While Taureans aren’t likely to become as rich as George Clooney (pictured in 2016’s “Hail, Caesar!”), 2021 is a good year for them to set their sights on their finances. (Courtesy Universal)

Free Will Astrology for Jan. 7, 2021

Taurus, it’s a favorable time to set in motion a master plan for financial stability

• ROB BREZSNY
• Jan. 6, 2021 1:30 a.m. (SFExaminer.com)
• FEATURES

ARIES (March 21-April 19): The pandemic has made it challenging to nurture our communities. In order to make new connections and keep our existing connections vibrant, we’ve had to be extra resourceful. I hope you will make this work one of your holy quests in 2021, Aries. In my astrological opinion, you should be ingenious and tireless as you nurture your web of allies. Your assignment during our ongoing crisis is to lead the way as you show us all how to ply the art of high-minded networking.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Taurus actor George Clooney is worth $500 million. Yet his dazzling opulence is puny compared to that of Taurus entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg, whose fortune exceeds $100 billion. It’s my duty to inform you that you will probably never achieve either man’s levels of wealth. Yet I do hold out hope that in the next 12 months you will launch plans that ultimately enable you to have all the money you need; 2021 will be a favorable time to formulate and set in motion a dynamic master plan for financial stability.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): One of your main themes for the next 12 months comes from Leonardo da Vinci. He wrote, “To develop a complete mind: Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.” If you use da Vinci’s instructions as a seed for your meditations, you’ll stir up further inspirations about how to make 2021 a history-making epoch in the evolution of your education. I hope you will treasure the value of “learning how to see” and “realizing how everything connects to everything else.” They should be at the root of your intention to learn as much as you can.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): An extensive study by psychiatric researchers suggests that well more than half of us experienced a potentially disabling trauma in childhood. You’re in the minority if you didn’t! That’s the bad news. The good news is that 2021 will be a time when you Cancerians will have more power than ever before to heal at least some of the wounds from your old traumas. You will also attract extra luck and help to accomplish these subtle miracles. To get the process started, make a list of three practical actions you can take to instigate your vigorous healing.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Leo author Isabel Allende says, “We are in the world to search for love, find it and lose it, again and again. With each love, we are born anew, and with each love that ends we collect a new wound. I am covered with proud scars.” I appreciate Allende’s point of view, and understand that it’s useful, even inspirational, for many people. But my path has been different. As a young man, I enjoyed my endless quest for sex and romance. It was thrilling to keep leaping from affair to affair. But as I eventually discovered, that habit made me stupid and superficial about love. It prevented me from having to do the hard psychological work necessary to continually reinvent intimacy — and become eligible for deeper, more interesting versions of love. I bring this to your attention, Leo, because I think 2021 could be your time for a personal rebirth that will be made possible by deep, interesting versions of love.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Occultist Israel Regardie (1907-1985) was an accomplished author and influencer. To what did he attribute his success? I’ll let him speak for himself: “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” I hope you will write out this quote and tape it to your bathroom mirror for the duration of 2021, Virgo.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): The Kabbalistic Tree of Life is a mystical symbol of the hidden structure of creation. At its heart, in the most pivotal position, is the principle of beauty. This suggests that the wise teachers who gave us the Tree did not regard beauty as merely a luxury to be sought only when all practical business is taken care of. Nor is it a peripheral concern for those who pursue a spiritual path. Rather, beauty is essential for our health and intelligence. In accordance with astrological omens, I invite you to take a cue from the Tree of Life. During the next 12 months, give special attention to people and things and experiences and thoughts and feelings that are beautiful to you. Meditate on how to nurture them and learn from them and draw inspiration from them.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): According to motivational speaker Les Brown, the problem for many people is not that “they aim too high and miss,” but that “they aim too low and hit.” I’m conveying this to you just in time for the Reach Higher Phase of your long-term astrological cycle. According to my analysis, you’ll generate good fortune for yourself if you refine and expand your personal goals. Here’s a key detail: Don’t borrow anyone else’s standards of success. Home in on your own unique soul’s code, and give it fuller, deeper, wilder expression.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): One of my primary pleasures in reading books is to discover thoughts and feelings I have never before encountered. That’s exciting! But it’s hard to force myself to keep plowing through an author’s prose if it’s full of stuff that I already know about from my own life or from books, movies and other art. Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novels fit the latter description. I realize that many people love his fiction, but for me it is monumentally obvious and boring. What about you, Sagittarius? Where do you go to be exposed to thrilling new ways of looking at the world? Judging from the astrological omens, I conclude that this quest will be especially fun and crucial for you in the coming months.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “I only want people around me who can do the impossible,” said Capricorn businesswoman Elizabeth Arden. In that spirit, and in accordance with your astrological potentials, I hereby authorize you to pursue two “impossible” goals in 2021. The first comes to you courtesy of fashion writer Diana Vreeland, who wrote, “There’s only one thing in life, and that’s the continual renewal of inspiration.” Your second “impossible” goal is from actor Juliette Binoche, who said, “My only ambition is to be true every moment I am living.”

