Voice of America
Exactly How Strong Is the Russian Army?
Believed to be the fifth-largest military force in the world, the Russian army has not been as successful in Ukraine as President Vladimir Putin initially hoped when he invaded the country a year and a half ago. Ani Chkhikvadze talked to US experts about Russia’s military strength. Anna Rice narrates the story
Voice of America
As Israel Pushes Punitive Demolitions, Family of 13-Year-Old Palestinian Attacker to Lose Its Home
With the walls stripped bare and furniture dismantled, the east Jerusalem apartment is a far cry from the vividly-hued haven it was in early February, when members of the Zalabani family played cards on the cobalt couch and feasted on stewed chicken with richly spiced rice.
That February dinner — a day before 13-year-old Mohammed Zalabani boarded a bus at an Israeli army checkpoint in the Shuafat refugee camp and lunged at an Israeli police officer with a kitchen knife — was the last time the Palestinian family gathered in their home that will soon be blown up. Last week, Israel's Supreme Court dismissed the family's appeal and decided to destroy the new, third-floor apartment where they've lived for almost three years.
Demolition crews arrived Thursday to inform the family the explosion would take place within days.
The family's case — which rights groups describe as uniquely problematic from a legal perspective — has drawn attention to Israel's controversial practice of demolishing the family homes of Palestinian assailants. As violence surges in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, Israel's far-right government is more aggressively pursuing the policy. The government defends the practice as a deterrent against attacks.
"This is no solution," said Mohammed's mother, Fida Zalabani, her eyes wet as she recalled the effort that went into decorating a house that Israeli security forces ransacked and boarded up, drilling holes into the walls for explosives. "All my children, an entire community, will witness this and not forget it."
On Feb. 13, two weeks after seeing Israeli police mistakenly shoot and kill his teenage friend for brandishing what turned out to be a fake gun, Mohammed tried to stab an Israeli police officer before being wrestled to the floor. A private guard protecting the officer fired toward the young assailant but accidentally hit and killed his own colleague.
Mohammed remains in juvenile detention, awaiting trial on murder charges.
Rights watchdogs — like legal aid group HaMoked, which filed the petition on behalf of the Zalabanis — describe such demolitions as collective punishment, leaving uninvolved parents, siblings and spouses homeless. The Zalabanis, a family of seven, have temporarily rented a cramped basement apartment.
"Home demolitions intentionally harm innocent people in the hopes that they deter other people from committing attacks," said Jessica Montell, HaMoked's director. "This is what makes them so blatantly illegal and immoral."
Condemned by Western governments and the United Nations, the tactic also has sown divisions in the Israeli establishment, with some generals and judicial officials expressing concern that rather than containing attacks, the tactic may have the opposite effect.
The recent rise in fighting has sharpened scrutiny of Israel's logic of deterrence, as the stepped-up demolitions and deadly military raids into Palestinian towns have failed to stop the wave of attacks.
"When Palestinians see that we destroy houses, their level of fear and frustration and hatred increases," said Ami Ayalon, former director of Israel's Shin Bet security service. "Those are the reasons that people join terrorist organizations."
The practice is based on regulations imposed by the British Mandate in 1945, which authorized commanders to destroy insurgents' homes. Israel made use of it after capturing east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 Mideast war. During the first and second Palestinian uprisings, Israel demolished hundreds of homes belonging to militants. Some security officials credit the demolitions — among other harsh tactics — with curbing attacks.
Yaakov Amidror, former national security adviser to Israeli[...]
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yments; it must be worked out in the context of honoring the promises in U.S. government treaties regarding land and sovereignty.
We white Christians no longer represent the majority of Americans. We are no longer capable of setting the nation’s course by sheer cultural and political dominance. But there are still more than enough of us to decisively derail the future of democracy in America. If we wish to do otherwise, we can no longer disingenuously pretend that democracy and the Doctrine of Discovery are, or ever were, compatible. We can no longer pay tribute to one while benefiting from the other. We must choose. And if we choose democracy, it will require more than just confession by an unflinching few. It will require joining the work already underway to repair the damage done by this malignant cultural legacy. Through that transformative engagement, we might finally illuminate the path that leads to a shared American future.
Excerpt adapted from The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and a Path to a Shared American Future by Robert P. Jones, published by Simon & Schuster on September 5, 2023. Copyright © 2023 by Robert P. Jones.
lking one mile a day, and then worked his way up to five: “I’ve lost 32 pounds, my sleep apnea is gone, I feel great and I’m getting ready for my annual wellness check and I expect my doctor is going to give me a lot better news. It’s been a great journey.”
Of course, there are chronic systemic health inequities that make it much harder for people to live healthy lives—food deserts, violent neighborhoods, housing instability, lack of access to healthcare —and we should be relentlessly focused on fixing those, both at the policy and at the community levels. But again it’s not either-or. While we are working to improve the social determinants of health, people don’t have the luxury to continue to ignore the impact of behavioral determinants of health—taking small steps to reduce their suffering and improve their lives and the lives of their children. That also means taking advantage of modern digital solutions, like Instacart’s availability to 93% of people living in food deserts. These steps cannot wait until systemic problems have been solved. Too many lives are at stake.
