Spiegel: How the European Commission President Won Over Trump

Of course, it's still too early to tell how long that agreement will hold. Many fear all it would take is one nasty tweet from Trump for the whole thing to come unspun again. And then comes the fact that the deal does nothing to solve the many other problems the Europeans have with this unpredictable American president. The man who, for now at least, seems prepared to call a kind of cease-fire in the trade conflict, but still wants to abolish NATO, threatens Iran and dismisses climate change as nonsense largely promulgated by Europeans. [...]

One day before his meeting with Trump, Juncker sent Martin Selmayr, the European Commission's general secretary, to meet with Kudlow. The two drafted a few paragraphs at a hotel in Washington they could agree upon. These were the cornerstones of the deal that would later emerge. [...]

When he arrived at the White House on Wednesday afternoon, Juncker still didn't know whether this plan was also liked by the president. It's a familiar pattern with Trump. In the end, he often follows the advice of the last adviser he has met with. For the Europeans, this raised the question of whether that person this time was economic adviser Kudlow or a hardliner like Commerce Secretary Ross. [...]

Ultimately, the outcome of the Washington meeting turned out to be a victory for moderates in the EU over those urging a hardline trade policy against the U.S., especially in France. Shortly before Juncker's visit, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire had declared: "We're in the midst of a trade war." He refused to discuss any reduction in levies until the U.S. withdrew its punitive tariffs. "We refuse to negotiate with a gun pointed to our heads," he recently said.

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Jacobin Magazine: Let Them Eat Privilege

By forcing the middle class to divert their attention downward (and within) instead of at the real power players above, Vox and Giridharadas are playing into the Right’s hands. It’s an attempt to shame the middle class — those with some wealth but, relative to the top one or one-tenth of one percent, mere crumbs — to make them shut up about the rich and super rich and, instead, look at those below as a reminder that it could all be much worse. [...]

When a cut in capital gains taxes is paid for by hiking state tuition and slashing social services, the one percent benefits while the vast majority of the 99 percent loses. When a new law is passed making it harder to organize a union or wages are squeezed to ring out higher and higher corporate profits, it’s the one percent — and their investment portfolios — that benefits and the majority of the 99 percent who loses. [...]

By substituting class relations for an arbitrary list of “privileges,” Vox is attempting to paint a picture of an immiserated America with no villain. It’s an America without a ruling class that directly and materially benefits from everyone else’s hard times. And this omission isn’t just incorrect — it robs us of any meaningful oppositional politics that could change it all.

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Jacobin Magazine: The New Conspicuous Consumption

Conspicuous consumption — the display of wealth as an expression of economic power — is not a new phenomenon but it has arguably never been as easy to practice. Social media has helped normalize it, providing a frame of competitive individualism and entrepreneurship in which the experience of affluence must be documented and shared online. Reveling in the thrill of a good purchase, the instinct is to share it with friends and followers online. [...]

These oil paintings were produced in a period marked by the consolidation of the mercantile bourgeoisie, an emerging class benefitting from expanded trading routes with the colonies. It was the age of the Grand Tour, when the noble sons of northern Europe journeyed through France and Italy in search of antiquity and the origins of European culture, on their way encountering art, music, and food, and enjoying occasional bouts of sexual revelry and wild drunkenness. The trips could last a few years, and often relied on seemingly unlimited funds from back home. [...]

The following sketches, which bring together a selection of two distinct image species (European oil paintings from 1650–1750 and Instagram pictures from 2012–14), draw on Berger’s insights. A work of visual analysis rather than art history, the comparisons connect a culture of the present with one of the past — both in order to better understand the selections themselves, and the desperately unequal world that produced them. [...]

But this is not about taste or enjoyment. It is about the spectacle of pleasure — his satisfaction comes not from the wine itself, but from the knowledge that others realize he possesses it. Such is the logic behind “sinking,” the fashionable practice of ordering two bottles of champagne and having one poured down the sink — a display of braggadocio signifying disdain for cost and a gratification in denying others the experience of wealth rather than sharing it.

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Politico: With anti-Muslim laws, Europe enters new dark age

What has become of Europe? New laws targeting Muslims are reminiscent of a time when innocent Jewish children were abducted by masked monks and imprisoned in monasteries to “save” them from the eternal fire of hell. In our blind mistrust of religious differences, we are returning to the Middle Ages, when the only model for integration was the forced conversion of the minority religion to the majority. [...]

Denmark is not the only country to target its minority populations and religious freedom in this way. Austria and Belgium have proposed limiting kosher meat slaughter, for example, and several countries — including France and Norway — have banned religious head coverings in schools or among civil servants. Bavaria and Italy have floated legislation that would require crucifixes to be displayed in public buildings. [...]

