People

Austria bans entry for people from Italy over coronavirus fears


RT
Tue, 10 Mar 2020 10:43 UTC
coronavirus austria
© Global Look Press/Matthias Balk/dpa10 March 2020, Austria, Gries Am Brenner: A paramedic speaks to the passenger of a car coming from Italy at a checkpoint on the Brenner motorway A13.
Austria is imposing a blanket ban on all people entering from Italy unless they have a medical certificate, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has proclaimed, though Austrians currently in Italy are strongly encouraged to return.

"There will be an entry ban for people [travelling] from Italy to Austria, with people who have a medical certificate being an exception," Kurz said on Tuesday, as cited by local media.

Meanwhile, Austrians who find themselves in Italy will be allowed to return, but "they must be kept in isolation for two weeks."

Comment: See also: Italian journalist: 'Italy is not Europe's coronavirus hotbed, it's just the first country that snapped'

Read More...
Burka

A Quebec ban on religious symbols upends lives and careers

Dan Bilefsky
The New York Times
Sat, 07 Mar 2020 00:01 UTC
muslim woman hijab laptop
© Nasuna Stuart-UlinNour Farhat in her law office in Montreal. As a Muslim woman wearing the hijab, she is prohibited under a new law from working as a public prosecutor unless she agrees to remove her hijab while at work.
A Muslim lawyer who wears a head scarf has put aside her aspiration to become a public prosecutor.

A Sikh teacher with a turban moved about 2,800 miles from Quebec to Vancouver, calling herself a "refugee in her own country."

And an Orthodox Jewish teacher who wears a head kerchief is worried that she could be blocked from a promotion.

Since the Quebec government in June banned schoolteachers, police officers, prosecutors and other public sector employees from wearing religious symbols while at work, people like these three women have been grappling with the consequences.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Yellow Vest

Sunday protests in Baghdad leave 3 dead, over 40 injured


Sputnik
Mon, 09 Mar 2020 12:03 UTC
iraq protest
Three have people died and 44 got injured in Sunday's civil unrest in Iraq's capital of Baghdad, Fadhil Gharawi, a member of the Iraqi High Commission For Human Rights' Board of Commissioners, said on Monday.

"Three people died, 44 were injured in clashes that took place yesterday, on Sunday, at Khilani Square, in the center of Baghdad," Gharawi said in a statement, according to Al-Sumaria TV channel.

On Sunday, protests took place in Baghdad to commemorate the International Women's Day.

The protests in Iraq have been ongoing since October 2019, with the participants demanding an end to corruption and an improvement to the quality of life in the country.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Propaganda

Best of the Web: Manufacturing a crisis: Wikipedia slashes Spanish Flu death rate

Catte Black
Off-Guardian
Mon, 09 Mar 2020 00:01 UTC
spanish flu
We've had a couple of people BTL take issue with us regarding the case fatality rate (CFR) of the 1918 Spanish Flu. Citing Wikipedia and the CDC we gave that rate as being between 10-20%. A couple of commenters, however, insisted the actual CFR was 2-3%, and this led us to look further.

What we found was quite interesting.

This is the pre-February 22 2020 opening paragraph of the 'Mortality' section on the Wiki page for the Spanish flu (our emphasis):
The global mortality rate from the 1918-1919 pandemic is not known, but an estimated 10% to 20% of those who were infected died (case-fatality ratio). About a third of the world population was infected, and 3% to 6% of the entire global population of over 1800 million[51] died.[2]

Comment: These changes to the Wikipedia page clearly show a manipulation for the purpose of making the coronavirus appear more dangerous than it actually is. Now why would they want to do something like that?

See also:

Read More...
Bomb

Forget the oil prices, the whole US dollar bubble is deflating - Veteran stock broker Peter Schiff


RT
Tue, 10 Mar 2020 22:32 UTC
balloon
© Global Look Press / CHROMORANGE / Bilderbox
The drop in oil prices is likely to be short-lived, veteran stock broker Peter Schiff told RT, since the deflation of the whole US debt bubble and crash of the dollar will make the prices of oil and other commodities bounce up.

Decline in demand for oil due to the coronavirus epidemic, further reinforced by the demise of the OPEC+ production cuts agreement, has crashed the US and world markets, sending traders into a panic-selling mode. The ongoing market turmoil will certainly hit the oil industry heavily, but the impact is likely to reach far beyond it, CEO and chief global strategist at Euro Pacific Capital Peter Schiff believes.

"A lot of the heavily indebted energy companies are clearly going to go bankrupt and so, ultimately, those that survive will be in a position to make even more money as the price of oil re-bounce, which I do expect to happen," Schiff told RT, adding that well capitalized oil companies will survive the crisis and ultimately benefit from it, once the prices start to pick up.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Eye 1

CDC is not sending people to your door for coronavirus info, police say

Edmund DeMarche
Fox News
Tue, 10 Mar 2020 09:05 UTC
the CDC
Police in New Jersey issued a warning on Monday to residents that the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention is not sending health workers to homes to conduct coronavirus "surveillance," a report said.

NJ.com reported that local police departments took to social media to inform the public about the potential safety issue.

Sussex County's government posted a message that if someone claims they're from the CDC, "do not let them into your home" and contact police.

It is not uncommon for the unscrupulous to take advantage of a crisis. It has been widely reported that thieves often target homes during evacuations for flooding or fires. The coronavirus may be no different.

Armed robbers wearing surgical masks made off with over $200,000 in cash at a New York racetrack Saturday night, possibly using the coronavirus as cover. The surgical masks allowed them to blend into the crowd.
Read More...
Attention

Italian journalist: 'Italy is not Europe's coronavirus hotbed, it's just the first country that snapped'


RT
Tue, 10 Mar 2020 08:56 UTC
waiter italy
© REUTERS/Manuel SilvestriA waiter stands by empty tables outside a restaurant at St Mark's Square after the Italian government imposed a virtual lockdown on the north of Italy including Venice to try to contain a coronavirus outbreak, in Venice, Italy, March 9, 2020.
With the entirety of Italy put under quarantine, the Mediterranean nation has been seen as the hardest-hit by the coronavirus in Europe. Italian journalist Evgeny Utkin believes, however, that it's just the most tested one.

Utkin, a journalist based in Italy and an expert on economics and politics, told RT he believes the situation with the coronavirus as reported in the press (that it is ravaging Italy, yet somehow affecting neighboring countries on a far smaller scale) does not represent the reality on the ground.

The catch, he said, is that while in some countries the number of those infected might be underreported, in Italy (at least at the beginning of the outbreak) there was an overreaction instead.

"Italy was the first country whose nerves snapped," Utkin said. "They started testing absolutely everyone."

Rigorous testing sent the number of confirmed cases skyrocketing, Utkin believes, with the alarming statistics soon driving panic and making international headlines. Over the past weekend, northern Italy, where the outbreak erupted, was put on lockdown, which was further extended to the whole of the country on Monday.

Comment: See also:

Read More...