People are hungry for help and support in managing their health. A recent survey by CharityRx found that 65% of Americans turn to Google for health advice—but only 40% find online health information reliable. What makes this moment so exciting is that this growing focus on behavior change is happening at the same time that new powerful technologies—like AI, personalized digital tools and wearables—are emerging to support real and lasting behavior change.
Yes, we can look forward to new medical breakthroughs, and we should celebrate them when they happen. But if we’re truly going to move the needle on chronic diseases, we also need the miracle drug of daily behaviors.
TIME
U.S. and 18 Nations Participate in Military Drills in the Indo-Pacific Amid Rising China Concerns
https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Super-Garuda-Shield-2023.jpg JAKARTA, Indonesia — Soldiers from the U.S., Indonesia and five other nations began annual training exercises Thursday on Indonesia’s main island of Java while China’s increasing aggression is raising concern.
American and Indonesian soldiers have held the live-fire drill since 2009, and Australia, Japan and Singapore joined last year. The United Kingdom and French forces are participating in this year’s Super Garuda Shield exercises, with a total of about 5,000 personnel.
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China sees the expanded drills as a threat, accusing the U.S. of building an Indo-Pacific alliance similar to NATO to limit China’s growing military and diplomatic influence in the region.
Read More: The U.S. Is Beefing Up Alliances Across Asia—But Don’t Expect an ‘Asian NATO’ Anytime Soon
Brunei, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, South Korea, and East Timor also sent observers to the two-week exercises in Baluran, a coastal town in East Java province.
Commanding general of U.S. Army Pacific, Gen. Charles Flynn, said the 19 nations involved in the training are a powerful demonstration of multilateral solidarity to safeguard a free and open Indo-Pacific region.
“Super Garuda Shield 2023 builds on last year’s tremendous success,” Flynn said in a statement released by the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta on Tuesday, “This joint, multinational training exercise displays our collective commitment and like-minded unity, allowing for a stable, secure, and more peaceful, free and open Indo-Pacific.”
The statement said at least 2,100 U.S. and 1,900 Indonesian forces will enhance interoperability capabilities through training and cultural exchanges that includes a command and control simulation, an amphibious exercise, airborne operations, an airfield seizure exercise, and a combined joint field training that culminates with a live-fire event.
The command post exercise will focus on mission planning staff tasks in a combined military setting. A field training exercise will involve battalion-strength elements from each nation exercising war-fighting skills to enhance interoperability and combined operational capacity.
Garuda Shield was held in several places, including in waters around Natuna at the southern portion of the South China Sea, a fault line in the rivalry between the U.S. and China.
Read More: China Is Testing How Hard It Can Push in the South China Sea Before Someone Pushes Back
Indonesia and China enjoy generally positive ties, but Jakarta has expressed concern about what it sees as Chinese encroachment in its exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea.
The edge of the exclusive economic zone overlaps with Beijing’s unilaterally declared “nine-dash line” demarking its claims in the South China Sea.
Increased activities by Chinese coast guard vessels and fishing boats in the area have unnerved Jakarta, prompting Indonesia’s navy to conduct a large drill in July 2020 in waters around Natuna.
ngdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.”
This papal decree, and others that extended and developed its principles, provided the moral and religious justification for an unfettered European colonial race for “undiscovered lands” and fertilized the blossoming African slave trade. The most relevant papal edict for the American context was the bull Inter Caetera, issued by Pope Alexander VI in May 1493, with the express purpose of validating Spain’s ownership rights of lands in the Americas following the voyages of Columbus the year before. It praised Columbus and again affirmed the church’s blessing of and interest in political conquest, “that in our times especially the Catholic faith and the Christian religion be exalted and be everywhere increased and spread, that the health of souls be cared for and that barbarous nations be overthrown and brought to the faith itself.”
While the Doctrine of Discovery has escaped scrutiny by most white scholars and theologians, Indigenous people and scholars of color have long been testifying to these Christian roots of white supremacy, while dying from and living with their damaging effects. Indigenous scholars such as the late Vine Deloria Jr. (Lakota, Standing Rock Sioux), Robert J. Miller (Eastern Shawnee of Oklahoma), and Steven T. Newcomb (Shawnee/Lenape) have been highlighting, for over 50 years now, the centrality of this critical theological and political turn.
As I’ve continued my own reeducation journey over the last 10 years, I have come to consider the Doctrine of Discovery as a kind of Rosetta Stone for understanding the deep structure of the European political and religious worldviews we have inherited in this country. The Doctrine of Discovery furnished the foundational lie that America was “discovered” and enshrined the noble innocence of “pioneers” in the story we, white Christian Americans, have told about ourselves. Ideas such as Manifest Destiny, America as a city on a hill, or America as a new Zion all sprouted from the seed that was planted in 1493. This sense of divine entitlement, of European Christian chosenness, has shaped the worldview of most white Americans and thereby influenced key events, policies, and laws throughout American history.
https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/HiddenRoots-Jacket-Cover-Jones.jpg?w=560
The contemporary currency of this worldview is reflected in the telling results of a 2023 Christian Nationalism Survey, conducted by PRRI in partnership with the Brookings Institution: Do you agree or disagree that “God intended America to be a new promised land where European Christians could create a society that could be an example to the rest of the world.” The survey found that while only 3 in 10 Americans agreed with this statement, majorities of Republicans (52%) and white evangelical Protestants (56%) affirmed it.
