March 12, 2023

Sunday, March 12, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.

To read an article excerpted in this Roundup, click on its blue title. Each “blue” article is hyperlinked so you can read the whole article.

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Daylight Savings is here.

This is officially the first Roundup of unofficial Spring 2023.

The “almanac” says, the official first day of spring is Monday, March 20.

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Joe is always busy.

Biden denies reports that Alaska oil drilling project has been approved | Biden administration.

Late Friday, Bloomberg was first to report citing anonymous sources that senior Biden advisers had signed off on the project and formal approval would be made public by the Interior Department next week.

The decision to authorize drilling on the north slope, if correct, would amount to one of the most symbolically important climate decisions of Biden’s political career and place his administration in conflict with the climate-alert left wing of the Democratic party.

But that pressure is countered by unions and some Indigenous communities in Alaska who say approval of the project would provide economic security in the state beyond the borders of the 9.3m-hectare (23m acres) area of the north slope that is considered the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the US.

But after reports were published, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said “no final decisions have been made” on the project and “anyone who says there has been a final decision is wrong”.

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Kamala is always busy.

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The Gay and Trans Communities are ready to fight for their rights.

Queer People Must Use History as a Guide to Fight Hate By NAN GOLDIN AND CHASE STRANGIO.

Goldin is a world-renowned artist, photographer, filmmaker, and founder of the direct action collective P.A.I.N. Strangio is Deputy Director for Trans Justice with the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project.

A man wearing a "Silence Equals Death" t-shirt at a protest organized by AIDS activist group ACT UP at the headquarters of the Food and Drug Administration on Oct. 11, 1988 in Rockville, Md. The action, called "Seize Control of the FDA," shut down the FDA for the day.

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In many ways, queer people have been in this moment before.

This year alone, a resurgent right wing has demonized us as a threat to the straight way of life. The health care many of us need to live is treated as itself a danger, politicized and mischaracterized, while all but the most wealthy and privileged are locked out of receiving it. A moral panic over our existence is stoked in schools and communities, leading to increased criminalization and policing. Those whose bodies are marked as deviant and inherently criminal are forced to navigate a dangerous and policed public. And all of this happens under the eyes of a media establishment whose attitude toward our lives and perspectives ranges from indifference to open hostility.

As director Laura Poitras documents in the Oscar-nominated documentary All The Beauty and the Bloodshed (which features Goldin as the subject), the political and health crisis faced by queer people during the height of the United States AIDS epidemic in the ‘80s and ‘90s holds renewed relevance for the current generation of queer people facing a full-frontal onslaught on their existence and well-being. Similarly to today’s tidal wave of legislative attacks and revanchist politics targeting transgender people, the most extreme wings of U.S. politics saw the AIDS epidemic as a consequence of our supposed moral decline and a justification for stripping away legal rights, increased policing, and withholding material support.

Queer people have no one as much as we have each other, and this is particularly true in environments of crisis. While the queer movement has simultaneously grown more politically powerful and visible in mainstream society—including the securing of critical legal victories and prominence in the culture at large—we have also been told a lie about where our true power resides. In a process Sarah Schulman famously called the “gentrification of the mind,” we have been asked to sacrifice our most vital assets in favor of integration and assimilation.

The necessarily radical politics and strategies of groups like ACT UP and Queer Nation are often treated as relics of the past, folded into liberal daydreams about the inevitable, upward progress of the country. In truth, those movements represent a refusal to wait for rescue from a political and public health establishment that had long since shown an inability to understand queer people’s lives or needs. As queer lives are increasingly visible and mainstream, it can become easy to believe those strategies are no longer necessary—that the soft power of visibility and the uneven security of legal rights are the surest paths toward liberation and survival.

While the activism in the early days of the AIDS epidemic is mostly remembered for its public displays of rage and sorrow—shutting down the Food & Drug Administration or pouring the ashes of those lost to AIDS on the White House lawn—often left untold and unseen were broader networks of support, shared knowledge, and art. Direct action and community-building remain powerful tools, perhaps all the more so for a generation equipped with digital networks and social media (which hold promise even as they offer exploitation and surveillance). But they are most powerful as reflections of connections and relationships among and between marginalized people.

This was the goal at the center of the founding of Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (P.A.I.N) in 2017. In the face of the massive toll of the overdose epidemic and our country’s continued criminalization of drugs and drug use, it became apparent that the pharmaceutical establishment that ignited the opioid crisis and profited so handsomely off people’s suffering was eager to convert a public health crisis into one of individual misbehavior. The establishment turned blame away from the destructive and murderous activity of the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma and towards drug users themselves in an effort to justify a violent drug war. They’re aided and abetted in this moral crime by art institutions dependent upon their philanthropic dollars. And in turn, the Sacklers are dependent upon these established and venerated institutions to cleanse their name and image.

