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☆ The cult of the ‘Spoons’: Inside the spartan, cavernous pubs that divide Britain
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-23 | by ( Will Noble | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +15 min

Wetherspoon pubs are an institution in the UK. More than 800 Wetherspoon chain pubs freckle the country — from The Muckle Cross in Scotland to The Tremenheere in Cornwall. The Moon Under WaterA Wetherspoon pub (now closed) featuring the face of chain founder Tim Martin on its sign. Recalling a well-meaning yet beleaguered teacher from his childhood, Martin renamed the pub “Wetherspoon.” (The “J D” was a nod to J.D. “The thing about Wetherspoons pubs which differentiates them from many is that they have a very wide cross-section of customers.

Persons: London CNN — Utter, ”, George Orwell, ” Orwell, Orwell, Francophile foodies, Oxford marmalade, Biscuits, boozer, cobbling, Tim Martin, Alex Davidson, Wetherspoons don’t, Alexander Graham Bell, Sir John Borlase Warren, Tim Martin’s, Martin —, New Zealand —, “, serendipitously, Martin, Boss ” Hogg, “ The Dukes, Hazzard, George Orwell’s, ” Martin, Mortimer, ‘ ahh, I’ve, George Orwell ’, Stout, Waters, Gareth Fuller, questing, Angus, you’re, Maureen McLean, “ Mate, Wetherspoons ”, ‘, ’ ”, Thomas Frost, Orwell’s, drunks, ” Tim Martin, benedict, tipple —, Ale, Whatever’s, it’s, Boris Johnson, Henry Nicholls, Nigel Farage Organizations: CNN, London CNN, “, Oxford, Stroud, Crosse, Royal Victoria, rowdies, London's, Airport, PAL, YouTube, European Union, Getty Locations: London, Britain, Scotland, Cornwall, “, Yorkshire, England, Swansea, Edinburgh, Nottingham, Muswell Hill, North London, Norwich, New Zealand, Stroud Green, Watford, Ramsgate, City of London, Kent, Scottish, ”, Wetherspoons, Liverpool, Gatwick, South London, AFP, British, Clacton, Poland, Ireland, America

☆ The Handmaid’s Tale, 1984 and other books are flying off the shelves after the election
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-07 | by ( Erika Tulfo | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

(CNN) – Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a novel set in a totalitarian society, has shot to the top of Amazon’s bestselling books list following Donald Trump’s reelection. Former president Trump clinched a victory against Vice President Kamala Harris in Tuesday’s election, securing a second term, non-consecutive after he lost in 2020. “The Handmaid’s Tale” takes place in a theocratic, male-dominated future America where the US Constitution is suspended, media is censored and women (the titular “handmaids”) are forced to bear children for the ruling class. Many have harnessed comparisons to Atwood’s classic in the lead-up to the election, particularly around the topic of reproductive rights. Calm drew attention on social media after airing ads that gave viewers “30 seconds of silence” amid continuous election coverage.

Persons: – Margaret Atwood’s “, ”, Donald Trump’s, Trump, Kamala Harris, Harris, Roe, Wade, handmaids, Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett, Joe Biden’s, Hillary Clinton, Atwood, X, It’s, Brett Kavanaugh’s, George Orwell’s “, Ray Bradbury’s, Melania Organizations: CNN, Barnes, Trump, US Supreme, MSNBC, Apple Locations: skyrocketing, Tuesday’s, America

☆ Opinion: Rewatching ‘Notting Hill,’ the truly unbelievable part is Hugh Grant’s house
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-22 | by ( Opinion Laura Beers | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

The Notting Hill of the 1990s was still socially heterodox and shabby chic, a neighborhood where a group of 30-something professionals could plausibly have ended up. Even in the late 1990s, such access to disposable income marked the characters in “Notting Hill” out as privileged. Yet, in the 1990s, Notting Hill, long a center of Caribbean immigrant culture and the site of the annual Notting Hill Carnival, underwent a rapid process of gentrification. Between 1995 and 1999, Notting Hill house prices rose by 75%. The colorful terraced houses of Notting Hill, which these days sell for millions of pounds.

Persons: Laura Beers, ”, George Orwell’s, Richard Curtis ’, Julia Roberts, Anna Scott, Hugh Grant, William Thacker, Roberts, Laura Beers Laura Beers, it’s, —, Curtis, Hill’s, Hugh Grant's, Winston, George Orwell, Orwell, Tony Blair’s Britain, Bill Clinton’s America, Grant’s, Tony Blair, Steve Eason, Notting, Spike, Rhys Ifans, Notting Hill, Mike Kemp, San, Spencer Platt, Rishi Sunak’s government’s, Bill, Rewatching Organizations: American University, CNN, MCA, Everett, Notting, Labour, Hulton, Getty, Movement, Housing, Federal Reserve, New York State, Hill ” Locations: American, London, West London, Notting, West, Britain, United States, Young, Notting Hill, Central London, San Francisco, Manhattan, San Matteo, Redwood City, York

