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A picture of patriotism or an image of defiance? How standing for the Star-Spangled Banner has now become a controversial move

Guy Birchall
RT
Tue, 30 Jun 2020 16:19 UTC
US women soccer players
© Reuters / Matt Stamey-USA TODAY Sports
US women soccer players who stood for their national anthem as their league got underway again have been labelled 'dumb white bitches' for not kneeling. How has patriotism now become a cause for offence?

The world has really gone bonkers when it is seemingly an act of defiance to stand for your own country's national anthem. It used to be the least controversial thing in the world, indeed the polite thing to do. Personally, I tend to do it for countries other than my own as well, as a mark of respect, whether that be at an international sports fixture, or just at an event where the anthem is played.

I'm British so we don't play ours a great deal. We do at Royal events obviously (the song is, after all, for Her Majesty), before England plays a football match, and at the FA cup final and so on, but for the most part that's it. But Americans play their national anthem a lot. The Star-Spangled Banner is belted out before virtually every sporting fixture from little league right up to the professional leagues.

I've always quite liked that aspect, it feels like a good unifier before, for example, a bunch of blokes knock seven bells out of each other on an NFL field. Even though the song is literally about the Yanks giving my boys a hell of a beating during the War of 1812; I've always stood up and dutifully removed my hat just before "Oh, say can you see..." rings out around the stadium, or wherever.
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Bizarro Earth

NBA, union plan to paint 'Black Lives Matter' on courts in Orlando

Zach Lowe, Ramona Shelburne
ESPN
Mon, 29 Jun 2020 16:13 UTC
NBA black lives matter
The NBA and National Basketball Players Association are planning to paint "Black Lives Matter" on the court inside both sidelines in all three arenas the league will use at the Walt Disney World Resort when it resumes the 2019-20 season late next month in Orlando, Florida, league sources told ESPN.

The WNBA is also discussing painting "Black Lives Matter" on the court when it begins its abbreviated 2020 season at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, sources said.

Sources also said some WNBA players have suggested in talks with league higher-ups that players wear warm-up shirts with "Say Her Name" on them in an attempt to keep attention on female victims of police brutality, including Breonna Taylor, who was shot and killed by police in March in her home in Louisville, Kentucky.
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No Entry

Facebook bans hundreds of 'boogaloo' accounts citing- without examples- 'real-world violence' while ANTIFA linked accounts are left alone


RT
Tue, 30 Jun 2020 16:03 UTC
Boogaloo boys, Facebook
© Reuters / Rebecca Cook; Reuters / Dado Ruvic
FILE PHOTOS.
Hundreds of Facebook profiles said to be part of a "violent anti-government network" linked to the loose-knit "boogaloo" movement have been permanently deleted, the latest in a wave of mass bans targeting the political right.

Some 220 accounts, 106 groups and 28 pages were scrubbed from Facebook on Tuesday, the company said in a statement, alleging they were tied to a "dangerous organization" that had carried out real acts of violence. Ninety-five accounts on Facebook-owned Instagram also got the boot.

"This violent network is banned from having a presence on our platform and we will remove content praising, supporting or representing it," Facebook said in announcing the decision.
Acts of real-world violence and our investigations into them are what led us to identify and designate this distinct network.
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Attention

Not funny: The 'hippy crack' laughing gas epidemic with deadly potential that's gripping the UK

Chris Sweeney
RT
Wed, 01 Jul 2020 15:51 UTC
nitrous oxide canisters
© Sean Gomersall
Nitrous oxide canisters, known colloquially as 'whippets' or 'chargers'
As lockdown eases, it's become clear that nitrous oxide is the new recreational drug of choice for many young people in Britain. But what does it do to users - and why is it legal to buy?

An epidemic of the recreational use of laughing gas - commonly called 'hippy crack' - is sweeping across the UK.

And the magnitude of the issue has been thrown into the spotlight following the relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions.

As groups have taken over parks and beaches, campaigners have been stunned by the sheer amount of discarded nitrous oxide canisters.

Known colloquially as 'whippets' or 'chargers', 236 of them were collected in just half an hour in a car park at Seaburn beach near Sunderland. During a clear-up of pleasure spot Longniddry Bents in East Lothian, 533 were found. And police in Swansea, South Wales arrested three people in a car with 1,800 canisters.
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Attention

Canadian newspaper issues TRIGGER WARNING over printing Canadian flag for Canada Day

Libby Emmons and Barrett Wilson
The Post Millennial
Sat, 27 Jun 2020 00:01 UTC
chronicle herald trigger warning canadian flag
As North America continues to cower and capitulate to the mob, a cowardly Canadian newspaper has taken grovelling before our woke overlords to the next level.

The Chronicle Herald out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, has actually run a trigger warning for printing the Canadian flag in its Saturday edition.