Moreover, the survey found that among white Americans today, this belief in America as a divinely ordained white Christian nation—one that has blessed so much brutality in our history—is strongly linked to denials of structural racism, anti-immigrant sentiment, antisemitism, anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, support for patriarchal gender roles, and even support for political violence.
The contemporary white Christian nationalist movement flows directly from a cultural stream that has run through this continent since the first Europeans arrived five centuries ago. The photographs of the insurrectionists storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, bear an uncanny resemblance to the painting of Hernando de Soto marshaling Christian symbols to claim Indigenous lands for Spain on May 8, 1541, which still hangs prominently in the Rotunda of that same building. On the Capitol steps, a massive wooden cross was erected, standards emblazoned with the name of Jesus were flown, and Biblical passages were read. Hands were raised in both [...]
TIME
Behavior Is a Miracle Drug for Our Health
https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/GettyImages-673220505.jpg Healthcare is broken. Chronic diseases are eating up an increasing share of healthcare resources in every healthcare system across the world in ways that are not sustainable. Yes, there is a golden age of innovation happening in the form of new technologies like gene therapy, neural technology, immunotherapy, and increasingly the impact of AI on diagnoses and drug development, but we can’t let these extraordinary technological advances blind us to the tragedy of modern healthcare and to the much neglected miracle drug right in front of us: our daily behaviors. Whether for preventing disease or optimizing the treatment of disease, behavior is indeed a miracle drug.
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There are five foundational daily behaviors that, together, make up this miracle drug: sleep, food, movement, stress management, and connection. Because the science is clear that when we improve these daily aspects of our lives, dramatic improvements in our health and well-being follow. The breakthroughs this can bring in our health aren’t over the horizon—they’re here right now.
What’s clear is that what we’re doing right now isn’t working. According to the World Health Organization, chronic and noncommunicable diseases, like heart disease, diabetes, and respiratory diseases, kill 41 million people each year. At the current rate, by 2050, chronic diseases will be responsible for 86% of the 90 million deaths each year, an astounding 90% increase in raw numbers just since 2019. Worldwide, over 500 million people are living with diabetes, and that number is expected to rise to 783 million by 2045. By 2040, the International Diabetes Foundation predicts that spending on diabetes could exceed $800 billion a year. “The most heart-rending symbol of America’s failure in healthcare,” writes Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times, “is the avoidable amputations that result from poorly managed diabetes… A toe, foot or leg is cut off by a doctor about 150,000 times a year in America.”
There’s no healthcare system in the world successfully managing health outcomes against this onslaught of chronic diseases. Whether it’s single payer, nationalized healthcare or systems based on private insurance, all healthcare systems are losing the battle. In the U.S., around 90% of our $3.8 trillion in healthcare spending goes toward the treatment of chronic and mental health conditions. From 1960 to 2021, U.S. healthcare costs soared from 5% to 18% of GDP. In the UK, the list of those waiting to receive medical care has reached 7.47 million. Clearly it’s not just a failure of prevention—our healthcare systems are even failing at the narrower goal of delivering adequate sick care.
The potential to reverse these trendlines can be found in the data: Medical care accounts only for an estimated 10% to 20% of health outcomes, while our daily behaviors drive 36% of outcomes. What does that add up to in terms of our health? According to the UN, the combination of maintaining a healthy weight, regular exercise, a healthy diet and not smoking can reduce the risk of developing the most common and deadly chronic diseases by as much as 80%. The dramatic decline of smoking in America in the last two decades and the impact this has had on health is one example of what’s possible.
Both our lifespan and our healthspan—the period of time in which we’re not just alive but healthy and enjoying a good quality of life—are hugely influenced by our lifestyle. Harvard economist Raj Chetty has found that behaviors such as eating habits, exercise, and smoking affect our life expectancy even more than access to healthcare. In other words, how long we live and how well we live are in large part governed by the choices we make each day. To truly change healthcare, along with the power of life-saving drugs and technologies,[...]
TIME
The 8 Best Korean Dramas on Netflix Right Now
https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/k-dramas-tv-netflix.jpg When TIME first curated its list of the 10 best Korean dramas available on Netflix in 2020, Squid Game had yet to be released. Since then, the show has become the most watched non-English show of all time. The broader landscape of Korean offerings on the streaming platform has also transformed massively, thanks to Netflix’s continuing billion-dollar investment in South Korea.
Now Netflix is packed with South Korean shows that testify to the creative prowess of the country’s writers, directors, and actors. From budding romances to sci-fi thrillers, and gritty noir action to heart-rending slice-of-life anthologies, the platform has become an extensive repository of world-class Korean entertainment, proving that the “one-inch barrier of subtitles” Bong Joon-ho once spoke of is no longer a hurdle for the persisting Hallyu wave.