Violence and hate speech must be combatted, but security concerns cannot be used to justify discrimination against religious minorities. As long as Jews were the sole targets of Islamic terror, Europe’s response was silence and indifference. But following the attacks in Paris, Copenhagen, Brussels, Berlin and Nice, when every European is a potential victim, Europe has woken up to the threat of religious hatred. The problem is that the policies European countries have put in place to fight the threat of religious extremism are themselves highly damaging.

Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt is president of the Conference of European Rabbis (CER).

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Reuters: Three liberal prophets of doom

In the past several months, three leading liberal figures, each with international reputations, have given speeches in defense of liberal values and practice. Two of these – the billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros and the French President Emmanuel Macron – have addressed the EU’s present travails and likely future. The third, former U.S. President Barack Obama, as befitted a former leader of the still-hegemonic world power, addressed more global issues. [...]

Europe’s existential danger is “no longer a figure of speech… it is the harsh reality,” said Soros. A passion for austerity had turned the rich countries (especially Germany) into creditors, and the struggling (notably Greece and Italy) into debtors – creating “a relationship that is neither voluntary nor equal.” The Hungarian-born Soros, reviled in his birth country by the government led by rightwing nationalist Viktor Orban (who, in his student days, benefited from Soros’ largesse) is rendered especially pessimistic by the drift towards authoritarian rule of the Central European states, particularly Hungary and Poland. It’s a drift which runs directly counter to Soros’ earlier optimism that, with some assistance, the peoples of the former communist states of Central Europe could become citizens with the same civic and democratic rights as in the Western European countries. [...]

The urgency of Macron’s conviction that the Union must integrate or disintegrate has found few enthusiastic takers in the EU. Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte has said d that the EU could fulfil its basic promise only if individual member states are strong and able to maintain their own identity. In Germany, where voters are concerned about issues like the cost of Macron’s euro zone reform plans, Chancellor Angela Merkel – much damaged by her party’s loss of support in this year’s elections and a quarrel with her main coalition partner, the Christian Social Union – has to be even more cautious than usual. [...]

Poverty, discrimination, violence all remain, sometimes growing – as does inequality. Elites are more closed off from the mass of the people; solidarity in nations wilts; the reckless behavior which precipitated the 2008 banking crisis prompted spikes of mistrust in every kind of leadership – political, financial, corporate. Then there’s politics. “Unfortunately, too much of politics today seems to reject the very concept of objective truth,” said Obama. “People just make stuff up.” The former president did not mention the name of America’s current president, but few doubt that he was referring to Donald Trump when he mentioned “the utter loss of shame among political leaders, where they’re caught in a lie and they just double down and they lie some more.”

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The Calvert Journal: Afro-Poland A revolutionary friendship, captured in rare photos from 1955-1989

None of this was lost on the Polish Press Agency, whose journalists were tasked with documenting their African guests. The aim was to look beyond stereotypes of exoticism and present sisters, brothers and friends who could just as easily live in Polish society. The festival was the catalyst for a decades-long series of Polish press photographs showing people of African descent (PAD) visiting and living in Poland. Bartosz Nowicki, a Polish photographer and curator who currently lives in Wales, has spent the past few years researching these archive photos from the period 1955-1989. He recently curated an exhibition, Afro PRL, which highlighted the long-standing connections between white Poles and PAD, a memory that is often forgotten in contemporary Poland.

Nowicki’s exhibition revealed the myriad ways in which PAD stood alongside white Poles during the communist era. The World Festival of Youth and Students was simply a starting point, after which students from Africa were encouraged to study at Polish universities — as well as elsewhere in the Soviet sphere of influence. This was most keenly emphasised in Poland following the events of 1960, when 17 African countries declared independence from colonial rule. The arrest and murder of the Congo’s first democratically-elected Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, was widely covered in the Polish press, alongside solidarity protests in Warsaw. Photos from these demonstrations show Polish students hand-in-hand with PAD. According to Nowicki, this was — in part — a technique to depict a humane Poland in contrast to a brutal West. “They were really fighting against the Americans on the level of race,” he explains. “You could see how horrible American race rhetoric was, look what was happening to the people — lynching, and so on.” [...]

The photos also highlighted to the Polish public that young people from Africa were now studying and living in Poland. “You realise that most of the images from the period, even if they are not about university or about studying, are actually of African students,” Nowicki tells me. After carrying out a year-long induction at the Polish Language Centre for Foreigners in Łódź, overseas students were free to attend Polish universities. PAD formed a large part of this contingent, starting off with around four students in 1958 and growing to a peak of around 2,000 in the 70s. Their photos were regularly displayed in Polish newspapers, albeit in an exoticising manner. [...]