☆ Opinion: Google’s AI blunder over images reveals a much bigger problem
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-09 | by ( Rizwan Virk | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

When asked, Gemini politely refused in some instances to generate images of historically White people, such as the Vikings. In the image space, if you asked previous AI image generators for an image of a CEO or a doctor, they initially almost always showed images of White males. Google announced its Gemini AI chatbot was pausing the generation of people in images after concerns were raised that it was creating historically inaccurate images. What makes censorship and manipulation worse with AI is that today’s AI already has a well-known hallucination problem. It may be a portent of what’s to come with AI and Big Tech leading us into Orwellian territory.

Persons: Rizwan Virk, X, Dave, I’m, OpenAI’s, Gemini, Google’s, Pope, Sundar Pichai, we’ve, ”, didn’t, Michael M, George Orwell’s “, “ Organizations: Labs, MIT, Physics, Eastern, Arizona State University’s College of Global Futures, Center for Science, CNN, HAL, Google, Vikings, Fox News Digital, Gemini, Getty, Big Tech, Microsoft, Apple Locations: zenentrepreneur.com, White, German

LONDON (AP) — Go into many bookstores, and the nonfiction shelves will be dominated by men. The Women’s Prize for Nonfiction hopes to change that. An offshoot of the 28-year-old Women’s Prize for Fiction, whose past winners include Zadie Smith, Tayari Jones and Barbara Kingsolver, the new prize is open to female English-language writers from any country in any nonfiction genre. Lipscomb noted that in 2022, only 26.5% of nonfiction books reviewed in Britain’s newspapers were by women, and male writers dominated established nonfiction writing prizes. Authors from the United States, Australia, Canada, India, Jamaica, the Philippines and the U.K. are on the prize longlist, chosen from 120 books submitted by publishers.

Persons: ”, Suzannah Lipscomb, Zadie Smith, Tayari Jones, Barbara Kingsolver, Lipscomb, Mary Ann Sieghart, Naomi Klein ’, “, Patricia Evangelista’s “, Bohannon’s, Alice Albinia’s “, Leah Redmond, Anna Funder’s “ Organizations: Nielsen, Research, Queens, ” Locations: United States, Australia, Canada, India, Jamaica, Philippines, London

All 11 House Democrats spoke during a lengthy debate Wednesday and voted against the bill. Fairness West Virginia, the state’s only LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, said the bill would ban transgender people from using government building restrooms that align with their gender identity. “But the problem with it is, it affects real people, real constituents of ours, real West Virginians.”From 2010 to 2020, West Virginia lost the highest percentage of residents compared to any other U.S. state. Republican West Virginia Gov. Another bill that would prohibit transgender students from using school restrooms that aligns with their gender identity advanced through the West Virginia House Education Committee last month.

Persons: “, ”, Democratic Del, Kayla Young, Mike Pushkin, JB Akers, ” Akers, Pushkin, ” George Orwell’s, ” Pushkin, ” Del, Diana Winzenreid, Winzenreid, Jim Justice Organizations: Virginia's Republican, GOP, Democratic, Capitol, Democrats, Democratic Party, West Virginians, Republican, Wheeling City Council, Republican West Virginia Gov, West Virginia House Locations: CHARLESTON, W.Va, Kanawha County, Kanawha County Del, West Virginia, Wheeling, Ohio County

☆ Before He Was George Orwell, He Was Eric Blair, Police Officer
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-05 | by ( William Boyd | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

BURMA SAHIB, by Paul TherouxGeorge Orwell died of tuberculosis in 1950, at the age of 46. The word “Orwellian” is as omnipresent as “Kafkaesque.” His two dystopian novel-allegories — “Animal Farm” and “1984” — have sold in the millions around the world. Almost everything that Orwell wrote seems to be in print. But there is one area of his life that is relatively unexplored and full of baffling gaps, not to say mystery. He was still several years removed from becoming “George Orwell” by adopting the nom de plume that would carry his legacy.

Persons: Paul Theroux George Orwell, Shakespeare, Winston Churchill, ”, Albert Camus, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Tolstoy, Orwell, Eric Blair, “ George Orwell ”, Paul Theroux Organizations: Eton College Locations: BURMA, Britain, British, Burma, Myanmar

☆ Your Next 10 Steps After Watching the New ‘Napoleon’ Film
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( Victor Mather | More About Victor Mather | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Since you’re already in Paris to see that horse, stop by the Louvre for one of Jacques-Louis David’s masterworks: “Le Sacre de Napoléon” (1807). Far from a stock figure, he is a fully realized person in the novel, displaying egotism, anger and a liking for snuff. If that famously thick book is too much, there are several film versions. Herbert Lom plays Napoleon in a 1956 Hollywood film starring Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda. And Prokofiev wrote an opera that was last seen at the Met in 2008, but is readily available on streaming services.