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Your past is becoming increasingly irrelevant, while your future is still a bit amorphous. To help clarify the possibilities that you could harvest in 2021, I suggest you suspend your theories about what your life is about. Empty yourself out as much as you can. Pledge to re-evaluate everything you think you know about your purpose. Once you’ve accomplished that, meditate on the following questions: 1. What experiences do you truly need and passionately long for — not the experiences you needed and longed for in the past, but rather those that are most vivid and moving right now. 2. What are the differences between your fearful fantasies and your accurate intuitions? How can you cultivate the latter and downplay the former? 3. What are your nightly dreams and semi-conscious fantasies telling you about how to create the most interesting version of the future?

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Author Gunter Grass wrote, “Writers know that sometimes things are there in the drawer for decades before they finally come out and we are capable of writing about them.” I would universalize his thought in this way: Most of us know that possibly useful ideas and dreams are in the drawer for years before they finally come out and we know how to use them. I believe this will be an ongoing experience for you in 2021, Pisces.

Ned Henry Dec 31, 2020 (nedhenry.medium.com)

Ok I’m new with this blogging stuff — never done it before. And I don’t really understand all there is to know about this blog post but what the hell, I’ll just start writing. I need a place to help me process what’s going on but also to report on it to my family and friends or really anyone that’s interested. Sending emails with inconsistent distribution lists just isn’t cutting it anymore so I want to write here and then let anyone who wants to read about it come here. Anyone that has my email can write me back. But I’d rather you not post anything here — I don’t even know if this site would let you do that. Enough in the way of introduction.

I have been diagnosed with Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma. I found out that I had this 2 days before Thanksgiving 2020. And after some more tests I found out I was stage 4 in mid December. I won’t go into all the details of the test and stuff. I am going to the Winship Cancer Center at Emory in Atlanta. I had my first chemo on Decmber 29 and 30 — it took 2 days. And I’m doing OK. No big side effects. Knock on wood. I will get chemo every three weeks for 6 cycles. The cancer is moving like wildfire. This is a very fast and aggressive cancer. It started with a rash on my leg in late September that didn’t look very bad. It didn’t go away so I went to the dermatologist and they did a biopsy that came back positive for lymphocytes but negative for malignacy. But they wanted me to see a lymphoma dermatologist and have her take a look. Dr. Tarabadkar at Emory has been a God send. She did a deep biopsy on the gnarliest sore on my leg and I got the biopsy confirmation of cancer right before Thanksgiving. During this time I also developed sores in my mouth so I went to the dentist and he took a look and sent me to an oral pathologist. A very rare specialty as I have come to find out. There’s only one in Atlanta according to the dental and oral surgery community. I got in to see her and she did a biopsy on my gums and I got the confirmation a few days after Thanksgiving that it was the same cancer. I was referred to an oncologist is the Hematology department at the Winship Cancer center. The did a PET CT in early December, and the PET scan showed it had already spread to my bones — my spine, my femur and my hip — the one that hadn’t been replaced.

I met with Dr. Allen on December 11 and found out I was stage 4. And so my journey began. I was in shock and panic. I woke up in the middle of the night with panic attacks — something I had not had before. I felt like I was suffocating. I called on a long lost just plain old Joe from my time at the Shambhala Meditation center in the middle of the night. Bob just kept saying back to me “relax and just breathe…it’s all right.” Bob passed away about 6 years ago but he is helping me so much right now. So are others who have passed on but we’ll get to them eventually I guess.