P.A.I.N seeks accountability where legal and lawmaking institutions have failed. As depicted in All The Beauty and The Bloodshed, P.A.I.N deploys the strategic use of public art, street theater, and the direct action AIDS activists made famous to take a stand. Paired with that, however, is a proactive effort to establish the networks of support and harm reduction resources that we know keep people alive, built from the needs and perspectives of those most harmed by this ongoing crisis.

In the midst of such violence and loss, the allure of apocalyptic thinking must be resisted with the hard and daring work of resistance. Particularly for young queer people, often intentionally isolated from the stories of our own history, it is tempting to characterize the current moment as newly oppressive or threatening. Perhaps one of the most important and enduring messages to take away from the film is Goldin’s refrain, “the wrong things are kept secret and this destroys people.” There is a strong urge to hide our queerness, our trauma, and our pain. But it is in the keeping of our secrets and the deliberate erasure of our histories that we face the most suffering.

As we chart our paths of resistance into the future, our history can be our guide. Our worlds have ended before. We have faced the eliminationist politics of extremists and built the resources we need to survive. Not only can we do it again–we must. (Time).

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White House Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, made it clear that the President too is ready to fight the anti-LGBTQ+ bills happening across America. Touch to watch. 👇

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In case you have been wondering about the Collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank….

Why Did Silicon Valley Bank Collapse?

The scene outside Silicon Valley Bank on Friday.

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The failure of Silicon Valley Bank was caused by a run on the bank. The company was not, at least until clients started rushing for the exits, insolvent or even close to insolvent. But banking is an enterprise that relies as much on confidence as on cash — and if that runs out, the game is over.

The collapse may have been an unforced, self-inflicted error: The bank’s management chose to sell $21 billion of bonds at a $1.8 billion loss, in large part, it appears, because many of those bonds were yielding an average of only 1.79 percent at a time when interest rates had risen drastically and the bank was starting to look like an underperformer relative to its peers. Moody’s was considering downgrading its rating. The bank’s management — with the help of Goldman Sachs, its adviser — chose to raise new equity from the venture capital firm General Atlantic and also to sell a convertible bond to the public.

It isn’t clear if the bond sale or the fund-raising, at least initially, had been made under duress. It was meant to reassure investors. But it had the opposite effect: It so surprised the market that it led the bank’s very smart client base of venture capitalists to direct their portfolio clients to withdraw their deposits en masse.

The bank and its advisers may have also made a tactical mistake: The General Atlantic equity investment could have been completed overnight, but the bank’s management also chose to sell convertible preferred stock, which couldn’t be sold until the next day. That left time for investors — and, more important, clients — to start scratching their heads and sow doubt about the firm, leading to an exodus of deposits. (New York Times).

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Seems Mike Pence finally realized he will not be Donald J’s choice for Running Mate 2024.

Pence says Trump endangered my family on January 6.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday harshly criticized former President Donald Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, widening the rift between the two men as they prepare to battle over the Republican nomination in next year’s election.

“President Trump was wrong,” Pence said during remarks at the annual white-tie Gridiron Dinner attended by politicians and journalists. “I had no right to overturn the election. And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”

Pence’s remarks were the sharpest condemnation yet from the once-loyal lieutenant who has often shied away from confronting his former boss. Trump has already declared his candidacy. Pence has not, but he’s been laying the groundwork to run.

In the days leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, Trump pressured Pence to overturn President Joe Biden’s election victory as he presided over the ceremonial certification of the results. Pence refused, and when rioters stormed the Capitol, some chanted that they wanted to “hang Mike Pence.”

“Make no mistake about it, what happened that day was a disgrace,” Pence said in his Gridiron Dinner remarks. “And it mocks decency to portray it any other way.” (AP).

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Sexism is dumb - wastes so much talent, damages so many.

A Conductor’s Battle With a Classical Music Gender Barrier

Claire Gibault has spent a lifetime fighting sexism and forging a path in a male-dominated profession. Her next targets: pay gaps and age discrimination.

Until recently, conducting was almost exclusively a male profession.

The French conductor Claire Gibault has spent a lifetime battling that gender barrier. In 2019, she co-founded La Maestra, a biennial international competition for female conductors in Paris that draws more than 200 contestants from some 50 countries.