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Below, TIME recommends another eight Korean drama series, from audience favorites of the last decade to recently-concluded releases. For the purposes of this list, shows currently unavailable on Netflix USA are not included. Hometown Cha-cha-cha (2021)“Best” doesn’t always have to mean “intense and thought-provoking.” Sometimes it can simply mean easy, enjoyable viewing, and that’s the case for Hometown Cha-cha-cha. This 16-episode romantic comedy adaptation of a 2004 film pairs a pragmatic dentist (played by Shin Min-a) with a handsome jack-of-all-trades handyman (played by Start-Up’s Kim Seon-ho) in an idyllic seaside village. Don’t dismiss the series for its tropey, opposites-attract plot—many have praised those comforting properties as “healing,” especially when it premiered mid-pandemic. All of that helped it to rank in Netflix’s Top 10 non-English language dramas upon its release, at the height of Squid Game’s popularity. The Glory (2022-2023)Bullying is often a plot point in K-dramas, but in The Glory, the pervasive social issue and its rippling effects through time is the centerpiece. The eight-episode show revolves around Moon Dong-eun (played by Descendants of the Sun’s Song Hye-kyo) and her hyperfocused orchestrations to get back at her abusers from 20 years ago. The series is not for the faint of heart—its writer even borrows disturbing details of abuse from real-life incidents—and yet The Glory made the Netflix Top 10 in 89 countries and became one of the most watched non-English shows on the platform this year.
Read More: How Netflix’s The Glory Drew Inspiration From Real Stories of School Violence in Korea Squid Game (2021-2023) This list would not be complete without this 2021 survival drama that broke records left and right. A congregation of indigents are invited to compete for 45 billion Korean won (USD 38 million)—by playing fatal versions of South Korean children’s games. But apart from the gruesome violence, Squid Game engages viewers with the potent theme of economic despair and desperation as entertainment for the rich. Not only does it have over 1.65 billion hours of viewership on the platform, it also amassed accolades both locally and in Hollywood, including a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor O Yeong-su and an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series Lee Jung-jae. A second season is scheduled for release in 2024. Mr. Queen (2020)One approach that Korean drama has excelled in is genre-bending, and the entertainment value of Mr. Queen is a testament to this. Aside from brushing upon gender issues, the 20-episode series is a period drama, body-swap fantasy, and comedy rolled into one. It follows a modern-day chef who is transported back in time to the Joseon era and has possessed the body of a queen. Mr. Queen is a heartwarming romp through Korean history, with excellent performances from its actors including lead Shin Hye-sun. The show initially[...]
TIME
The 5 Best New TV Shows of August 2023
https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Ladies_First_A_Story_of_Women_in_Hip-Hop_E1_00_29_36_07.png August has never been the most exciting month for television, but when it comes to new releases, this year’s lineup might just be the sparsest of the streaming era. While studios would like subscribers to believe that concurrent writers’ and actors’ strikes have yet to affect their content stockpiles, schedule changes that have seen such high-profile debuts as FX’s A Murder at the Center of the World and the second season of Max’s Rap Sh!t move from August to November suggest otherwise. In some cases, it’s a matter of holding completed seasons until performers can promote them; in others, the shows simply haven’t finished production. Either way, here’s hoping this means David Zaslav, Bob Iger, et al. are finally getting ready to bargain in earnest.
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Meanwhile, if new seasons of Reservation Dogs and the divinely frustrating And Just Like That aren’t keeping you busy, there are still some good viewing options if you’re willing to look beyond the usual platforms and genres. This month’s roundup includes two great music documentaries, two fine foreign imports, and one of the wildest investigative series ever committed to video. Ladies First: A Story of Women in Hip-Hop (Netflix)At a back-to-school party in the Bronx on Aug. 11, 1973, a teenager who’d become world-famous as DJ Kool Herc used a pair of turntables to play a continuous set of breakbeats, in a stroke of inspiration now remembered as the birth of hip-hop. So, of course, this has been a month of 50th-anniversary celebrations, from concerts to exhibitions to documentaries. A standout among the latter glut, Netflix’s four-part retrospective Ladies First takes concise but complex stock of how female artists helped shape—and have more recently come to dominate—a genre known for its machismo. Surviving R. Kelly filmmaker dream hampton and pioneering rapper MC Lyte are among the executive producers of the series, which exclusively features interviews with women artists and experts in order to present a fully female counter-narrative. Founding mothers like Roxanne Shanté and Queen Latifah share screen time with current luminaries as different as mainstream superstar Saweetie, critical darling Rapsody, and experimentalist Tierra Whack. The result is a mix of thoughtfully dissected triumphs and tribulations that simultaneously dispels pernicious myths around women in hip-hop, acknowledges the misogyny they’ve endured, and honors the indelible contributions they’ve made to the art form. A coda that finds subjects talking up their own favorite female rappers puts an exclamation point on Ladies First‘s multigenerational portrait of sisterhood. Limbo (Viaplay)As Nordic noir aficionados but perhaps few others know, the Scandinavian streaming service Viaplay launched in the U.S. earlier this year, importing a variety of European programming that goes beyond stoic detectives investigating murders among the fjords. One recent highlight is Limbo, a six-part Swedish drama that follows three longtime best friends whose lives are thrown into crisis when their teenage sons get into a car crash. Each boy sustains a different level of injuries—and bears a different share of the blame. The incident forces their families to confront issues that have been in lingering in the background of their apparently happy middle-class lives: infidelity, money problems, career anxiety, co-parenting with exes.