I have calmed down and started to deal with the situation rather than reacting to it. My priorities have shifted completely. I was a news junkie. What the fuck would Trump do next? I had to know. I watched TV and played fantasy football. Even won a few hundred dollars at it this year. It all seems so absolutely insignificant right now. I realized that I have just been passing time with my life and now that I am staring at mortality, I don’t want to just pass time anymore. I’ve gone back to some of my spiritual practices — getting back to Translation, which I learned at age 23 in The Prosperos school. I’ve used this tool off and on all my life and it is the very best tool for working through issues from your sense that exists in the world as I know it. It is so far beyond visualization or affirmation or even traditonal prayer to a higher power. Not knocking any of that — whatever gets you through the night as John Lennon says. I have so many people praying for me and I am so grateful. My most coolest of cool cousins Joe in Chicago goes for a run every day and stops at the church and drops in in the middle of his run and lights a candle for me. Just how magnificent is that. Anyway I started showing up at ZOOM meetings at The Prospers again after many years. And getting back to the work — on self, for other, for the world. The 4th way. Also getting back to the mindfulness meditation I learned at Shambhala. That has such a calming in just being present. And breathing.

And music. Music is all I have been doing for the last few days. I loaded all my hundreds of CD’s into the cloud. It’s a pretty eclectic collection from hard rock to folks to classical to choral singing to jazz and blues. I gotta a lot of stuff. I found a set of 7 CD’s my youngest brother Jack (who has been my absolute ROCK through all of this) made about 11 years when my parents died. And absolute timeless masterpiece of playlist about our large family. I am the oldest of 12 — Jack is the youngest. The Playlist folders are HER, HIM, US, HOME, THEM, OTHERS and SPIRIT. I’ve been texting with one of nieces Allison and my nephew David about how I can post this playlist of Spotify and have folks add to it. I’ve been having a blast as I add new songs and new folders to it as I rediscover my music. I have been a singer for most of my life. It started with the boys choir at St. Gregory’s in LA with Bishop Manning as our pastor. He later was Cardinal of LA. My singing picked up again when I lived in San Francisco where I took a few voice lessons and sang at a wedding of a friend. When I move to Anchorage to work on the pipeline is where I discovered my true love with singing. And that is choral singing where you work to achieve the blend of voices. It means listening as much as anything else. It’s about dynamics and communication. So I sang with the Anchorage Community chorus (even did a Verdi Requiem with them — big piece of music) and then Anchorage Civic opera where I was in the chorus for a La Traviata and and Lucia. Both amazing experiences. I have photos of my Lucia costumes. So much fun. Couldn’t take the darkness in Alaska winters so I moved back to California in 79 and after a lost year in LA, I moved back to San Francisco and sang with a Gilbert and Sullivan group there — HMS Pinafore. I have a DVD of that one. But the real love of choral music was developed in Atlanta. I had to stop singing when I fist moved here because I came to take an outside sales job and I was on the road ALL THE TIME. Could not commit to rehearsals. But after 20 years of that career, I got into one concert with a small renaissance a capella group Schola Cantorum. I just found the CD of the one and olny concert I sang with them. Just soaring voices. Hard to think that only about 20 voices could produce that sound and even to to think that I was one of them. So cool. I didn’t make the audition for the next concert after a year in San Diego helping my parents move. But I did get on with a much larger — 5o to 70 depending on the year — Collegium Vocale based at Emory. It was originally the Emory faculty glee club some 60 years ago or so. It is not an “official” part of Emory but they let us use rehearsal space and our concerts are at Glenn Memorial. I’ve been singing off and on but mostly on for the last 20 years. And found some of my very best friends there. So rediscovering music during this time has become an obsession. I even pulled out the guitar after some 10 years of not touching it. I was never very good — my thing was singing and I just needed the guitar for accompanyment. But as my life just moved on aimlessly, I let the guitar lapse. I used to mostly play Dylan songs. I could rock Mr. Tambourine man and almost rock Memphis Blues Again. Did OK with “When the Ship Comes In” which I’m practicing again. It’s an early early Dylan protest song that is sooooo timely in the age of Trump. BUt the song that made me pick up the guitar came from my Sister in law, Carrie. She is Jack’s wife in Chicago and has come through a very tough cancer treatment in drug trials. It was more serious than I realize but she made it. She is the CEO of a hospital for mentally ill patients in Chicago and an amazing person and mother and wife. She is someone who knows how to write from heart. She send me a video of 3 guys sitting in church singing LET IT BE. I had started to learn that one so I could sing it at my mother’s memorial service but never got that together. I delivered the eulogy for my mom instead. And it was an amazing service. I could post that eulogy someplace here if I wanted I guess.