“Giving confidence and visibility to the talented women who are emerging as orchestral conductors is a cause La Maestra will continue to champion with commitment and passion,” said a news release inviting contestants for the next competition, in March 2024. The competition, founded with the Philharmonie de Paris, awards prizes of 5,000 to 20,000 euros ($5,300 to $21,400) to finalists who are provided numerous musical opportunities, too. Ms. Gibault also founded the Paris Mozart Orchestra in 2011, one of France’s few female-led orchestras.

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On Friday, an historic first happened.👇

In Historic First, Three Black Women Led White House Media Briefing.

(Left to right) White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young and Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Cecilia Rouse at a White House Press Briefing, March 10, 2023.

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When taking office as president, Joe Biden pledged to make government as diverse as the American population, which he believed would be better for policy and governance. In an historic first, three Black women, Shalanda Young, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) , Cecilia Rouse, Head of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), and Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden’s Press Secretary, led a briefing at the White House.

While fielding questions from the media, the briefing included a wide range of subjects, including economic policies under the Biden administration, the still ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and federal initiatives to address systemic racism and inequality.

Especially as the country continues to struggle with issues of racial and social injustice, the appointment of these women by Biden, who has appointed more Black women than any other president, marks a watershed moment in the nation's history. Their presence is an indicator that Biden has kept his campaign promise to appoint and recommend more Black women to essential roles to establish a more inclusive American society.

“I do want to take a moment to note the historic nature of the moment that you see in front of you right now,” said Jean-Pierre. “All three of us are historic firsts in our roles: the first Black woman to serve as CEA chair, OMB Director, [and] White House Press Secretary.

“Now that did not happen by accident,” she continued. “It is thanks to this president, President Biden’s leadership and commitment to building an administration full of the best and the brightest. And I am so proud to be standing with two of the best and the brightest in this administration.” (BET).

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Mikaela Shiffrin holds new record.

Mikaela Shiffrin sets World Cup skiing record with 87th win.

Shiffrin is 27. Next week she competes in three more races at the World Cup Finals.

ARE, Sweden (AP) — American skier Mikaela Shiffrin set the outright World Cup record for most career victories with 87 by winning a slalom Saturday.

Shiffrin broke a tie with Ingemar Stenmark on the all-time overall winners list between men and women. The Swede competed in the 1970s and 80s.

Shiffrin had matched Stenmark’s mark of 86 wins with victory in a giant slalom Friday.

“Pretty hard to comprehend,” Shiffrin said about the record.

After finishing the final run, the American crouched and rested her head on her knees. Her bother, Taylor Shiffrin, then came out and hugged her during the winners ceremony.

“My brother and sister-in-law are here and I didn’t know they were coming, that makes this so special,” Shiffrin said.

Saturday’s result marked the American’s sixth slalom win of the season and the record-extending 53rd career win in the discipline.

Shiffrin dominated the first run and posted the fifth-fastest time in the second to beat Swiss skier Wendy Holdener by 0.92 seconds.

Thrird-place home favorite Anna Swenn Larsson was the last racer to finish within a second of Shiffrin’s time.

“The best feeling is to ski on the second run when of course you want to win, you have a lead so you have to be sort of be smart but also, I just wanted to be fast, too, and ski the second run like its own race,” Shiffrin said.

“It’s nice to race today. After such an incredible day yesterday, I feel like no pressure,” Shiffrin said after the opening run. (Associated Press).

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It’s Oscar Sunday. No, not that one.

How and where to watch Sunday's Oscar broadcast.

NEW YORK (AP) — Hollywood is gearing up for the 95th Academy Awards, where “Everything Everywhere All at Once” comes in the lead nominee and the film industry will hope to move past “the slap” of last year’s ceremony. Here’s everything you need to know about the 2023 Oscars, including when they are, where to watch the live show and this year’s controversies.

WHEN ARE THE OSCARS?

The Oscars will be held Sunday, March 12, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. The ceremony is set to begin at 8 p.m. EDT and be broadcast live on ABC.

CAN YOU STREAM THE OSCARS?

The broadcast can be streamed with a subscription to Hulu Live TV, YouTubeTV, AT&T TV and Fubo TV. Some of these services offer brief free trials. You can also stream the show on ABC.com and on the ABC app by authenticating your provider.

WHO’S HOSTING?

Jimmy Kimmel will host for the third time and his first time since 2018. That was also the last Oscars to feature a solo host. The show went hostless for several years after Kimmel’s last outing. Last year, Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes hosted as a trio. In an ad for this year’s show styled after “Top Gun: Maverick,” Kimmel made his humble case for being the right person for the job while noting that he can’t get slapped because “I cry a lot.” (AP).

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