On February 1st, 2023, Oh Boy Records received the Elaine Weissman Lifetime Achievement Award at the International Folk Music Awards in Kansas City, Missouri, on the opening night of Folk Alliance International’s 35th annual conference. This award represents the independent, hardworking spirit of every member of the team, dating back to the pioneers: John, Al Bunetta, and Dan Einstein. As well as the support of its adoring fans, who fueled the little label that could.
"If the BBC’s new Director General, Matt Brittin, who will take over in May 2026, wants to be seen as more than just another tech bro cutout; like a diminutive version of the clutch that stood behind Trump at his inauguration, then to establish some quality credentials, he could start by cleaning up BBC Question Time and restoring some much needed credibility.
A completely new production team with a tough journalist as presenter; one with no ties to the establishment nor the Right, would send a clear signal.
More broadly, there needs to be a renewed sense that BBC News, across its various diverse outlets, can speak with genuinely independent voices, rather than appearing captive to perceived editorial biases, such as those associated with former political editor Laura Kuenssberg, who surprisingly continues to earn around £400,000 a year from licence fee payers.
When Greg Dyke became the Director General at the BBC in 2000, expectations were so low the groans could be heard right across London. He had made his reputation in LWT breakfast television to quote the Wikipedia “by introducing a new schedule based around popular features including bingo, celebrity gossip and horoscopes.” But after four years in the job at the BBC instead of trying to break the broadly small L liberal ethos of the BBC, he absorbed it and made it his own, ultimate leaving as something of a hero for defending good journalism that exposed the paucity of Government claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The institution shaped the man. We haven’t seen anything quite as impressive since.
Brittin himself has one left lean in evidence, which is an appointment to the board of the Guardian, but unfortunately that has been stained by the deeply controversial sell off of the Observer to the bland Tortoise Media, with worryingly opaque financing. There is no indication that the Observer’s historical excellent track record for investigative journalism has been other than stifled since the new owners took over.
We will be watching his appointment to the almost impossible job with interest."
David Knopfler [found on Facebook]
I stand by every word David illuminates us with here
"I know hardly anyone reads articles when I share them so to highlight some key parts here:
"under [this policy], the ~2,200 trans people in federal custody will be medically and socially detransitioned against their will, all in the name of helping
them “recover” from gender dysphoria.””… the third study in this category attempts to compare trans women who undergo gender-affirming surgery to those
with an entirely unrelated medical condition known as ‘adult acquired buried penis.’ Equating these two is an entirely medically inaccurate and hateful rhetorical
decision, and it’s telling of the manner in which the Trump administration is trying to frame trans people’s bodies.
Meanwhile, the fourth study analyzes fertility in 18 trans men who paused their hormone therapy in order to have children, and it constitutes the only fertility study
the BOP admits to have reviewed. As if that wasn’t alarming enough, this specific study doesn’t evaluate if trans men can carry children after going off testosterone;
it actually evaluates when. Given the fact that the BOP has no legitimate reason to concern itself with fertility, this implies that the Trump administration
—at least in part—created the prison policy out of a desire to find out how soon the forcibly detransitioned trans men in its custody will be able to carry children.
Finally, perhaps the greatest confession is provided by the last two sources. The first of these is a medical article providing commentary on a study—
a study that was not reviewed during the creation of this policy—of trans patients at Kaiser Permanente clinics, and in its words, its sole purpose is to
“describe methods of cohort ascertainment and data collection and to characterise the study population.” Put differently, it communicates two things:
how to single out trans people through health information and what data a study on trans people should collect."
"So far, the judge overseeing the ACLU’s lawsuit against this policy, Reagan appointee Royce Lamberth, has been surprisingly sympathetic towards
the plaintiffs and, as a result, has blocked it from being enforced for the ~800 that have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
However, if the Bureau of Prisons’ policy is eventually allowed to stand by the Supreme Court, it will undoubtedly lead to tremendous suffering among
Codified by Pope Gregory the 1st in 600 AD, here is a list of the seven deadly sins that we all know and love. Pride, sloth, gluttony, wrath, lust, envy and greed.Donald Trumpseems to be the embodiment of all of them.
Sloth? It is said that he starts work at 11am and finishes at 6pm uniformly. As the President of the United States, that’s pushing it. Envy? This is a man wholooks at the likes of Vladimir Putinand Kim Jong Un and wants everything they have. Lust? Five children from three marriages (that we know of) and affairs coming out by the day, you join the dots. Gluttony? How’s that McDonald’s diet treating you, Donny-boy? Wrath? I mean… have you seen the news recently? Greed? Lol.
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Bruce Springsteen attacks “corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous” Donald Trump regime at Manchester show
It is plainly obvious to anyone with a brain stem that Donald Trump has all the Christian convictions of Ed Gein. He covets money. He’s made a mockery of every marriage he’s ever been in. He’s a bully who takes every imagined slight as justification for violent retribution. He sees anyone who isn’t as rich as he is as beneath him, and all that is just the stuff that we can prove. The Epstein files allege that he indulged in behaviour that should, by rights, set aside a special place in hell for him.
He is everything that a Christian conservative should hate. A shady New York businessman who slathers himself in make up everyday. Who has never worked an honest day in his life? A draft dodger who spent years making snide comments about American’s beloved troops. Whose most famous picture with a bible is him literally holding it upside down. There are literal Satanists with more Christian spirit than he, and yet, who make up the majority of his voting base?
You’ve got it in one, Christian conservatives, the more evangelical the better.
(Credits: Dangerous Minds / Gage Skidmore / The White House)
So, why do Christians love Donald Trump?
It seems that every few months or so, you get a new photo of Trump in the Oval Office surrounded by pastors all pawing at him as he has with so many Miss Universe contestants. Eyes closed, and brows furrowed in prayer that Trump probably thinks is completely pointless. Evangelical preachers and high-profile Christian figures have been tripping over themselves to talk about Trump in terms that paint him as not so much a president or a political figure, but as a figure appointed by God.
In fairness, there are a few people who talk about Trump in a way that reflects how nakedly un-Christian he’d been his entire life. That he was a sinner who had been appointed by God to carry out a mission in His name, Cyrus the Great style. If that is the case, then he couldn’t have found a better candidate for a sinner, I guess. After all, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”, right? At least, that’s the argument that preacher Franklin Graham reached for when talking about Trump’s past sins.
Honestly? I don’t think it’s that deep. Trump is a man available to the highest bidder. Neither he nor anyone else in the GOP has much in the way of convictions; give them money, and they’ll do tricks for you. In America, the Church is an incredibly wealthy institution. They pay to get people in positions of power and authority within the American government, and in return, they’ll tell their captive audience to vote red whenever they can.
It’s a transaction that I’m sure the actual Jesus Christ would have been apoplectic about, but why does a conservative Christian care about what that woke, commie libtard would think?