So it’s back to music and good bye to TV. The TV addiction is strong. I have to make myself resist turning it on. My sense testimony for my next Translation is NEWS IS TOXIC. Think I’ll just go do that now and pick this up later. I know I’m all over the place but this is so therapeutic for me.

01.06.21 (wired.com)

As the news keeps evolving, we’re here to bring you the most reliable coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. Subscribe to support our journalism.

Governors work to speed up vaccinations, England reaches a concerning milestone, and the EU approves the Moderna vaccine. Here’s what you should know: US governors work to speed up vaccine distribution while US daily deaths hit a record high On Tuesday the US reported its highest daily Covid-19 death toll yet, topping 3,770. Meanwhile, governors across the country are working to accelerate vaccine distribution. In Maryland, North Carolina, and Arizona, the National Guard has been mobilized to help, while California’s Gavin Newsom just promised new actions including allowing dentists to administer the vaccine after they’ve received training. On Tuesday, Operation Warp Speed also said it has distributed more than 3 million vaccines. So far 17 million doses have been sent to states and more than 4.8 million have been administered. An estimated one in 50 have Covid-19 in England as the country returns to lockdown Boris Johnson announced that one in every 50 people in England has Covid-19 on Tuesday. This number is an estimate based on an official survey aiming to account for asymptomatic cases. Earlier this week, the UK went into its third national lockdown, which is currently scheduled to last until mid-February. Johnson said that the government plans to use the next month and a half to speed up vaccination, particularly among the elderly and other vulnerable populations. The EU approves Moderna’s vaccine for conditional use The European Union’s executive commission approved Moderna’s vaccine for conditional use on Wednesday morning as cases continue to rise across the continent. This is the second vaccine approved for use, following Pfizer-BioNTech’s. The EU has ordered 80 million doses of the Moderna vaccine with an option to order 80 million more, and rollout is expected to begin next week.

JANUARY 6, 2021 (counterpunch.org)

BY NOAM CHOMSKY – VIJAY PRASHAD

Pulp Mills on a December night, Wauna, Oregon. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

Large parts of the world—outside of China and a few other countries—face a runaway virus, which has not been stopped because of criminal incompetence by governments. That these governments in wealthy countries cynically set aside the basic scientific protocols released by the World Health Organization and by scientific organizations reveals their malicious practice. Anything less than focused attention to managing the virus by testing, contact tracing, and isolation—and if this does not suffice, then imposing a temporary lockdown—is foolhardy. It is equally distressing that these richer countries have pursued a policy of “vaccine nationalism” by stockpiling vaccine candidates rather than a policy for the creation of a “people’s vaccine.” For the sake of humanity, it would be prudent to suspend intellectual property rules and develop a procedure to create universal vaccines for all people.

Although the pandemic is the principal issue on all of our minds, other major issues threaten the longevity of our species and of our planet. These include:

Nuclear Annihilation

In January 2020, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds to midnight, too close for comfort. The clock, created two years after the first atomic weapons were developed in 1945, is evaluated annually by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board, who decide whether to move the minute hand or keep it in place. By the time they set the clock again, it may well be closer to annihilation. Already limited arms control treaties are being shredded as the major powers sit on close to 13,500 nuclear weapons (more than 90 percent of which are held by Russia and the United States alone). The yield of these weapons could easily make this planet even more uninhabitable. The United States Navy has already deployed low-yield tactical W76-2 nuclear warheads. Immediate moves toward nuclear disarmament must be forced onto the world’s agenda. Hiroshima Day, commemorated each year on August 6, must become a more robust day of contemplation and protest.