Scandinavian TV has always excelled at telling poignant stories without drowning viewers in sentimentality. While an American version of this story might get bogged down in the heavy-handed weepiness of a This Is Us or an A Million Little Things, Limbo balances emotional subject matter with stark storytelling; its many extended silences make its impassioned confrontations all t[...]
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UN-Backed Panel Says Italy Can Do More to Fight Racism, Discrimination
U.N.-backed human rights experts focusing on racial discrimination urged Italy's government to do more to eliminate violence, hate speech, stigmatization and harassment against Africans and people of African descent.
They also expressed concern that no legal cases have been brought to punish fans and others for racist acts at sports events.
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, a panel of independent experts that works with the U.N.'s human rights office, also said it regrets that Italy's government hasn't provided it with an updated number of complaints and cases of racial discrimination that have been investigated and prosecuted, among other concerns.
The findings released Thursday were part of the committee's periodic look at efforts by governments of U.N. member states to crack down on racial hatred and discrimination. Other countries under the panel's scrutiny in this round were Croatia, Namibia, Senegal, Turkmenistan and Uruguay.
Italian soccer has a longstanding issue with Black players being racially abused by fans and incidents in which players, including Kevin-Prince Boateng in 2013 and Romelu Lukaku this year, felt they were not adequately supported by match officials and soccer bodies.
The committee noted Italy had adopted laws and other measures to fight racial discrimination, including hate speech in sports. But it said it was "concerned that cases of racist acts during sport events, including physical and verbal attacks against athletes of African descent, continue" in Italy and "legal proceedings to punish those responsible are not initiated."
Italy also has been a major thoroughfare and destination for Africans and other migrants who make dangerous crossings of the Mediterranean to reach Europe, where peace and economic opportunity may be greater than in their home countries.
The panel urged Italian authorities to do more to protect the human rights of migrants and asylum-seekers, as well as ethnic minorities. It expressed concern about "persistent and increasing use and normalization of racist hate speech" against ethnic groups in the media and on the internet.
Italy's diplomatic mission in Geneva did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment about the report.
– A Touch of Magic: Season 1
Available September 15
Ancient Aliens: Seasons 6-7
Band of Brothers
Intervention: Season 22
The Pacific
Wipeout Part 1
Available September 16
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
Available September 20
New Amsterdam: Season 5 Here’s what’s leaving Netflix in September 2023Leaving September 2
The Debt Collector
Leaving September 4
Vampire Academy
Leaving September 6
The Originals: Seasons 1-5
Leaving September 12
Colette
Leaving September 14
Intervention: Season 21
Leaving September 29
Annihilation
Leaving September 30
60 Days In: Season 3
A League of Their Own
Are You Afraid of the Dark?: Season 1
Clear and Present Danger
Doom
Hatfields & McCoys: Season 1
Kick-Ass
Lawless
Nanny McPhee
Rocky
Rocky II
Rocky III
Rocky IV
Rocky V
Snow White & the Huntsman
Star Trek
Star Trek Into Darkness
Titanic
Warm Bodies
TIME
Here’s Everything New on Netflix in September 2023
https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Selling_The_OC_n_S2_E1_00_12_46_16R.jpg Fall is upon us, and so too is a monthly mix of the serious and the silly on Netflix. The documentary Scout’s Honor: The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America, available Sept. 6, details Boy Scouts of America’s coverup of sexual abuse from the perspective of survivors and whistleblowers. The final season of the British teen dramedy Sex Education returns on Sept. 21 and brings with it a new school: Cavendish College, where the Moordale Secondary students find themselves after the untimely shuttering of their school. And El Conde, out Sept. 15, is a dark satire by Pablo Larraín in which Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is a vampire, with all of the symbolism that entails.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Here are the Netflix originals coming in September 2023Available September 1
A Day and a Half
Disenchantment: Part 5
Friday Night Plan
Happy Ending
Love Is Blind: After the Altar: Season 4
Available September 3
Is She the Wolf?
Available September 5
Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs
Available September 6
6ixtynin9 The Series
Infamy
Predators
Reporting For Duty
Scout’s Honor: The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America
Tahir’s House
Available September 7
Dear Child
GAMERA – Rebirth
Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight: Season 3
Top Boy: Season 3
Virgin River: Season 5
What If
Available September 8
A Time Called You
Burning Body
Pokémon: To be a Pokémon Master: Ultimate Journeys: The Series: Part 1
Rosa Peral’s Tapes
Selling The OC: Season 2
Spy Ops
Available September 12
Class Act
Freestyle
Wrestlers
Available September 14
Ehrengard: The Art of Seduction
Once Upon a Crime
Thursday’s Widows
Available September 15
The Club: Part 2
El Conde
Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons: Season 7
Love at First Sight
Miseducation
Surviving Summer: Season 2
Available September 18
My Little Pony: Make Your Mark: Chapter 5
Available September 19
Kountry Wayne: A Woman’s Prayer
The Saint of Second Chances
Available September 20
Hard Broken
Available September 21
KENGAN ASHURA: Season 2
Scissor Seven: Season 4
Sex Education: Season 4
Available September 22
The Black Book
How To Deal With a Heartbreak
Love Is Blind: Season 5
Spy Kids: Armageddon
Available September 25
Little Baby Bum: Music Time
Available September 26
Who Killed Jean Dando?
