In the last few years I’ve gotten into Chinese reality shows. I like them because they are relaxing, feature teamwork, and often have fun outfits and stage design. They are also helpful for my Chinese language study.
The term for all of these shows in Mandarin is zongyijiemu (綜藝節目) which I most often see translated as “variety show”, but seems to be a term for any kind of unscripted TV. I’ve used the term reality show here because that’s what I’m more familiar with and what I think will be more familiar to Lady Business readers.
Reality shows are a bit of a sidestep from my love of Chinese dramas. I got into these in part because I wanted to see my favorite actors in other contexts, and because I wanted something that worked for me to watch in short chunks, but was low stress. I have RSI problems with my hands and it helps to take frequent short rests, and these types of shows work well for me as things to watch in my hand breaks. These shows tend to have quite long episodes (over an hour) and I would have trouble watching an episode in one go but they work for me in smaller pieces.
Instruments of Healing by Ashley Stimpson. "At Johns Hopkins Hospital, music therapists use stirring rhythms and soothing melodies to support patients and their families during the hardest moments of their lives." Content note: medical trauma, caringly described.
Tom Lehrer, legendary satirist from Cambridge, dies at 97 by adamg, with lots of youtube performance links. My parents played Tom Lehrer's records a lot when I was a kid, and his songs live in my head. His memory for a blessing.
Lesson by Zach Weinersmith, one of the authors of Bea Wolf. Who will save the world, and how, in a one-page comic.
The Curious Case of the Pygmy Nuthatch by Forrest Wickman. "It was one of the weirdest errors ever committed to film. It took me months to uncover how it all went wrong."
If I should die, think only this of me: / That there’s some corner of a foreign field / That is for ever England.
Did those famous opening lines of “The Soldier”, a sonnet by World War I poet Rupert Brooke, inspire Queen Elizabeth II to do the opposite — gift a piece of England to a foreign country? On May 14, 1965, she did just that. Dedicating a memorial to John F. Kennedy, the Queen formally presented the acre on which it stood to the U.S. — the first and only time a British monarch has ever given a part of the homeland to another nation.
The Queen (left) welcoming the Kennedys to Runnymede: Jackie (in white) flanked by her children John Jr (shaking the Queen’s hand) and Caroline, and next to them JFK’s two surviving brothers, Robert and Edward. (Credit: Freddie Reed/Mirrorpix via Getty Images)
The assassination of U.S. President Kennedy, just 18 months prior, had shocked the world, but perhaps the UK more than most other countries. The president’s father had been U.S. ambassador to Britain from 1938 to 1940, and a young JFK had spent time in the country during that period.
The choice of the memorial’s location — at Runnymede, west of London and close to Windsor — symbolized an even deeper bond between Britain and America. This meadow on the banks of the Thames is where, in 1215, King John sealed the Magna Carta, a document that curbed royal power by the rule of law, laying the groundwork for constitutional democracy. The charter’s effects can be traced all the way to the U.S. Constitution, many centuries later.
That’s why the American Bar Association had already erected a Magna Carta Memorial in 1957. The Kennedy Memorial, unveiled almost 750 years to the day after the signing of Magna Carta, reinforces that transatlantic link.
This acre inside England is the property of the U.S. government. But that doesn’t make it “American soil”. (Credit: @realityexplained1514/YouTube)
Inspired by Pilgrim’s Progress, landscape architect Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe designed the Memorial to feel like a “meaningful ascent.” Visitors scale 50 irregular granite steps, one for each U.S. state, and arrive at a seven-ton block of Portland stone.
Chiseled in the rock is the deed of the land: “This acre of English ground was given to the United States of America by the people of Britain in memory of John F. Kennedy.” The text ends with a quote from JFK’s inaugural address: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, or oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty.”
Behind the slab stands an American scarlet oak, which turns red in November, the month of Kennedy’s assassination. A path leads to two stone seats — one for the president, the other for his consort — providing a view of the Thames.