Climate Catastrophe

A scientific paper published in 2018 came with a startling headline: “Most atolls will be uninhabitable by the mid-21st century because of sea-level rise exacerbating wave-driven flooding.” The authors found that atolls from the Seychelles to the Marshall Islands are liable to vanish. A 2019 United Nations (UN) report estimated that 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction. Add to this the catastrophic wildfires and the severe bleaching of the coral reefs and it is clear that we no longer need to linger over clichés about one thing or another being a canary in the coal mine of climate catastrophe; the danger is not in the future, but in the present. It is essential for major powers—who utterly fail to shift from fossil fuels—to commit to the “common but differentiated responsibilities” approach established at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. It is telling that countries such as Jamaica and Mongolia updated their climate plans to the UN before the end of 2020—as mandated by the Paris Agreement—even though these countries produce a tiny fraction of global carbon emissions. The funds that were committed to developing countries for their participation in the process have virtually dried up while external debt has ballooned. This shows a lack of basic seriousness from the “international community.”

Neoliberal Destruction of the Social Contract

Countries in North America and Europe have eviscerated their public function as the state has been turned over to the profiteers and civil society has been commodified by private foundations. This means that the avenues for social transformation in these parts of the world have been grotesquely hampered. Terrible social inequality is the result of the relative political weakness of the working class. It is this weakness that enables the billionaires to set policies that cause hunger rates to rise. Countries should not be judged by the words written in their constitutions but by their annual budgets; the U.S., for example, spends almost $1 trillion (if you add the estimated intelligence budget) on its war machine, while it spends a fraction of this on the public good (such as on health care, something evident during the pandemic). The foreign policies of Western countries seem to be well lubricated by arms deals: the United Arab Emirates and Morocco agreed to recognize Israel on the condition that they could purchase $23 billion and $1 billion worth of U.S.-made weapons, respectively. The rights of the Palestinians, the Sahrawi, and the Yemeni people did not factor into these deals. The use of illegal sanctions by the United States against 30 countries including Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela has become a normal part of life, even during the COVID-19 public health crisis. It is a failure of the political system when the populations in the capitalist bloc are unable to force their governments—which are in many ways democratic in name only—to take a global perspective regarding this emergency. Rising rates of hunger reveal that the struggle for survival is the horizon for billions of people on the planet (all this while China is able to eradicate absolute poverty and largely eliminate hunger).

Nuclear annihilation and extinction by climate catastrophe are twin threats to the planet. Meanwhile, for victims of the neoliberal assault that has plagued the past generation, the short-term problems of sustaining their mere existence displace fundamental questions about the fate of our children and grandchildren.

Global problems of this scale require global cooperation. Pressured by the Third World states in the 1960s, the major powers agreed to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 1968, although they rejected the deeply important Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order of 1974. The balance of forces available to drive such a class agenda on the international stage is no longer there; political dynamics in the countries of the West, in particular, but also in the larger states of the developing world (such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, and South Africa) are necessary to change the character of the governments. A robust internationalism is necessary to pay adequate and immediate attention to the perils of extinction: extinction by nuclear war, by climate catastrophe, and by social collapse. The tasks ahead are daunting, and they cannot be deferred.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

Noam Chomsky is a legendary linguist, philosopher, and political activist. He is the laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona. His most recent book is Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet. Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest book is Washington Bullets, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.  

The Harry Potter author is being criticized for comments she made about the trans community. 

By Abby GardnerJanuary 4, 2021 (glamour.com)

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling came under fire in early June 2020 for controversial tweets she posted about the transgender community. Her stance has caused fans and stars like Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Eddie Redmayne to speak out against her. Here’s everything you need to know:

What did J.K. Rowling say, exactly?

On June 6, 2020, Rowling retweeted an op-ed piece that discussed “people who menstruate,” apparently taking issue with the fact that the story did not use the word women. “‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?,” she wrote.

That initial tweet garnered a lot of backlash, but Rowling did not relent and wrote about her views in more detail. “If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth,” she tweeted. “The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they’re vulnerable in the same way as women—i.e., to male violence—‘hate’ trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences—is a nonsense.”

She continued, “I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it’s hateful to say so.”

Then, on June 10, 2020, Rowling published a lengthy post on her website and sent out a tweet that read “TERF Wars.” (TERF is an acronym that stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminist.)

