TV review: Black Mirror: Season 5 (no spoilers)

Netflix recently released the three episodes of season 5 of the acclaimed series Black Mirror. As people who have seen earlier seasons know, this show takes a somewhat dark look at the impact of technology on our lives. It is usually set a little in the future and imagines advances on current technology that on the surface seem benign and even a boon to people but turn out to have unexpected negative consequences. In particular it focuses on the kind of technology that is ubiquitous, such as social media and AI.
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Bernie Sanders slams CBS reporter for suggesting that ‘limited strikes’ against Iran are ok

He points out that Trump helped create the Iran crisis and that launching bombs and missiles against another country is an act of war and, in a voice dripping with sarcasm, reminds her that under the constitution, only the Congress has the power to declare war and that the president can only use military force in an emergency that calls for immediate defensive action, and that no one thinks that the situation with Iran fits that category.

“It’s like somebody setting fire to a basket full of paper and then putting it out. He helped create the crisis, and then he stopped the attacks,” Sanders said in an interview with “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan on Saturday. The full interview will air on “Face the Nation” this Sunday.

Sanders accused Mr. Trump of thinking “that a war with Iran is something that might be good for this country.” When Brennan pointed out that the strike considered by Mr. Trump was “limited,” Sanders responded sarcastically.

“Oh, just a limited strike. Oh, well, I’m sorry. I just didn’t know that it’s okay to simply attack another country with bombs,” Sanders said, incredulously. “Just a limited strike? That’s an act of warfare.”

It is extraordinary how the media simply buys into the way that the administration and the war hawks frame these issues.

The reclamation of the Cuyahoga river

The Cuyahoga is a long and winding river that empties into Lake Erie after splitting the city of Cleveland into east and west sides. For the longest time, it was treated as a dump and industries along the river emptied their waste matter, even toxic material, into it. As a result, the river used to catch fire periodically. But the fire that erupted 50 years ago yesterday, though not the biggest, for some reason attracted national attention and turned the city into a laughing stock with comedians using it as a punch line. To this day, that is the first association that many people have with the city.
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Strong editorials against Trump administration polices

The vicious anti-immigrant rhetoric of Donald Trump has mainstreamed the views of neo—Nazis and white supremacists and thus created a window for ordinary people to express in public discriminatory language against anyone whom they view as not belonging. The city of St. Cloud in Minnesota is one of those places that has been having problems with some of the white residents resenting recent Somali immigrants and abusing them in public.
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Opposition wins significant victory in Istanbul mayoral election

In a major setback to Turkey’s increasingly authoritarian president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who has sought to undermine the country’s long secular tradition, the opposition coalition candidate, Ekrem İmamoğlu won a big victory in a rerun of the mayoral election, after Erdoğan’s ruling party had his earlier narrow victory annulled because of alleged improprieties.

Shortly after initial results pointing to a landslide win for the opposition coalition candidate, Ekrem İmamoğlu, emerged on Sunday evening, the candidate of the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP), Binali Yıldırım, conceded and congratulated his rival.

The repeat election, designed to undo İmamoğlu’s narrow surprise win in the 31 March contest, was an unprecedented test for both Turkey’s fragile democratic institutions and Erdoğan’s political future.
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The president issued his congratulations to İmamoğlu on Twitter after initial results showed that with 99% of ballots counted the People’s Republican party (CHP) candidate had increased his lead in March, of 13,000 votes, to an astonishing 777,000, or 54%.

Crowded parties broke out on Istanbul’s main shopping streets and in liberal neighbourhoods.
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İmamoğlu was embraced by voters for a platform which focused on bringing people together across the city’s religious, class and ethnic divides, and was able to paint his new campaign as a battle for the future of Turkish democracy itself.

Turkey still has some way to go to reverse course and head in a more democratic direction. But this is a hopeful sign.

The World interview with UN rapporteur on Khashoggi murder

Agnes Callamard is the UN’s special rapporteur who issued a scathing report about the Saudi Arabian government’s involvement in the brutal murder of reporter Jamal Khashoggi inside a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, saying that there was evidence of high-level involvement in what was a pre-meditated murder and that the role of crown Mohammed bin Salman’s needed to be investigated.

The World‘s reporter Shirin Jaafari scored an interview with Callamard and asked her about the evidence that she saw and how she arrived at her conclusions. Callamard was remarkably frank and forthcoming and the seven-minute interview is illuminating and also damning in its portrayal of how the Saudi government behaved.

Callamard describes what she heard on the audio recordings that were obtained by the Turkish government, where the Saudis casually discuss the planned murder. It is quite extraordinary how coldly and clinically the Saudi officials discussed the planned murder.

Sri Lankan cabinet minister rebukes leading Buddhist monk for tirade against Muslims

After the deadly attacks by ISIS-inspired suicide bombers that killed and injured over 250 people in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, there has been retaliation against ordinary Muslims. A friend of mine in Sri Lanka says that people are not patronizing Muslim-owned business, not taking the tuk-tuks (the ubiquitous small three-wheel scooter taxis) driven by them, Muslim students being asked to leave their lodgings, private buses refusing to accept Muslim passengers, etc. One wonders what people think they will accomplish by discriminating like this against ordinary people who had nothing to do with the attacks. Do they think they are striking a great blow for justice when all it is is a petty act of vengeance? Surely they should realize that people become even more resentful when they are punished for the actions of others and that it simply compounds the problem? That is such an obvious lesson from history that I find it incredible that people don’t realize it.
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Samantha Bee gives some advice to the low-polling Democratic candidates

I think that much of this concern over so many candidates at this stage is misplaced. This is the time for multiple candidates and views to be aired. As time goes by, the field will be winnowed and those who lose out will seek other positions, such as the senate seats she is urging. Running for president gives them the national attention that politicians tend to enjoy.

What we should hope for is that the field is winnowed by policies and the preferences of voters, not by the pundits and party establishments

“Welcome back to the USA”

Seth Harp is a journalist and like many white people, was not quite aware of how militarized the US immigration system has become because on his return from his frequent trips abroad, he is usually waived through immigration after being asked a few perfunctory questions. That is, until he returned recently from an assignment in Mexico and was subject to ‘secondary screening’, that he dewcribes as “a quasi-custodial law enforcement process that takes place in the Homeland Security zone of the airport.” He was interrogated for hours by the Customs and Border Protection agency that has become a gun-toting quasi-military force, and they ransacked his phone and laptop after demanding that he give them the passwords.
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