All very poignant and symbolic. But is this acre of England truly “forever America”?
JFK’s granddaughter Tatiana Schlossberg lays a wreath at the Memorial in Runnymede during a service on 22 November 2013, marking the 50th anniversary of the president’s assassination. Etched in stone: the gift of this acre of English ground to the U.S.A. Symbolically, the Kennedy Memorial may be American soil, but technically, it remains British territory. (Credit: Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
The deed is not just etched in stone: Ownership of the land was effectively transferred to the U.S. federal government, and its management is maintained by the Kennedy Memorial trust, which also funds scholarships for UK students to go study in the U.S.
In that practical sense, Kennedy’s acre at Runnymede is American. But only in that sense. The UK retains full sovereignty over the area. The U.S. does not have any extraterritorial privileges regarding the memorial.
Queen Elizabeth’s gift was symbolic, not a legal cession of territory. But as symbols go, it’s a strong one. The dedication was attended not just by JFK’s widow Jackie, their children Caroline and John Jr., and John Sr.’s brothers Robert and Ted, but also by British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who accepted the (symbolic) deed on behalf of Lyndon B. Johnson, JFK’s successor as president. The gift thus underscored the vaunted “special relationship” between the U.S. and Britain.
But there are no U.S. Marines guarding the perimeter, you don’t need a visa to enter, and anyone born inside the acre does not automatically become an American citizen. As questionable as it is, the Memorial’s status as “American soil” in the middle of England does provide the site dedicated to JFK’s enduring legacy with an added layer of romance. So if you want to think that you can visit the U.S. deep inside Surrey, that most English of counties, who are we to disabuse you of that notion?
King John reluctantly sealing the Magna Carta at Runnymede on 15 June 1215. The charter reined in his arbitrary abuse of feudal rights and laid the foundation for a Rrules-based system of government. (Credit: Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images).
Covid-Safe Scouts Research Repository. A massive collection of links to info about Covid. Studies, graphics, links, zines, newsletters, blogs. A bit overwhelming, but also reassuring that there's so much info available if you know where to look.
For example, Threat Model is a weekly newsletter about the latest on Covid. With beautiful drawings of people in masks, and the June ones are in Pride colors.
The Menopause Wiki. "The official menopause wiki for Lemmy's c/menopause community, and its Reddit siblings, r/menopause and r/perimenopause." Lots of info and opinions about perimenopause and menopause.
We created this directory to help you find local journalism in your area worth supporting. By donating or subscribing to the newsrooms on our list you’ll be paying towards the advancement of quality, community-focused journalism and contributing to a better informed citizenry, the bedrock of a strong democracy.
To overcome that fear, to begin to embolden potential defectors and peel off some of Trump’s key support, will require huge numbers of people pushing back, in organized, strategic ways. So our goal — the one goal, to which everything else is secondary if not irrelevant right now — should be to grow a bigger organized resistance movement.
No one deserves to live in cramped, unsanitary, inhumane conditions and have their medical needs ignored. No one deserves to have their religious needs ignored. And no one deserves to lack access to nutritious food. I am free, but my true freedom is interlinked with the freedom of many women I lived alongside in ICE prison. As a “detainee,” I not only endured my struggles but also had the privilege of connecting with remarkable women who shared their stories with me. Their experiences opened my eyes to a new realm of humanitarian crisis, expanding the circle of grief and compassion in my heart.
"These [high school students] had the words and whiteness to say what they were feeling and could act out in a way that Mexican-Americans who had been living this way for decades simply didn't have the power or space for the American public to listen to them," she says. "The students dropped out because the conditions were so atrocious, and the growers weren't able to mask that up."
Having that conversation reminded me of nothing more than being told, in kindergarten, that we were to line up every day by gender to go to the playground. I wanted desperately to go to the playground, and I did not know which line to join. I remember having a kicking, screaming meltdown at recess time for the first week of kindergarten because I could not in any other way articulate my rage that there were different lines, maybe any lines, at all.
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