“This isn’t an easy piece to write, for reasons that will shortly become clear, but I know it’s time to explain myself on an issue surrounded by toxicity. I write this without any desire to add to that toxicity,” she wrote. “For people who don’t know: last December I tweeted my support for Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who’d lost her job for what were deemed ‘transphobic’ tweets. She took her case to an employment tribunal, asking the judge to rule on whether a philosophical belief that sex is determined by biology is protected in law. Judge Tayler ruled that it wasn’t.”

Rowling explains that she became interested in trans issues while researching a character she’s writing. Rowling also outlined “five reasons for being worried about the new trans activism.” Read her full post here.

The fan backlash:

Rowling’s initial tweets and her subsequent doubling down have drawn a lot of ire from trans activists and fans of Harry Potter, many of whom found comfort in the story of an outsider finding a place where he belonged.

The celebrity and industry response: 

Radcliffe, Harry Potter himself, was the first star from the franchise to release a statement (via the Trevor Project) about Rowling’s comments.

“I realize that certain press outlets will probably want to paint this as in-fighting between J.K. Rowling and myself,” he said, “but that is really not what this is about, nor is it what’s important right now. While Jo is unquestionably responsible for the course my life has taken, as someone who has been honored to work with and continues to contribute to The Trevor Project for the last decade, and just as a human being, I feel compelled to say something at this moment. Transgender women are women. Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I. According to The Trevor Project, 78% of transgender and nonbinary youth reported being the subject of discrimination due to their gender identity. It’s clear that we need to do more to support transgender and nonbinary people, not invalidate their identities, and not cause further harm.”

He continued, “To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished. I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you. I really hope that you don’t entirely lose what was valuable in these stories to you…. And in my opinion, nobody can touch that. It means to you what it means to you and I hope that these comments will not taint that too much.”

Watson, who played Hermione Granger, also spoke out in support of the trans community. “Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are. I want my trans followers to know that I and so many other people around the world see you, respect you, and love you for who you are,” she wrote in a series of tweets. “I donate to @Mermaids_Gender and @mamacash. If you can, perhaps you’ll feel inclined to do the same. Happy #PRIDE2020 Sending love x.”

(Watson has not been without controversy lately, either. She was criticized by some for originally just posting black squares on Instagram in early June 2020 in support of Black Lives Matter but failing to provide any information about the cause.)

Grint, who portrayed Ron Wesley, issued a statement in response to Rowling’s essay as well.

“I firmly stand with the trans community and echo the sentiments expressed by many of my peers. Trans women are women. Trans men are men,” Grint said, according to the Sunday Times on Friday, June 12, 2020. “We should all be entitled to live with love and without judgment.”

Also, Bonnie Wright, the actor who played the onscreen sister of Grint’s Ron, Ginny Weasley, spoke out via Twitter. “If Harry Potter was a source of love and belonging for you, that love is infinite and there to take without judgment or question. Transwomen are Women. I see and love you, Bonnie x,” she wrote.

Redmayne, who appeared in Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts franchise, released a lengthy statement to Variety.

“Respect for transgender people remains a cultural imperative, and over the years I have been trying to constantly educate myself. This is an ongoing process,” he said. “As someone who has worked with both J.K. Rowling and members of the trans community, I wanted to make it absolutely clear where I stand. I disagree with Jo’s comments. Trans women are women, trans men are men, and nonbinary identities are valid. I would never want to speak on behalf of the community but I do know that my dear transgender friends and colleagues are tired of this constant questioning of their identities, which all too often results in violence and abuse. They simply want to live their lives peacefully, and it’s time to let them do so.”

Warner Bros., which produced the Harry Potter films, released this statement about Rowling’s comments:

Wait, how is Stephen King involved?

J.K. Rowling reportedly deleted a gushing tweet about Stephen King after the renowned horror writer tweeted in support of trans women.  

Here’s what apparently went down: King retweeted a message from Rowling’s account. “Andrea Dworkin wrote: ‘Men often react to women’s words—speaking and writing—as if they were acts of violence; sometimes men react to women’s words with violence,’” Rowling tweeted on June 28, 2020. “It isn’t hateful for women [to] speak about their own experiences, nor do they deserve shaming for doing so.”