Persons: Jacques, Louis David’s, Napoléon ”, Napoleon, Pope, Read, Leo Tolstoy’s, ” Napoleon, Herbert Lom, Audrey Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Prokofiev, William Thackeray’s, George Orwell’s Organizations: Louvre, Notre Dame, Times, Met Locations: Paris, Moscow, Hollywood, Le

London CNN —A graffiti wall in London’s bustling street art hub of Brick Lane has become an unlikely canvas for protest messages against China’s authoritarian rule, after it was whitewashed and painted over with propaganda slogans promoting Chinese Communist Party ideology. On Chinese social media, some supporters argued the young Chinese artists were exercising freedom of expression and applauded them for “exporting” Chinese culture and values. By Sunday, the slogans had been overlaid with a flurry of new graffiti that was deeply critical of both Xi and the Chinese Communist Party. A grafitti wall in Brick Lane was whitewashed and painted over with red slogans promoting China's "core socialist values." There’s no one leader or anything, but everybody’s expressing their dissenting views against the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.

Persons: ”, Xi Jinping, –, Critics, Xi, George Orwell’s, “, Milan, Lyndon Li Shixiang, Ivana Kottasova, Yi Que Organizations: London CNN, Chinese Communist Party, Communist Party, CNN, Milan Kundera, Hong Locations: Brick, China, London –, Britain, Lane, London’s, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet, Tiananmen, Hamlets, London, Australian

☆ Opinion: Why Britain is so weirded out by pledging allegiance to Charles
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Opinion Laura Beers | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

In a break with tradition, the public will be invited to pledge allegiance to King Charles III during the coronation ceremony on Saturday May 6. While many Brits I’ve spoken to are simply indifferent to the proposed pledge, there has also been an unprecedent degree of public vitriol over the scheme. Yet, objections to the proposed pledge are as much about its content as its form. The proposed coronation pledge, in contrast, invites Britons to pledge their loyalty to the King, and to his “heirs and successors” – a positively undemocratic pronouncement. That complexity cannot simply be smoothed away by inviting people to pledge allegiance to the crown.

☆ Opinion | Hong Kong’s Memory Is Being Erased
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Louisa Lim | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

In Hong Kong the silence has set in much more quickly. I worked in Hong Kong’s once-cacophonous newsrooms and covered its boisterous protest rallies. Now most Hong Kong journalists I know have fallen silent. After a draconian national security law was imposed on Hong Kong in 2020, at least 12 news outlets closed down, including the popular, pro-democracy Apple Daily. History is identity, and to challenge this foundational tenet of Hong Kongers’ experience is to assault their identity.

☆ Ron DeSantis just notched a win in court. But the judge says he still violated a prosecutor’s free speech rights.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Marc Caputo | Marc Caputo Is A Senior National Political Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +15 min

In a statement posted on Twitter, DeSantis' office lauded the ruling without addressing those nuances. By suspending Warren, DeSantis also elevated the Democrat’s political profile in his own party. And no one in Hillsborough County was charged with violating that state law when Warren was the county prosecutor. Court testimony from DeSantis administration officials showed that the abortion letter was the major cause of Warren's suspension. Abortion was the only issue mentioned in the first draft of DeSantis' suspension order.

☆ Fact Check-Altered Fox News post attributes quote from the novel Animal Farm to Elon Musk
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

A Fox News social media post has been digitally altered to falsely attribute a quote from the George Orwell’s Animal Farm to billionaire and Twitter CEO Elon Musk. While the Orwell quote appears superimposed on other text, some appeared to believe it was attributed to Musk, with one user commenting, “So he’s resorted to plagiarizing George Orwell now? !”The quote on Fox News’s original, unaltered Facebook post contains an authentic tweet by Elon Musk that instead reads, “Criticizing me all day long is totally fine, but doxing my real-time location and endangering my family is not” (here), (here). A Fox News spokesperson told Reuters via email that the image is fake with an altered quote. An Elon Musk quote on a Fox News social media post was changed to include an inauthentic quote.

☆ Joan Didion’s Life in Objects
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Anna Kodé | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +15 min

(Ms. Didion’s death was the result of complications from Parkinson’s disease.) Ms. Didion’s stylish Corvette Stingray isn’t in the sale, but the photos that made it famous are. Quintana eventually pulled through, but died in 2005 at 39, a few months before Ms. Didion’s 2005 book, “The Year of Magical Thinking,” was published. In the book, Ms. Didion wrote about the heartbreak and challenges of that era of her life: “I learned to find equal meaning in the repeated rituals of domestic life. Following Ms. Didion’s passing, Ms. Smith, an artist and singer known as the “godmother of punk,” posted a tribute on Instagram, articulating what many felt.

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