Available September 27
Encounters
Overhaul
Street Flow 2
Available September 28
Castlevania: Nocturne
Love is in the Air
The Darkness within La Luz del Mundo
Available September 29
Choona
Do Not Disturb
Love Is Blind: Season 5 (new episodes)
Nowhere
Power Rangers Cosmic Fury Here are the TV shows and movies coming to Netflix in September 2023Available September 1
8 Mile
Arrival
Baby Mama
Couples Retreat
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Fences
Field of Dreams
Hacksaw Ridge
Jaws
Jaws 2
Jaws 3
Jaws: The Revenge
Kung Fu Panda 2
Land of the Lost
Matilda
Miss Congeniality
National Security
One Piece Adventure of Nebulandia
One Piece Episode of East blue – Luffy and His Four Crewmates’ Great Adventure
One Piece Episode of Skypiea
One Piece Film: Gold
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S.W.A.T.: Season 6
Stand by Me
Superbad
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Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Woody Woodpecker
Available September 2
Love Again
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Crank
Crank 2: High Voltage
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Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
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Barbie[...]
prayer and violence. Seen in this light, the symbols brandished by the insurrectionists were not incidental; they were the centuries-old ritual implements of the Doctrine of Discovery, summoned to do the work they have always done.
Our current conflicts and contradictions are clear signs that we are experiencing a significant new moment in our nation’s history. If we are to get our collective bearings, we must be able to see that the histories of oppression in our country flow from the same source. The compartmentalization of history focused on the plight of specific oppressed groups—the genocide and displacement of Native Americans or the enslavement and lynching of African Americans—has some advantages for specific people groups, insofar as it centers their struggle for justice. But the real beneficiaries of such siloed history are white Christian people. These stories, told in isolation, fracture the historical gaze among the victims of violence, theft, slavery, and oppression. Even well-intentioned accounts, told in this way, encourage a partial reckoning. These fragmented narratives demarcate America’s so-called “Indian problem” and so-called “Negro problem”—as even well-meaning whites historically referred to them—as distant islands, neither one visible from the shores of the other. But if we do the hard work of pushing upriver, we find, at the headwaters, the white Christian problem.
In many ways, this truth has always been glaringly apparent. But for those of us who are white and Christian, our precarious position has historically required that we remain vigilantly ignorant of our own origin story while demanding the acquiescence of others in this conspiracy. Every map of every U.S. state is a living witness to our massive land theft and occupation. Yet, up until very recently, history books have been full of the lies necessary to defend an impossibly innocent and glorious past. The crimes were so monstrous and the evidence so near at hand that we desperately built theologies, philosophies, and entire cultural worlds designed to obscure the facts and to produce, propagate, and protect these mythic origins. This worldview washed over our churches and seeped into our sermons, liturgies, and hymnals. It created its own grammar that renders the most clarion testimonies of our accusers silent. Euphemisms like “explorer,” “pioneer,” and “homesteader” created a respectable veneer that smoothed over the jagged valence of terms like “invader,” “occupier,” and “colonizer.” The ubiquitous use of the passive voice in our histories protected responsible subjects. We were so successful in masking the truth that even one of our most enlightened artists could sing to us, without a pang of conscience, “This Land Is Your Land.”
Here is the question that must illuminate the path forward for us and our children: How can we meaningfully respond to being beneficiaries of a crime so plain it cannot be denied, and so large it can never be fully righted?
Read More: How Oklahoma Became Ground Zero in the War Over Church-State Separation
Indeed, the challenge before us is formidable. To account for the lives, land, and labor that have been stolen, we will need to relinquish the ethno-religious hierarchies embedded in the Doctrine of Discovery. And we’ll need a moral imagination that is not amnesic, one that will hold on to the memory of the systemic injustices that have accrued to Black and Indigenous people and their forebears.
We’ll also need to expand our vocabulary. For example, while reparations may be the right term to describe what justice looks like for African Americans who are descendants of enslaved people and who have experienced generations of disenfranchisement by discriminatory U.S. laws, this term may not capture what Native Americans want and deserve. Here, restitution may be a more apt response. As the American Indian Movement and more recently the #LandBack movement have insisted, at root, justice toward Native Americans cannot be met simply with monetary pa[...]
we must focus on the power of life-transforming habits within each of these foundational behaviors. Because while healthcare is episodic, health itself is continuous. Health is what happens between doctor visits.
A study in the journal Circulation gives us a vivid look at how powerful behavior can be. Researchers found that people who, at age 50, were practicing five healthy habits—exercising regularly, eating healthy, not smoking, maintaining healthy weight, and not drinking excessive alcohol—added over a decade to their lives (14 years for women and 12.2 years for men). “The main take-home message is that there’s huge gains in health and longevity to be had just by simple changes in our behavior pattern,” said study co-author and Harvard Medical School professor Dr. Meir Stampfer.