Omolo suggests that while Poles may have less contact with non-white people — compared to those in countries such as the United Kingdom, France or Germany — this does not entirely explain why PAD experience racism in Poland. Instead, he believes that Polish people have often been exposed to literature and screen media that demean those from the African continent, thereby perpetuating the idea that white people are superior. For Omolo, this makes Poles more likely to believe negative, unfounded stereotypes about PAD, such as those espoused by the PiS party leader, Jarosław Kaczyński. “When Kaczyński said that Europe should not accept refugees from Africa because they’re carrying some diseases that are not in Europe — most of them bought it actually,” Omolo recounts. “What about Poles who visit Africa and come back? Are they not coming with some protozoa?”

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Haaretz: Saudi King Tells U.S. That Peace Plan Must Include East Jerusalem as Palestinian Capital

The Saudi position was expressed by King Salman during a number of recent communications with senior U.S. officials, as well as in conversations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other Arab leaders in the region. It contradicts many media reports over the past year about a Saudi willingness to adopt Trump’s peace plan even if it is unacceptable to the Palestinians.  [...]

But things have changed in recent months, partly because of the Jerusalem decision that included the moving of the U.S. Embassy to the city — events that were opposed and denounced by Saudi Arabia. [...]

Meanwhile, Jordan and Egypt have also encouraged the administration to only present its peace plan if that plan is fair to the Palestinian side. The Jordanians warned the administration that a plan tilted toward Israel could create unrest in Jordan, forcing Amman to strongly reject it.

“The Trump administration has invested too much in thinking that the Saudis can somehow deliver Middle East peace,” said Ilan Goldenberg, a former State Department and Pentagon official who worked on the Israeli-Palestinian issue in the Obama administration. The Saudis, Goldenberg added, “don’t have that much leverage over Abbas,” and it was never realistic to expect them to force him into accepting the American peace plan.

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CityLab: Where New York Is Gentrifying and Where It Isn't (MAY 12, 2016)

The map below shows the location of the three types of neighborhoods across the city. The gentrifying neighborhoods (shown in dark blue) are mainly located in upper Manhattan near Harlem and across parts of Brooklyn, especially in areas adjacent to Lower Manhattan. Note the non-gentrifying neighborhoods (shown in light blue) next to many of the gentrifying neighborhoods, which reflects the juxtaposition of concentrated advantage and disadvantage in New York City today. [...]

Gentrification in New York City is the outcome of a series of economic and demographic trends that have transformed the city more broadly—notably, the surge in more educated, affluent, younger, and single people headed back to the city. In recent decades, gentrifying neighborhoods have seen substantial gains in income. Average household incomes rose by 7.3 percent in the 1990s and 6.1 percent from 2000 to 2010-2014 in these neighborhoods. Across the city, average household incomes grew slightly in the 1990s, but declined after the year 2000. [...]

Unsurprisingly, gentrifying neighborhoods have seen a significant racial transformation, losing large numbers of black residents while gaining a substantial white population. In New York, the share of white residents in gentrifying neighborhoods increased from 18.8 percent in 1990 to 20.6 percent in 2010, while the share of black residents fell from 37.9 percent in 1990 to 30.9 percent in 2010. Meanwhile, the share of Asian and Hispanic residents in gentrifying neighborhoods grew slightly, compared to much faster growth citywide. Like many cities, New York’s overall shares of black and white residents have declined since 1990, while its shares of Asian and Hispanic residents have increased.

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IFLScience: Study Finds Yet Another Possible Benefit Of Moderate Alcohol Consumption: Sperm Quality

A new study published in the journal Andrology revealed that men who consumed 4 to 7 units (1 unit = 12.5 g of ethanol, which corresponds to 125 mL wine, 330 mL beer, or 30 mL spirits) per week had greater semen volume and total sperm count compared with those who drank between less than one unit and three units per week.

Similar to examinations on heart health and overall mortality, the team found a U-shaped association between alcohol and sperm concentration, meaning that men who drank very little and those who regularly binged tended to have no-to-low benefit whereas those in the middle showed a notable benefit. [...]

“On the other hand, different studies experimentally proved that alcohol has a detrimental effect at all levels of the male reproductive system: it interferes with the function of the hypothalamic-pituitary-testicular axis, impairing gonadotropin secretion with consequent decreasing of testosterone levels.”

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