They write: "To our readers: inside today's edition, on page A9, you'll find a Canadian flag to clip and post to help celebrate July 1. We understand the flag doesn't mean the same thing to everyone, however, we hope our readers recognize their ability to play a role in shaping Canada's future is a freedom worth acknowledging."
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Cloud Lightning

Forbes censors award-winning environmentalist's apology over three-decade 'climate scare' - so here it is

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Tue, 30 Jun 2020 00:01 UTC
Michael Shellenberger

Michael Shellenberger
Forbes has decided to unpublish an article by award-winning climate activist Michael Shellenberger, in which he apologizes "for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years."

Schellenberger, a progressive, was named one of TIME's "Heroes of the Environment," while his book Break Through was heralded by WIRED as potentially "the best thing to happen to environmentalism since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring."

His book Apocalypse Never was widely praised as an 'eye-opening, fact-based approach' to climate science and 'engaging and well-researched.'

Comment: While the author seems to be rather off in some of his pronouncements, the big picture is on-track - that climate alarmism is a dangerous cult that is as misinformed as it is radical, unnecessarily scaring the public and blaming them for their climate sins. One hopes his book will get some traction and make some of the radicals question their assumptions. No wonder Forbes scrubbed it.

See also:

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Newspaper

Actor Terry Crews evoked mixed reaction in Social Media for preaching unity for all races


RT
Tue, 30 Jun 2020 00:00 UTC
Terry Crews
© Reuters / Danny Moloshok
Terry Crews poses at a premiere for the Netflix original film "Sandy Wexler" in Los Angeles, California, April 6, 2017
Actor Terry Crews has faced fury for pleading with the Black Lives Matter movement "not to morph into black lives better." Twitter quickly found the post, literally urging love "for every race, creed and ideology," problematic.

The star of 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' tweeted on Tuesday that he considers every "child of God" his "brother and sister," regardless of their race, religion or ideology. "We must ensure #blacklivesmatter doesn't morph into #blacklivesbetter," the African-American star added.

Comment: See also:

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Bomb

Nearly 50% of US working age adults unemployed - and it's going to get worse

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse blog
Tue, 30 Jun 2020 16:25 UTC
unemployed covid-19 coronavirua
© REUTERS/Nick Oxford
People who lost their jobs wait in line to file for unemployment following an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at an Arkansas Workforce Center in Fort Smith, Arkansas, U.S. April 6, 2020.
There is a lot of talk about the "unemployment rate" these days, but the way that it is calculated has become so convoluted that it is not really that meaningful anymore. Even during the so-called "good times", more than 100 million U.S. adults were not working, but we were told that the unemployment rate was the lowest that it had been in decades. Of course now everything has changed.

Since this pandemic began, more than 47 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits, and the mainstream media is going to make sure that fear of COVID-19 continues to paralyze our society for the foreseeable future.

In this article, I would like to discuss the employment-population ratio. According to Wikipedia, the employment-population ratio is "a statistical ratio that measures the proportion of the country's working age population that is employed". I believe that it is a far more accurate measurement than the "unemployment rate" is, and we have seen this ratio move quite dramatically over the past couple of months. According to CNBC, the employment-population ratio hit 52.8 percent in May, and that means that 47.2 percent of all working age Americans did not have a job...

Comment: See also:

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Attention

19 dead following gas leak explosion in Tehran


RFE/RL's Radio Farda
Tue, 30 Jun 2020 17:53 UTC
Iranian state TV

Iranian state TV warned there could be more explosions.
A powerful explosion at a medical clinic in northern Tehran has killed at least 19 people, Iranian media report.

Authorities initially said that 13 people were killed and six others injured in the blast at the Sina At'har health center on June 30.

But Jalal Maleki, spokesman for the Tehran Fire Department, was quoted as saying that firefighters recovered six more bodies after the ensuring blaze was extinguished.

The dead included 15 women and four men, Maleki said, adding that firefighters had rescued 20 people.

Comment: See also:

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No Entry

Female genital mutilation surges in Germany with 68,000 victims in 2020


RT
Tue, 30 Jun 2020 19:15 UTC
FGM activist
© RT
An activist and victim of female genital mutilation (FGM) living in Berlin told RT "big action" is needed to tackle the issue in Germany, which has seen a rapid rise in women and girls forced to undergo the torturous procedure.

Artist and activist Fatou Mandiang Diatta underwent the dangerous procedure in her native Senegal when she was about four or five years old.

"I remember how my mum asked me not to cry. Her face was so serious in front of me. I remember two ladies - one was holding my hand and the other one my legs. And there was a third one who did something quite painful..."

Comment: The similarly barbaric practice on infant boys also continues, although it isn't met with the same outrage despite equally traumatizing and deleterious health effects: Iceland calling for amendments banning boys' circumcision, introducing 6-year jail term for offenders

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