So why is the power of behavior change so overlooked? Some dismiss it because they think it’s too soft—how can something like behavior change be in the same category as technological advances and new diagnostic tools? Others give up on behavior change because it’s too hard—it’s the doctor telling us to eat our broccoli and go to the gym. Eating healthier and getting some exercise are things most of us know we should do, but simply being told to do them doesn’t set us up for success.
For the first objection, it’s not either-or. Of course, behavior change isn’t a substitute for drugs and medical treatment, but there’s a ton of hard science showing that it’s an essential companion that optimizes the management of disease. For instance, a study by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center found that getting good sleep can increase rates of survival for breast cancer patients. “Sleep is certainly something that is controllable,” said epidemiologist and lead author Dr. Amanda Phipps. “We have control over it more than family history of the disease. These results generally suggest that the more attention we give to sleep as an important aspect of overall health, the better we might do for breast cancer patients.” Studies have also found that chronic stress increases the growth of cancer cells. And exercise can reverse stiffness in the heart associated with a condition called left ventricular hypertrophy. All five of our foundational daily behaviors deeply impact how effective medical treatment will be.
And for the second objection—yes, behavior change is hard. But here, too, the science shows that behavior change is absolutely possible when it’s done right. Behavioral science has a long history. Our habits are not formed in a vacuum, and there are certain conditions and strategies that make behavior change much more likely to succeed.
One of those proven strategies is to start as small as possible, which is why Thrive’s behavior change platform is based on Microsteps—too-small-to-fail steps you can take to immediately begin improving your life. Not only is behavior change possible, but it’s going to get easier and more effective with the rise of AI, which Thrive is using to give people real-time nudges and personalized Microsteps in their life flow when they need them most.
Along with Microsteps, other proven strategies are storytelling, compelling content, and community that engages, inspires, motivates and supports people to take charge of their own health and move from awareness to action. This is the scientific methodology that makes behavior change not only achievable but sustainable. We’ve seen the dramatic results that starting off with small Microsteps can have in the lives of employees at the companies we work with around the world.
For instance, there’s Pele Mase, a Walmart associate who lives in Tulsa. She started with a single Microstep of drinking water instead of soda, and progressed to Microsteps around her food, movement, and stress management until she lost 100 pounds.
And there’s Jerry Ouellette, a director of network services for AT&T. After his doctor told him at his annual checkup that he was pre-diabetic, Ouellette started with the goal of wa[...]
received backlash from audiences for supposedly making light of history, but it still became one of the highest-rating Korean dramas nationwide. Extraordinary Attorney Woo (2022)This episodic legal drama starring Park Eun-bin has been applauded for its neurodivergent representation. Park plays the eponymous Woo Young-woo, who is diagnosed with savant syndrome and finds herself working for a large law firm. The show at times hinges upon unrealistic depictions of high-functioning individuals in the autism spectrum, and glosses over ableism and discrimination in the workplace. But what sets apart Extraordinary Attorney Woo from similar shows is its portrayal of inclusive spaces for people with disabilities. SKY Castle (2018)SKY Castle is a satire of cutthroat parenting in many parts of Asia and the intense environments surrounding private education. Four wealthy families living in a prestigious neighborhood in Seoul are vying to get their teenage children into the best universities. Initially only supposed to be 16 episodes, the show was extended by another four episodes due to popular demand. The show became a hit in China, for its similarities to the grueling gaokao (college entrance exam) that burdens many of its students and their respective families.
Read More: China’s Aging Population Is a Major Concern. But Its Youth May Be an Even Bigger Problem Our Blues (2022)An ensemble of South Korea’s A-list actors star in this melancholic drama anthology about people in popular tourist haunt Jeju Island. Featuring riveting performances from Hollywood actor Lee Byung-hun (Mr. Sunshine and Squid Game) Lee Jung-eun (Parasite), among many others, the highly-viewed show weaves together initially disparate stories within their community to paint a relatable holistic picture of grief, pain, and growth. D.P. (2021-2023)When D.P. was released, it became a controversial hit drama that prompted South Korea’s defense officials to defend the country’s mandatory military conscription system. The story follows conscripts Ahn Jun-ho (Jung Hae-in) and Han Ho-yeol (Koo Kyo-hwan), who are assigned to the Deserter Pursuit Unit (D.P.), responsible for tracking down and apprehending deserters from the Korean military. The show received praise for its depiction of abuse and power-tripping within South Korea’s armed forces. Netflix released a second season of the show on July 28.
TIME
The Roots of Christian Nationalism Go Back Further Than You Think
https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Christopher-Columbus-Christianity-Painting-1877.jpg Across the last few decades in the U.S., we have experienced widespread debates and even violent conflicts over American history. Battles like these typically erupt during times of social change, when cultural convulsions shake the foundations of old ways of knowing and living. Identity, rather than policy, drives divisions. History becomes the new front line in the culture wars, as claims about who we are as a nation inevitably turn on competing narratives about when and how we arrived at this place.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]
The term “white Christian nationalism” has recently emerged in the social sciences and the media as a way of describing the worldview that has burst onto the public stage with Trumpism and the “Make America Great Again” movement. The toxic blend of ethno-religious identity politics was reflected in the prayers and religious symbols participants carried at the U.S. Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, and it has become central to the trajectory of the contemporary Republican Party, two thirds of whom identify as white and Christian.