In response, Rowling sent a now deleted tweet praising the author. “I’ve always revered @StephenKing, but today my love reached – maybe not Annie Wilkes levels – but new heights,” she reportedly tweeted, according to Us Weekly. “It’s so much easier for men to ignore women’s concerns, or to belittle them, but I won’t ever forget the men who stood up when they didn’t need to. Thank you, Stephen.”

However, when a fan asked King to respond to Rowling’s transphobic statements, the author replied that, “Trans women are women.” 

According to fans on Twitter as well as to Us Weekly, Rowling deleted her tweet about King shortly after. 

What about the rant in July 2020? 

On July 5, 2020 Rowling went on another social media rant after a Twitter user called her out for liking a tweet that compared hormone therapy to antidepressants. 

“I’ve ignored fake tweets attributed to me and RTed widely. I’ve ignored porn tweeted at children on a thread about their art. I’ve ignored death and rape threats. I’m not going to ignore this,” Rowling wrote. “When you lie about what I believe about mental health medication and when you misrepresent the views of a trans woman for whom I feel nothing but admiration and solidarity, you cross a line.”

“Many health professionals are concerned that young people struggling with their mental health are being shunted towards hormones and surgery when this may not be in their best interests,” she continued. “Many, myself included, believe we are watching a new kind of conversion therapy for young gay people, who are being set on a lifelong path of medicalisation that may result in the loss of their fertility and/or full sexual function.”

She once again seemingly called into question the use of hormones. “The long-term health risks of cross-sex hormones have been now been tracked over a lengthy period,” she tweeted. “These side-effects are often minimised or denied by trans activists…None of that may trouble you or disturb your belief in your own righteousness. But if so, I can’t pretend I care much about your bad opinion of me.”

Her next book isn’t helping:

On September 14, 2020, her latest book, Trouble Blood, sparked another round of outrage after an early review began making the rounds. The book reportedly follows a detective on the hunt for a cis male serial killer who dresses as a woman in order to hunt and murder cis women. The Telegraph‘s review describes it as a “book whose moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress,” per Pink News.

Of course, people had thoughts. In fact, #RIPJKRowling quickly began trending. “She’s convinced she’s a martyr and this is her suicide mission,” one user wrote.

https://twitter.com/SafyHallanFarah/status/1305543024148180995

Robbie Coltrane just defended J.K. Rowling.

The man who played Hagrid is one of the few actors from the Harry Potter–verse to defend Rowling. “I don’t think what she said was offensive, really. I don’t know why but there’s a whole Twitter generation of people who hang around waiting to be offended,” he told Radio Times, per the Standard. “They wouldn’t have won the war, would they? That’s me talking like a grumpy old man, but you just think, Oh, get over yourself. Wise up, stand up straight and carry on.”

He continued, “I don’t want to get involved in all of that because of all the hate mail and all that shit, which I don’t need at my time of life.” 

Pete Davidson had the perfect response to the whole thing on Saturday Night Live.

Davidson, who has a Harry Potter tattoo he now seems to regret, joined SNL‘s “Weekend Update” on October 10, 2020 to discuss this summer’s controversy. 

“I long for a few young years ago when the worst things she did were those Fantastic Beasts movies,” he joked. “No discrimination there—those films harmed us all equally.”

Watch his full remarks, below:

Eddie Izzard comes to Rowling’s defense.

The comedian, who announced in December 2020 she’s gender-fluid and identifies with she/her pronouns, said in an interview with The Telegraph, “I don’t think J.K. Rowling is transphobic. I think we need to look at the things she has written about in her blog. Women have been through such hell over history. Trans people have been invisible too. I hate the idea we are fighting between ourselves, but it’s not going to be sorted with the wave of a wand. I don’t have all the answers. If people disagree with me, fine, but why are we going through hell on this?”

This post may be updated as new information is available.