But if we see these recent trends against the long backdrop of western history, we can see that the phenomenon this term describes has far deeper roots than the post-Obama MAGA backlash. Our two political parties are increasingly animated by two starkly conflicting moral visions that have struggled for ascendancy since the first Europeans landed on these shores five centuries ago. Is America a divinely ordained promised land for European Christians, or is America a pluralistic democracy where all stand on equal footing as citizens? Most Americans embrace the latter vision. But a desperate, defensive, mostly white Christian minority continue to cling to the former.
Read More: It’s Time to Stop Giving Christianity a Pass on White Supremacy and Violence
To fully understand the deep roots of today’s white Christian nationalism, we need to go back at least to 1493—not the year Christopher Columbus “sailed the ocean blue,” but the year in which he returned to a hero’s welcome in Spain, bringing with him gold, brightly colored parrots, and nearly a dozen captive Indigenous people. It was also the year he was commissioned to return to the Americas with a much larger fleet of 17 ships, nearly 1,500 men, and more than a dozen priests to speed the conversion of Indigenous people who inhabited what he, along with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, still believed were Asian shores.
The return of Columbus in 1493 also precipitated one of the most fateful but unacknowledged theological developments in the history of the western Christian Church: the creation of what has come to be known as the Doctrine of Discovery. Established in a series of 15th-century papal bulls (official edicts that carry the full weight of church and papal authority), the Doctrine claims that European civilization and western Christianity are superior to all other cultures, races, and religions. From this premise, it follows that domination and colonial conquest were merely the means of improving, if not the temporal, then the eternal lot of Indigenous peoples. So conceived, no earthly atrocities could possibly tilt the scales of justice against these immeasurable goods.
The Doctrine of Discovery merged the interests of European imperialism, including the African slave trade, with Christian missionary zeal. Dum Diversas, the initial edict that laid the theological and political foundations for the Doctrine, was issued by Pope Nicholas V on June 18, 1452. It explicitly granted Portuguese king Alfonso V the following rights:
“To invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens [Muslims] and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the ki[...]
he more affecting. The show pulls off this feat thanks to three great central performances from The Bridge star Sofia Helin, Rakel Wärmländer, and Louise Peterhoff. Wärmländer is particularly captivating as Ebba, an ambitious real estate agent who discovers she doesn’t know her family as well as she’d assumed. San Francisco Sounds: A Place in Time (MGM+)San Francisco in the high ’60s is not exactly pop-cultural terra incognita, nor is San Francisco Sounds an especially evocative title. But this two-part documentary from the platform formerly known as Epix and directors Alison Ellwood and Anoosh Tertzakian, who previously collaborated on Laurel Canyon: A Place in Time, extends the appeal of Haight-Ashbury’s Boomer Valhalla beyond its built-in audience of nostalgists. Instead of approaching the hippie moment from a detached, sociological perspective, the filmmakers zero in on a music scene that coalesced years before 1967’s Summer of Love, around bands like the Charlatans, the Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Airplane.
This emphasis on the interconnected nature of the city’s creative community helps Ellwood and Tertzakian trace the evolution of San Francisco’s musical vanguard from folk rock to psych rock to the more diverse mix of styles that emerged as the flower children began to wilt: the Latin rock of Santana, the prog rock of early Journey, Sly & the Family Stone’s radical funk. Archival interviews are thoughtfully woven together with fresh insights from such local linchpins as radio DJ Dusty Street, poster artist Victor Moscoso, and former Rolling Stone journalist Ben Fong-Torres. The takeaway—that cultural scenes thrive on the cross-pollination of young people innovating in complementary art forms, then sag under the dead weight of coolhunting hangers-on—transcends any one time or place. Telemarketers (HBO)Don’t be put off by the snoozy title: Telemarketers is one of the most exciting documentaries I’ve seen in years. Effortlessly dodging, and sometimes subtly parodying, every maudlin cliché of the true-crime genre, the three-part HBO series is a first-person odyssey through the legal gray area of call-center fundraising. At first, the mood is reminiscent of cult docs like Heavy Metal Parking Lot and American Movie—funny, character-rich portraits of misfit subcultures. But then the misfits realize they’re pawns in a noxious scam. And they embark on a quest to expose it. [Read the full review.] Who Is Erin Carter? (Netflix)It’s a paradox of 21st-century Hollywood that the genre we call action gets duller every year. Superheroes, infinite franchising, virtual production, rapidly improving VFX technology—it all adds up to a glut of formulaic shows and movies, bloated with computer-generated battle scenes and fake explosions that increasingly crowd out not just character development, but also basic plot coherence. These days, any action offering that diverges from this norm is worthy of attention. But Netflix’s Who Is Erin Carter? doesn’t just harken back to the genre’s analog past. It also tells the human story of a woman’s quest to give her daughter the stability she never had.
The central mystery of the seven-part series is right there in the title. One morning, Erin Carter (Evin Ahmad) awakens her little girl, Harper (Indica Watson), at the crack of dawn to catch a boat out of Folkestone Harbor in southeast England. Five years later, they’re living in a picturesque suburb of Barcelona, where Erin is a substitute teacher married to a gentle nurse, Jordi (Sean Teale). [Read the full review.]
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