BBC EarthBBC Earth A New Year’s message from Sir David Attenborough. Subscribe: http://bit.ly/BBCEarthSub Watch more: Planet Earth http://bit.ly/PlanetEarthPlaylist Blue Planet http://bit.ly/BluePlanetPlaylist Planet Earth II http://bit.ly/PlanetEarthIIPlaylist Planet Dinosaur http://bit.ly/PlanetDinoPlaylist A Perfect Planet shines a light on everything that makes our planet just that, its size, its distance from the Sun, its spin and tilt, its moon – is perfectly suited to our existence, and our planet’s natural forces perfectly nurture life. Narrated by David Attenborough. #PerfectPlanet#DavidAttenborough Welcome to BBC EARTH! The world is an amazing place full of stories, beauty and natural wonder. Here you’ll find 50 years worth of entertaining and thought-provoking natural history content. Dramatic, rare, and exclusive, nature doesn’t get more exciting than this. Want to share your views with the team? Join our BBC Studios Voice: https://www.bbcstudiosvoice.com/register This is a commercial page from BBC Studios. Service information and feedback: http://bbcworldwide.com/vod-feedback-…

01.04.21 (wired.com)

Experts share their 2021 Covid predictions, US officials consider halving Moderna doses, and India approves two vaccines. Here’s what you should know: Researchers warn that 2021 will look a lot like 2020 2020 is over and thousands of people are getting vaccinated every day. But we’re not out of the woods yet. Researchers stress that it will be awhile before the vaccine brings widespread immunity, especially as new cases and deaths continue to increase every day. And just as the virus peaked in different states at different times, the whole country won’t reach herd immunity at once. Until then, it’s critical that we continue to behave as though everyone is vulnerable to this virus. US officials weigh administering half doses of Moderna’s vaccine to speed up immunization On Sunday, top Operation Warp Speed adviser Moncef Slaoui said the government is talking to Moderna about giving half the shot’s recommended dose to people between 18 and 55 to speed up immunization. So far, vaccine distribution has been slower than expected, and officials say around 80 percent of the population will need to be vaccinated to reach herd immunity. The same day, Anthony Fauci warned that the government shouldn’t deviate from the doses used in clinical trials but must distribute shots more efficiently. Indian regulators approve two vaccines and begin drive to inoculate 300 million people Regulators in India have green-lit two vaccines: Oxford and AstraZeneca’s, and one made by local firm Bharat Biotech. The country—which has the second-highest number of infections in the world—plans to inoculate around 300 million people by July. Though the regulatory body in charge of drug approval said both manufacturers submitted sufficient safety data, some politicians and experts are skeptical. Bharat Biotech’s vaccine in particular has not yet been through large-scale trials.

New Creative Skills Coming in 2021!

Dear Prosperos friends,

Some of you took my Drawing as a Sacred Activity Class in the fall of 2020. Quite a few of you would agree with me that drawing is an essential skill for researching as it opens up a new way of seeing. During the COVID pandemic we all are self-isolating, wearing masks, trying to stay safe and understand what the heck is going on in our world! Well, surprise! Drawing a line on a paper, that expresses your thoughts and feelings and observations, is a great way to center yourself and to explore your Higher Potential. Every single person has access to Higher Potential. Some people enjoy a little guidance – which is what I offer in my upcoming two different drawing classes. (See pdf document below. You can print this out if you wish.)

LEARN MORE at Heather’s website

DRAWING CLASS ONE: DRAWING YOUR IMAGINATION SKILLSFEE: ContributionThis 90 minute zoom class will meet every Monday for ten weeks beginning February 22. To IMAGINE is to form a mental image of something. We are all blessed with feelings and thoughts. Instead of stuffing them down inside or denying that we have them, we will honor our thoughts and feelings by using a pencil or crayon to draw them out of us in a safe, meaningful and playful way. We will share what we feel comfortable sharing. We will grow by listening, suspending judgement and allowing a line to be drawn from our heart to a piece of paper.

DRAWING CLASS TWO: DRAWING YOUR OBSERVATION SKILLSFee: ContributionThis 60 minute zoom class will meet every Wednesday for ten weeks beginning February 24. To OBSERVE is to SEE. We each SEE the world from our own unique Point of View. I cannot really put into words how remarkably helpful and personally enriching it is to learn more about my own unique POV. And when I draw something that I am seeing in the world before me – I learn more about it and I learn more about me! In this drawing class, we will explore the 5 KEYS to Observational Drawing and we will share and discuss our drawings and the insights we gain.

I look forward to sharing these classes with you!

Sincerely,

Heather C. Williams, H.W.,M.
High Watch Mentor (The Prosperos School of Ontological Studies)
Author, Drawing as a Sacred Activity
Website: www.drawingtogether.com

“There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours.”

― Jean-Paul Sartre